Frozen Necessity (3 page)

“Have I shoved you, or treated you with dishonor?” 

“Well…” Angelica thought about it, and he was right. He’d never been nasty or cruel to her. Something that Colt did every time they had an encounter.

“No.”

“Very well,” he said in his smooth accent. “Trust me, then, Angelica, when I tell you that man means to make you suffer. It would be best if you left this place.”

“Where do
I
go?”

“Come back to Radcliff with me.” He was close enough that she could see parts of his form become more opaque than others.

“What am I going to do in that ghost town? I can’t look after myself here. I don’t know how.” Angelica heard her voice climb an octave and vibrate with her frustration.

“I will care for you, ma’am,” he said, reaching out a translucent hand towards her. “I will make sure that no one will harm you.”

Angelica heard the cabin’s outside door bang and snapped her head in that direction.

When she looked back to where Michael had been standing, he was gone.

It was pointless. Why had she even thought the ghost could help her? He was…well, he was a ghost. It wasn’t as if he had the ability to help her care for herself.

Or did he?

Could he tell her how to hunt, where to go, perhaps lead her back to civilization, so she could get…where would she go? She needed to get to Ath and the others. That was her only hope.

Problem was, she didn’t know where they were, so it was back to plan A. Try and reach Ath thorough the flames.

She walked toward her door. Someone had come in or gone out, and she wanted to know if it was Colt.

That man…what he’d done to her. Every time the memory hit, her body responded, and with it so fresh in her mind, her body was responding in spades.

She was ashamed to admit it, but part of the reason she was stalling on her decision to escape was because she wanted more of what Colt had done.

She wanted to feel his harsh kisses and his hot skin against her breasts. It burned in the most divine way. She wanted his hands on her body, she wanted them roaming her and discovering all her warm places. She wanted to learn more from him.

Colt had given Angelica her first taste of passion. Now she knew what it could do to you and make you feel, and she wanted more. She wanted to learn it all.

Learn your passion lessons from someone else.

Nope, she didn’t want to be with anyone else. She had a strong suspicion that only Colt could make her feel what she had felt.

Her mind busy with its internal struggle, Angelica reached the door, pushed her ear against it, and listened.

There were sounds of someone moving around in the cabin. She sensed the extra warmth and heard the crackle of flames as more wood fed the fire.

She touched the latch on the door. Colt hadn’t locked it when he’d stormed out earlier.

Angelica pulled it open quietly and peered into the main room of the cabin. Colt was dressed, a fresh pair of jeans and a button down shirt with a sleeveless vest over it. The blue of the shirt worked on him. His hair was damp, and it looked like he’d pulled his fingers through it to brush it.

He looked…edible, hot, yummy, and she could think of a million more earth colloquialisms to say he was attractive to the point of pain.

“Colt.” She pulled the door open wider and stepped in the room.

He stopped what he was doing and turned his head to her.

He was silent for a long moment, his eyes traveling from her head to her feet and back up again, as if he was judging to see that she was worthy of something.

“We need to talk about—”

“No, we don’t.” he shot back and turned his head back to look down at what he was doing.

“You can’t keep me here forever. It’s obvious you don’t want me. So why hold me prisoner?”

He made a sound deep in his throat.

Angelica ignored it and continued speaking, “Please, let me contact someone who can take me away from here.”

His reaction was violent and instantaneous. He spun and with two big paces, stepped right up to her. “You aren’t going anywhere, and who is it you want to contact?” 

“Um…No one, I thought…”

“You thought wrong, and you will tell me who it is you want to contact.”

Angelica craned her neck back to glare up at him, sudden anger making her bold. She took her hands and shoved at his chest.

It must have surprised him, because he shifted his balance. He didn’t move other than that.

Like moving a damn mountain.

“To quote a friend,
I don’t have to tell you jack-shit
,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Stop trying to bully me, Colt. It’s not working.”

She turned and stomped her way back into her prison. It was her turn to slam the door.

