Snow

Dedication

To Bronwen. You know why.

The Queen

Queen Anais knew the exact moment when she had begun to hate her stepdaughter. It was not when she first arrived at court to marry the king. Then she had barely noticed the pale, silent child. The king was old, far older than Anais, and the child had been born late into his first marriage. He doted on her, but Anais knew that as soon as she could provide him with a son, this first child would lose her significance in his eyes. Such a pallid, silent child, she was easy to ignore, especially early in the marriage when the king was so enamoured of his beautiful, young wife and so eager to prove himself upon her. Anais endured his old man’s fumblings, consoling herself with the thought of the sons she would bear and the riches and power that were hers as queen.

As time passed, the king became increasingly desperate to plant a son in Anais’s belly. It became harder to endure the hot weight of his body atop hers, his hands pawing at her breasts or between her thighs. The taste of sour old man as he made her take his semi-erect phallus in her mouth and suckle him, trying to make him reach that state of hardness that came to him less and less. Trying to make him hard enough to ram himself inside her like a weapon and stab and stab against her dry flesh. Fortunately those times were few and blessedly short, the king spending himself after only a handful of savage thrusts, crying out as though it was he who was in pain and not the woman who lay so still beneath him.

Anais never made a sound.

Time passed. There were no sons, and the king came no more to her bed. As the possibility of a male heir diminished, his attention was refocused on his daughter.

“My Snow White,” he would call her, and indeed she was. In a land of fair-haired, pale-skinned people, she was the fairest of them all. Her hair was silver blonde, her skin white as alabaster. Her eyes were grey, light and clear as water; her lashes covered them like clouds, keeping her thoughts hidden. Even so, Anais didn’t hate her then, not when her own golden beauty was still evident in the lustful looks of the court nobles and the jealous glances of their ladies.

Although she could have had any of them as her lover, Anais refused. She was content to be worshipped from afar, enjoying the machinations of those nobles who still thought that one day she would succumb to the temptations they offered. She had only to catch her husband’s eye and see the bitterness there to bring to mind how a man lay with a woman and what they offered was dust in her mouth. Occasionally she would see her stepdaughter at feast days or formal occasions, but her existence barely registered with her. The girl would sit on her throne beside her father, watching everything but never speaking. Anais and her ladies would whisper about her behind their fans.

“So thin. So pale.”

“An ugly child.”

But men’s eyes told another story that Anais refused to acknowledge.

For her sixteenth birthday, the king gave his daughter seven new attendants. They were dwarves from the eastern mountains, grim, golden men with eyes like black glass.

“Seven of them to protect you from all harm,” the king said. From then on, wherever Snow White went, her silent attendants went too. Some women of the court found them fascinating, for although not as tall as most of the southern ladies, they were perfectly formed and comely enough, but they made Anais uneasy. They were as silent and inscrutable as the mistress they served.

Anais’s contentment with her life changed late one winter’s afternoon. She had been sitting in her bedroom, gazing into her silver mirror and admiring the golden waterfall of hair as it fell over her bare shoulders. Outside in the courtyard there was a sudden commotion, dogs barking, the clatter of hooves and the shouts of men. Frowning, she went to her window and looked out. A hunting party, she thought, eyeing the carcass of a deer which was flung over the back of one horse. Disinterested, she turned away when the sudden screech of a large bird of prey and a man’s voice cursing drew her gaze back to the window.

Below her, a man wrestled with the falcon that bated madly upon his wrist and with the horse that plunged wildly beneath his thighs. The bird screeched again, and the horse sidled and snorted. The man clamped his thighs tightly around the horse, bringing it under control. Crooning under his breath, he drew his hand down the bird’s sleek breast, soothing and stroking it to quiescence. Then he glanced up, and Anais felt her breath stop in her throat.

He was dark. Dark like midnight.

Dark like death.

Hair as black as coal, worn long and loose, framing a face of wicked beauty. A mouth, lush and sensual, made for kissing, and his eyes… Deepest, darkest blue and so clear that Anais could see herself reflected in their surface as though she looked into a mirror. He smiled up at her, and Anais had never desired anything or anyone as much as she desired the dark stranger below her. Her gaze locked with his, and in the mirror of his eyes she could see that he found her beautiful too. The bird screeched again, and he turned back to it, breaking the link between them. Anais gasped and pulled back from the window. She felt hot and cold at the same time, her limbs twitching, her heart racing. A strange dark fluttering low in her stomach and between her legs.

Pulling her scattered thoughts together, she left her room and sent one of her ladies to discover who he was.

The king’s new huntsman, the bastard son of some northern lord, but high in his father’s favour, it was said. A close friend to her husband in his youth, the father had petitioned a position for his son in the king’s household.

“Rui Alvarez,” said Anais’s lady in waiting, and his name slid down Anais’s throat like honeyed wine.

That night, at the banquet thrown in honour of some visiting ambassador whose name she could not recall, Anais could feel Rui’s gaze on her like a hot knife pressed to her throat, but she ignored him, choosing instead to flirt with some beardless nobleman’s son who blushed and stammered under her attention. Only once did she sense his scrutiny waver, when Snow White and her seven silent shadows made their way to the king’s throne to wish him a goodnight. Then Anais felt the absence of his regard like a dash of cold water to her face and turned to see his dark blue eyes following the girl as she left the room. Anais chose that moment to cease her games with the bumbling youth and to let Rui Alvarez know she wanted him. It required little effort on her part to turn his thoughts back to her and away from her stepdaughter, the Snow Bitch, as she liked to call her.

His eyes locked on hers, and for the first time in her life she felt her power as a woman. The pulse that beat in his throat was echoed in the throbbing beat in Anais’s core. The costly silk of her bronze gown rubbed against nipples that had tightened and become exquisitely sensitive. Was this desire? She wanted him.

