Once Upon a Twist (2 page)

He looked a little stunned. “What happens when you breech the barrier?”

“I get a shock that incapacitates me.”

His eyes widened. “Why would she do that?”

Ella shrugged. “Because she hates me. She’s always hated me.”

“That doesn’t make sense – if she hates you so much, why not cast you away?”

“Because I know too many secrets to be set free. Believe me, if I told half the things I know she would have her own spot at the hanging tree. She murdered my father – I can’t prove it but I know it was Christell who put the poisonous spider in his bed. If she could, she would kill me too but my fairy godmother put her own enchantment on me that stops Christell or my stepsisters from killing me. It doesn’t stop them beating me when the mood takes them, but it is impossible for them to decapitate me or remove a limb or stop my heart from beating.”

“Why doesn’t your fairy godmother break the enchantment?”

“Ha!” Ella rolled her eyes and heaved herself up. “I haven’t seen her since my father’s funeral. She’s elderly and very scatty.”

James’s easy-going smile had vanished. His brow had furrowed and he stared at her for long moments before speaking. “Christell’s taking an awful risk letting you into the forest every day.”

“Like most of the humans in this land, she avoids the forest.” She dragged a finger along his stubbly cheek, tracing the long scar that ran along it, a permanent reminder of the war he had been fighting in for King and Country. “But you are braver than most humans.”

Darkness clouded his eyes. “I wish you had told me before… Ella, we need to find a way to break the enchantment.”

“Until my fairy godmother shows up, there is no way. Christell’s magic is too powerful and personal for an unconnected sorcerer to break it.”

“It’s not safe for you here,” he bit out. “I wanted to marry you and take you as far away as I could. It’s not safe here for anyone.”

“Why, what’s the matter? How can we not be safe? The bears are harmless – honestly, that girl, Goldilocks, she was completely in the wrong. I know they scared her but how would you react if someone broke into your home and ate all your breakfast…?”

“It’s not the bears or the forest I’m worried about.” His deep voice had become sombre. “This was something I had planned on discussing with you at the right moment, but now I know you are physically trapped I realize I need to tell you now.”

“Tell me what?”

“Ella, that war I’ve been fighting in… do you know what we were fighting?”

She shook her head. “We were only told that Prince Charming and a hundred of his bravest Knights were joining the fight in a land far away.” Feeling a wave of affection burst through her, she ran a hand through his thick, cropped hair, so proud that James had been selected to join the noble cause.

“Did they tell you
what
we were fighting?”

“No. But then I don’t get told anything, not anymore. Everything I know is from eavesdropping on my stepfamily’s private conversations.”

“Would they be well-informed?”

“Nothing gets past Christell,” she said. “She’s a great one for wringing out people’s secrets. And Izzy, the youngest of my stepsisters, is very popular, especially with the boys.” She flashed him a wicked smile. “Before I was enslaved I remember hearing a rumour she’d had a key made for her chastity belt.”

For the briefest of moments his eyes sparkled before dimming again. “However much I would love to get into a discussion about chastity belts, now is not the time. The people we were fighting were not human in the strictest sense of the word.”

“What were they? Gnomes? Goblins? I remember hearing once that goblins were ferocious warriors.”

“We were fighting people,” he clarified, his eyes holding hers. “But they were not alive.”

Chapter Two

James waited for his words to sink in. He hadn’t wanted to frighten Ella, had hoped to remove her from danger without having to tell her any more than she could handle. He had hoped she would consent to marry him so he could address more pressing matters. All of those intentions had been blown out of the window. The thought of her being trapped when the undead came… the consequences did not bear thinking about.

Her forget-me-not blue eyes widened. He didn’t think he had ever met such a beautiful woman. Even with the grey rags she wore that covered her malnourished frame, her unwashed hair and her pasty complexion, she was breath-taking.

He inhaled a deep breath through flared nostrils and held it, willing away the entirely inappropriate ache in his groin. How was he supposed think straight when his body responded to the merest of her touches?