Chapter Three

Her high drama was wasted on the big brute when he pushed the door open, stalked up to her, grabbed her hand, and turned to walk out the room, all but dragging her behind him.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Angelica dug in her heels, moved her center of gravity back, and refused to budge—well, she tried. Colt was stronger, so it was inevitable that he managed to drag her along anyway. She nearly landed on her backside again when he jerked.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Gelibean, but this time I will tell you. We have to go to the council hall.” He didn’t even turn his head to talk to her. He kept dragging her towards the front door.

The wind howled around the cabin again with such force that Angelica winced.

“Colt, if you take me out in that, only wearing this dress, I will freeze before you’ve dragged me three steps.”

He stopped and turned his head to look at her. Her feet were bare, and all she was wearing was the white flowing dress they had given her.

“Stay here.” The order was implicit, and Angelica knew better than to disobey.

He marched back into her prison and returned with her well-worn shoes and the bearskin blanket. He tossed the shoes at her feet. “Put them on.”

Angelica bent and slipped the shoes on her feet, though they weren’t meant for this type of climate, and she could thank her phoenix blood for not having lost her toes to frostbite already.

When she straightened, Colt stepped behind her and put the bearskin blanket around her shoulders.

“Wow,” she exclaimed, sarcasm dripping from her tone. “Look at me, I’m a barbarian princess.”

Colt snorted. “You aren’t a good enough breed to be a princess or a barbarian.”

Angelica gasped. “And you don’t know anything about me. So you can’t say that.”

He ignored her and grabbed her hand again. Angelica considered forcing him to drag her. The thought was so tempting, but she liked her arm in its socket, so she kept up with him as he opened the door and went down the steps.

The cold knocked her breath away, and with a gasp, she tried to fill her lungs again. Snow spun around her in dervishes of white and the wind bit through her as if she was frail

“Oh, my gods, it’s…” Her teeth were already chattering.

“Wrap the bearskin tighter, and move faster.” Colt was leaning into the wind, his whole body tense.

He feels the cold, too. Good!

Some spiteful part of her rejoiced. Why should she suffer alone?

Every step was torture, and if Colt hadn’t been holding on to her hand in a death grip, Angelica was sure she the wind would have dragged her off her feet more than once.

“Why are we even leaving the cabin in this weather?” she called out over the screaming wind.

He didn’t answer.

“Colt.”

He turned his head enough to say, “Shut up and move, Geli. We can chat later.”

“I
am
moving,” she muttered, but she knew he wouldn’t have heard her.

“Then move faster.”

How did he hear me?

Then, she remembered his sense of hearing was far more acute than any normal person. He was a Therin shifter. Her hearing wasn’t as good, because her genetics made her less of a shifter and more of a phoenix.

If felt like an eternity, but soon they reached a large building and Colt led her upstairs. Fighting the door in the wind, he pushed her inside. She stumbled, but caught her balance and stopped, closing her eyes in the bliss that the warmth of the building made her feel.

Colt slammed into her back as he wrestled the door closed and took a step backwards. She lost her balance and fell. Using her hands to stop her fall, she scraped them on the wood of the floor.

She was about to let out a string of curses when she felt Colt hook a hand around her upper arm and yank her to her feet.

“In the future, watch where you are standing.” 

“Go tie yourself in knots, and I can think of a good appendage to start with,” she spat out.

Someone laughed at her comment, which made Angelica look up and scan the room. There were five people present. From what she sensed, three of them were Eternals, and two were human. An old man, and Sarah--who she had met outside the village—were the humans. She didn't know the other three. They hadn’t been with the Eternals that had brought her food and bath.

Angelica straightened to her full height and pulled her shoulder back. “Why am I here?” she asked, and was glad when she sounded calm.

“For your wedding, child.” Sarah smiled, and it was like a beam across the room.

It took Angelica a moment to register what Sarah had said.

“Wedding? What do you mean?”

