Bonded: Three Fairy Tales, One Bond Read online

  “Romantic and enchanting, Bonded is a beautiful, magical read. All three tales are full of love and sacrifice, while each story shows how one bond can save a person or destroy them. Ms. Argyle has a captivating voice and beautiful writing. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!”

  Chantele Sedgwick, author of Not Your Average Fairy Tale

  “Bonded is filled with engrossing, magical storytelling. The only consolation when one story ends is knowing there’s another one waiting.”

  Elana Johnson, author of Possession

  Rhemalda Publishing

  Rhemalda Publishing, Inc. (USA)

  P.O. Box 1790 Moses Lake, WA 98837 USA

  First American Hardback Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, dialogues, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright ©2012 by Michelle Davidson Argyle

  Edited by Diane Dalton

  Text design by Rhemalda Publishing

  Cover art by Melissa Williams of M. W. Cover Designs http://mwcoverdesign.blogspot.com/

  Author photo by Megan Hall http://meghallphotography.blogspot.com/

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ISBN Hardback: 978-1-936850-64-8

  ISBN Paperback: 978-1-936850-65-5

  ISBN eBook: 978-1-936850-75-4 (ePub)

  Michelle Davidson Argyle’s author website is www.michelledavidsonargyle.com

  Cinderella quote http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/21cinderella.html

  One-Eye, Two-Eyes, Three-Eyes quote http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/ grimms/130onetwothreeyes.html

  Sleeping Beauty quote http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/50briarrose.html

  QED stands for Quality, Excellence and Design. The QED seal of approval shown here verifies that this eBook has passed a rigorous quality assurance process and will render well in most eBook reading platforms.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is my readers who deserve the most praise for Bonded and helping it come into being. If it were not for you, Cinders would never have reached the corners it needed to reach when I self-published it back in 2010. The book saw much success, but none more than catching the eye of my publisher, who believed in it enough to offer it a second home. Without the initial success of Cinders, the other two novellas—Thirds and Scales—would never have been conceived. Passionate responses to an author’s work never goes unnoticed, and I owe a huge debt to those who read Cinders and have supported it since day one. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Other works by Michelle Davidson Argyle

  Monarch

  The Breakaway

  Pieces

  Table of Contents

  Cinders

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Bonded

  THREE FAIRY TALES

  ONE BOND

  MICHELLE DAVIDSON ARGYLE

  Rhemalda Publishing

  “In the evening when she had worked till she was weary, she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the fireside in the ashes.”

  Cinderella as told by The Brothers Grimm

  To Darcy, with love

  You inspire in me the magic of a princess

  1

  Into the Dark

  The twelfth week after the marriage, Cinderella grew tired of the servants. She ordered them to leave her room and sank into the stiff oak chair in front of her dressing table. Her skin felt dry, papery-thin and parched. She needed a drink of wine or a walk through the woods, but the woods she longed for were at her old home with her stepmother and stepsisters.

  She picked up a shell hair clip and wondered what her husband saw in her, why he had given her the clip and dresses made of heavy, musty fabric that pulled on her shoulders and dragged along the stone floors. He had also given her a pewter box of crushed red powder to dust across her cheeks. She lifted the lid and touched the soft substance inside. It looked like dried blood; a rusty color he said made the rest of her skin appear porcelain against it.

  She closed her eyes and remembered the first night in the castle. The prince closed the green velvet bed drapes. The air was sucked of light. She couldn’t see his mouth when he whispered that he loved her, but she heard the smile in his voice. He had gathered her into his arms like a soft-feathered dove. She had felt fragile like that, and frightened.

  Her heart beat fast now as she rubbed the powder between her fingers. Her skin had grown sensitive. She didn’t have to button and lace dresses, mend rips and tears, scrub the floors, or slave over hot meals in the steamy kitchen while her stepmother’s cat weaved pretzels around her ankles. She could still smell the river down the lilac path behind the house. Her mother had smelled of lilacs, and the river was bubbly and mossy and smelled like spring. The castle was different, the air always thick with the scent of hot wax and cinders. No matter how many candles burned, the corners stayed dark.

  She lifted a goat-hair brush and dipped it into the red powder. She would look like porcelain for her prince tonight. He liked her made up like that.

  The prince hosted many balls—one a week for the first month after the wedding. There was always dancing and food and beautiful gowns. Cinderella liked it until she discovered how much work it was. First she had to bathe. That took a lot of effort with a lot of servants, and it was always cold no matter how warm they heated the water. It was the middle of winter, and they liked to comb her hair dry by the fire, counting as they went. One, two, three, four, five, six... one hundred and two... until she wanted to scream stop! Instead, she spoke softly and smiled at them as kindly as she could. She knew what it was like to be in their position.

