by Evi Asher
The wind howled around the house again. The storm was getting worse. Colt knew this was going to be a bad one, and the temperature would go way below freezing before the storm blew itself out.
Yep, she’s gonna suffer
“Why don’t you light yourself on fire if you’re so cold? Wont that help?” He kept his head back and his eyes closed, but he heard her snort of disgust.
“That would take more energy than I have left. You already zapped all my reserves making me open the tear.”
“Yeah, another lie you told me.” He opened his eyes and leveled his stare on her. “You said you couldn’t open one.”
“I can’t…” At his open glare of disdain, she modified what she was saying. “I’m not supposed to be able to.”
“Explain?”
She let out a sigh. “I’m not old enough to have the full use of my abilities. Although in principle, I know how to do it, my full immortality and powers haven’t come yet, or I thought they hadn’t.”
“How old are you?” He was curious on how young did the phoenix start doing… what she had done.
Angelica looked down. “I’m twenty-three.”
He sucked in a breath. She was a child in his eyes.
“Aren’t you a bit young to be using men like that?”
That made her snap her head up. “I’m an adult.”
“Not in my book.”
“And how old must I be to be considered an adult in your book.”
There was that spirit again. He smiled.
“Oh, at least fifty.”
She made a huffing sound, and he almost laughed.
“That’s not adult, that’s antiquated.”
“What if I told you that I’m two-hundred years old?”
“I’d ask if you knew T-Rex, personally.”
Colt burst out laughing—it was such a shock that he silenced it almost immediately. “Try get some sleep, Gelibean. We have far to travel when the storm clears.”
He watched Geli gathering any piece of fabric that didn’t disintegrate in her hands and make a—what could only be called a nest on the floor as close to the fire as possible. He hid his amusement behind a blank expression as she muttered to herself while she worked. He was sure he heard the word jerk more than once.
If she thought this was a punishment, she had no idea what he had in mind where her real punishment was concerned.
When she’d made her bed, she glared at him and flopped down onto the accumulated bedding, which made her sneeze.
Colt felt a laugh escape his lips.
“You think this is funny? You drag me here to this cold hell and you think a sneeze is funny. I’m probably going to get pneumonia.”
“Don’t be a drama queen. You are an Eternal and you can’t get pneumonia.”
“I’m just saying…” she sputtered and turned her back to him, probably deciding that she didn’t want to amuse him anymore. She flopped down again and curled into a tight ball.
Colt watched her with a smile playing on his lips. She was feisty, and he found he liked that about her. He liked that she talked back to him even though she was at a distinct disadvantage in their situation. If she feared him, she didn’t show it. He dozed off with the smile still on his lips.
* * * *
Angelica couldn’t seem to wake up properly. She was so cold, and her nose filled with the smell of death. She turned her head away from the smell and tried to open her eyes. They opened a crack, then slammed shut again as if someone had put weights on her eyelids.
The cold was invasive, burrowing into her body like some flesh-eating worm, leaching all the warmth her body could create. Her heart pounded and she tried to curl up tighter, instinctively protecting her vital organs from the seeping chill.
“Lay s-s-s-stil.” The hissing whisper reached her ears and Angelica started to shiver uncontrollably. An icy hand rested on her arm, sucking heat from her, and she was powerless to stop it. “S-s-s-so warm.”
“Go away.” She muttered, and it seemed to work, the chill vanishing from her arm, but she could still smell death. She knew the cold would come back and she knew it was the ghost she’d seen earlier. For some reason, the creature had latched onto Angelica, and it wanted to steal her warmth. Perhaps it was trying to steal her life force, but she was past the point of caring.
All Angelica wanted to do was sleep. Her mind going to some place warm, where the sun shone and birds sang in big green trees.
* * * *
Colt woke up with a start. Something was wrong. He kept his eyes closed and relied on his sense of hearing. He could hear the wind gusting outside, making the whole structure shake and groan, it sounded like it was going to come falling down. He could hear the wolves calling—they were closer—but what woke him was Geli’s mumbles. She was restless moving and rolling in her makeshift bed.
He opened his eyes and looked over at her. “Angelica, will you shut up, I’m trying to slee—”
She rolled toward him and he saw her lips were a darker blue. Her skin had taken on the same unhealthy tinge. She was still asleep, but shivers wracked her body.
Colt lunged forward on his knees toward her. He laid a hand on her cheek and she groaned in her sleep. Her skin was as cold as a frozen river.
Guilt wracked him. How could I let it get this bad?
It was obvious that phoenix did not thrive in cold climates. He had to warm her up, but first he had to wake her.
“Geli…” His voice was low, not wanting to startle her awake. She gave no response.
“Gelibean, you have to wake up for me.”
“That’s a stupid name, so I won’t respond to it.”
Her voice slurred as if she’d had too much to drink and he knew that hypothermia had set in.
“Let me sleep, Colt.” She opened her eyes and glared up at him. “Colt…what a stupid name for a polar bear shifter. You aren’t s horse.”
