Chapter Three

Evil Santa

“No.”

Mallory released a shuddering breath. Her body was wracked with cold, beaten down by the severe temperature and her fall from the sky, not to mention she had a recollection of being buried alive in the snow after getting pursued by a murderous stranger not long ago. But it was the firm response from this man that stunned her to the core.

“What…what do you mean?” she heard herself say.

“I mean, I’m not going to help you,” came his calm reply.

She blinked at him, wishing it was his looks and not his words that had left her stunned. Not that he wasn’t handsome. His dark hair was the first thing she’d noticed about him, followed by his eyes, which were an interesting shade of gray. Flecks of snow rested on his lips, and the bridge of his nose, and his chin was covered with some stubble. He wore a large coat over a red shirt—or was it brown? It was hard to tell when he looked like he’d taken a dip in the river, fully clothed.

Deep down, she suspected the clothes he had on took little responsibility for his imposing appearance. He was obviously huge. Strong enough to have pulled her out of the avalanche she’d set off with her scream. And strong enough to kill her.

A flutter of panic arose in her chest, but she instantly quelled it. He saved me. And he said he’s not going to hurt me.

But he wasn’t going to help her, either. As someone who’d devoted her life to the service of others, Mallory found herself struggling to process his blunt refusal. Here she was, having nearly been skewered by some maniac, and the only other person she’d managed to bump into on this mountain since she woke up was pretty much telling her to go to hell.

“Wh-why?” she sputtered, pulling herself into a sitting position. She glanced around at the snow and trees that surrounded them. There was no sign of the man who’d been pursuing her with a blade. “You saved me.”

“I did.” A muscle clenched in his jaw. “And that’s all you’re getting from me, nothing more.”

A gust of cold wind sent another shiver through her body, and it dawned on her that he could see her wings. Was that why he’d refused to help? She wondered what thoughts were going through the man’s mind. Maybe he thought she was a freak of nature or some evil omen. But when she gazed into his eyes, all she noted was a hint of concern.

At least until his features morphed into a frown, Mallory felt that flutter in her chest again. As it was, she still wasn’t entirely sure whether to categorize him as Might-try-to-kill-me or Doesn’t-care-enough-to-help-me. The understanding that she wasn’t safe gripped her chest like a giant clawed hand. She was still very much in danger, whether at the hands of this man or the maniac who’d been after her or from the cold that bit at her flesh and her insides.

Her teeth chattered. If she didn’t get some help soon, she might go into hypothermic shock. How she was still alive after everything that had happened so far was beyond her.

“Look,” the man said, and she thought she saw concern flicker in his eyes again, “if you want to live, I suggest you start running. Boris isn’t gone just yet.”

There it was again. That name. Boris. He said it like it was common knowledge.

“Y-you said he was hunting m-me,” she managed to say, subconsciously wrapping her wings around her torso again. “Why?”

He looked at her like she’d lost her marbles. Then his eyebrows rose slowly. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“What? No. I don’t even know where this is.”

“This is Frost Mountain,” he told her. “And you are in serious danger.”

Could he be any more obvious?

“Look,” the man went on, “Boris is after you. The last thing I need right now is to get in his way, especially for a fae.”

A gasp parted her cracked lips. “You know what I am?”

Of course, he did. No wonder he hadn’t freaked out. No doubt, he was a shifter or some other kind of supernatural. Still, something wasn’t right. What problem did he have with her kind?

She suppressed another shudder. “B-but he’s gone,” she pointed out, sweeping her gaze around again to be certain.

“Boris? He’ll be back. The Fae Hunter never stops.”

“Fae Hunter?” Trepidation swept through Mallory’s gut. Ah. In all honesty, she’d pictured him as more like an evil Santa.

He nodded. “He won’t stop until you’re dead. It won’t be long before you see him again. He’s already got his sights on you. He knows what you are.”

If her fingertips weren’t burning from the cold, Mallory might have pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. For so long, she’d dreaded the dangers of exposing herself.

