The decaying apartment room held only a few simple possessions: an old, lumpy mattress, a single oil lamp, and an old black and white television set.
Slowly, the door creaked open and a woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties staggered in. Drunkenly, she made her way over to the mattress and sat on it. Moments later, a tall, yellow-haired man entered and slammed the door closed behind him.
"What the hell is the matter with you, Snow?" the man demanded. "Do you have a death wish?"
"Maybe," the woman mumbled, "maybe not." She raised her ice blue eyes and looked at him, a smirk on her ace, "One never knows."
The man's angry expression softened dramatically. I'm so sorry, Snow, he thought to himself, but what happened between us is beyond my control.
Why Snow was so self-destructive lately was no mystery to him. His father had forced him to marry a vampire queen, which, in turn, forced him to break off his marriage to Snow. She took the news harder then he thought.
"Gren?"
Snow's voice roused him from his thoughts.
"What?" he asked gruffly. Gren looked at his ex-mate. Her looks were just a happy bonus to her hidden personality. She was blind when they first met and he was about ready to close his eyes to the world for good. But, in two minutes, she brightened his black future.
She became his close friend and secret love. It wasn't until after she had regained her eyesight and sought to end her own life did his confess his feelings.
Now, here he stood, again, staring into the hard, ice blue eyes of this experienced warrior.
"What?" he asked again, softer this time.
Gren watched as Snow carefully stood up from the mattress, brushing a strand of her silver hair away from her eyes. With the grace of a panther, she walked over to him and took his right hand in her. She stared at hand for a long time before she pressed it to her belly and looked up into his eyes.
Gren slowly sank to his knees when her silent message became clear. "Holy shit..." he whispered as he raised his left hand and placed it on Snow's belly, next to his right hand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered softly, "but I knew I couldn't hide it from you for long."
Gren shakily climbed to his feet and removed his hands from her belly. "How far along?"
Snow shrugged. "A week, two at most," she answered softly. She looked down and placed her hands on her belly where Gren's had been. "I don't even know if I can cope with this."
"What are you saying?" Gren looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face.
"I'm saying that I don't know if I can go through with giving birth to this pup, let alone raising it."
"You can't abort it! That's our child!!" Gren yelled.
Snow sneered. "A living thing that is half of you!" she growled. She glared up at him, her ice blue eyes once again hard and burning with anger and hate. She removed her hands from her belly.
Gren took several surprised steps back from her.
"You have no idea what you've put me through, Gren Love," she continued, "No idea at all! First you build up my hopes and then shatter them! And now you expect me to willfully bring this pup into this world, not only without a father, but right in the middle of a battle ground?"
Gren's sight became blurred with tears. "What do you want me to do, Snow? Leave her?"
"Yes!" she growled.
"Fine. I'll break off the engagement."
Gren kneeled back down and gently rubbed Snow's belly with his hand. "This is my fault, little one," he whispered to the unborn child, "I should have never fallen in love."
With the cold, hard eyes of Snow scowling down at him, Gren slowly stood up and left the apartment.
Months passed before Gren saw Snow again. He had forgotten his half made promise and went ahead and married the Vampire Queen. One thing he never forgot, though, was Snow and her child. Not a day passed that his thoughts of them didn't fill up the hours. He would often ride his horse out into the forest in hopes that he could clear his mind of the silver-haired beauty of his past. It was on one of those rides that his and Snow's paths had crossed. She was in her wolf form and he was about ready to kill her when he saw her blue eyes.
She slowly shifted into her human form. Her belly had, as expected, swollen over the months. She made no attempt to hide her disapproval of running into him.
"Another broken promise," she said flatly.
Gren bowed his head in shame. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't hurt her nor did I want to put you and the child in danger."
"That still doesn't change the fact that you lied to me." Her voice was laced with anger.
Gren dismounted his horse and slowly walked over to Snow. Instinctively she placed her hands on her stomach as he kneeled before her. She only slightly moved them when he tried to place his own hands on her belly. Tears came to his eyes as he felt the movement of the creature within.
Snow closed her eyes and sighed, "Why, Gren? Why do you torture me like this?"
"Torture you?" he asked as he wiped the tears from his eyes and looked up at her. "I haven't seen you in months. How have I tortured you?"
"The same way I have you," she said coldly.
He looked away and took his hands from her stomach.
She backed away from him. Leaning heavily against a tree, she carefully sat down, a look of worry and pain on her face.
"Why don't you twist the knife a little more, Snow?" Gren said angrily, his back to her. "You think I wanted to marry this woman?"
He turned around to face her and found her sitting on the ground, clutching her stomach in pain.
"Snow!" He kneeled down next to her, "Snow, what's wrong? Is the baby coming?"
She nodded silently.
He carefully picked her up and carried her over to his horse. After he placed her on the saddle, he grabbed the reigns and mounted the horse behind her. She was whimpering in pain when he kicked the horse in the ribs and took her to the house that they used to share.
Upon arrival of the house, Gren stopped the horse and looked the building over. Nothing's different, he thought to himself, except for a few vines, maybe. It was a rather small building, only about two stories high. The roof was covered in sod and the walls were made of adobe. Dense forest growth surrounded the small home on all sides. There was still a worn footpath from the doorway to the forest's edge.
Snow screamed in pain, causing the horse to rear in fright. Gren jumped down from the horse and gently helped Snow down. As Gren went to remove the saddle, he saw a smear of bright red blood on the darkened leather. His eyes went wide with panic and worry. Quickly, he turned toward Snow and helped her in the house.
...Gren held the screaming child in his arms, rocking it gently. "Welcome to the world, my son," he said softly. His eyes drifted from the tiny form of his son to the lifeless for of Snow.
Snow's blood saturated the couch, her eyes open wide in a death stare.
Back to my den.