He swallowed hard. His body screamed to stay, to push her back against the wall, to take what she had dangled in front of him like a treat before a starving dog. But the part of him she had always known how to use—the part that craved her approval, her touch, her promise—won out. “I’ll ride at once,” he said, voice rough.
“Good man,” she purred. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
He left her chambers turned on, frustrated, and utterly controlled by her promise, heart twisted by unrequited love and the hope—always just out of reach—of finally claiming his reward.
BythetimeSnowWhite slid from Grimm’s back, her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. They had been riding for what felt like days, but in truth it had scarcely been two hours since she’d thrown herself out of the tower window and into the forest. The poison from the comb still clung to her nerves, a fog that made her limbs heavy and her thoughts hazy. Every few minutes her vision blurred; every few steps her knees trembled. “We have to stop,” she whispered, stroking Grimm’s damp neck. “Just for a little. Just until my head stops spinning.” He snorted softly, his sides heaving with exertion. They had run hard to put distance between themselves and the castle. SnowWhite knew it was unfair to ask more of him for the moment; neither of them was physically fit enough for such a grand adventure.
They had come to a small clearing where the trees parted enough to show a strip of sky. The grass here was patchy but soft. A fallen log, half-swallowed by moss, lay near the edge of the clearing. Beyond, the forest pressed in again, dark and dense. Snow White slid down, boots squelching slightly in the damp earth. Her muscles protested. Her ribs still ached with every breath, the bruises from the corset laces lighting whenever she twisted. She led Grimm to a low-hanging branch and looped his reins over it, giving him enough slack to lower his head and graze on the sparse grass. She patted his neck. “Don’t go far,” she sighed. “I won’t be long.”
In truth, she intended only to sit for a moment. Just long enough to let her heart stop galloping and her legs remember how to stand. She sank down with her back against the tree, cloak pulling around her. The bark was rough through the thin fabric. The ground was cool and damp. It felt solid, at least—more solid than anything had since the comb’s teeth had bitten her scalp. Her eyes drifted closed. “I’ll just… rest,” she told herself. “Only until the sky lightens a bit. Then we’ll go.”
But sleep pulled her in as her eyelids turned heavy. She didn’t feel herself slide fully onto her side. She didn’t notice the way her cloak fell open, baring a pale length of leg where her chemise had torn on a branch. She didn’t see the way the moon, slipping between clouds, painted her skin in soft silver.
She didn’t hear the hoofbeats. Hunter had ridden hard from the castle, following what traces he could: broken twigs, disturbed underbrush, the faint, almost invisible marks of a horse’s passage. Snow and rain had since softened some tracks, but Grimm’s large hoofprints were easy enough for a trained hunter to spot.
His body still ached with longing. Liora’s touch burned on his skin; the press of her hips, the promise in her voice, the way she’d pulled away just as he’d been ready to break. His arousal, denied and then harnessed, throbbed faintly with every stride of his horse. He told himself he was here because of duty, because of the oath he’d taken, because of the bargain her words had fashioned. He did not dwell on the part of him that still felt loyal to King Wilhelm’s memory. The trees thinned. He pulled his horse back to a walk as they neared the edge of a small clearing. The early morning sky was still dark, the horizon only just beginning to gray. Mist clung to the undergrowth. He saw the stallion first—Grimm’s dark shape, head down, ears flicking as he tore at the sparse grass.
Then he saw her. Snow White lay curled at the base of a tree, cloak fallen open. Her knees were half drawn up, one bare calf streaked with dirt and a faint line of blood where a bramble had caught her. Her nightdress—if it could still be called that—was torn in several places, gaping enough at the neckline that the swell of one breast was visible, the cloak doing little to conceal it. Her hair, spread around her head in a dark sway against the bark. In sleep, the tension she’d carried in the castle was gone. Her lips, chapped from the wind and cold, were deep red and parted.