“Come, child.” Sarah waved Angelica closer.

She looked around the rest of the room and noticed a central fire pit—of sorts—surrounded by a donut-shaped table with chairs spaced at equal intervals. At the back of the room was another fireplace, where Sarah, the old man, and the three Eternals stood in a horseshoe shape.

Angelica took a hesitant step forward, but Colt still had his hand latched around her upper arm, and he took the lead, dragging her behind him of sorts.

He’s a frigging cave man.

“Duh.”

He looked back to ask, “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought so.” He turned forward again and led her into the center of the horseshoe of people. “Get this over with, Sarah.”

Colt sounded angry and something else… Something darker was in his tone. It made Angelica shiver.

“But the child needs to know—”

“She doesn’t need to do anything. Get it done before I change my mind.”

“Very well." Sarah looked at Angelica with a pitying look, then started to speak.

“Today, we join these two, in the way of humans and the way of Therin folk.”

Join? Wedding? Oh, hell no, they are trying to marry us. Oh, no, I want nothing to do with this.

Angelica tugged her arm out of Colt’s hold. “No. I’m not being
joined
with him, not in this lifetime or any other.”

“I’m sorry, child, but you don’t have a choice—no more than Colt has.”

Angelica turned and ran. She had to get away from there. She should have left when Michael had offered.

Colt grabbed her from behind, his arm going around her waist. Angelica did the one thing she could. She let her fire free.

Flames burst from her skin, and Colt must have got a shock because he let her go. She ran for the door, but didn’t get there, Colt grabbed her again, and when she let her inferno burn, it didn’t seem to bother him. He wrapped his arm around her waist and half dragged, half carried her back to the semi-circle of people.

“Don’t waste all your fire on me, Geli-bean. It’s not working.”

What?

She looked down at his arm and he was right. His shirt wasn’t burnt, and his hand covered in healthy skin. The shock made her flames vanish just as she reached the people who were going to tie her to this man for eternity.

He should have burnt to charcoal. She’d never used her ability to burn as a defensive weapon before, but he should have third degree burns, he should be dead. Fire killed eternals, especially phoenix fire.

Maybe she was defective. Angelica felt wetness on her face and realized she was crying. “Please don’t do this.”

Colt pulled her against his chest and clamped his free hand around her mouth. “Do it, Sarah.”

The old woman nodded her head.

“Do you make all the oaths necessary to make this Eternal your female for eternity, as long as you both live?”

“Yes.” Colt sounded like he was choking on the word.

“Mmm mmm mmm,” came out behind Colt's clamped hand, but what Angelica meant was,
I don’t make any vows, so let me go.

She was trying to get it out, but Colt clamped down on her mouth harder.

“Say the words, Colt.”

“Wait.” He leaned his head down, put his lips to her ear and spoke in a low voice, “I’m going to let go of you. If you scream or try to run or disagree in any way, I will hunt down every one you’ve ever cared about and take my vengeance bit by bit from them.”

Angelica froze, the menace in his voice was palpable. He radiated pure fury, and she had no doubt that he meant every word he’d said.

“Do you understand, Gelibean.”

She nodded her head.

“Can I let go of you?”

She nodded her head again, and Colt released his grip on her waist and removed his hand from her mouth. He took a step to stand next to her and reached for her shoulder, turning her to face him.

Angelica stood stiff, unable to do anything to stop this atrocity from happening.

With his right hand, he touched her left shoulder, then slid his hand down her arm, entwining his fingers with hers. He raised her arm so that both their limbs were bent at the elbow and their wrists touched.

“I, Colt of the Ice-bears, vow to take you, Angelica, of the Phoenix as my mate, what is mine and what is me is yours. What is yours and what is you, is mine. Do you accept this, Angelica?”

“Answer him child,” Sarah uttered in a soft tone.

“I…”

Sarah prompted her. “The words are,
I, Angelica of the Phoenix
”

“I, Angelica of the Phoenix.”