Once Upon a Forbidden Desire, page 62
He was bigger than she remembered. The light spilling from the nearby houses showed broad shoulders, muscles straining against the fabric of his coat. He had a man’s face now, lean and angular beneath a scruffy beard and too-long dark hair. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she was certain his eyes would be the same compelling shade they’d always been, deep sky blue flecked with gold around the iris.
There’d been a time when she could have drawn his face from memory … but not anymore. She lifted her crossbow in a practiced swing and aimed it right at his heart. If Hans even had one.
His eyes met hers, and he let out a huff of breath, half exasperation, half relief. And damn her for knowing him well enough to hear it, even all this time later. “Greta.”
She flinched. “Don’t call me that.”
His eyes narrowed. “It’s your name.”
Only Hans had ever called her Greta. Her mama had christened her Margaret before she died, and Margaret she’d stayed—until Hans and his mother arrived in their village. When he had called her Greta, it had felt like something private, like an acknowledgment of all that lay between them. When he’d left, she’d gone back to Margaret … except for inside her own head. There, she would always be Greta.
She waved the crossbow pointedly. “Don’t. Call. Me. That.”
He rolled his eyes. “Surely I should be able to call my little sis—”
The loud click as she pulled the string into lock, loading the crossbow, cut him off. To his credit, he didn’t flinch.
“What should I call you, then?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing at all. You should turn around and walk away.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been searching for you.”
She couldn’t help her sneer or the disbelief that dripped through her voice. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Why the hell …?” Hans dragged a hand down his face, completely disregarding the crossbow bolt pointed at his chest. “Because I care about you. Because I want you to be safe …. Why do you think?”
A laugh bubbled out of her, but it was not remotely amused. “The last thing you said to me was that you didn’t care about me. That you wanted to be as far away from me as possible.”
He had looked her in the eye and said the words she would never, ever forget. Greta, I can’t stay here. Not with you. And then, in his desperation to get away from her, he’d taken far less than his share of the witch’s treasure—the handful of coins they’d grabbed as they scrabbled to flee the dark cottage—and walked away.
Hans tucked his thumbs into his pockets and scowled. “I never said that. I said you’d be better off with someone who loves you—”
Greta snorted loudly. She didn’t bother to point out the obvious implication that he didn’t love her. “And you thought leaving me with the man who abandoned us in the middle of the woods—who left us there to die—was the best solution?”
Hans swallowed loudly enough that she could hear it from where she was standing. “The woods … that was my mother’s idea, you know that. Your father never wanted to go along with it.”
Greta sneered. “Oh, so now he’s my father.” God, she hated how they were siblings when it suited him.
“That’s not what I—”
Greta waved her hand. “I don’t care. The man abandoned us in the woods. Just because your mother died while we were locked up by the witch doesn’t make that okay. If you thought I was going to hang around waiting to be betrayed again, you were entirely wrong.”
Hans took a step closer to her, and she had to force herself not to take a step back. Instead, she lifted her chin and glared at him. She was never going to show him how much he affected her. Never again.
His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “How long … how long did you stay with him?”
“Three weeks.”
“Only three weeks! Fuck.”
There was nothing only about those weeks. The first week had been bad. She’d spent hours sobbing by herself. She’d jumped at shadows and startled at the slightest noises. She’d spent the nights hardly able to sleep as she shivered, terrified of the dark. She had listened for Hans constantly, half expecting to see him chopping wood or sharpening a blade.
The second week had been worse. By then she knew Hans hadn’t lied about leaving. He wasn’t going to realize he’d made a mistake and he wasn’t going to change his mind. He had told the truth when he said he wasn’t coming back.
She’d spent the second week forcing herself back into the woods. She’d stolen a crossbow from the man who’d been her father, and, with her heart thudding and her palms almost too damp to hold the weapon, she’d made herself put one foot forward, and then the next. It had been a hideous, terrifying torture. But by the end of the week, she’d managed ten minutes down the forest path. She’d wiped the streaming sweat from her eyes and told herself that if she could do that, she could do anything.
She’d spent the third week learning how to handle the crossbow. She’d practiced how to hold it, lift it, and carry it, shooting bolt after bolt until it started to feel natural. And in the evenings, she’d sat at the tiny table—somehow, impossibly, too big with Hans gone—and listened to her father make plans for how they should spend her gold. How he was going to buy a bigger cottage and better boots and give up being a woodcutter. How he’d always wanted to be a carver, not a cutter. How he would choose a new wife. Someone younger and prettier and much sturdier—he didn’t want to be a widower a third time. How he would allow Greta to spend some of the coin on a new dress … and then she could look for a husband.
There was only one man Greta had ever imagined loving, but he’d left her. And there was no man on the earth she planned on obeying. If her father’s original betrayal wasn’t enough, this second betrayal—hard on the heels of Hans’s abandonment—had been one step too far. She had taken those steps into the woods alone, and she didn’t need anyone.