Colt realized she was far-gone. “I’m named after the gun, not the horse,” he told her as he leaned back and started unbuttoning his shirt.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Her eyes flared with—what he assumed—was panic, and she sat up straight.
“I need to warm you up, and the best way to do that is skin to skin.” He didn’t add that she’d already seen everything of him there was to see, and more. The thought rankled enough without having to be voiced.
“Well you can stop right there. I’m not getting naked with you.”
“Why? It’s not like you haven’t before,” he spat out.
“As a matter of fact…” Her eyes started to close and she tipped to the side.
Colt ripped his shirt off his arms and grabbed her, pulling her into the heat of his chest.
She tried to fight him for a moment, then sighed and burrowed into the warmth that was pouring off his skin. “Why are you so warm? It feels so good. If I could purr, I would.”
“Now, I know, you are delirious.” He muttered, but he couldn’t stop the smile that curled the corners of his lips. “I need to undress you. That way you’ll get warmed up faster.”
“Please, Colt. No…”
Her voice was so fragile, sounding so insecure—so unlike the Angelica he was getting to know—that he couldn’t deny her what she wanted.
“Fine, but get as close as you can, you need my body warmth, or the hypothermia could do some serious damage.”
He felt her nod her head against his chest, so he lay them down and curled around her body as much as he could, forming a large man-shaped cocoon around the freezing phoenix.
Chapter Six
A lack of warmth brought Angelica back from the twilight world of dreams. Colt’s heat was absent. She sat up and looked around the living room. The fire stoked again, the flames burning a merry greeting in the grate, but there was no sign of Colt.
“Colt?” she called as she stood and stretched. No answer.
She walked over to the staircase and called his name again. Nothing.
He must have gone out for some reason. Maybe to find more wood.
Angelica gave a mental shrug and went back to the warmth of the fire. She leaned in toward the heat, extending her hands so she could soak it in. Cold was not fun for her. How the people that lived in this icy hell could stand it, she didn’t know.
“I thought you would never wake.”
The male voice behind her made Angelica shriek and spin around. She stepped back and nearly put her foot into the fire.
In front of her stood a man, about five-foot-eight-inches. He had dark hair that he slicked back from his forehead and a handlebar mustache.
His clothing was strange—a tailored jacket and pants that looked like they were wool, with a white shirt, a vest that matched the suit and a bow tie.
“Who are you?”
“You may call me Michael, ma’am.” He dipped his head and raised his hand to grasp the front of his coat.
“Okay…Michael. I repeat. Who are you, and while you are at it, how about you tell me where you came from?”
“I should be asking you what you are doing in this town,” he said with a smile that made Angelica think he could be quite charming when he chose.
Then, his words sunk in. “This place is deserted, has been for a long time by the looks of it. We stumbled into it.”
Then, light from the window filtered in and for a moment, Michael became translucent.
“Oh, my…” Angelica gasped and tensed. “You are the ghost I saw last night.”
“Astute of you, ma’am. Yes, I am, in fact, the spirit you encountered last night, but do not fear. I mean you no harm.”
“I’m not scared of you.” Did my voice just tremble, damn.
“Good, because I owe you debt of gratitude.”
“Geli.” Colt’s voice came from the entry as he came into the house. In his hands was the bundled up shirt and Angelica knew he must have been out catching breakfast.
He frowned, and looked around the room. “Who are you talking to?”
Angelica’s head snapped to where Michael has been standing, but he was gone, vanished like mist in the sun.
I’m not going to admit I’ve been having a conversation to a possible figment of my imagination, or even weirder, a ghost.
“No one—myself—I talk to myself, okay?” She said it as if she was daring him to criticize her.
He gave her a strange look, but didn’t comment on that. He lifted the bundled-up shirt. “Help me clean the fish.” Colt turned toward the back of the house and the kitchen, and Angelica was mute as she trailed him.
“Watch how I do this. Next time fish needs to be cleaned, it will be your job. Got it?” He stood at the table with a knife in his hand, picked up the fish, and started to clean it.
Geli suppressed a shudder. “I don’t like the idea of gutting fish.”
“Too. Damn. Bad.”
He pinned her with a stare that told her she better shut up or risk making him mad again. She compressed her lip to keep her mouth closed. She gestured with a hand for him to continue the lesson.
He didn’t explain much as if he expected her to simply watch and learn as he slit the belly of the fish open and scooped out the innards.
Angelica must have pulled a face as he looked up because the crease between his brows deepened.
“If you are going to live in Alaska, you have to get over your squeamishness.”
“Who says I’m going to live in Alaska?”
“I do.” His tone was like a bell tolling her doom.
“Come on, I don’t even know why you kidnapped me. I was trying to help you.”
He barked out a mirthless laughter. “Help me?” Shaking his head, he picked up the next fish. “You used me, and if you value your pathetic life, you will shut up about it and pay attention to this lesson because you are going nowhere. You are staying with me until I’m done with you.”
A retort rose to Angelica’s lips and died. She didn’t want to risk him doing his cold fury thing again. She needed him to get her out of this place. Soon enough, they’d come across other people. People that might help her escape this crazy male.
