Chapter Fourteen

Predator and Prey

Three thoughts were raging through Lance’s mind as he sprinted across the mountainside. The first thought was that Mallory had abandoned him. Lance had woken up naked and tingling all over from last night’s experience with the fae woman, only to find her missing. Just as he’d feared, she’d gotten up and left him.

The second was that he was an idiot and a blithering one at that. He’d made the same mistake he’d made two years ago. Ignoring his instincts, he had trusted another fae woman, and where had that gotten him? It was the same pattern all over again: Help the fae woman and endanger your life in the process. Oh, and get abandoned right when he was in the thick of it.

The third thought was that perhaps Mallory hadn’t abandoned him. Perhaps she’d been taken by Boris. How Boris was still alive if that was really the case, was beyond him, but a single understanding stuck with him: Mallory was gone, and that was a bad thing.

It was this thought that had driven him out of the cave several minutes ago. He’d scanned his surroundings for a moment and followed the quickly fading tracks in the snow. It was hard to tell whether the footprints belonged to Boris or Mallory. He could only hope she was still breathing by the time he found her. An image crept into his mind, sending a sudden chill along his arms.

She’s still alive, he told himself. She’s got to be.

The terrain grew steeper as he moved, but he managed to maintain his balance, driven forward by a mixture of worry and rage. Worry because Mallory was most likely in danger right now. Rage because the most dangerous threat to her was Boris, the Fae Hunter.

“Mallory!” he called. If she were nearby, she would respond. “Mallory!”

But what if she couldn’t? What if she’d been bound and gagged or was lying dead in a valley? Or, worse, what if she was ignoring him? The possibilities swirled about in his mind like flecks of snow in a blizzard.

“Mallory!” he yelled again, knowing he could be risking an avalanche with his voice but too agitated to care. “Mallory, where are you?”

Still no answer. Lance followed the tracks, which seemed to be fading too quickly to be of any help. How far away could she have gotten?

“Mallory!”

“Lance!”

Every muscle in his body seemed to freeze at the sound. “Mallory?”

“Lance!” The voice was coming from farther around the mountainside, just out of view. “Lance, I’m—”

She was cut off suddenly. Lance’s eyes widened.

“Mallory!” He took off in the direction of the sound, his heart in his throat. He leaped over a rock, lost his balance, rolled in the snow for a few seconds, and sprang back to his feet, desperation coursing through his veins.

Where are you? he wondered.

A pair of figures appeared in the corner of his vision, barely thirty feet away. The first thing Lance noticed when he turned in their direction was the figure standing, blades drawn, over a form sitting in the snow.

Mallory. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the person standing over her was.

Boris raised one of his blades.

No!

Lance acted without thinking. His hand moved faster than he could blink, and the next thing he knew, one of the blades that had been strapped to his thigh was sailing through the air at Boris. The Fae Hunter dodged just in time, the blade zipping past his face.

Lance ground to a stop in the snow, ten feet away, drawing his second blade as Boris turned to face him. Both men stared at each other, Lance’s chest heaving. Mallory sat in the snow, apparently unhurt but clearly terrified out of her wits. Her eyes were wide, darting from Lance to Boris and back again.

The sight of her like that made Lance’s vision turn red. With a roar that was unlike him, he charged at the Fae Hunter, blade extended, his intent impossible to miss.

But Boris merely sidestepped him, striking at him before Lance could grind to a halt. Pain flared in his thigh, and he nearly went down in the snow. Boris had cut him. The wound didn’t seem deep, just a slash across the thigh, but it stung.

Lance could feel his anger growing.

“Weak,” Boris said with a smirk. His green eyes bored into Lance, daring him to attack again. “And foolish. All you have done is sacrifice yourself. And for what? One of the fae ?”

“She doesn’t deserve to die,” Lance snarled.

“And who gets to decide that?” the hunter replied evenly. “You?”

Lance struck again. This time, Boris didn’t dodge but launched an attack of his own. Lance had barely enough time to dodge the blade. He parried the attack, struggling to maintain his balance, a single thought repeating itself in his mind: Mallory must not die.

For her to survive, Boris had to die.