On the first day of the fourth week, she’d packed up what little she owned, shoved the witch’s coins into the pocket of her threadbare coat, and walked away. Just like she was going to do right now.
She was going to leave Hans without looking back, like she’d imagined so many times, and it would finally give her closure. She wouldn’t be the heartbroken, traumatized girl he’d left behind years ago. She’d recreated herself into someone new.
“Goodbye, Hans,” she said softly into the heavy silence between them. And then she skirted past him, giving him plenty of distance.
She was almost away when she heard Hans whisper, “I’m sorry, Gre—” He cleared his throat. “Margaret. I’m so sorry.”
She faltered, her back to him, determined to walk away but unable to stop listening.
“I’m sorry I left and didn’t come back,” Hans continued. “Please don’t go. Please.”
Greta sighed. “Why are you here, Hans?” she asked, still facing away.
“I went back to your father’s cottage. You weren’t there. I didn’t … I didn’t know. I thought you would be … safe. Happy. Like before we came into your life.”
Greta pinched the bridge of her nose, working to keep her breathing even and to control her rising fury. “I told you, that wasn’t your fault. You were never to blame for what she did.” She had told him again and again as he packed his one small bag, but it hadn’t made any difference.
How a mother could betray her son like that was utterly beyond Greta. Even Hans’s mother, who’d always seemed particularly self-centered. But then, her father had tried to get rid of them too.
“Maybe.” His voice was so low that she had to strain to hear him. “But it wasn’t only her. I should have done better. If I hadn’t …. God. Why crumbs?” Hans sighed. “What kind of idiot was I?”
Greta whirled back to face him, clenching her fists to keep from sticking her hand in her pocket. To stop herself from rubbing her thumb over the smooth white pebble she always carried. “We couldn’t get out of the house to collect anything else, Hans. She knew we’d followed the pebbles home the first time, and she made sure we couldn’t get any more. It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”
He shook his head. “We should have left the first time, not given them another chance. We should have stayed away from that strange little cottage. It should have been obvious.” His voice was almost a growl. “I was older. I should have turned us away. I should have kept you safe. But I didn’t.”
She took a step closer, the fury singing through her blood more loudly now. “Is this because I saved you in the end? Was that the problem all along?”
“No!” His outraged gasp only partially soothed her.
“What was it, then?”
He shoved his hands into his hair and tugged the strands into a disheveled mess. “It wasn’t anything to do with you.”
“Bullshit!”
He stepped closer. Close enough that she could see the bleak misery in his face. “I didn’t protect you, Greta. Not from my mother—whose blood still runs in my veins. Not from the woods, or the witch. But I could fucking protect you from myself.”
She flinched. “What does that mean? That you could protect me from yourself?”
His jaw clenched so tightly that she could see the bunching muscles in the dim spill of light. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing! I want to know—”
He waved her question away with a swipe of his hand, his eyes narrowed obstinately. “It doesn’t mean anything.” He folded his arms over his chest. “And it’s got nothing to do with why I’m here.” He paused for a moment, then simply stated, “The witch is back.”
The witch. God. He couldn’t possibly mean what he was saying. Could he?
“There is a presence,” Hans said slowly. “A darkness and a smell of decay hanging over the woods. It’s deeper, more potent, than before. The villagers avoid the forest entirely. They bring their wood in from farther and farther away.” His eyes never left hers as he continued, “Several girls have gone missing. All of them had fiery red hair.”
Greta shook her head, ignoring the cold prickling at the back of her neck. She was a monster hunter. She would have heard something.
“The rumor hasn’t reached this far east yet, but it will,” he murmured, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“But … I killed her.”
“You did,” Hans agreed roughly. He took a step forward and raised his hand, almost as if he was going to reach for her, but he crossed his arms instead. “I’m sorry.”
This time Greta didn’t stop herself. She reached into her pocket and found the pebble, sliding her thumb over its reassuring smoothness. She’d once heard of an ancient ritual—a defense against the undead—where revenants were buried with stones in their mouths. Solid, stable pieces of the earth that held the bodies safely bound. It had resonated with her then, and even more now as she let the pebble’s reassuring weight anchor her.
“Okay.” She filled her lungs with murky night air. “Okay. So we have to go back and—”
“No.”
She glared at him. “I beg your pardon?”
Hans’s scowl deepened. “There is no we. I’m here to warn you so you can stay the hell away from there.”
God. There is no we. How was it possible for that to still hurt so very much?
She shook it off. She wasn’t a heartbroken teenager anymore. She was an adult, and she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. “Fine.” She smiled viciously. “I’ll go on my own.”
“Absolutely not.” Hans took another step closer, until he was almost close enough to touch. Close enough to see the dark smudges under his eyes and the tension in his coiled muscles. “You will stay safe, as far away as possible. You should move farther east, perhaps travel over the mountains …”
Hell. He wanted her to go even farther away. “I can’t just run away and leave the witch to prey on—”
Hans growled. Actually growled. “Fuck it, Gre—shit. Margaret, you must know I wouldn’t do that.” A flicker of vulnerability crossed his face. “I wouldn’t.”
