Excerpt: The Second Sister

As careful as I tried to be when I stole my stepsister’s diary, I knew that Belle would discover what I had been doing eventually. I imagined it often – the angry, hurt expression she would have as she came towards me with her high shoulders – but I had no idea what she would say.

One night after the harvest started, the library doors crashed apart as I was reading Belladonna’s diary by the library fireplace. I started, looking up. She stood there, motionless, a storm of dark curls tossed about her shoulders. Her eyes were glassy, frosted marbles of blue, strangely empty. She looked on me helplessly, not seeing me, but the diary spread open on my lap. She took in a sharp breath, stepping back.

She held her muscles rigid, her white skin as drained of color as a snowy field. Her lips parted, but she could not speak. Carefully, I stood and walked towards her, clutching the diary to my chest. Before I could form words to explain, Belladonna pulled the diary from my hands.

“Belle...” My voice broke as I reached for the diary, but she was a head taller than I was, and she lifted it out of reach. I followed her as she went to the fireplace, reaching up as she held it over the darting tongues of flame. “Please, don’t burn it...” I begged.

Her face was white marble as she lowered the pages to the fire. “Give me one reason to keep something that could ruin me.”

“Because it’s too beautiful to destroy...” She pulled the diary back, surprised.

Whatever answer she had been expecting, it was not the one I had given her. Light caught her hair, pulling half of her face back into warm brown shadows. An idea struck me, and none of the warning voices in my head could dislodge it. Trembling, I lowered myself to my knees, lifting my chin to look into her eyes. I took her hand in mine, and she let me hold it. “Forgive me.” She said nothing. “Please, my love.”

“My love?” she asked me. Then, softly, to herself: “love...” She was remembering, I knew, just how many entries she had written about loving me, how many nights she had spent thinking of us together.

“If you’ll have me.”

My lips shook as I pressed them to the center of her palm, asking my bold question in the proper way. She looked down at me, shocked by what I had done. I knew that she could not truly marry me, but I would ask her just the same, the way our ancestors had done for centuries. I trusted this hand to protect me, guide me, comfort me, work alongside me, and... love me.

She trembled above me, letting me kiss each of her fingertips, each knuckle. I had only meant to kiss her palm, as I was supposed to, but now that I had tasted the skin of her hand, I could not stop. A burst of red heat covered my cheeks, and I knew that they were flushed. She looked at me, amazed, and gently pulled her hand away from my lips. At first, I was sure she was rejecting me, and I cursed myself for being so foolish. How could I have expected her to forgive me for reading her private thoughts? But then she took my hand in hers, and pulled me back to my feet.

In one graceful, fluid motion, Belladonna hooked an arm around my hip and drew me close, pressing her lips over mine. It was a burning kiss that rolled over my skin like warm water, dulling and heightening my senses at the same time. I cried out softly against her mouth, closing my eyes and losing myself in the smoothness of her lips.

Belle’s kiss was the perfect mix of soft and hard. There was a sense of power behind it that left me with no doubt that I belonged to her, but there was tenderness and consideration as well. She was claiming me, accepting me.

I broke away from her, panting lightly, my eyes unfocused. “You accept me?” I asked her, suddenly shy.

“Of course. I’ve loved and wanted you ever since I talked with you by your hazel tree… maybe since I first saw you at mother’s wedding.” Her bright smile made my head spin with joy. “Heavens, this is happening so fast... you were an untouchable dream for me until a few moments ago, and now...”

“It hasn’t happened fast,” I argued, “we’ve been waiting for months and months, only we were both too frightened to admit it. I’ve been stealing your diary and dreaming about you for ages!”

She leaned in towards my face and kissed me again. Gently, her tongue teased my lips apart, the unhurried firmness of her request sending a shiver through my body. I parted my lips for her, and she wasted no time caressing the inside of my mouth. She took the time to explore me thoroughly, cupping one hand at the small of my back and pulling me tight against her warm, lean body as she moved her mouth against mine.

Timidly, I captured the tip of her tongue between my lips and suckled, hoping to return to her some of the feelings that she was giving me. This soft, teasing acceptance seemed to drive her wild with desire, and she shoved me backwards against a chair.

“No, Belle...” I said, breaking our kiss and glancing over my shoulder at the closed double doors.

“Why not?” she asked hazily, trying to kiss me again. “Ellie, I’ll wait if you’re afraid of this, but now that I know how you feel...”

“It’s not that. Someone could come in...”

Belle jerked away from me like a hand from a warm stovetop, jumping back several feet and stumbling over herself. “Curse me for an idiot,” she said, fixing her wrinkled skirts where my hands had been gripping them. “We have to be more careful...”

“Enough talking,” I said, fixing my own dress and half-running towards the double doors. “Your room has a bolt?” The heat in Belladonna’s dark eyes pulsed to life again as she hurried after me. I showed her the fastest way, through the servant’s corridors, not worrying about the noise that our feet made.