There was no way around it, Lance realized, as he and his opponent continued to battle, slashing and stabbing at each other while Mallory watched in horror. As long as the Fae Hunter was alive, his targets were in mortal peril. If he ceased to exist, everyone was safe. Not just Lance and Mallory, but hundreds, maybe thousands of other fae scattered across Frost Mountain. For them to be free, for them to live without fear of being murdered, the hunter had to go.

And that was where the problem lay.

Lance ducked again, dodging a strike that would have taken his head clean off his shoulders. He swept his blade in an arc, but Boris was quicker, leaping backward before Lance could hit him. The hunter delivered a swift kick to Lance’s chest, sending him crashing into the snow.

“No!” he heard Mallory cry.

Lance’s weapon tumbled out of his grip. Before he could reach for it, a heavy boot came down onto his arm, sending a throb of pain to his shoulder. He grunted.

Boris climbed atop Lance, straddling him, and Lance felt his chest constrict. As he struggled to draw a breath, the Fae Hunter lifted his weapons: twin blades that gleamed in the morning sun held just above the head of the man who would end his life—the last image he would ever see.

“If only you’d had the sense to stay out of my way,” Boris said.

He lifted the blades a little higher.

And then he froze.

Lance sucked in a deep breath, following the man’s surprised gaze. Protruding from Boris’ chest, glistening with his blood, was a silver blade. One of Lance’s. And standing behind the man was Mallory. She had a wild look in her eyes, her hair swept across her face, and she was panting like she’d just jogged up the mountain.

Boris’s green eyes widened. The blades slipped from his hands and landed in the snow on both sides of Lance’s head. The Fae Hunter shuddered and fell onto his side, his fingers clawing at the weapon buried in his back.

“No…” he muttered. “No…”

A few seconds later, he was perfectly still, his eyes unblinking.

Lance’s gaze slowly drifted back to Mallory, who was still panting.

“Is he dead?” she asked. “I was aiming between his shoulder blades, figured I could try to puncture a lung or something—oh!”

Lance had shot to his feet and wrapped her in a tight hug. She was stiff against him for a moment. Then, slowly, almost tentatively, she put her arms around him.

“Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life.”

“And you saved mine,” he told her. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “We’d both be dead if it weren’t for each other, the way I see it. A good reason to stick together.”

Boris was dead. If the body weren’t lying in the snow next to them, Lance wouldn’t have believed it. The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. The Fae Hunter had died at the hands of none other than his prey.

Mallory pulled away all of a sudden, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m really sorry, Lance. I shouldn’t have left the cave. I guess I just panicked.”

So she’d left the cave on her own. No wonder he was still alive. “Panicked?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me anymore. You’ve done so much already, risking your life over these past couple of weeks. All to protect me. I…I didn’t want you to feel like you were going through the same thing as with…you know.”

Lance frowned. “You mean Julia?”

Her cheeks turned crimson.

He regarded her for a moment, then burst into laughter. “This is different, Mallory. I knew the stakes when I chose to help you. I knew I could lose my life. I just didn’t care, especially after some time.”

She frowned at him. “Why’s that?”

“Because…” His smile widened. “Because I started to fall in love with you.”

She gave an audible gasp. Her lips were parted, but no words came out.

“I never thought I’d fall in love with a fae woman, especially after what happened two Christmases ago. But it’s happened. I love you, Mallory, and there’s not much I can do about that.”

Her dark eyes lit up. “Well, there is one thing…”

And before he could ask her what it was, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. When she pulled back, Lance could still feel the warmth from her lips spreading through his body.

“I love you, too, Lance,” she said. A moment passed between them. “That would’ve looked a lot more romantic if we had some mistletoe to stand under, but I doubt that grows on Frost Mountain.”

“I don’t know what mistletoe is,” Lance told her. “But you can tell me once we get to my cabin.”

She beamed at him. “You still want me to come with you? Boris is gone.”

He shrugged. “I’m not letting you out of my sight now or ever. You’d probably end up causing another avalanche.” They both chuckled, and he added, “Besides, after all this time together, I can’t imagine spending my Christmas alone.”

“Me, neither,” she told him. She sighed. “As far as sabbaticals go, this one’s not so terrible, after all.”