The Snow Queen's Captive (5 page)

“You have already coerced my name from me,” he said coldly. “What more do you want?”

She sighed. “A conversation? You’re the only one here.”

He said nothing.

“Have it your way,” she told him, and then waved a hand at the polar bear skins. “I brought those because I thought you might be cold. It…It’s not cold here for me. Feels a little warm, actually.” She rubbed her hands along her bare arms in a surprisingly sensual gesture that he’d never seen her do before. Her fingers trailed over that milky pale skin, and gods help him, he watched her with fascination, remembering those frost-tipped fingertips as they stroked his iced-over cock, and the way her gaze had shyly met his. “Anyhow, I’ll look for some pants. If I find you some, I’ll bring them, I promise. No bargaining required.”

When he continued to remain silent, she gave another unhappy little sigh. She turned and left, and he was alone with the polar bear skins. He hesitated a long moment, not sure if this was yet another test. But when she didn’t return, he grasped one and then threw it around his shoulders, burrowing into the warmth.

If her goal was to confuse him, she’d succeeded admirably. Kai was downright baffled by her change of heart.

~~ * * * ~~

It was the first night that Kai had slept comfortably since arriving at the snow queen’s palace. While it was cold, it wasn’t so bone-numbingly chilly that he couldn’t function. Her furs had helped, though it had bothered him that they’d smelled sweet and clean, like she did. Evil shouldn’t smell so wholesome, he thought to himself.

She returned the next day with a small pack. His pack, he noticed, identifying the buckskin fringe and beadwork as that of his tribe’s. He willed himself not to get too excited, though, waiting for her to make the first move.

“I found this,” she said in a soft voice, moving toward the bars of his icy prison. She held it up for him to see. “There’s some sort of food inside.” She played with the fringe with long, delicate fingers, and he abruptly thought of her hand on his cock again – and wished he hadn’t. “I suppose this is yours?”

He gritted his teeth and forced himself not to respond, not to reach through the bars and snatch it back from her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I can tell from the way you’re glaring at me that it must be yours. You seem to have an extra-special amount of hate right now. The question is, what do I do with this bag?” She held it out to him and considered, then drew it back.

And here begin the games
, he thought with fury. Now she would make it clear what she was after. More torture? Sexual pleasure? Both?

“I’d like for you to say my name,” she said in a soft voice. “Please.”

It was that ‘please’ that got him. It was something she’d never said before. “You are Charlotte Ross.”

She exhaled, the sound almost relieved. “I am. It’s good to hear someone else say it.”

Now what did that mean? “You are also the snow queen,” he added in a flat voice.

She looked sad. “Only because I have to be. I didn’t choose it. I was supposed to be the heroine.”

What on earth was she talking about? She made no sense.

She sighed and handed the bag over to him, sticking her hand through the icicles. He could have grabbed her wrist and slammed her into the ice. He could have hauled her against it, or at the very least, snapped her arm. The look in her eyes said she knew all these things and was still taking that chance.

Kai took the bag from her grasp and gave her a stiff nod of acknowledgement.

A soft, sweet smile curved her face. “You’re welcome.”

~~ * * * ~~

Being the snow queen was boring.

She’d been here for two days. Kai still didn’t talk to her – not that she blamed him. No one else was around. There was no TV, no radio, no nothing but endless ice and snow and her pretty – if lonely – castle. At first she’d found it fascinating, but after two days of nothing but ice? She was bored out of her mind.

Well…almost.

She’d explored when she’d first arrived. The castle seemed to have endless passageways and hidden nooks and crannies that she could feel underneath the ice. It was like all she had to do was touch the ice and she’d know what was on the other side. The old snow queen liked her secrets, apparently, and had a hidden library, a laboratory of things that Charlotte knew nothing about, and a secret, hidden room deep beneath the rest of the keep that held the creepy mirror.

She’d been bored by the books in the library, unable to read any of them. She’d cleaned up the laboratory and threw out anything that looked vaguely like eye of newt or wing of bat. That wasn’t her jig, evil queen abilities or not.

