‘Except that you are filled with sadness.’ He grabbed her arms and she struggled against him, but he held her firmly as he pulled her close. She wasn’t really fighting him, he knew that. She was fighting herself. She had magic. If she wanted to stop him, she could no doubt kill him where he stood. He’d be helpless against her. That excited him further. Danger had always been his Achilles’ heel. He leaned forward to kiss her again.

‘You revolt me,’ she said.

‘You prefer your fat, old king?’ he whispered. He kissed her again, tenderly this time, and the tension eased in her arms. Her hard shell was cracking. Her hot mouth tasted of fresh orchard apples. This was not love, he knew, not even a hint of it in the meeting of their lips, but it was a release they both needed. His body ached. He was tired. And he wasn’t out of the woods yet. This woman, this strange queen would strike him dead if she wanted to.

He broke away to breathe, blood pumping loud in his ears. She was not trustworthy, but she was beautiful and sensuous and aloof. She was different to him in many ways, that was true, but they were both predators. He watched her for a moment, her head tilted slightly backwards, her pale breasts rising and falling fast within the constraints of her dress. Her eyes were shut, and he was surprised to see a tear squeeze out and run like a winter stream down her pale face. He wiped it away with his rough fingers.

‘Just make her go away,’ the queen whispered, as his hands reached for her corset laces and freed her hot skin. ‘Just make her go away. I have no choice anymore.’ With her eyes firmly shut, she kissed him back and pulled him to the ground. For a while, the stag and his past adventures, and the killing to come, were entirely forgotten.

It didn’t take him long to track Snow White. People were creatures of habit and her horse’s hooves had scored their mark in the paths leading into the thickest part of the forest at the base of the mountain. Even without them to guide him he’d have searched that way. The dwarves were her friends and the dwarves lived at the base of the mountain within whose guts they toiled for such long hours. She came this way each morning and left each night to head back to the castle. Animal tracks never lied.