The Ice Queen

  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 could they now 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 tight, her tiny fingers dug into his hipbone as she smashed her face tight 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, there was a manner about her that 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.

  Those hypnotic eyes of hers returned back to his face and he trembled. Not only from the power that rippled all around her, but also the sheer magnitude of that stare. Like she saw straight through him.

  There was so little anyone knew of the Queen. Who she was? How she’d come to be? It was all a mystery to his people. One he’d never given much thought to, until now.

  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 this 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 that sentence led him to believe it’d not come as a shock at all 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, it was actually kind of pretty. Turning the place into a wintery wonderland.

  The trees that’d earlier been so dead were now 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 now 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 now 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 colored 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. Like 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 tight, 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 feeling 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. Made him squirm, and uncomfortable, because once more he found himself surprised by her.

  Could it be that the stories were all wrong? Or was this merely some game, or ploy? Was she trying to bring down his defenses? Was she in on this 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.

  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 little 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, naïve 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.

&nbsp
; “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 even 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 little 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 this...kind or no, he needed to keep his wits about him.

  Clenching his jaw, he looked over toward the palace, at the twin towers standing tall and foreboding off in the distance. Could he really trust her? Were the children truly okay?

  “What game do you play, Ice Queen?”

  When he turned to look back at her, he was shocked to discover that she stood mere inches from him now, so close that he took an involuntary step back even as he inhaled her sweet scent deep into his lungs.

  The air was ripe with the heady fragrance of pine and frost and sugared berries. He shook his head, telling himself not to let her get under his skin this way. It was likely some strange enchantment of hers, or something else dark and devious...

  But one thought brought him up short.

  Weren’t the Ice Queen and the Under Goblin mortal enemies? All the stories said so.

  And yet...all the stories also said she was a monster with the form of an angel.

  Again she did that strange bird-like movement with her head and neck, blinking large, gorgeous eyes up at him as she too tried to make sense of him.

  And once again he felt his skin flush from head to toe, felt himself standing on that cliff’s edge of darkness that dropped down into eternity if he so much as blinked.

  Grunting, he shook his head. Sure now that he was being ensorcelled somehow. But no matter how much he thought it, he couldn’t shake the fact that his heart and pulse and body felt completely off kilter anytime she looked at him as she did now.

  “I do wish you’d transform yourself, male.”

  There wasn’t a bite to her words, they simply were.

  “What are you?” He found himself asking the question before he could censor his thoughts. “What are you doing to me?”

  Goddess, she needed to turn those luminous eyes off of him. She needed to not look at him as she was. His insides were rioting, but why? What was happening to him?

  Pragmatic to the core, as all centaurs were, he couldn’t understand these strange and novel feelings now surging through him like a hot tidal wave. Slamming into him powerfully, and making him feel as though he couldn’t take a proper breath.

  She took a step closer to him, and again, he found himself dancing back. But not sure why. He was drawn to her against his will, knowing deep down that what was happening to him should never happen to a centaur, but he couldn’t seem to resist her spell.

  And that thought made him angry, gave him the fire to ask, “What does it matter to you if I shift or not? And what role in this twisted game do you play, Ice Queen?”

  Chapter 5

  Luminesa

  Why did it matter to her? She couldn’t say.

  Maybe it was because she wasn’t comfortable with males who only walked on two legs. Or possibly it had to do with something else.

  Truth was, she hadn’t a clue.

  All she knew was that from the moment she’d been sucked into this strange world she’d felt an undeniable pull to the male. That when he’d looked her in the eyes she’d felt as though she was tethered to the ground by the very merest thread of string, and that one strong gust would snap it in half and she would float away.

  That when he came close to her all she could smell was the beguiling scent of horseflesh, and pure, powerful male. That her heart thundered like horses hooves in her chest and that she was terrified because she hadn’t felt emotion this powerful since the moment of her rebirth.

  All those things she felt and more, but none of them seemed capable of falling off her tongue.

  Watching him through the looking glass she’d felt a spark of life flow through her. A strange, tingling warmth that’d robbed her of breath.

  And even as she craved more of that spark, she was also terrified of feeling again. Not just feeling for a man, but feeling anything at all. For so long she’d shunted off those emotions, to the point that she’d thought herself deadened to them.

  Her heart was rimed in ice and that was how she liked it. Her only worries had ever been for her children—the creatures that roamed her icy forests—the animals she called friends and companions.