But the room with the mirror? That shit freaked her out.

Bad.

The thing oozed magic. And not good, clean, wholesome magic. It oozed magic that made her want to take a shower or wash her hands. It made her feel dirty just to be in its presence. More than that, she felt watched when she stood in front of it, almost like there was someone else in the room. She’d been unable to sleep the first night, not with it in the room. So she’d covered it in ice that way she didn’t have to look into it, and toted it to one of the secret rooms, far in the back of the palace.

And she’d abandoned it there. She was pretty sure the mirror was pissed about that, too. Every time she went through that area, she got a creepy vibe. Once, she was pretty sure she heard someone whisper her name.

Yeah, no thanks.

Unnerved, she erected another ice wall around the mirror room just because it made her feel better.

The rest of the castle felt safe, though. And now that she had figured out how to use her powers, though, she’d set about fortifying the castle. Gone was the delicately wrought gate that looked as if it could break with one well-placed finger. Instead, it was a slab of solid ice, with spikes covering it from the outside. She’d been building the walls, too, turning the delicate, piped confections into something more monstrous and scary. It took a lot of ice and snow, and by the time she’d done no more than a foot, she was exhausted. But she didn’t have anything else to do, and the girl that was coming – the heroine of this fairy tale – was determined to kill her, so it was time well spent, Charlotte figured. So she worked herself into exhaustion and collapsed into her frosty bed each night.

But it was still boring, quiet work, and it left her with nothing but her own internal thoughts. And those? Were kind of a mess at the moment. Chalk it up to the whole ‘death’ or ‘bad guy’ thing or just everything all at once? She wasn’t handling this well. She was lonely and unhappy. The only other person here was Kai and he hated her guts.

Everyone hated her. She was the bad guy.

Charlotte ate her dinner alone every night. Magical, flavored cubes of snow appeared on a dainty plate every evening. That made sense, considering her body temperature was more or less absolute zero. She ate them, even though she didn’t know what was in them or who delivered them. It could have been magic and she was all alone, or it could have been unseen servants that avoided her because they thought she was awful. Either one depressed her.

She was sitting in her lonely throne, her small table at her side, and feeling more than a little sorry for herself. She was exhausted and unhappy, and she still had 28 days to go before she would win this thing.

Even bad company was still company, she decided, and took her small plate to her bedroom and opened the trap door to go visit Kai.

He got to his feet as she descended the stairs, his entire stance wary. She tried smiling at him, but it faltered. So instead, she just touched the wall and dragged out enough ice to make a small stool, sat down, perched her plate on her knees, and began to eat.

Kai said nothing, though eventually he relaxed enough to squat on his heels, still watching her. She was pleased to see that he was wrapped in the polar bear skins she’d left him.

“How’s it going?” She asked, keeping her tone light so he couldn’t tell just how despairing she was.

“How is what going?”

“You know, how has your day been?”

He stared at her as if she were crazy. “I have been trapped in a cage of your design. How exactly should my day be going?”

“You don’t have to be so touchy,” she said with a small sigh. “Have you been in the cage long?”

“You should know. You put me here.”

“Let’s say I can’t remember because I don’t keep track of days.” She waved a hand idly. “Snow Queen biz and all. How many days have you counted?”

He hesitated for a long moment, then said, “Sixty.”

Sixty? God, that was cruel. “I’m really sorry.”

He gave her an incredulous look, and then snorted.

Well, that made her feel worse. “It’s true. You don’t have to believe me, but I am sorry. None of this was my idea.”

“Then let me go.”

Well, she couldn’t do that, either. Charlotte shook her head, looking sadly at him. “I have to keep you here with me. It’s part of the plan.”

“Plan?” His lip curled derisively. “What plan?”

It was clear he didn’t believe her, and she suspected telling him all about how she’d died and been replaced into the wrong person? Probably wouldn’t go over so well, either. “Never mind.” She shoved another flavored cube into her mouth and chewed slowly, miserable. She glanced up at Kai again. “You’ve been here two months. Have you seen anyone else?”

