“Come now, Elle, you cannot cry when wearing a dress designed by Cleopatra herself!” Hera cried. Elle blinked at her reflection, trying to come to terms that a long-deceased Egyptian ruler designed this utterly gorgeous dress. It gave her a headache just thinking about it. “Sorry,” she mumbled apologetically, only to cause Hera to smile.
“I don’t believe I have ever been prouder of you than in this moment,” the goddess simpered. “You are exactly the daughter my own daughters have never been!”
Elle found this was a very insulting thing to say in regard to her own daughters, but she didn’t dare say this aloud.
“Oh my Styx, Pele! I am so very excited to see you,” Hera suddenly cooed, causing the polite smile Elle had to immediately droop from her face. To her vast dismay, Pele was standing by the door of the large winter-themed room Elle had been prepared in. The goddess was dressed in a flowing red gown similar to the one she had worn the very first time Elle had ever seen her. She watched Elle with misty eyes, almost looking as though she was a proud mother seeing her daughter for the first time on her wedding day.
“Get out of here,” snapped Elle without turning around. She solely watched her mother in the mirror, her eyes unblinking and full of raw hatred.
“Elle, she is your mother, and it is your wedding day—”
“She wanted to kill Jack! She can go straight back to hell or wherever it was she crawled out of!” Elle fumed.
Hera scowled. “As you stand tall glaring daggers at your mother, you should realize she could have cancelled her pregnancy to avoid any possible chance of dealing with your prophecy! She did not. She carried you in her womb for nine months before spending quite a long nineteen hours delivering you. I understand wholeheartedly you do not necessarily respect her decisions, but you will not damn her to hell. It is not a pretty place, I assure you.” Hera glared. “I have visited there on holiday once,” she finished, gently shuddering over some previous memory of hell. “The underworld is actually a kinder place than when you get to the gates of Hell…”
Elle scowled while ignoring Hera. “She sold me off before I was even born!”
“To be married to Jack, I already know this.”
“You don’t have a problem she sold her own kid?”
Hera raised a challenging blonde brow. “Darling girl, do you love Jack?”
“Yes—”
“Are you marrying him today?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m merely pointing out that regardless of any and all bad decisions Pele has made, she has done so with the intent to protect you. Even sending you away upon birth to live with me was supposed to keep you safe as you trained to become not only Jack’s wife, but also train like a true Olympian. You are marrying Jack. Everything worked out for the best. Pele will stay to watch the festivities—”
“If you even think of harming one hair on Jack’s head, I’m coming after you,” Elle threatened coldly.
“Hera, may I have a moment with my youngest?” Pele asked politely.
Hera was gone in the mere half-second that Elle took to blink. She tried not to pout over her godmother’s clear disregard for her personal feelings. What did the queen of the gods really expect her to say to the mother who was never in her life? Elle silently fumed. “Unless the next words out of your mouth are, ‘Congratulations, I’ll be sitting all the way back where you can’t see me,’ you’re wasting my time,” said Elle, trying hard to hold the cruelest look she could on her face.
Pele watched her soundlessly, her expression sad. “Matt and I spoke for a bit the day you were born. We spoke of what would happen in your future.”
Elle’s right eye gently twitched at the mention of her father. She couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her father to have watched his daughter being born before his wife announced she was giving her away. Pele walked further into the room, cupping her manicured hands together. “Matthew would be very proud to see his daughter is such a strong-willed person who is loyal beyond belief.”
“Too bad we can’t ask him how he feels. He’s dead,” said Elle coolly. “Congratulations, though. You get the rotten parent award for not coming back into my life even after he died.”
“Do you believe I really had a choice in that?” Pele asked in surprise. “Like it or not, your fate was dictated centuries before you were even a thought. Your own great-grandparents on Matthew’s side were not yet in existence. You believe a minor goddess had any control over what happened to you? Not at all. Lord Apollo became your guardian, and that was that. Had it been up to me, after Matthew died, you would have then come and lived in my father’s kingdom with me. And do you know why we did not live in my father’s kingdom?”