She was surprised when he asked, “You come from another plane, a closed off one, yeah?”
“Yes, the plane of the Phoenix.”
“Then, why, little phoenix, do you talk using American slang?”
When she stayed quiet, he looked up at her. “Answer me.” The third fish was gutted and cleaned.
“We have a way of watching this plane. I used to watch it a lot. I learned to talk like you do.”
“How?”
“How did I learn to talk like you do?” She was confused for a moment.
“No, moron, how did you watch this plane.”
“Listen, you taciturn jerk. If you explained what you were asking, I wouldn’t sound like a moron.” Angelica bit her tongue, shocked that she’d said that, and expected him to blow up at her.
His laughter surprised her. It was deep and genuine, sending a tingle of pleasure up her spine. “Point made. I will try and ask my questions with better clarity in the future.”
She nodded, not knowing what else to say.
“But you haven’t answered.” He picked up the cleaned fish and brushed past her toward the living room, his shirt rubbing her arm, making her break out in goose bumps of anticipation.
“We used a viewing tear.”
He got to the fire and bent down to lay the fish on the makeshift grate. “That doesn’t explain much, Gelibean.”
She pursed her lips at the stupid nickname he’d given her. “It’s like the tear we stepped thorough, only it’s used for viewing.”
His head snapped up. “Can you contact someone through it, talk to someone?”
Crap, I don’t need him knowing that I can communicate if I find the right medium.
“No, you can’t communicate through a viewing tear.” Not a lie.
“And making one that you can step through like the one you made to get us here?”
“Honestly, I don’t know how I did that, and I don’t think I could do it again.” Which is why I’m stuck taking his bull.
He stared at her a moment longer, as if he were trying to decide if she was being truthful with him. He must have thought she was, because he went back to the task of making breakfast.
Angelica swallowed as she asked, “Are we leaving here today?”
“Yes, the storm is passed, and we are about a day’s travel from my village. A hard day’s fast travel,” he warned her.
She nodded.
“You will keep up.”
“Or what? You’ll beat me?”
Her tone was flippant, but it came back to bite her when he pinned her with those unusual eyes and spoke. “Don’t tempt me, Geli.”
Angelica broke the eye contact first. She didn’t know how to read this man. One moment, he was killing mad, the next, he was laughing at her outbursts. He kept her on edge, and it was playing hell on her system.
The chilling snow was deeper as they trudged out of the ghost town. Angelica did her best to keep up with Colt, stepping in the trail he was breaking through the deeper snow.
She hated it.
She hated the cold, she hated this place, she hated that she was a prisoner to a male she found sexually attractive.
Who are you trying to fool? It’s not just sexual. You find everything about him attractive— even his mood-swings.
She made a rude sound, making Colt stop and half turn to look at her.
“What?”
Angelica did her best to hide her expression of self-disgust. “I detest the snow. It’s horrible, icky and wet.”
“Good, the more you suffer, the happier I am.” He turned and continued breaking trail, while whistling a tune.
Angelica felt the inane urge to attack his back and do as much damage as she could with her fists. She gritted her teeth, picking up the hem of her robes, so she could try to keep them dry, and followed him again.
&
nbsp; They walked for about thirty minutes, when Angelica heard the first howl.
“That’s close.” She heard the quiver in her own voice, and cursed herself.
“Yes, but the wolves won’t hurt us. It’s not far enough into winter for them to be desperate for food, and there are still a lot of other animals they can prey on.”
She tried to take comfort from his words. After all, this was Colt’s home—his world, so he must know the behaviours of the native populace. When the next howl came, it sounded closer and Angelica shivered, not from cold, but from fear.
Her animal form wasn’t a big toothy predator, and the bigger ones had always scared her. She knew it was an irrational fear, much like human’s fear of spiders or snakes, but it was still something that caused her anxiety.
Colt pointed off at a hill in the near distance. “That is all that’s left of the Radcliff mine. It’s why this town is supposed to be haunted.”
She didn’t know why he was suddenly chatty, but she was grateful that his talking distracted her from her fear.
“Oh? What’s the story behind it?” Angelica was sure he’d ignore her and keep walking, but he surprised her when he answered.
“It was the dead of winter, one of the worst Alaska has ever seen, in the mid eighteen hundreds.” He glanced over his shoulder at her before carrying on with the story.
“The town and mine were owned by Hamilton M. Radcliff who was a sick, sadistic, son of a bitch. He worked his people ragged, mining that gold mine and he did well for himself.” Colt stepped through a deep snow bank and stopped to stomp it down further.
Angelica was surprised. She guessed he was doing it to make the walking easier for her. It seemed Colt was a gentleman when he wasn’t being a jerk.
“That was his house we stayed in last night.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, the rest of the houses weren’t nearly as nice. Most of the workers in this town lived in squalor, but as I was saying, it was a brutal winter and a blizzard was coming in from the north. The people went to Radcliff and begged him to let them shelter in his home.”
“Would there have been enough space? I mean, that house was big, but big enough for a whole town of people?”