  They pinned up her hair in elaborate fashions, gently tucked in the prince’s shells, dusted her face and chest, applied the rouge, tied up her corsets, fluffed her skirts, rubbed rose oil on her temples and ankles, and asked if she wanted to wear her fur shoes.

  “No, no, they don’t fit properly. I might lose one,” she would answer, her voice echoing off the stone walls. She wondered what would happen if she lost one of the shoes. They were the only thing left of the old woman who had given them to her. Everything else had vanished.

  “But they must be warm,” Cinderella’s lady’s maid, Amie, remarked.

  “Yes, but the ballroom is stuffy.”

  It was, terribly so. Most of the time, she found herself drifting to an open window to breathe the fresh, cold air. Sometimes it would snow, the flakes falling in slow succession, gathering in layers across the frozen moat. She imagined the fish moving along the bottom, their bellies as cold as the ice, their eyes seeing nothing in the dar
kness. Sometimes she felt the same way, especially when she danced with the prince and everyone watched. She would close her eyes and see nothing, only the smell of candles reminding her that this was real, that he held her close because he loved her, that his lips on her cheek were warm and kind.

  Sometimes she forgot about the other man, the stranger she had met long ago, long before she was given fur shoes and knew there were such things as magic and spells.

  It was fifteen weeks before she could call the prince by his first name— Rowland. She called him my sweet or my love or, with a joyous laugh, my prince. Overall, she avoided calling him anything. Even in bed when he slid his knuckles between her ribs to make her laugh, she couldn’t call him Rowland. It sounded so intimate and round on her lips, like the first time she had tried a strawberry in the kitchen, the servants whispering that it would kill her if she ate it raw. Nothing that sweet and cool could kill her, and it hadn’t. She had especially liked the smell of the fruit on her fingers afterward—a heady, red smell like when Rowland made love to her and played with her hair.

  “I have a name,” he said one night as she shivered on the bed under the blankets. It was the coldest night in a long time, and she had never been good at keeping warm. Rowland’s body heated the dark air between them, the mattress beneath. No bugs or mice. She had grown used to their absence.

  “I know you have a name,” she said, still shivering all the way down to her toes. Rowland moved closer and she tensed her calves.

  “Then say it. You are royalty now. You have every right to say it.”

  She said, “Rowland,” and it slid off her tongue with ease. He sighed and made a soft hum in his throat. His hand touched her thigh.

  “Say it again.”

  “Rowland.”

  “That’s right.” His hand went higher, pushing up her chemise.

  This was how it went every night. He always warmed her up first, eased her into his arms. He was never rough. He kissed her deeply. He whispered her name.

  Of course, he didn’t whisper “Cinderella.” He called her Christina, her birth name, the name everyone called her except two people—her mother and the stranger she had tried hard to forget.

  Her mother was the first to whisper Cinderella into her ear. It meant love and light and warmth, everything a burning candle gave. In her mind, the name Cinderella looked like vines winding up a tree, circular and infinite. The name Christina was rough and tsk’d off her tongue, but when Rowland said it he made it sound like the vines. She felt like a vine wrapping her arms and legs around him. She was getting used to his nightly ritual of loving her.

  She had a lot of dreams. Some of them made her sit up in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat. Some of them made her laugh. Some of them, especially the one with the stranger, made her remember how intense real love felt. One morning while she was having this dream, Rowland woke her up with a kiss and she shoved him away so hard he almost fell off the bed.

  “You’ve never done that before,” he said with a chuckle. A worried expression crossed his face. “Did I hurt you?”

  She put a hand to her forehead. She was still warm from the dream, surrounded by white, sparkling light and a voice that made her melt into joy. It wasn’t a dream, she reminded herself. It was a memory of something that had happened two years before she met Rowland. At that moment, as Rowland inched closer to her, she closed her arms around herself and wanted to cry. She needed the voice in her memory. She needed the stranger with her again, whispering Cinderella, his hands on her shoulders, his face more exquisite than any angel or god she had seen in paintings. She hadn’t seen him for two years, and although she was sure he was a magical being, his love had been true and deep—nothing like Rowland’s spell-woven affections which felt real but were like a delicate flower that would never bloom. That fact alone kept her from giving her heart completely to him.

  He asked again, “Did I hurt you?”

  She reminded herself where she was, the amount of luck it had taken to land her here, and forced a smile. “No, not at all. You startled me.”

  “I’m sorry.” He gathered her into his arms and they lay back down on the pillows. She looked at his profile. He had a long, straight nose. It was the first thing she had noticed about him. It made his entire face angular and geometric. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but there was something about his hair, cut short, curly on the ends, that made her want to touch him the first time she saw him—and every time after. The curls smoothed out everything else, just like his careful movements, the way he said her name.