“Because you’re a bad mom?” asked Elle, uncaring how spiteful and immature she sounded.
Pele watched her with narrowed eyes. Her cheeks reddened as her jaw tightened. Her eyes misted with tears unshed. “You can loathe me all you want. You are just like your father with his stubbornness.”
“Yeah, Dad was a really awful guy because he wanted to keep me!” Elle snarled.
Pele glared. “Matt was a stubborn fool who was too proud to listen to me. He didn’t want to see sending you to Olympus wasn’t solely based on your marrying Jack, but also keeping you safe until that time. He didn’t see that. He solely wanted to believe I was merely selling our child away—”
“You were!” Elle practically shrieked, surprised and saddened to find that much emotion hid behind the empty look she had been sporting. “How do you not see that?” She laughed without humor. “I was a baby! A baby! I understand you not wanting to marry Jack, and I’m happy it worked out that I ended up loving him, but how can you not see how sick it is to have made a deal for me to marry him just to save your own skin?”
Pele suddenly teleported before Elle, her dark eyes misty. “It was not like that.”
“Get out of here!”
“No, you are my child, and we shall work this out—”
“Child?” Elle howled, her voice ringing so loud it echoed in the very large winter-themed room she had been preparing in. “I don’t have one memory of you even trying to be my mom. And you know what? I could’ve really used one after Dad died.”
“Unfortunately for you, I am the only mother you have,” Pele replied angrily.
“No, you’re not,” replied Elle coolly. “My grandma back home is the mother I never had. Hera, as unconventional as it is, is more my mother than you! What is it you want to work out? I don’t want you anywhere near Jack after what you tried doing to him!”
“I tried saving your life!” Pele cried in exasperation. “Do you not understand nothing good will come from being with Frost?”
“Get out,” said Elle, not able to look at her. “We’ll get along better never speaking to each other again.”
Pele soon disappeared after that, leaving Elle alone. Only she was not alone for very long.
“Elle…” a soft voice cooed inside her ear. Turning around to face the floor-length mirror, Elle was suddenly terrified.
Sickly, an image of her father appeared in the mirror. Once the ghostly image captured her full attention, he spoke again. “There you are!” Matthew cooed as if he and Elle were playing peek-a-boo. This looked as though it was a zombified version of Matthew Darrow during the bitter ugliness that was his last month of battling cancer. He had no hair from his radiation, and his face was a deathly pale and bloated horrifically from the chemo.
Elle jumped, startled. No words could escape her as she remained in a stunned stupor. “You should slit your throat while you can,” Matthew said, his bloated face smiling horridly. “Bleeding to death will be a far kinder fate than anything someone else has in store for you. Come now, Elle…join me. Slit your throat, jump out the seventy floors to your death, it won’t hurt. Then we can be together forever…” he said hauntingly. His hand slowly came through the large, body-length mirror.
Elle tremble
d as her eyes watered. Soon, her father’s lengthy, uncoordinated body lurched out of the mirror, committing a zombie-style walk toward her. Elle stood transfixed as her cancer-stricken father climbed out of the mirror fully, his blood-stained lips and hospital gown resembling the last time Elle had seen him. He had just vomited blood shortly before he passed away. “Daddy’s back,” the haunting image hissed before lumbering after Elle.
Elle started running. She lurched her body forward and made a break out the door for the long hallway. Elle knocked into a winter-themed table, but she didn’t care. She needed to run. She was intelligent enough she did not dare see if the frightening ghostly image was following her; Elle didn’t need to slow her run to see.
“Help! Somebody, help, please!” she screamed, frightened to find her dead-looking father was now running after her faster than before. Where was everyone? Why was she suddenly so very disturbingly alone? Elle shot down the hall, not even bothering to remove her shoes to increase her speed. Any single moment of slowing down could cause whatever god or creature it was following her to close the distance.