He stared at her, as if not quite believing her questions. Then he shook his head. “You told me once that you forbade anyone to visit you. That you preferred your privacy.”

“Did I?” Charlotte sighed at that. “That sounds rotten, so that sounds like me. Unfortunately.” She popped another cube into her mouth, disgruntled. “I kind of suck.”

He reached for an icicle, then drew a hand back. “You should let me go.”

“I wish I could. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with me.”

“Why?”

“Can’t say?”

“What is it you plan to do with me?”

She considered this. “Hold on to you for another month.”

He looked surprised by her answer, studying her with a puzzled expression. “For what purpose?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said. “Then I suppose I’ll go back to whatever it is that snow queens do with their spare time.” She fiddled with one of the cubes. “I don’t suppose you know what I had planned?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t know?”

She had no clue, actually. But since some of the other things she’d discovered about the snow queen had been not so nice, she was curious in a rather nauseated sort of way. “Humor me?”

“You told me,” he began slowly, watching her reaction, “that you intended on turning the entire realm into one of ice and snow, and subjugating those that wouldn’t follow your rule.”

Charlotte considered this. “Sounds ambitious.”

He said nothing, simply regarded her with that suspicious expression.

“Did I mention how, exactly, I’m going to do that?”

“You arrived here three months ago. Ever since then, our lands have been swept into an endless winter. As long as you remain here, you will continue to destroy everything.”

So she was winning simply by being present? That was easy. She considered the ramifications of eternal winter. Nothing but snow and ice, which was fine for her, of course, but everyone and everything would starve. Plants would die and so would all the livestock that depended on them, and then the humans. She’d be a mass murderer, and all she’d have to do is sit back and encourage the snow. Lovely. “Doesn’t seem like the nicest thing to do.”

He laughed then, the sound hard and brittle. “Since when have you cared about doing the nice thing? Ever since you arrived you have attacked others and destroyed lives. You stole me from my people and have used me for your own cruel whims. And now you have a change of heart? You’ll forgive me if I don’t quite believe your tales, Cold One.”

“No, I don’t guess you would.” She wasn’t surprised by that, not really. He hated her, and she couldn’t blame him. Apparently the snow queen had been quite awful to him. She wondered – not for the first time – what those cruel whims had been. Then she thought of the ice on his groin and blushed. She could guess some of them.

“Why are you here, asking me these things?” He sounded as if he hated her being here.

It made Charlotte even sadder. She shrugged, trying not to take it to heart. She wasn’t this awful Snow Queen. She wasn’t. She was just time-sharing her body for a time. That was all. And she couldn’t let this get to her. “I just wanted someone to talk to, that’s all. I miss having friends.”

“Friends?” he echoed. “What does a creature like you need with friends?”

She was beginning to wonder the same thing. Perhaps Muffin had set her up for the loneliest challenge of all, and the real trick wouldn’t be keeping the heroine from Kai, but keeping her own wits about her through this ordeal.

~~ * * * ~~

She had something up her sleeve.

Kai couldn’t figure her out. This had to be some sort of new trick to get him to let down his guard. Being hard and cruel might have been fun for her in the beginning, but it was obvious she’d lost her enthusiasm for it and decided to try a different tactic. It had to be why she kept showing up, eating her meals with him and asking him bizarre questions.

It had to be why she had that sad, desperate look in her big blue eyes.

She was clever, too. She thought of everything. When she visited him, she acted as if she hated his cage almost as much as he did. She asked him soft questions about himself. How old was he? What were his people like? What did his food taste like? Was he warm enough? Did he have enough food? Would he like a bath?

And when it was late at night and she was up in her bed, he could have sworn that he’d heard the soft sound of distressed weeping.

Kai was beginning to miss the cruel side of the snow queen. At least that, he understood. Removing the enchantment that kept him complacent and then trying to befriend him? This was clearly part of a game, but one he couldn’t figure out. And he didn’t like that.