  Maybe as his horse she’d not feel this anymore. This strange curiosity and yearning for something long dormant.

  He shook his head, causing the long ends of his black hair to swish down around his thick, barrel chest. Piercing green eyes the color of pine stared back at her with a heavy frown.

  “Ice Queen, will you not answer?”

  Her pulse stuttered, he was upset with her. It shouldn’t bother her that he was. It’d never bothered her before. She’d angered many creatures in her time, and none of it had fazed her, until now...until him.

  She swallowed. “My name is Luminesa.”

  Green eyes—far prettier than they had any right to be on a male—blinked. Long lashes fanned along the tops of his honey colored cheeks. She couldn’t help but wonder if his centaur half was the same shade as his flesh.

  Inhaling deeply, she turned her face to the side, not sure why she’d offered him her true name when she’d done it so rarely in her life. Why had she come here? She could say she hadn’t known what would happen when she finally touched the glass, but that would be a lie.

  Because deep down she’d suspected the true power of the glass rested in holding it.

  Baatha hadn’t wanted to come. Even now she felt his resentment at being forced to. He did not enjoy people. Like her, he too had been hurt by outsiders, he could not understand her desire for coming. And in truth, neither could she.

  If she could return home now, she probably would have. But she’d already tried. She was as stuck here as the three of them. Confused and irritated by her own strange emotions she made to turn, to head for the castle and a room farthest away from all of them, when suddenly she felt the roll of warm magic pulse against her.

  Luminesa stood perfectly still, hardly able to breathe as she gazed up at the centaur male. As his half horse, he’d grown. Standing several heads taller than her now.

  And her guess, that he’d be that same velvety honey color on his flank, had been right. Steam rose from off his withers, curling foggy white fingers through the chilly sky.

  It was hard to see much more of him with the cloak on, and as though he understood that, he reached up and unclasped it. Dropping it casually across a forearm.

  He was glorious. Strong sinewy cords of ropey muscle and smooth, toned flesh. Like his sister he was also furrier than the typical centaur breeds of the great plains, his kind had clearly bred themselves to handle the harsh living conditions of her home. He wore leather wrist braces that buckled, a dark halter on his back, no doubt to hold a weapon of some sort. This male was a warrior through and through and she felt her pulse skitter in her chest.

  She’d not been around a male (of any species) that exuded such an air of raw, primal masculinity the way he did.

  But it was his eyes that drew her gaze over and over again, a blazing green that seemed unnatural, and that studied her as intently as she studied him.

  “I am called Alador,” he said it softly, but proudly.

  She had already known t
hat, Haxion had referred to him as such, but hearing him say his name now with that strong, gravelly inflection caused her flesh to break out in goosebumps.

  By the gods he was a thing of beauty.

  The winds began to pick up in intensity again. Sleet and wet flakes of fat snow dripped from pregnant clouds above. Alador shivered, clearly the cold did affect him.

  Luminesa frowned, wishing she could help ease his pain a little. But her powers only seemed to go so far in this place. The magick hadn’t completely quelled her ability to manipulate ice and snow, but it’d lessened it to an almost laughable degree.

  “Let us go inside before we drown in this,” she said it slowly, sending out a mental projection to her creatures to go and seek shelter as the night was only bound to get worse.

  She did not trust this place. At all.

  From the corner of her eye she caught Alador frown. “Are you not controlling this?”

  Holding up her hand, she flicked her fingers, causing a swirl of flakes to dance ahead of her. “I can control the elements in here, but only a little. The magick the Goblin used is very powerful. I cannot turn this weather off completely.”

  Baba Yaga was a true force of nature, her powers of darkness were legendary and feeling the wave of her dark magick rolling through this enchanted night, Luminesa feared that the worst was still to come.

  The tingling force of power undulated along her flesh like a prickling caress.

  How was she ever supposed to release them from this place?

  Alador trotted gently beside her, tossing occasional curious glances her way. The way his forehead furrowed with frustration and how his lips would thin or tighten up. She knew he wanted an answer to his other question, the one about what part in this game she played.

  Luminesa debated answering, or simply letting him draw his own conclusions, but she felt a queerness of spirit. Restless anticipation for something...though for what, she had no idea.

  By the time they’d reached the courtyard made of glasslike ice, she still hadn’t a clue what to say.

  She’d not been forced to carry on a conversation in some time. The tension between them grew thick and made her anxious.