“Elle?” someone shouted a far length down the second hallway. She started to stumble as she continued running toward the sound of Hermes’ voice. She picked up speed, relishing the very idea of being safe and sound near her godfather. Tragedy struck as soon as she saw who had spoken using the bubbly god’s voice. She nearly tripped in shocked surprise. It was not Hermes who came out of a random doorway watching her; it was her father’s bloody hospital-gown covered body. His distorted face starting to droop as if it were melting once more, causing Elle to scream as she slowly backed away.
“G-go away!”
“Letter! What’s going on?” Jack’s voice shouted from behind her. Jack had arrived, his grey eyes wide as he alternated glances between Elle and the creature who looked like her father down the hall. “What is that?” Feeling satisfied that he was here and in the flesh, Elle closed the distance between them to engulf him in an almighty hug.
Her dead-looking father watched them with fear, his head shaking rapidly as he started shouting using Hermes’ voice. “Elle! What are you doing? Get over here!” He teleported himself down the hall, only for Jack to send a piercing block of ice cast up from the ground to hit him. The hit was made with a solid wall of pure ice. The ghostly monster fell immediately, blood squirting from its nose. They then disappeared, leaving Winter’s Kingdom. Jack soon teleported them to a new area, back to the forest-themed cabin she had grown to love sharing with him.
Elle did not realize how bad she was shaking as she held Jack close to her. “You saved me,” she breathed, trying hard not to cry. “It was like m-my d-dad and Hermes, but not really…”
“Shh…” Jack soothed, his cold body holding her close.
“It s-sounded like Hermes, so I came to find him, and then it was just that thing again…”
“Don’t cry, don’t cry…” Jack’s velvety voice soothed.
“S-so m-much for it being b-bad luck to see the b-bride before the w-wedding,” Elle cried, keeping him close. Her attempt at a lukewarm joke came out sounding rather pitiful.
“We were never quite the traditional couple anyway, were we?” Jack chuckled. Elle tried to halt her tears, but it was difficult seeing and hearing her father’s voice saying those cruel words to her. Using an icy cool hand, Jack rubbed the back of her head, keeping her close against him. “Don’t worry, Elle. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” Elle started to relax into the ice hug just as Jack gave a low, humorous chuckle. “Because you’re mine to kill.”
Time seemed to move in slow motion. Elle was not prepared for what happened next. Before she could even fully process that statement, a knife had been brandished before being roughly plunged into her stomach.
Looking down, Elle surprisingly found a silver dagger was now sticking out of her gut. It was one of the daggers of Delphi. A dribble of scarlet red started to issue from the deep wound, spilling out onto the pretty white and ruby gown she wore. The blood made gory blood patterns immediately.
Elle stared at the dagger as her knees buckled beneath her. Before she could even fall to the hard ground, Jack quickly retracted the knife to stab her in the shoulder blade. He missed her heart by inches.
As the first gasp of a terrified cry started to escape her, Jack allowed her to drop onto the floor, causing Elle to fall onto her back. She had to work really hard to propel herself into a backwards crawl.
It was very hard for Elle to determine which stab hurt worse. The first pierced organs. The second felt as though it cut through her bone. She felt the sharp blade of the dagger pierce her skin the first time around. She felt it more when the razor-sharp dagger was pulled out, taking bits of blood and flesh with it. Elle blinked rapidly, pain overclouding any and all possible reactions at this given moment. She had no emotion other than pain and shock. She remembered in the hallway, Jack had his wintery powers. But the real Jack Frost wouldn’t do this to her. Tears pricked at Elle’s eyes remembering the beautiful moments she shared with Jack where she felt only complete and utter love and devotion from him. He would not literally stab her in the back.
It was as “Jack” took a bended knee beside Elle’s head to watch her that she realized the obvious.
“You’re n-n-not J-Jack,” she spluttered in a cough, watching as a decent-sized pool of blood left her body. A rough cough escaped her throat, blood dribbling down her chin. It became quite obvious to Elle she had internal bleeding.
“I s’pose it would be completely heartless to allow you to die thinking your beloved was the reason for your demise,” a lovely voice that sounded close to wind chimes answered. “Especially on your wedding day.”