She folded her arms over her chest, mirroring him. For so many years, she’d wanted to hurt him as he’d hurt her—and now she could.
She could point out that he had left her alone with her nightmares and her terror. That he hadn’t saved her. That she had no reason to believe he would save anyone at all. Part of her wanted to grind the knife into the wound and make him bleed … and looking into his dark eyes for the first time in years, she knew she could.
But the truth was, he’d only ever tried to do the right thing. He genuinely had done everything he could, and he had saved them more than once.
Now that his face was so close to hers, she could see sadness etched into the fine lines down his forehead. It was there in the shadows in his eyes and in the way he watched her, waiting for her to damn him.
They stood, staring at each other, the cold night mists tugging at their heels, as her anger cooled. Now that she had the weapon in her hand—the chance to finally hurt him back—she realized he was wounded already … and she couldn’t do it.
Instead, the opposite was true. She wanted to make it better. Damn it all. She stepped back and dipped her chin. “Then we go together.”
HANS STARED UP at the yellowed ceiling of the roadside inn. A candle burned on the low table beside his bed, and the circle of light flickered and wove over the rough plaster. The blanket was thin, the sheets were scratchy, and a cold breeze wound its way through the ill-fitting window. But none of that was why he couldn’t sleep.
He hadn’t really slept for years. He was used to broken nights. Used to waking with his heart pounding and his hands shaking as he fought his way from his covers, half believing he was back in the cage. Locked in, surrounded by the sweet stench of rotting food while Greta slaved day after day. Watching her suffer while he could do nothing.
What he wasn’t used to was knowing that Greta—Margaret—was in the room next to his.
When he’d left all those years before, when he’d forced himself to take one last look at her precious, tearstained face and then walk away from her, he’d been utterly certain that he was doing the right thing.
He would never forget the first time he’d seen her. She’d been fifteen years old—although he only learned that later—carrying wood into the village to sell beside her father. Her load was heavy, and the day was gray and cold, but she had only grinned. She had been everything bright and clean and joyful. In all his sixteen years, he had never met someone so captivating.
Greta had laughed and teased and sung off-key, and all he’d wanted was to get closer to her. It had felt as if the months of traveling with his mother—the endless trudging down dusty roads, sleeping on the cold ground beneath thorn-filled hedges, the hunger, the thirst, and the exhaustion—had all been to lead him to her.
He’d helped her with her load, and she’d teased him about being the new boy. He’d asked about the village, and she’d promised to show him the best places to explore. He’d imagined running his fingers through the silky waves of her hair, and she’d looked up at him with big eyes and smiled. They were instant friends, and slowly, delicately, becoming more. But while he had been looking at Greta, his mother had been watching Greta’s father: fit and handsome, owner of a sturdy cottage … and widowed.
Their parents were married three months later. And Greta, during the course of one stiff sermon, went from being the flame he couldn’t resist to his younger sister.
She had become his sister.
It was a point his mother had made, stridently, at every opportunity. Help your sister, Hans. Be polite to your brother, Greta. She always introduced them as a family. To the butcher, the carpenter, the wheelwright, and the priest, she’d pointed to them with a cunning smile and murmured, “Aren’t they a lovely pair? Brother and sister, you know.”
Every day, in every way, he’d been reminded that he couldn’t touch Greta. He couldn’t hold her. He could never tug the ribbon from her braid and run his fingers through her hair. And he certainly couldn’t close his mouth over hers and feel her soft lips beneath his. There was only one thing left that he could do. He could watch over and protect her. That was what older brothers did for their sisters.
Then famine came. The wells dried, and the crops failed. The villagers went hungry or fled to the city, and day after day, their lives grew harsher and bleaker.
Hans stared up at the flickering light, wishing he could remember Greta and forget the rest. Wishing he could somehow have prevented the terrible night that changed everything. The night that he had lain in his narrow cot and listened to his mother’s whisper scratching through the tiny cottage. There wasn’t enough food, she’d said. Everyone would starve soon, she’d murmured. The children were too big, too hungry, growing too fast. If the children were gone, there would be so much more in the larder. The adults would survive. And there could be more children. New children. Their children.
Hans had fled from the house, his stomach churning over what he’d heard, his brain frantically casting for some way to keep them safe. But he had nothing; Greta had even less. No coin. No skills. No family. What would happen to them in a big town? He and his mother had spent a few nights in a crowded hostelry on their long journey, and he’d seen what happened to pretty girls with no protection. Greta would be far safer at home … but first, they had to survive.
He had spent the night prowling through the dark, collecting handfuls of gleaming white pebbles. The next day, when their parents led them deep into the forest, he’d dropped them behind him as they walked. Hours later, as they followed the pebbles back out, he’d been heady with relief. He’d protected her. They were home, and she was safe.
That was his first mistake—thinking they were safe. He’d assumed that having escaped the trap, all would be well. That Greta’s father’s love would finally prevail over his mother’s cruel plans.
