Poison (8 page)

‘How will I recognise her?’ he asked.

‘Oh, there is no one quite like Snow White. You’ll know when you’ve found her.’ She turned to face him. ‘But just in case…’ She tilted her head back, her neck as slim and pale and strong as the swans’ on the great lake, and opened up a locket at her throat. He leaned closer, to both look and also to feel her heat again. He had been on the road a long time and there had been plenty of danger and little earthly pleasure. He tore his eyes away from her pale skin and looked at the pictures. On one side was the image of a middle-aged man; thick set and piggy eyed. If this image was a flattering likeness then the huntsman was not surprised the queen was so unhappy. The other frame held the image of a full-lipped dark haired beauty whose eyes, even trapped by an artist’s pen, danced with merriment and joy at life.

‘I want her heart,’ the queen said softly, before snapping the locket shut. ‘You will bring it to me or I will cut yours out myself.’ From within the folds of her delicate gown, she pulled out a hunting knife. ‘Finest dwarf silver and steel. It will make it quick. And don’t even think about running. The forest is deep but my guards will find you.’

She didn’t hand him the knife but instead stepped closer, tugged at his belt and holstered it there. He looked down at the swell of her breasts trapped tightly in the bones of her dress. He was hardening and her hands were so close he wondered if she was aware of it.

He was still covered in dirt and sweat and both the stag’s dried blood and his own, and her fingers drifted across the stains on his clothes as if fascinated by them. Finally she looked up at him and he could see in the endless lakes of her eyes, where good and bad and everything in between darted like fish in their icy depths, that she knew exactly what effect she was having on him.

‘Why are you so sad?’ he asked.

She pulled back slightly, shocked. ‘Why would you say that?’

He moved fast, reaching in and taking her face in his hands. His mouth was on hers, soft and sweet and so far from the taste of the forest, before she could stop him. His tongue pushed against her protesting one for a long moment and then she broke free. She stared at him, panting slightly, and for the first time she looked like a young woman rather than a queen.

‘I can taste it on you,’ he said.

‘Bullshit.’

‘Not exactly royal language.’ He laughed aloud, unable to stop himself. ‘Dragged up in the streets, were you, before the king found you?’

‘You know nothing about me,’ she spat at him. ‘Nothing.’

‘Except that you are filled with sadness.’ He grabbed her arms and she struggled against him, but he held her firmly as he pulled her close. She wasn’t really fighting him, he knew that. She was fighting herself. She had magic. If she wanted to stop him, she could no doubt kill him where he stood. He’d be helpless against her. That excited him further. Danger had always been his Achilles’ heel. He leaned forward to kiss her again.

‘You revolt me,’ she said.

‘You prefer your fat, old king?’ he whispered. He kissed her again, tenderly this time, and the tension eased in her arms. Her hard shell was cracking. Her hot mouth tasted of fresh orchard apples. This was not love, he knew, not even a hint of it in the meeting of their lips, but it was a release they both needed. His body ached. He was tired. And he wasn’t out of the woods yet. This woman, this strange queen would strike him dead if she wanted to.

He broke away to breathe, blood pumping loud in his ears. She was not trustworthy, but she was beautiful and sensuous and aloof. She was different to him in many ways, that was true, but they were both predators. He watched her for a moment, her head tilted slightly backwards, her pale breasts rising and falling fast within the constraints of her dress. Her eyes were shut, and he was surprised to see a tear squeeze out and run like a winter stream down her pale face. He wiped it away with his rough fingers.

‘Just make her go away,’ the queen whispered, as his hands reached for her corset laces and freed her hot skin. ‘Just make her go away. I have no choice anymore.’ With her eyes firmly shut, she kissed him back and pulled him to the ground. For a while, the stag and his past adventures, and the killing to come, were entirely forgotten.

* * *

It didn’t take him long to track Snow White. People were creatures of habit and her horse’s hooves had scored their mark in the paths leading into the thickest part of the forest at the base of the mountain. Even without them to guide him he’d have searched that way. The dwarves were her friends and the dwarves lived at the base of the mountain within whose guts they toiled for such long hours. She came this way each morning and left each night to head back to the castle. Animal tracks never lied.