Jack Frost soon began to morph into a new person altogether. He became someone Elle had never truly thought was her enemy. Jack was no longer kneeling toward her, but his sister was.
Khione was hunched over Elle, dressed in a gown similar to the crystallized ice-themed ones she had been known to wear. Her icicle covered crown sat atop of her head. Only this gown she wore looked more divine and much fancier than her other dresses.
It was when Elle’s hand started to become warmly wet by her own blood that she knew she could die. The pool of blood had now left her a nice round puddle. A body could only lose so much blood before it couldn’t survive anymore. Elle could barely focus on Khione as pain clouded her mind.
“Why…” Elle breathed in a throaty whisper, growing numb all over.
Khione sighed. “Would you believe when I say ’twas nothing personal? In all honesty, it really has been enjoyable having you around. You should have seen the looks on my mother’s and father’s faces when it was first discovered you wanted no part in the luxuries offered by Winter’s Kingdom!” She smiled thoughtfully. “But I’m afraid, little demigoddess, you need to be out of the way for my next move.” Khione smiled insincerely. She took a knee, watching Elle with almost pity.
Elle gaped at the goddess as her wedding dress became heavily soaked with her own blood. “You k-killed your father, not Oritya.”
“Indeed,” said Khione coolly. “It’s the knife that no one sees coming that slips in the easiest.” She smiled wickedly.
“Why…” Elle mumbled again, trying not to close her eyes.
Khione stood, making sure her lovely dress was not soiled by Elle’s massive blood loss. The goddess looked disgusted by the bloody mess littering the once beautiful forest-themed living room. “Once upon a time, Winter’s throne needed an heir,” she began quietly. “In the beginning, it was believed only males could take thrones from their fathers. Daughters given a throne could only keep them if there were no male heirs to claim it. A daughter born with other males in the family could not take a throne regardless of age or their godly abilities. Boreas was old fashioned,” said Khione with disgust. “He believed wholeheartedly a daughter’s place was married off instead of taking a throne when she was worthy.”
Elle could barely think to speak as she
coughed, spluttering fresh blood.
“After a failed attempt at an engagement, I decided to pursue what was always mine,” Khione continued, using a pale hand to brandish a bunch of feather-light snow into the air. The goddess swirled her hand high, producing a very large icicle in her hands that seemed to grow from her palm alone. Soon, she made it vanish. It was then that Elle realized Khione held all the powers of her brother. Khione had just never shown off her abilities previously.
“My father deemed my abilities minor,” Khione flared. “Boreas felt only the moronic twins Zetes and Calais were capable of becoming his heir. But my dear papa unintentionally revealed one night he had a bouncing baby bastard with his favorite mortal.”
A very murderous glare etched across Khione’s flawlessly pale face. “And wouldn’t you know it, darling, the bastard brat that was Jack Frost inherited the same frosted powers of the North winds as I did,” she said, shaking her pale head in disapproval.
“But…Jack’s brothers t-tried to kill him,” stated Elle as she slowly backed her way unintentionally closer to the kitchen. She was doing a crab crawl. Elle saw the dazzling snow globe atop of the counter. If she could reach it, she stood a fighting chance.
Khione sighed in a thoughtful manner. “’Twas not hard convincing Zetes and Calais to kill baby brother; after all, both believed that with Jack out of the way, one or both would manifest abilities of winter. ’Tis not how it works.” The goddess smiled cruelly. “Only two children of gods inherit abilities, one more powerful than the other.”
Elle quaked with fear while watching her blood leave a graphic trail as she moved toward the kitchen in a pitiful crawl. That begged the question: who was the more powerful one—Khione or Jack? Knowing she had to keep distracting Khione long enough for help to arrive, Elle tried to crawl away to keep a nice distance between herself and the murderous goddess. “But if you’re more powerful than Jack, why don’t you automatically get the throne?” asked Elle, knowing from her experience around Hera and other goddesses that they enjoyed having their ego stroked.
Betrothed To Jack Frost Box Set Page 48