  “I want to stay here in bed with you forever,” he said. “I want to forget what’s going on outside.”

  “Outside?” She glanced out the window, but it was covered in thick, warped glass, and all she could make out was the hint of the rising sun in a pale sky.

  “Haven’t you been listening at meals?” He sat up and his eyes went wide with disbelief. “The uprisings.”

  “Uprisings?” In the beginning, she had listened at meals to the king and queen as they chatted lazily about random goings-on, mostly gossip the queen liked to bat around. Lately, Cinderella had been lost in a sort of stupor as she ate. She kept wondering what her stepmother and stepsisters were feeling. She hadn’t seen them since the wedding, and in a strange way, the thought of them made her push the food around her plate and shift her feet under the table. Her dress was always heavier in those moments. The weight made her sweat.

  Rowland’s voice came back to her, saying something about the new laws causing unrest, something about fires and animals let loose and the prison filling up.

  “Are your parents doing anything about it?” she asked, completely lost as to what she was supposed to say or how to react to such news. She wanted to understand.

  “Of course they are. They’re imprisoning all the offenders and refusing to listen to the people.”

  She sat up. Her stepmother had constantly complained about the king and queen’s way of handling things, of the unfair taxes and restrictions they imposed on everyone. She had thought coming to the castle might help her understand things, but so far she was in the dark. She lowered her voice and said, “But they always do that.”

  He turned and slid out of bed to pull on his breeches. “Do you even like my parents?”

  “Do you?”

  “Most days I do.” He leaned across the mattress to kiss her on the lips. She touched his bare chest to feel his strong heartbeat. She liked how real it felt.

  “I’m sorry, my love, but I’ll be sleeping in my own room tonight,” he said. “I’m leading the hunting party tomorrow morning, very early, and I don’t want to wake you when I leave. I’ll still be in my room all night if you need me.”

  She nodded as he exited through a doorway leading to his own room. Jerome, his attendant, bid him a good morning before the door closed.

  She had never been in Rowland’s room. She had caught a peek of it before, the dark red bed curtains, a black dresser, and a tall mirror. She slid off her bed and looked at herself in her own mirror. She was naked, but the room was surprisingly warm for morning, so she didn’t reach for her chemise.

  In the weak dawn light she saw that her face had filled out, her hair thick instead of limp. She had gained weight in the last few weeks. Her thighs were plump, a nice, fleshy roundness she liked. At first she had worried about a child, but the extra weight was only due to consistent meals. The very thought made her breathe a sigh of relief. The castle was enough to worry about.

  Amie came to help her prepare for the day. Cinderella liked her strong accent and stories about winter sprites that landed on her windowsill in the mornings. Unlike most people, Amie believed in magic in all its forms. She stood behind Cinderella and picked up a brush from the vanity.

  “Braids today,” Cinderella said, and smiled at Amie’s reflection in the mirror. “Did you see winter sprites this morning?”

  “I did not, Your Highness. It makes me very sad.” She finished b
rushing through Cinderella’s loose curls and separated a handful of the hair into three strands. She began to braid. Her pale fingers were faster than any other servant’s, flashing this way and that, gently tugging at Cinderella’s scalp. Her quickness was one of the reasons Cinderella had chosen her as her lady’s maid. She could get her ready and beautiful in only an hour, and she was genuinely pleasant.

  Cinderella said, “I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  Amie started on the second braid. She had thirty to go before she would pin them up into an elaborate, swirled design.

  “Ce n’est pas grave,” she said, and Cinderella understood that she did not mind the sprites not showing up. “Nobody believes in them, anyway. Except you, Your Highness.”

  “Yes, I believe in such things,” she said with a faint smile. She opened the pewter box Rowland had given her and pinched a bit of the powder between her fingers. She remembered his comment that he would not be with her tonight. This was the first moment she took to ponder the fact and realized she would miss him next to her. She had grown used to his weight on the bed, the soft grunts he made deep in his chest when he made love to her, and how he played with her hair as she pressed her back to him and fell asleep. Then she remembered how she had ended up here and how it had been nothing natural. In fact, the very laws of her understanding and knowledge twisted at the incredible events that had put her in Rowland’s path. She tried not to regret anything, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes she wondered if her choices had been good for anyone except herself.

  Amie’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Your Highness? Do you feel unwell? You are crying.”

  With a start, she looked into the mirror. Yes, she was crying. Two tears had fallen down her cheeks. She wrinkled her brow and took her fingers out of the powder box. It was strange that she should cry over missing Rowland. She could not possibly be in love with him. She had tried at first, but her heart seemed to hold her back.