But that resolve didn’t help solve the problem of just how she was supposed to go about it. She’d already closed her eyes many times, willing herself to them. As a conjurer of ice and snow, she controlled all the elements and everything that lived within her realm. But the “enchanted” place was set apart from her. She couldn’t go to them.
Baatha cried out, asking her a question and very clearly irritated by how ruffled his feathers had become.
“Then go to bed,” she muttered without looking up at him. “I’m not the one keeping you here.”
He whistled his crankiness at her through his beak holes.
She almost smiled at that. Baatha was such a bear when he didn’t get his rest.
She reached over to him and was idly stroking her fingers along the soft down between his eyes when she froze with an idea.
Heretofore, she’d not touched the glass.
“What if—” she whispered, and then she reached down with her other hand, barely scraping her pinkie along its smooth surface.
Fire suddenly erupted through that touch, jumping from that mirror through her body, down her spine, and up to her brain.
She screamed as the world whirled around her, bleeding through with colors as she was tossed head over foot toward an unknown place. And because she’d been touching Baatha, he came too.
His talons dug into her forearm as he trembled tightly into her form. Luminesa held him close…and then…she landed in a pile of snow softer than a pillow.
Sitting up, she coughed snow out of her mouth. Baatha was screeching and flapping his wings in fury, and a cold, dead weight of emotion took anchor in her heart as she gazed upon their bleak surroundings, recognizing them almost immediately as the world the three roamed.
Upon standing, Luminesa turned her hand over, only just then realizing that she held onto the mirror and that it no longer burned with magick.
She shook her head and murmured, “Dear gods, this can’t be good.”
Chapter 4
Alador
The blinding ice and snow weren’t the only problems Alador and the children faced. After hours of walking, they’d yet to find a place suitable to shelter in.
Built as he was to handle the cold, even he felt the sharp sting of it burn against whatever flesh was exposed. He’d long since shifted out of his centaur form into that of a human male.
When he’d come upon the children as a centaur, they’d looked upon him with fear, scuttling out of his reach as best they could, no doubt terrified out of their wits by his unfamiliarity.
Alador knew only a little of what’d happened to him, and clearly, the children knew no more than he. He’d fought like the devil when the Under Goblin had magically snatched him from the safety of his herd.
Even a creature as powerful as the Under Goblin was no physical match for the prowess of a fully-grown centaur male, but where Alador bested the goblin in strength, he was no match against magick.
The only magic inherent to his kind was the ability to shift from centaur to man and back again.
There’d been no warning, no words of taunting, no boasting whatsoever. The Under Goblin had merely sneered at Alador as he’d wiped at the blood on his lips and thrust him inside the maze of ice and snow.
Not that Alador had expected a full explanation, but something might have been nice. They walked blindly through a storm that seemed hell-bent on their destruction, with no reason or knowledge why.
The Ice Queen was in a fury, of that he was certain.
For miles he’d walked, sure he was alone in the nightmare, only to discover the children a few hours later.
They were all tired, all aching from the journey that seemed to lead nowhere. Even breathing was becoming more and more difficult in those conditions. His chest ached, no doubt due to the struggle with the Goblin, but keeping on his feet for so long wasn’t helping.
The howling winds were shrieks of wrath as they shook the ice and snow from frozen pine branches. His teeth chattering, he looked down at the children, their footsteps turned slow and plodding. Their already pale skin was by then a ghostly shade of white.
Only a few hours in, but already he’d sensed death’s kiss lingering upon their doorstep. If they didn’t find shelter soon, they wouldn’t last another day.
Only problem was everywhere they turned was nothing but towering, skeletal trees and valleys of white. No caves, no dips or grooves in the ground where he could build a temporary lean-to. Only nothing.
He looked down upon the children once again, his insides aching with the futility of their situation.
A little girl, Gerda, and a boy, Kai, spoke with accents from the northern parts of Kingdom—melodious but with a slight lisp.
Why were they there? What had they done to the Goblin? Not that Alador believed the children had out-and-out done anything, but surely the Goblin had to have had a reason for choosing those two over, say, children from the eastern lands.
Why them? And for that matter, why him?
Trembling, Alador fought the natural inclination of his body to freeze up and gathered the children tighter to him, tossing the long edges of his cloak over them, covering them completely.
In his valley, it rarely blizzarded. He was eternally grateful that today of all days, he’d reached for his cloak. Without it, he’d have had no buffer for the children.
Though his herd lived in close proximity to the Ice Queen, she’d never taken her rage out on them. They, too, lived in a world of ice, but it teemed with life. With animals and plants and a constant harvest of winter grains. In that land, though, were dead trees and nothing but white upon white.
But he was also developing a niggling suspicion that it wasn’t an eternal land, rather that somehow, they were trapped in a loop that kept them permanently rooted in a certain circumference of time. He wasn’t sure of the dimensions, but he did know that the rock they were walking toward bore the same slash marks he’d carved into it a few hours back when they’d passed it.
His heart sank. The place was enchanted, a trap. They’d not been meant to escape.
