Free The Snow Queen's Captive by Jill Myles Page A

cold—“
    “I’m fine,” he said quickly.
    Right. She nodded, and continued strolling, though she tried to consciously thin and warm the ice at her feet so it wouldn’t bite at his skin as he stepped.
    They walked her enormous courtyard in silence, and as they walked, her thoughts turned to the walls, as always. Here, there was a spot that could be reinforced. There, the ice had made formations that almost looked like steps and she needed to smooth them lest someone use it as a ladder and climb over all her hard work. As they walked, she peeked over at him a few times, but his face was carefully blank.
    Well, it was now or never. Steeling herself, Charlotte turned to the jagged ice and approached it, placing her hands on the wall. “Give me a moment. I need to smooth this.” She turned her back to him.
    And waited.
    Her eyes closed, she connected with the ice. She’d been stretching and testing her ice queen powers, since no one had given her a manual. Through testing, she’d eventually figured out that if she concentrated, it was like she could connect to the ice at a molecular level and almost ‘see’ what was around her. She’d feel any vibrations of movement, striations in the ice that told her something was changing.
    If Kai was going to make a break for it, she’d feel every footstep on the ice and know what he was doing without lifting a finger.
    This was about trust. And she mentally crossed her fingers and hoped she could trust him. She was so freaking lonely, and captor-and-captive wasn’t exactly the most fun relationship. Something had to change.
    So she waited. To Kai’s eyes, she would appear to be lost in concentration, hands locked against the icy wall. There was not a single sound except the whistle of the chilly wind.
    A footstep crunched against the ice.
    Charlotte waited. Maybe he was shifting his feet. Don’t do it, Kai. Please don’t.
    Another footstep. Then another.
    Then, he was running, and her spirits sank. Charlotte pulled her mind out of the ice and whirled around to see Kai sprinting, as fast as he could, for the icy lattice of the portcullis that led to her courtyard. If he could break through that, he could head straight on to the hills.
    Or so he thought. She could stop him in an instant. Her heart sank, though. She couldn’t trust Kai after all. Not that she was surprised, but she’d hoped…
    Oh well. Crossing her arms, Charlotte watched him race across the ice a moment longer, and then knelt to touch her fingertips to the ice-covered ground.
    Two hundred feet away, the ice slithered and shifted under Kai’s feet, knocking him onto his back. He got to his feet quickly, shaking his head to clear it, and began to race forward again.
    But she had him. The ice surged around his feet like quicksand, submerging him up to his calves in ice and locking him in place.
    His feral growl of frustration was audible from a distance.
    “I thought we were past this,” Charlotte called out in annoyance, pacing over to him. “Seriously. An escape? Really? You thought you could get away?”
    “I had to try,” he snarled at her, twisting his body to give her his best glare as she strolled forward.
    Charlotte moved in front of him and kept her arms crossed on her chest, one finger tapping on her forearm. She wanted to yell at him in frustration. She was just so damn disappointed. They couldn’t be friends after all, could they? It was all just a big pipe dream.
    She suddenly wanted to cry. Was she really going to be stuck, alone and scared, for the next month with no company except a man who wanted nothing more than to flee her presence? She rubbed her stinging eyes, willing the tears away, and then sighed.
    Did she blame him? He thought she was the snow queen, and the snow queen was an asshole and a half. Of course he’d run away.
    Charlotte dropped to the ground in a crinkle of icy skirts. She was just so very tired of all of this. Being the bad guy was rather taxing on the soul.