How she wanted him.

Rui came to her room after midnight. She had sent her women away and answered the door herself. He had barely entered the room before he pulled her to him and drew his mouth across hers in a kiss that should have set the room on fire, so hot and hungry was it. His lips were soft. His mouth tasted of wine and wet dark heat. Anais could feel his erection, thick and hard, pressing against her belly. She shoved away thoughts of her husband’s cold hands and wilting phallus, imagining instead Rui’s lean, muscled body and handsome face hovering over her, and grew wet with hunger.

“I could take you here, now, on the floor,” Rui breathed against her mouth. “But maybe we should use the bed? This time.”

Anais blushed, swallowing nervously. She wanted him, but she had never done this with any man other than her husband. Would he find her lacking? He followed her to the bed, eying the golden silk hangings, the finely woven sheets of Semian cotton with a grin. “I’ve never fucked a queen before,” he said, then kissed her hard again before she could consider his words any further.

Anais stood and watched him as he undressed, her mouth dry. His eyes never left hers, and she could see that he knew she found him desirable and that it pleased him. When he was naked, he stood with his head up, his hands hanging loose at his sides, allowing Anais to appreciate the way his heavy muscles moved under his skin, the broad shoulders and narrow waist. The long legs.

He was beautiful.

Sitting on the bed, he let his gaze roam over Anais’s face, then lower. “Take off your dress,” he rasped.

She turned her back to him. “I’ll need you to undo the buttons.”

She heard him draw in a deep breath. He patted the bed beside him. “Sit here.”

Anais sat beside him. His fingers tugged at her buttons. As he freed them, the cool night air brushed against the bared skin of her back. His hand caressed her neck, the fingers warm and sure. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade, and she shivered.

“There,” he said thickly. She pushed the dress down over her arms, then stood to let it fall about her feet. “Turn around,” he commanded.

Anais faced him, letting her gaze roam boldly over his body. Moisture pooled between her legs. By all the gods, but he was beautiful. Long and lean, sharply delineated muscles sliding beneath his smooth pale skin. Between his thighs in a patch of thick dark hair, his erection rose like a column of marble. She traced one throbbing vein with her fingertip, and he gasped. His hand shot out and grasped her wrist in a grip tight enough to bruise. He took her other wrist and drew her down towards him.

His lips touched hers. For the barest second they were soft, gentle. Then his tongue swept into her mouth and it was no longer a kiss. It was a war.

Sometime later, between battles, when Rui lay dozing beside her, Anais took the time to study his sleeping face and to catch her breath. He was insatiable. Even as he spent himself, his flesh remained semi-erect, hardening again in a satisfyingly short time, sometimes even as he still lay sheathed within her. All memory of her husband’s rutting had been erased. To her delight, Anais found herself as insatiable and as fierce in her desires as Rui. She stretched cautiously, feeling the muscles in her thighs pull. There were scratches there, between her legs, a bite mark high on her right thigh, another on her breast. Still, she had left her own marks on the man beside her. She ran her finger across a bite on Rui’s shoulder, and his skin twitched beneath her hand.

He reminded her of a great cat, lying there sleepily next to her. His face with its high cheekbones and pointed chin. The sleek, lithe body that had plundered hers so ruthlessly. There was a faint scar on his chin running from the left corner of his mouth in a diagonal line to disappear beneath his jaw. She traced it softly, and his eyes opened. He studied her with an intent stare that made her both uneasy and hungry for him at the same time.

“How did you get this?” she asked.

He gave a lazy smile. “You don’t really want to know.” He moved closer to Anais, throwing one long leg over her hips, and took her mouth in another bruising kiss. Tumescent once more, his phallus prodded at her belly. Anais bit at his lip, hard enough to draw blood, while his hand plucked at her nipple, squeezing it between his fingers. All night it had been thus, neither one of them willing to cede dominance to the other. Their couplings had been fierce and explosive.

Anais pulled her mouth from his and slid down his body, running her tongue down his smooth chest and ridged belly before closing her lips around the swollen head of his shaft, letting her teeth graze his flesh lightly. His breath hissed between his teeth.

“No biting now,” he warned her, his fingers tangling in her hair. She ran her tongue around the rim of his cock, letting it dip into the opening and tasting him, salty sweet. One hand stroked him firmly whilst the other cupped his balls and gently kneaded them. He flexed against her mouth, and she suckled him harder, feeling him swell even more. She gripped his hips, holding him still as she worked him with her mouth, listening to the harsh exhalation of his breathing. He pulled her head away and pushed Anais onto her back, then covered her with his body, his erection nestled between her thighs.

With his mouth, he suckled fiercely at one breast, his teeth pulling almost painfully at her nipple. He slid his hand between her legs, stroking the damp folds of her sex before plunging two fingers inside her. Anais gasped and arched beneath him as he thrust those clever fingers in and out, his thumb rubbing against the swollen nub of aching flesh. She strained against him, wanting more, and he inserted a third finger, stretching her as his mouth moved to her other breast. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she pushed against him fiercely and rolled so that now he lay beneath her and she straddled him.

“My turn to ride,” Anais breathed as she leaned down to claim another savage kiss. She took him in her hand and rose onto her knees, holding him steady whilst she sank onto his shaft. He gave a soft grunt of pleasure when she took his length into her. Capturing his hands in hers, she pushed them back over his head, holding him there while she moved over him, lifting herself then slowly sliding back down him. He drew a shuddering breath and lifted his hips, trying to force the pace, but she wouldn’t let him. Closing her eyes, she savoured the feel of that hot slick flesh as she inched up and down it. Rui moaned, and she opened her eyes. Sweat beaded along his forehead, trailing down his jaw which was clenched tightly.