Pragmatic to the core, as all centaurs were, he refused to give in to false hope or even offer those assurances to the children. Wherever they were and for whatever reason the Under Goblin had thrust them there, they’d never stood a chance of getting out.
Clenching his back molars, he knew the next logical step was to stop walking in endless circles and build some form of shelter. No doubt Haxion would try to figure out a way to get to him. Their sibling bond was such that she already knew the peril he faced.
Shelter and water. That was what they needed most. With those two things, they could at least buy her a few days to try and figure a way out for them.
Since there didn’t seem to be any natural buffer zones against the wind and snow, Alador decided to do the next best thing and dig a snow cave out of the ice itself. It would still be cold, but without the wind bearing down on them, it would feel a little warmer at least.
And if the children were comfortable enough with him, he could transform back to centaur and throw off more heat in that form. It wouldn’t be nearly as nice as a warm bed, but it would be a million times better than what they had at the moment.
He was about to yank the cloak off his shoulders and wrap it tightly around the children while he went in search of timber to build a fire when the shrill cry of a bird pierced the deafening chaos of winter’s storm.
That was the first sign of true life he’d heard in the place. Earlier, he’d sworn there’d been the voice of a woman speaking to them, but the voice had faded away, convincing him what he thought he’d heard had been nothing more than the howling of wind echoing through that strange, cursed land.
The falcon, covered in thick, white plumage, landed on the gnarled tip of a branch, blinking his golden beady eyes down at them.
Alador frowned; he’d seen that bird before. It was speckled with black spots along its hind and tail, but its beak had triggered the
memory in him. Its beak was the rich blue of an ice vein.
“To me, Baatha.”
The woman’s voice was shocking to hear even as its tonal quality was a velvety caress to his ears.
The children tucked beneath his cloak shifted and peeked out as he, too, turned to look at her.
The Ice Queen. The woman of myth, legend, and undeniable beauty, seemingly carved from the very ice she called home. Her skin was a glasswork image of feminine curves and graceful lines. Slashing cheekbones, a softly rounded jaw, and a delicate nose. Piercing arctic-blue eyes raked him, making his flesh tremble.
Her hair was a cascade of shimmering strands of silvery-white that flowed halfway down her legs in supple waves. She wore a crown of ice, and buzzing through that crown were the languid, fat little bodies of snow bees.
She was dressed in a gown of purest white interspersed with strands of glittering gems dangling like winking ice crystals in the sun. On her shoulders were silver epaulettes that seemed spun from liquid mercury and should have looked strangely out of place on the ethereal beauty, but instead, they only heightened her exotic appeal.
With an ear-splitting cry, Baatha flew to her, landing heavily on one of the epaulettes.
But the Queen did not even flinch. Her gaze hadn’t once strayed from his. Her bare feet left no tracks as she walked—practically glided—toward them, stopping only once a few feet separated them.
Alador’s heart sped, struck temporarily dumb by her overwhelming presence. His people had often told stories of the woman in the ice, the shadowy, mysterious figure few among his kind had ever chanced to meet.
She held up her hand, and the winds that’d howled so furiously with ice and sleet quieted instantly. The sudden lack of noise and rage of snow was almost overwhelming after hours of being trapped within it.
A fleeting look of relief washed across her brows. To see her show emotion, and that one of all of them, made Alador feel like a mute. He couldn’t seem to make his tongue work. To ask her why she’d come. Why she’d looked relieved. Or even whether they could go home. All he could do was look upon her in awed silence.
“You’re pretty.” Gerda’s voice was a stunned whisper that sounded more like a scream as the trees around them echoed with the sound of it.
Not even a smile played along the Queen’s lips as she finally released him from that hypnotic gaze to glance down at the girl poking her head out of his cloak.
“Where are you from, child?” Her words were velvet laced in steel.
Alador knew the Queen had an aversion to humans, though he did not know why.
Gerda hugged his waist tightly. Her tiny fingers dug into his hipbone as she smashed her face to his leg. Alador looked down at the crown of her pale blond head.
The children had hardly spoken to him, and beautiful as the Queen was, her manner was intimidating even to him.
“I believe them to be from the northernmost plains of Kingdom,” he said when it was obvious Gerda would not speak.
The Queen’s hypnotic eyes returned to his face, and he trembled, not only from the power that rippled all around her but also from the sheer magnitude of that stare, as if she saw straight through him.
There was so little anyone knew of the Queen. Who was she? How she’d come to be? It was all a mystery to his people, one he’d never given much thought to until then.
Tipping her head to the side, she peeked behind him and then narrowed her eyes. “You are in human form. Why?”
“They feared my other form.”
“Oh,” she said, and her voice suddenly sounded so small. She hugged her arms to herself and inhaled deeply before giving him a brief nod.
Without even needing to ask, Alador understood that his form made the Queen nervous. He noticed it in the way her fingers twitched, curling and uncurling before tapping out a little rhythm on her bicep.
“Why are you here?” he finally asked, the one question on the minds of all of them.
