Read Online Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) by Dawn Steele - Free Book Online Page B

stale bread, it was if a banquet table groaning with wild boar and lamb shanks had dropped at her feet.
    Several men were seated around the fire, warming their hands. A huge deer hung on a spit which was being turned by a man. As the carcass rotated, fat fell from its flesh into the yellow spitting flames.
    The men’s features were coarse and weathered, a lifetime of living under the sun. Beards flecked with grey covered their faces. One wore his hair in a blond braid woven with many small bones. Another had only half a nose – a cauliflower-like growth blossomed from the other half. A metal hat with two bull horns perched on the head of yet another. The men all wore leather tunics and knives that gleamed from their sides. Bone Braid polished a sword with great care. Many glittering trinkets were strewn across the forest floor – gold coins, rubies, necklaces that flashed like stars. Several handsome horses were tethered to stakes. One of them neighed softly in her direction.
    Snow White shrank back.
    “I think they’re robbers,” she whispered to Aein. Trembling, she reached for her hunting knife. “I think they might be the men who nailed the corpse to the tree.”
    “Do you know how to use that?” Aein said.
    “Only for slicing apples. Do you know how to use it?”
    Aein shook his head.
    Then we’re doomed. Tugging softly at Aein’s arm, Snow White began to edge away from the clearing, her shoes treading upon the soft soil in as noiseless a manner as she had been taught to creep up and observe new insects.
    “But I wish to meet with them,” he hissed.
    “They will kill you!”
    She felt a presence behind her – a sour, unwashed smell – and before she could turn, someone seized her around the chest and lifted her. Struggling with her arms pinned against her sides, she held on to the hunting knife and kicked backwards with all her might.
    “Aein, run!” she shrieked. But Bone Braid and Cauliflower Nose appeared behind him. Bone Braid hooked a meaty arm around Aein’s neck and held a knife to his chin.
    “Well, well,” he said, “what do we have here?”
    “Two tender succulent children, it would seem,” said the man with the metal hat. As Bone Braid held Aein in a vice grip, Metal Hat lifted Aein’s chin to inspect his face. He licked his lips. “I wager he’d be tasty in the cook pot, though I would have preferred a little more meat on him.”
    “No!” Snow White screamed as the man behind her twisted her arm and made her drop the knife.
    “This one’s a feisty one,” said her abductor, who had a milky right eye. It leaked a trickle of yellow, foul-smelling fluid down the side of his nose.
    “Not much meat on her.” Metal Hat sniffed.
    “Mother Baron would find use for them, no doubt,” Milky Eye said.
    “Mother Baron and her stupid uses.” Bone Braid spat. “We’ll find better uses for them.”
    They dragged Snow White and Aein to the fire, and forced them down on their knees while secured their wrists behind them with rope. The bonds were very tight. Numbness spread from the tips of Snow White’s fingers. When she tried to flex her thumb, she could hardly feel anything.
    Bone Braid prodded Aein’s shoulder with his scuffed shoe. “I’m willing to wager he was having his way with the girl when we surprised them.”
    “And I am willing to wager that you murdered that poor native back there and nailed his feet to the tree.” Aein lifted his head in defiance.
    Keep your head down and be quiet, Snow White wanted to tell him.
    “Ah.” Bone Braid laid the tip of his knife against Aein’s cheek, just below his eye. “Insolent as well. What would you say if I take out your eye, boy? Would it then drip of milk like Culuth’s here?”
    For one terrible moment, Snow White saw the knife inch upwards. It dug into Aein’s eye, taking out the orb the way one would dig out a snail from its shell. She gasped and blinked. The knife was at Aein’s cheek once again and his eye was whole.