He would do whatever it took to protect her, this sweet yet delightfully sassy woman who had entered his life and stolen his heart. And if that meant taking hourly ice-baths until she was safe and had his ring on her finger, then so be it.

Fool
, said the snidey voice in his head.
She doesn’t even know who you are
.

Not yet she didn’t. But soon she would.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “Not alive? How could you fight them if they’re not alive?”

“Ella, please, try not to be frightened. We have had reports in recent days that they are gaining in numbers and closing in on our land. The King is insisting the Ball go ahead before announcing it to the people.”

“Forget the Ball – I want you to tell me about the people who are killing people but are not actually alive themselves.” Moving her hand away from the nape of his neck, Ella straightened her spine and stared pointedly at him.

“We have time,” he said soothingly, reaching for the same small hand she had just moved away from his skin, and enfolding it into the protection of his own, much larger hands. “Our intelligence tells us they will not reach our land for another twelve days.”

“Right now I couldn’t care less what your intelligence is telling you – tell me about these undead people.” The softness of her eyes hardened as she glared at him. “Well? Are you going to tell me or am I supposed to wait inside my stupid enchanted barrier, completely defenseless while they come for me?”

James had imagined telling Ella the barest of facts, had imagined that, like his mother and all the other women in the land, her delicate constitution would not be able to handle the truth. Yet now, looking into those glaring eyes, he had the feeling she would kneecap him if she thought he was holding back.

Even so, he tried to soften it for her. When all was said and done, Ella was but a maiden, a member of the fairer sex. It was a well-known fact that women were ill-equipped to deal with matters of importance, had nervous dispositions and were liable to swoon at the sight of blood. It was a man’s duty to protect his womenfolk from the horror that life could throw.

“We do not know how these creatures came about but we have known for a number of years that they are growing in numbers.” He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “We know that if they bite a human whilst the human is alive, then that human becomes one of them. Even if the bitten human dies, he or she will rise to become one of them. They become the living dead with no purpose other than to feed and kill.”

His heart raced as he waited for Ella’s reaction, bracing himself to catch her when she collapsed in a dead faint.

“What do they feed on?”

“Uncooked meat.” He didn’t add that human brains were a particular favourite.

“Human meat?”

He nodded, carefully searching her face for signs of blood loss. “But they will eat any form of animal, not necessarily humans.”

“And do the other creatures they feed on become undead too?”

“No. Only humans.”

For long moments Ella was silent. “So these undead creatures are coming to our land? How do we fight them?”

“With everything we have at our disposal. After the Ball, all women and children will be evacuated to a place of safety. We will travel in daylight which is when the creatures sleep. I had planned on you being part of the evacuation party.”

“That sounds clever,” she said, a faint whiff of sarcasm lacing her voice. “Are you going to give us anything to defend ourselves with while all our menfolk are being slaughtered? And what if the undead find us?”

James patted her knee. “We will ensure your safety.”

“You can’t actually ensure
my
safety though, can you? Christell’s barrier is only designed to trap me in its confines. It doesn’t prevent you or anyone else including, presumably, the undead from breaching it.”

His stomach cramped at the implications. Ella had been in his life for such a short time, yet imagining being without her…

Capturing her chin, he forced her to look at him. “I will do everything in my power to get the enchantment broken.”

She snorted. “Unless my fairy godmother makes an appearance, the only way to break the enchantment is to get Christell to rewind the spell. Believe me, that is not going to happen.”

“I can be very persuasive,” he said, speaking through gritted teeth to mask the fury burning through his blood. How anyone could treat another human in such a manner, especially one as sweet as Ella, was beyond him. He’d thought such treatment towards stepchildren belonged in the realms of books.

Still, the last thing he wanted was to scare Ella with his rage. Thinking of ways in which he would ‘persuade’ the woman who called herself a stepmother to break the enchantment quelled his anger a touch.