The sun was hot as it cut through the canopy and he glanced up occasionally to scour the branches for ravens, but he hadn’t seen a single one since he’d left the city walls behind, hidden on the back of a merchant’s cart. Perhaps the queen’s control over the birds had a physical limit. Still, he didn’t relax. There would be soldiers behind him before long and there was no doubt she’d have doubled the patrols on the borders of the kingdom. Whatever moment they’d shared – and she’d been so cold about it when they were done that he’d almost thought it was a dream – no trust had come with it.

There had been no affection in what they’d done. The strange beauty had kept her eyes closed from start to finish, murmuring words he couldn’t quite make out as he explored her body and took his satisfaction from it. It was the huntsman’s way until true love found them, but this time he was the one who came away feeling awkward afterwards. They had used each other – there was no denying that – but he knew that she had used him more. If she’d had any respect for him beforehand, there was none in evidence when she finally sent him on his way. Maybe he had been foolish, but there had been too much wickedness around him of late and nothing shook that away like the pleasures of the body, whether they be taken with a queen or a serving girl.

He concentrated on the task she’d set him. He was a straightforward man, but he was learning the wiles of the wealthy. It seemed that no matter how much he wished for a quiet life, fate had drawn him into royal games once again, and this one would have a twist in it before it was done. There was still a debt that needed paying and he wouldn’t forget it.

Ahead, just out of sight, a horse whinnied and pawed at the leafy ground. His skin prickled and he edged silently forward, ignoring the tiny insects which hovered and darted around his head in the muggy heat. The air so close to the base of the mountain carried a tang of minerals from the mines, and as he peered through the low branches to the pool beyond, it grew stronger. A thick mist coated the surface of the water, thinning into steam as if the water was warmer than the air. Perhaps it was. There were no mines in his homeland and who knew how the metals in the earth changed its nature.

From somewhere in the haze came splashing, light and free, and as he was sure that he couldn’t see her then he believed the reverse must also be true; he slipped between the trees until he was in the clearing beside a fine horse with royal colours in its reins. He patted the thick black neck and calmed it, impressed by its size and strength; not the steed he expected for a princess. Dark eyes full of fire watched him warily. This was no prancing pony, this was a stallion fit for a fighting king. What was it about the women in this royal family that made them so strange? An ice queen in a tower and a princess with a knight’s horse who swam – he took the pair of riding breeches and white shirt from the horse’s back to find her underclothes there too – naked in the forest? There was nothing normal about this – but then, with his adventures of late, normality was becoming a rarity. He hid behind the thickest willow trunk and waited.

She emerged from the water not long after, standing on the bank and tipping her head back to squeeze the water from her black hair, as naked as the day of her birth and brazenly comfortable with it. Suddenly, he understood the horse. Where the queen chose to hide in her tower, this princess was earthy, a creature of nature. Her slim legs were long and firm and she moved with the grace of the finest white stag. This was no delicate animal; no skittish forest deer. She was beautiful without a doubt, but not fragile. She was fuller figured and rounder featured than her step-mother – generosity made flesh. Her stride was confident and sunlight glittered on the drops of water that clung to her skin like jewels. She paused and stretched, smiling at the mix of warm air and cool liquid on her drying body.

That was what was so wrong with the queen, he realised as he watched the girl so comfortable in her nudity. She was equally beautiful but with none of the freedom or calm of this princess she hated. She was harder. One day she’d harden so much the pressure would shatter her.

Snow White paused and frowned, and before she had time to realise she wasn’t alone, the huntsman stepped out in front of her. He held up her clothes.

‘Looking for these?’

She crouched slightly, making ready to fight, but made no effort to cover her glorious nakedness and her eyes darted here and there searching for a potential weapon. He liked her more already.

