Snow - By Deborah M. Brown Page 0,7

his mirror eyes. “Am I still the fairest of them all?”

“Yes. Oh gods, yes,” he moaned as he surged into her. He trembled a moment before dropping his face against her neck.

Anais recalled the way he had looked at the Snow Bitch that night and wondered if he lied.

From then on, jealousy and hatred of the Snow Bitch consumed Anais. In everything she did, Anais could feel Snow White’s winter gaze upon her. She spent hours thinking of ways to rid herself of the girl. Poison wouldn’t work because the dwarves tasted everything that was put before their mistress. An accident of some sort seemed the most logical choice. She discussed it with Rui one day as they stood in the mews. He was feeding his falcon with bloody titbits. The bird took the morsels from his bare hands daintily, despite the fierce power of its beak.

“I could cut her heart out for you.” He grinned and squeezed the bloody scraps between his fingers.

“Would you?” She looked up at him. “Could you?” she asked more softly.

He ran his fingers across her lips, smearing blood over them before he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed it off again.

“Yes,” he answered.

She sought reassurance in his eyes before she nodded agreement.

“A-hunting we will go,” murmured Rui as he lifted her skirts, his fingers skimming over her damp, eager flesh. “A-hunting we will go,” as his other hand loosened the ties on his breeches. “We’ll catch a fox and put it in a box,” as his phallus nudged at her opening, thick and hard and burning hot. “A-hunting we will go,” as he sheathed himself to the hilt.

He held himself still, his breath coming fast, his hands closing tightly upon Anais’s shoulders. He began to thrust fiercely against her, so hard that she was driven against the wall. She dug her nails into his arms, wrapped one leg around his lean hip and matched his rhythm. Rui bared his teeth at her, tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. He dropped his mouth to her throat. She felt his teeth graze her flesh, gently at first then more fiercely. His hips pumped wildly. Anais strained to reach that place where thought tumbled into mindless delight, but she felt Rui’s release deep inside her, his breath gusting hot against her neck, and he slid out of her before she could fall over the precipice.

Breathing hard he straightened his clothing. He planted a swift hard kiss against Anais’s lips. “A-hunting we will go,” he said again. With a flash of white teeth, he turned away from her.

“Rui,” Anais said, frustrated desire lacing her voice. He turned back to her.

“What?” he said distractedly.

“What are you going to do? How are you going to do it?”

Another flash of white teeth. “Leave the details to me.”

“It will need to be done soon. Her betrothed comes to court at month’s end. She will be eighteen. And wed.”

An expression flashed across his face, gone before she had a chance to recognise just what it was. “Indeed,” he said thoughtfully. “That may be something we can work with.”

“What do you mean?”

He kissed her hard, stealing both breath and reason. “I told you. Leave it to me,” he murmured against her mouth.

Anais watched him walk away, dark, beautiful. Wicked. Something trailed cold fingers down her spine, raising gooseflesh on her arms. He was like a drug to her. A drug she knew would kill her in the end, but one she could not live without. More times than not there was no love in their coupling, just a savage desire to possess and to be possessed. But for the few times when there had been tenderness, and for the knowledge that she would always be the fairest of them all in his mirror eyes, she would do anything and everything to hold him.

The Princess

Snow White didn’t hate her stepmother. When Anais first came to court and Snow White saw how she brought the smile back to her father’s eyes she would have loved her if Anais had allowed it. The golden queen had seemed to be everything that a thin, pale child of nine could wish for in a mother. But Anais’s indifference and Snow White’s inherent shyness had precluded any bond forming between them. Then, as her father’s first flush of new love dissolved into something colder and more desperate and Anais’s indifference turned to something sharper and less benign, Snow White mantled her feelings in a