“And she can be very cunning. Christell’s is a very powerful magic.”

Rubbing his nose against hers, inhaling the sweetness of her breath, he said, “Ella, I swear on everything I hold dear, I will keep you safe.” And he would. There were enough Knights and ordinary soldiers left to protect the palace. Merlin had been summoned and was en route to the Kingdom, already working on enchantments to prevent the undead from breaching the palace walls. Merlin was the most powerful sorcerer in the Kingdom. He stood the best chance of breaking the spell. “Please, try not to be frightened, I am certain that...”

She broke away from his hold and folded her arms across her small chest. “Do I look frightened?”

Actually, now she mentioned it… she looked, if anything, angry.

“I can’t believe the King is still planning to go ahead with this stupid Ball,” she fumed. “And the Prince? James, you’ve been fighting with him and in his name – why the hell is he wasting time trying to find a wife? He should be doing everything in his power to ensure his subjects are as well prepared as possible for when the undead arrive.”

Internally, he winced. “The few of us who survived the war knew further fighting would be suicide. We returned to regroup and increase our numbers. We never dreamt the undead would follow us.”

“But why a Ball? And why now? What kind of ego-trip is that Prince on?” 

“The Queen is very ill,” he said, interjecting quickly before she could draw breath. This was not the way he had planned to tell her. “She wants to see her son marry before she dies. This Ball is the only thing that is keeping her alive.”

Tell her.

“Are
you
going to be attending the ball?” She made it sound like an accusation.

“I have to.”
Tell her
. “Ella, there is something I…”

Before he could get the words out, three owls hooted simultaneously. Ella jumped to her feet. “It is time for me to return to my prison.”

“Before you go, I need to tell you something. It is very important.”

But again, he was unable to say the words as dozens and dozens of forest animals of all shapes and sizes converged on their small clearing, each carrying twigs and branches with them.

He watched in fascination as a racoon expertly opened Ella’s sack. In less than a minute the animals had filled it.

“Thank you, my darlings,” Ella said, crouching down to their level. “I need you all to do something for me – I need you to tell your families, your friends and your enemies that dangerous people are coming to our beautiful land. They are human only in the loosest of terms and they kill indiscriminately. Be prepared to flee.”

Immediately the creatures began talking amongst themselves and firing questions at Ella, all in a strange animal language James did not understand.

She held up a hand. “I have to go home now, but James here will tell you everything he has just told me.” Glaring at him pointedly, she added, “Won’t you, James?”

Nonplussed at being given a direct order by
anyone
, let alone a member of the fairer sex, he nodded. “Of course.”

“Good.” She visibly relaxed. Leaning into him, she stood on tiptoe so her mouth was against his ear. “It’s a real shame.”

Inhaling her scent, which for a woman who was rarely able to bathe was surprisingly light, he resisted the urge to bury his hands in her hair and press his lips to her. “What is?”

“That you’re going to the Ball. I will be all alone in my big house. It seems a shame to waste it – after all, if the undead are going to kill me, I’d hate to die a spinster
and
a virgin.”

Before he could react to her provocative statement, she swung the sack over her shoulder and sashayed off back down the pathway. As he observed the sway of her hips and the pertness of her bottom, the tightness in his groin that had only just abated sprang back to life. Resisting Ella’s attempts to make love was turning his willpower into something extraordinary. But he would not make love to her without a ring on her finger. She was too special for anything else.

Closing his eyes, he willed the ache away. Already he was in over his head with her. It was imperative he remained in control of all his faculties, including his lust levels, if he was going to get the enchantment broken and take her away to safety.

He was on the verge of losing sight of her when he remembered something else he needed to tell her, something that couldn’t wait for another day.

“Ella,” he called, his voice somehow carrying through the thick trees. “I’m going to be tied up for the next couple of days so I won’t be able to meet you until the day after the Ball.” There was no way he could tell her the truth now. It would have to wait.