Alador had half expected her not to answer him but was surprised when she did.
“I suppose I am here to tend to you three.” Even she sounded surprised by that admission.
He frowned. “Do you know what the Under Goblin did?”
The way she’d phrased her sentence led him to believe it’d come as no shock to her to find them trapped within her lands.
As she nodded, fat flakes of snow drifted down around them. But without the biting wind behind it, the snow was actually kind of pretty, turning the place into a wintery wonderland.
The trees that’d earlier been so dead were coming to life, turning from skeletal, lifeless things into huge conifers full of waxy green needles and fat mahogany pinecones. Red and white berries began to appear upon the branches, as though by magic.
And then he realized it was magic. It was her magic. The world that’d been so void of life burst with it the moment she’d stepped forth.
Snowbirds, squirrels, and even deer suddenly appeared, looking upon them all with quizzical little eyes. Creatures that’d not been there before were suddenly everywhere.
The Queen who lived her life secluded from the world in a palace made of ice, that’d always seemed so foreboding and lifeless, had brought life with her. How?
Stories spoke of a woman kept away from the world, a woman who hated any and all, a woman who’d let a human suffer and die rather than render aid.
She glanced up at the gray, murky sky. “We have less than an hour of sunlight left. You will need shelter.”
Those dazzling blue eyes turned back on him, and Alador could hardly explain the sensation that overtook him whenever she did. It was as if he stood on the needlepoint precipice of a towering cliff with nothing below him but miles of sky. He swallowed.
Pursing her rosebud-shaped lips tightly, she turned, lifted both her arms high, and without uttering a word, began to build them a palace that looked as though it’d been chiseled out of smooth glass.
Even though the sun had begun to set and its rays were weak, the palace gleamed like a polished diamond. The place was massive, its parapets soaring high into the clouds. Twin towers on other end of it pointed up like proud sentinels. An enormous gate beckoned them. The knowledge that safety rested behind those cold walls was an enticement that had his exhausted body suddenly energized and rejuvenated. Even the children, who’d seemed on the verge of collapse, were hopping from foot to foot.
The Queen turned, glanced down at the children, and said, “To your rooms, go.”
And in an instant, they’d vanished.
Frowning, Alador growled, stretching out his arms to futilely reach for the children, but they were long gone. “What have you done with them?” he snapped as he spun toward her.
That was the Queen he’d expected from the beginning, a heartless, cold, unfeeling—
“They trembled most violently. I sent them to warm themselves by the fire and gave them some food too.” Her words were soft but matter-of-fact.
Her generosity punched him in the gut. It made him squirm, made him uncomfortable, because once more, he found himself surprised by her.
Could it be that the stories were all wrong? Or was that merely some game or ploy? Was she trying to bring down his defenses? Was she in on that game with the Under Goblin? And if so, why?
She blinked, and once again, she transformed in front of him, going from shy, almost timid, to queenly and calculating.
“Shift.” She said it without preamble, without even asking. It was a demand that made the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge.
Centaur society was built on a matriarchal culture, the men subservient to the women in nearly all ways. It was ingrained in him to want to obey her, and yet she was not his chieftain, nor his queen. His fingers clenched.
Those hawkish eyes of hers latched onto the movement immediately.
“I have angered you.” She said it softly, not truly a question and yet thoughtful. As though she couldn’t understand why she’d upset him as she had.<
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She discombobulated him. One second, he was sure he knew the true make of her character, and the next, she was doing or saying something to make him think he knew nothing of the real woman at all.
“Yes,” he admitted.
A puzzled frown marred her brows, and again she moved her head in the manner of her bird Baatha. Her mannerisms were uniquely her own, and Alador could only guess that it was her long years isolated from the rest of the world that’d made her so.
Haxion had always told him he cared too much about others, too much for creatures who meant nothing to them, were nothing to them. And maybe that was true, but he was who he was and would always remain so.
“Then I am sorry. I fear I do not remember how to interact civilly with others. My skills are quite rusted.”
Again, her soft, sweet words threw him, and he frowned, at a complete loss for how he should feel. He thought he should be angry, but she reminded him so much of an innocent, naive child that it was impossible to be angry at her even though he was still sure she’d had something to do with their current predicament.
“Where are the children, Ice Queen?” he asked softly.
“In their respective towers but tended to by an ice maiden. They should want for nothing.”
“They are only children.” His tone was measured and sure. “And now separated, they’re probably worried and scared out of their wits. Couldn’t they at least come together for a while, to settle themselves in?”
A pretty frown marred her thin brows. “I did not think of that.” Shaking her head, she pursed her lips. “I should have thought of that.” Sighing, she snapped her fingers. “Thank you, male. They are together for their evening meal.”
A breath of wind brushed along her temples, causing the curls around her face to flutter like feathers. His heart banged violently in his chest again.
Goddess, she was lovely.
Lovely and strange and quite possibly the mastermind behind all of that…kind or no, he needed to keep his wits about him.
Alphas for the Holidays Page 142