‘I’m not here to harm you,’ he said. ‘Well, technically I’m here to kill you, but she owes me a life in exchange for one she wasted, and so I choose to spare yours.’ This girl’s life for the stag’s would be a good payment. One creature of nature for another. He held out her clothes but instead of reaching for them, she’d been distracted by something else. Her eyes widened as she spotted the elegant knife tucked into his belt.

‘That’s a royal blade,’ she said. Her voice was as rich and sweet as her curves. ‘Where did you get it, thief? And if you’re looking for riches,’ she raised her arms and one eyebrow, ‘as you can see, I’m not hiding any.’

‘That’s the second time a beautiful woman has called me a thief today and neither time has it been true.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ She snatched her shirt and glared at him while tugging it over her still damp skin. He could see from the saddle that she rode like a man, the horse firmly clamped between her thighs, and his eyes fell to examining the taut muscles. He wondered how it would feel to be gripped by them. ‘There’s only one person who could have given you that knife and that’s my…’ She fell silent as the truth dawned on her. ‘…my step-mother.’ She stood and stared at him for a moment as if willing him to deny it, but he said nothing. Eventually, she came towards him and searched his face. ‘
She
sent you? To kill me?’ She looked down at the knife again. ‘But why? Why would she…? I thought… it was all a misunderstanding so why would she…?’ Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘She hates me,’ she whispered. ‘She really hates me.’

‘You can’t go back to the castle,’ the huntsman said. Heat rose under his collar. Women’s tears were something he didn’t understand. In fact women, beyond their physical aspects, were something he didn’t understand, and nothing he’d seen in the past few weeks had done anything to change that. ‘Go somewhere you can hide for a while. Until your father returns from his campaigns. Do you have people you can trust?’

‘It was all a lie. Everything she said. She
was
trying to kill me. Why would she want to kill me?’ She was lost in her own thoughts, and he dropped the rest of her clothes in order to grab her arms and shake her slightly. There was no time for this. Her skin was warm and supple.

‘Listen to me! Do you have people you can trust?’

It took a moment for her to focus, but finally she nodded. Her tears were still falling and she sniffed hard. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a deer’s heart back instead.’

‘She wants my heart?’ She laughed and then choked on the fresh tears. ‘My
heart
?’

‘I’ll have to take your horse,’ the huntsman said. ‘It will make it more believable. She doesn’t trust me.’ This brought a fresh wave of tears and he wondered if she was listening to him at all, but she patted the horse’s neck and then pressed her face into it. Finally, she looked up at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘She owed me a life,’ he answered, simply. The queen, who claimed to know the huntsman’s code, had not realised how closely he lived by it. Regardless of the danger it might place him in, the stag’s wasted life demanded the balance was restored. The weeping princess threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, a sudden gesture he had no time to pull back from. Her body was warm through his clothes, her nipples pressing into him through his thin shirt. His arms folded around her, his hands on the taut curve of her back, fighting the urge to slip them down to the rise of her buttocks.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated. After a moment, she stiffened in his arms. ‘I can smell her on you,’ she said, pulling back slightly before pushing her face into his neck and breathing deeply. She looked up at him. ‘It’s her. You’ve
been
with her.’ Between her body pressed against his and her breath on his skin, the huntsman couldn’t stop himself responding. She could feel it, he was sure. What was going on today?

‘If you tell your father,’ he said, roughly, ‘it won’t just be her head he takes. It will be mine too. He tried to step back, but she kept her arms around him. They were strong and he could feel the lean muscles beneath her skin.

‘What did you do with her?’ she asked, her eyes drifting half shut, tears still falling. ‘Touch me like you touched her. Touch me like she touched you.’ The huntsman said nothing, once again feeling like a pawn in a game he hadn’t signed up to play. Soldiers would be coming to find him if he didn’t return soon. And this girl was a princess, not a wicked queen. She should not be touched by any man before her wedding day. Not even by the man saving her life. He felt the strands of the web he was trapped in tightening around him as she pressed her body into his and lifted her lips. ‘Kiss me like she kissed you,’ she whispered, all hot breath and warm skin. ‘Please.’

And, cursing his own nature, he did.