“Whose, then?”
A glance around the little cottage gave Raveena her answer. The walls of axed wood, carved furniture, animal skins. Seven chairs, all perfectly sized for the small men who lived here.
“The father is a dwarf?”
Snow's throat bobbed as she swallowed. She gave a tiny nod.
Raveena took in a long, deep breath that expanded her lungs and lifted her chest. Inside the castle's keep, no one dared comment on a queen's bed partners. Not when they were young noblemen. Not when they were rugged commoners.
But a dwarf? That choice was going to be a bridge other queens might not be willing to cross.
“There are seven of them, darling. Which one is the father?”
Snow winced. She bit her lower lip. When she lifted her gaze to meet Raveena's, the Snow Queen realized a truth she had never fathomed. Pure little Snow White was even further from the innocent everyone had believed the girl to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The trees of the Forbidden Forest twisted like skeletal hands, gnarled and blackened by frost, their limbs creaking beneath the weight of snow and shadow. Graham moved through them with the stealth of a predator, boots crunching over ice-laced leaves, breath pluming from his mouth like smoke from a dragon’s maw.
Every sense was on edge. His ears tuned to the rustle of branches. His nose flaring for scent. His blade already drawn and slick with condensation from the cold.
Something was behind him. Not human. The forest had long ago swallowed the footsteps of men, replacing them with things untamed. He could feel it—eyes watching, tracking.
He stopped in a small clearing where the moonlight barely touched the snow, just enough to paint the frost in silver and blue. He turned slowly, every muscle taut, and raised his sword.
Nothing.
Only silence. The thick, shrouded kind of silence that made the world feel as though it had forgotten to breathe.
Then a crack snapped through the trees. Graham spun, blade at the ready. But it wasn’t an attack. It was her.
Raveena's scent threaded through the cold like a ribbon of fire. He’d been following it for an hour, his compass through the chaos. But now it had veered. She had changed course.
He growled low in his throat and pivoted in the direction of her new trail—just in time to see movement at the edge of the trees. A blur of pale fur and golden eyes.
A wolf.
It stood still, half-shadowed. The muscles in its shoulders were tight beneath a rime-crusted coat. The animal’s gaze met his—intelligent, unwavering. It wasn't an alpha male. It was an alpha female.
It wasn't issuing a threat or a challenge. This was a summons.
“Commander!” a voice called from behind.
Graham turned. Corwin emerged from the brush, followed by three of his men, all wearing the grime and worry of a hard march. Snow crusted their boots and stuck in their beards.
“We found her,” Corwin said, panting. “We think the princess is in the dwarves’ cabin.”
“The dwarves?” Graham's gaze went south to the dwarves' cabin, then to the west where he'd picked up Raveena's new trail.
What would they be doing there? The dwarves would be in the mines this time of year. Weeks before they’d surface again. This game board made less and less sense with each move.
Graham’s gaze flicked back to the wolf. Still watching. Still waiting. “You four—go to the cottage. Secure the princess.”
Corwin hesitated. “And you?”
“I don't think the queen is there. I’m following her.” Graham nodded to the wolf. “She’s taking me to my queen.”
Corwin looked as if he might protest, but one glance at Graham’s face and he appeared to think better of it. With a curt salute, he and the others disappeared into the trees.