Hunter almost startled at her sight. For a moment, standing at the edge of the clearing, he saw not Snow White but Liora as she had been years ago—lying half-covered on sheets in a darkened room, hair spread on pillows, chest rising and falling with post-coital breaths. His body responded to the memory with humiliating eagerness. He dismounted slowly, every motion deliberate. His knees felt stiff; his hand shook slightly as he looped his horse’s reins over a branch. He stood and looked at her. He told himself he was gauging how deeply she slept, whether the poison still dragged at her. He told himself he wasdeciding where best to strike: a quick cut to the throat, perhaps, or a thrust to the heart.
But his gaze did not linger on vulnerable arteries or vital organs. It lingered on the pale curve of her thigh where the cloak had ridden up. On the shadow between her breasts where the torn dress gaped. On the smooth line of her throat, the flutter of her pulse visible just beneath the skin. He swallowed hard.You grew up with her,part of him hissed.She’s your king’s daughter. Your—
But she was a woman now. Had Liora ever arranged for her marriage, Snow White would likely be caring for a young infant by the age of eighteen. She so looked like Liora. The same black hair. The same full, red mouth. The same complexion that seemed to glow even in poor light. Liora, younger and softer, without the hard edges power had carved into her.
His hand slid to the knife at his belt. “Get it over with,” he whispered to himself. “Before you start thinking.” He drew the blade. The metal gleamed in the faint moonlight, a thin line of silver promise. Promise of a throne and a kingdom, promise of Liora’s body and her sex, and a promise of her love? He stepped into the clearing. The grass muffled his steps, but Grimm’s head came up at once, ears pricked. The stallion snorted, eyes rolling slightly. Hunter muttered a low reassurance, keeping his tone even, the way he did with skittish horses and green recruits. “Easy,” he said. “Easy, boy. I’m not here for you.” Grimm stamped once, then, reassured by his familiar voice and presence, lowered his head again.
Snow White did not stir. Hunter came to stand over her. Up close, the resemblance to Liora was even more uncanny. Only the innocence in her expression, the faint smile on her lips even in her sleep, differentiated them. He could see now, in a way he never had when she’d been a ragged girl in the stables, whyLiora’s eyes had hardened every time they’d walked side by side. Snow White was truly a masterpiece.
He tightened his grip on the knife. He raised it.
Snow White’s eyes snapped open. For a moment they were unfocused, fogged with the remnants of poison and sleep. Then they cleared—and fixed on the blade above her. She jerked, instinctively raising an arm. The movement knocked his wrist slightly sideways. The knife skimmed the trunk of the tree instead of descending into her flesh. Steel rang faintly as it glanced off bark.
“What—?” she gasped, scrambling up against the tree. Her cloak tangled around her legs; she half fell, catching herself on one hand, her other arm coming up defensively. She looked up at the shadow looming over her. “H–Hunter?” she stammered.
His name on her lips hit him like a fist. He’d expected fear, perhaps curses. He had not expected the raw, bewildered hurt in her voice.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, breath coming fast. “Why are you—? Why are you here?”
He could have lied. He could have said he was tracking bandits, that he’d stumbled upon her by accident, that he’d come to help. But something about the way she stared at the knife in his hand made the lies shrivel on his tongue. “The queen sent me,” he said, the words heavy as lead. “She wants you dead.”
Snow White’s face went still. There it was—the last shard of doubt, the last childlike belief that maybe this had all been some terrible misunderstanding, shattered. “My mother,” she said slowly, “sent you. To kill me.”
“Yes,” he said.
She pushed herself fully upright, leaning back against the tree. Her knees were still weak, but she held her chin high. “And you came,” she remarked. “You always come when she calls.”
“I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. You, of all people, should know that.”
His grip tightened on the knife. “Turn around,” he said roughly. “I can’t… I can’t do it looking at your face.”
She laughed then, a small, broken sound. “You think that’s better?” she asked. “To have my back turned when you kill me? You can’t look me in the eye?”
They stared at each other. The forest held its breath. Snow White spat in his direction, narrowly missing his face. Hunter, virility rising inside, grabbed the defiant target and spun her facing away from him, hand curled on her own back.
The warmth of her body soaked through his clothes before he even raised the knife. She smelled of sweat and dirt and pine, a far cry from Liora’s juniper and mint—but under it all, something familiar: the faint, clean scent of Snow White herself, something he couldn’t have named but recognized all the same.
