“Family,” Drew said, the rare word dropping into the circle like a stone into a quiet pond. The others stilled. Then, slowly, Snow White smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “Family.” Her strength was not in the mirror. It was not in the necklace. It was not even in her beauty, though that had been the door her life had always been forced through. Her strength was in this: in choosing these men, in them choosing her back, in shaping a life with them on her own terms. For now, that was enough.
Here, in the small clearing at the edge of the forest, a woman with her mother’s face leaned into the warmth of the men who loved her, and prepared, without knowing it yet, to face the storm that was coming.
Laterthatnight,SnowWhite lay between Silas and Drew, the bed warm with familiar bodies, the air heavy with the mingled scents of wood smoke and sweat. Silas had his arm thrown over her waist, his breath tickling the back of her neck. Drew’s shin pressed against her calf, his hand curled close to her own on the blanket. “Ever been in love?” Silas mumbled into her hair, voice thick with sleep.
The question dropped into the dark like a stone into a still pond. Snow White stiffened. Images flickered through hermind. Harry’s constant stream of compliments and jokes. Dax’s quiet, watching eyes. Bennett’s hands offering her the best piece of bread. Silas’s arm around her in every quiet moment. Drew’s fingers finding hers without words. Even Gage’s snarled warnings and unspoken protectiveness. Caring. Attachment. Affection. But love?
Love, in her mind, had always worn a different face. Blue eyes. A stable. The warmth of steady hands at her waist. The near-kiss that had lived in her memory longer than her father’s funeral procession. A silver token pressed into her palm, a promise half-joked and half-meant. The prince—as she still thought of him, though she did not know his name—occupied a corner of her heart these six men, for all their closeness, had never quite reached.
“Have you?” Silas prodded, sleep-rough but curious.
She stared into the dark. “No,” she said at last. It wasn’t entirely true. But it was true enough for now.
“Good,” he mumbled. “Less competition.” He pressed a lazy kiss to the back of her shoulder and drifted into deeper sleep, arm heavy and comforting over her waist.
Snow White lay awake longer. Power, she’d discovered, wasn’t only about making others bend. It was also about knowing herself—her wants, her fears, her hidden fractures. Tonight, lying between men who would face an army for her, she realized there was one place she still sometimes hid from herself: inside her own body. Her first orgasm, in front of the mirror, had been a revelation. But it had been crowded: hands and mouths and eyes, the rush of performing her own pleasure for others as much as for herself.
Now the cottage was quiet. Silas snored lightly in her ear. Drew made soft, unconscious sounds in his sleep. The steady rise and fall of their chests filled the dark. No one was watching. Her hand, almost of its own accord, drifted down under theblanket. Her fingers found the hem of her nightdress, slipping beneath it, cool against the heat of her skin. She hesitated for a heartbeat—out of habit more than shame. Then she let herself touch.
Her fingertips brushed the soft hair, then slid lower, finding the slickness that had never truly gone away since she’d seen herself in the mirror. Her body remembered that confidence, that claiming, and some part of it hummed with leftover electricity. She circled lightly over that small bundle of nerves, testing. A tiny jolt shot up her spine. She bit her lip to hold in the sound. Her movements were unhurried. This wasn’t about racing toward release to outrun fear or pain. This was about exploration, about mapping the edges of herself under no one’s direction but her own.
She thought of the prince’s hands in the dream—the way they’d cupped her gently instead of grabbing, the way he’d asked instead of assumed. She thought of her own face in the mirror, eyes fierce and wild as she rode Drew. She thought of the way her mother had used beauty as a cage and the way she had cracked that cage open one thrust at a time. Her breath came shallow and slow. She changed the angle of her hand, pressing a fraction harder, then easing off, learning the responses. Pleasure swelled again, slower than before but no less insistent, like a tide creeping up the shore. Beside her, Silas snorted and rolled onto his back, arm sliding off her. The sudden space made her feel both exposed and freer; she had room to move her hips now, to let them rock gently into her own touch.
She pictured herself as she must look now: hair spread over the pillow, one hand curled under her head, the other hidden beneath the blanket, moving in small circles that no one else could see. No mirror this time. Only her own inner eye. The wave built. She decreased the pressure as she circled until it was barely a touch, the hint of friction awakening her core. Thelightness of her touch made the wave swell higher. When it broke, she didn’t cry out. The crash rolled through her in a series of pulses, each one a soft detonation in her core. Her toes curled, her thighs trembled, her fingers pressed harder for a moment, then gradually slowed as the intensity ebbed. She exhaled slowly, shoulders sinking into the mattress. This climax was quieter than the one in front of the mirror, but in some ways it felt even more potent. There was no audience. No performance. No proof. Just her, owning her own pleasure in the dark.
Power, she realized, wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it was as soft as a breath, as private as a hand moving slowly under a blanket while the rest of the world slept. She pulled her hand away, wiped it discreetly on the hem of her nightdress, and let it rest on her belly. Silas, still asleep, rolled back toward her, arm flopping over her waist again. Drew shifted, his hand finding hers loosely.
Snow White smiled into the darkness. She had learned, finally, that her body belonged first to her. The fact that she chose to share it—on her terms—with these men did not diminish that. It amplified it.
Chapter twenty
I am Shay
“Howcouldyou?”Thequeen hissed, her voice almost sad.
“Majesty… I thought she was dead—I swear. She fell from the cliff into the ravine.” Hunter’s throat felt tight and the air felt heavy as he tried to cover his tracks. “I admit, I didn’t climb down to confirm the deed—” he was cut off.
“Liar!” Liora shouted. “Did you really think you would get away with this? Did you really think I wouldn’t discover your treason?” She softened for a moment, “But how? Why? You’ve always been so devoted. What made your loyalty to me waiver?”
Hunter froze, eyes widened. He couldn’t tell her the truth. She would flay him alive. He’d never get to touch her again. He’d be banished from her life completely. His mind rolled as he spun excuse after excuse, none seemed believable.
“She got to you, didn’t she? Her beauty, her body, her face—my face. She seduced you, didn’t she?” Liora felt aroused at her own sharp intuition.
“My queen, I… I… I thought she was you. She looked so much like you, smelled like you, felt like you. I just wanted totouch you. I wanted you to feel me. To want me again,” he explained. “I lost my mind. I lost control. She used me.”
“And so you came back to me, after taking her virginity, lied to me, and then claimed your prize? You were inside me before even wiping yourself clean of her?” Liora had never felt so betrayed.
“Get out,” she said.
He stared. “Majesty—”
“Out!” she screamed. “From my sight. From my halls. From my lands. You are banished. Forever!”
The word struck harder than the slap. “Liora, please,” he said, the shape of her name tasting strange on his tongue. “Let me make it right. Let me find her now. I’ll kill her. I’ll bring you her head, her heart, whatever you—”
“Do you think I trust you to finish a task you’ve already failed? Do you think I would place my fate once more in the hands of a man who cannot tell the difference between his duty and his desire?” she boomed.
