The Snow Queen's Captive by Jill Myles Page B

with a sniff.
    He’d expected that answer. It still irritated him to hear it. She shared nothing with him. Not that he expected otherwise – she was his captor. Still, she kept trying to convince him that she was different…and then did the same sort of thing that made it difficult for him to trust.
    He watched her for a minute more. “What are you doing, then?”
    “Packing,” she said in a watery voice. She wiped her eyes and shook the ice off of her fingers. “I’m taking a vacation.”
    “What about me?”
    “You’ll be fine here in the ice keep,” she said in a dull voice. “I’ve reinforced the doors. You won’t be able to get out, but no one will be able to get in, either.”
    “I’ll make a fire and burn a hole through,” he threatened. Why did he care if she left him? Why did it make him so angry?
    “No, you won’t. It’s enchanted ice.”
    “Enchanted how?”
    “Um. Enchanted not to burn.”
    He’d never heard of such a thing. “I don’t believe you.”
    She flushed. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s true. You’re stuck here. And I’ll be…back soon. Ish.” Her face crumpled and she wiped more tears from her eyes.
    For some reason, her tears tore at him. He felt helpless to assist her. In her own way, she’d been kind to him, and he could do nothing in return. “And who will bring me food while you’re gone?”
    She stilled, blinking.
    Ahah. He’d found something she had not considered. “Your servants only respond to you. Who will bring me water and soup when you are gone? Or do you care if I starve? Is this another one of your tortures?”
    He knew she hated it when he threw out the ‘torture’ word.
    Sure enough, her jaw set in a mulish line. “I’m not torturing you.”
    “I seem to recall ice in unpleasant places that tells me otherwise.”
    Her face flushed again, rather prettily. “That’s not fair.”
    “Is it not? What about this is fair?”
    She threw her bag down, now angry at him. “I didn’t choose this!”
    “Nor did I.”
    Her mouth firmed again.
    “If you’re leaving, take me with you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why. She just seemed so desperately alone and unhappy. “You can keep an eye on your prisoner and still get away.”
    She hesitated, and then began to stuff the furs in the bag. “You’ll need furs. You can’t go naked.”
    “I’ll get them,” he said easily.
    He didn’t know why, but he felt like he’d won a battle. “Where are we going?”
    “Anywhere but here,” she said, a grim look on her pretty face. “I’m not staying here to wait for the end.”
    “The end?”
    She turned and glanced around the room, then looked at him. “Someone’s coming here and I doubt they’re leaving without my head on a pike.”
    “I’m sick to death of this place.”
    She wasn’t the only one. “We can go south, to my people.”
    Charlotte gave him a pointed look. “Yeah, right.”
    He found himself smiling. “I had to ask.”
    Her tears dried a little, and her mouth turned up, just slightly, at the corners. “I suppose you did.”
    “So…where are we going?”
    She shrugged. “There’s a mountain in the distance. I thought I’d see what was on the other side.”
    “Walking?”
    She thought for a moment, and then got a mischievous look on her face. “Not walking…”
     
    ~~ * * * ~~
     
    From atop the back of her polar bear, Charlotte stared over the cliff. “Okay, so apparently there is no other side of this mountain.”
    Behind her rode Kai, his hands on her icy waist. “This is probably why no one lives on the mountain,” he said with amusement. “My people never come here.”
    That struck her as odd. “Really? Even when I wasn’t here?”
    “It is a long climb and my people travel by foot.” His long black hair fluttered near her face as the wind picked up. “We’ve had to range further and further for food due to the cold, but never up the mountain. As you can see, there is not much to