And now her worst fears were coming to pass. She was being hunted. She still had no clue as to where in the world she was, not to mention how she’d ended up here when she’d been flying over the States moments before the plane came apart. And now she had one more thing to worry about besides the fact that she was stranded and near death.

She had to avoid that, no matter what. She would not die here.

A desperate plea forced its way to her lips. “Please. I need to get off this mountain and get back home. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can get some help at the bottom.”

Was it her imagination, or did she register a flicker of irritation in his eyes? “I already lost all of my fish trying to save your life. Besides, Frost Mountain has no bottom.”

Mallory blinked at him. “What?”

“You heard me. There’s no getting off this mountain.” This time, it was pity that crossed the man’s handsome features. He gave a sigh, his gaze drifting from her toward the nearby river. “Where do you think you are?”

Mallory didn’t respond, not because she’d never even heard of a place called Frost Mountain, but because the cold was seeping into her bones.

The man’s brows furrowed. Suddenly, he pulled off his coat, wrung it in his large hands, and draped it around her shoulders. It did little to keep her warm, but the size of the coat filled her with a slight sense of security. She flashed him a nod of gratitude, nearly doing a double take at the sight of him. His shirt, still very wet, was plastered against his torso, outlining his rather muscular body. Mallory couldn’t help thinking he looked like he belonged on the cover of one of those romance novels lonely housewives read while their husbands are away on business trips, a complete fantasy that easily tickled one’s wanton desires.

“I…” She struggled for words. “I have no idea. I was on a plane—”

“And you crashed on this mountain all of a sudden.”

“Yes. Did you see it? Did you see anyone else from the plane?”

He shook his head. “Yours won’t be the first plane to crash on Frost Mountain. Now and then, more of you come from your world into this dimension.”

At this point, he had to be playing games with her. “Dimension? What are you talking about?”

“The reason you have no idea where you are is because Frost Mountain doesn’t exist, at least not in your world. Your plane must have breached a portal leading into this dimension; that’s why you crashed here.”

“None of this makes any sense. How is that even possible?”

In response, he simply lifted an eyebrow, and the answer came to her in a second.

Magic.

“Oh,” she muttered. “W-well, that’s just convenient. I’m in some magical fantasy land. How do I get out?”

The man hesitated for a second. “You can’t. No one leaves this dimension. It’s designed to imprison its occupants. There are many ways in and no ways out. No bottom. Just this mountain.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mallory said, even though her instincts told her he was dead serious.

“Welcome to Frost Mountain.” He spread his arms wide. “It’s been around for centuries, ever since those witches decided to imprison our ancestors.”

In another situation, she would have referred him to a psychiatrist, but Mallory knew there was some, no, plenty of truth to his words. He wasn’t some random human rambling about things he didn’t know about. With supernaturals, just about anything was possible, which was exactly the problem because the possibilities weren’t all sparkly and rosy like in fairy tales. Sometimes, they included mountains created to imprison and kill you.

Yeah, her sabbatical was going pretty great, thank you very much.

The new details spun around her mind, and the reality of her situation sank in deeper. She wasn’t just marooned on some mountain far from home. She was never getting home. Her chances of ever getting back to Vegas and the Living Grace Hospital were…well, pretty much zero.

And she had something else to worry about.

As if reading her thoughts, the man said, “Boris will be back. You should run while you can.”

The image of those cold, green eyes boring into hers, the Fae Hunter’s blade glowing in the sunset, was seared in her memory.

She gritted her teeth. If this guy wasn’t going to help her, she could help herself.

“Thanks for the advice,” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet.

Her bones ached, and another shiver swept through her, but she needed to keep moving. She considered taking flight again, but she needed the coat, not to mention that her wings were tired from her fall and trying to escape from Boris. She took a couple of steps down the mountain, away from the river, away from the man who had refused to help her.

And then her knees gave way beneath her, and she collapsed in the snow, clutching her MediPack.