Chapter 12

"Ooowww," Ivy moaned as her brain came back online and every square inch of her hurt. Her skin felt tight, like a bad sunburn, and her head hurt the worst.

She opened her eyes, peeling them back and squinting into the flickering light of an oil lamp hanging just outside of the bars of a cell. The stone walls and ceiling were roughhewn and covered with icy crystals and her breath puffed out of her mouth in a cloud.

Tinsel. This was not good news to wake up to.

She managed to sit upright on what appeared to be a wooden cot.

"She wakes."

She'd heard his voice once when she'd been with her father and the other Guardians, and he'd managed to hack the intercom system to taunt his brother. She'd been chilled to the core by the angry, murderous tone back then.

It was worse now. Hardened by the many years of dark magic use.

Fear speared through her. There was only one reason that Frost would take an elf—he was going to steal her magic.

"Please let me go."

He arched a brow at her. His skin was pale, his hair a blue-white like the frost he laid down in the winter. His eyes were like diamonds, and she didn't think there was a compassionate bone in his body. He only cared about control of the Well.

"I don't think so. It's getting more difficult to take enough magic to sustain myself because my own people use my magic to recharge themselves. The solstice is coming, and you know what that means."

He was his most powerful on the solstice.

And then his weakest.

So he was either going to take her magic and turn her evil now, ahead of the solstice, or keep her until he needed to replenish his magic after he'd blanketed the world for winter.

He was not a male who would bargain or could be swayed. He was evil and had no care for her or her feelings. She'd just met her mate. Just gotten to see how sweet it was to be mated and cared for.

He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head just slightly. "What, no begging? I rather like it when elves beg."

She thought about Knox. It was tempting to beg, but Frost was just as likely to take her magic to make a point than he was to let her go free.

"You're going to do what you're going to do," she said. She drew her knees up and put her head on them, wrapping her arms around them and closing her eyes. She still ached, but the sudden sorrow at losing everything was sharper. Her magic wasn't the kind that could cast a spell and set her free. A witch could do that, perhaps. Or a fairy. But not an elf. Her magic was just simply that she was an elf, and that wasn't impressive or helpful in this moment.

She could feel Frost staring at her, but then he turned and left, his footsteps echoing and then fading to nothing.

Rising slowly, she moved to the bars and touched them, hissing quietly at the freezing cold temperature. Frost's lair was underground, but that's all she knew.

"Is anyone there?" she whispered, worried Frost might come back.

No one answered.

She couldn't see anything past the bars and the only thing she heard was the faint drip of water somewhere.

Knox had told her that mated couples were connected on a deep level, that after he'd marked her, he would be able to find her anywhere. But she didn't know if his anywhere was the same as her current situation. Could he find her before Frost took her magic from her and turned her evil so she was no longer herself?

It was tempting to cry, but she was no weeping willow.

Sitting on the bunk, she closed her eyes and laid her fingers on the mark he'd given her.

Knox, I need you.

Knox couldn't sit at the computer in his office while he waited for the Guardians to relay the message to Santa. He was pacing, his leopard snarling and demanding he get their mate back.

Before she'd passed out from her injuries, Zara had told Maverick and Chase, who'd found her on their security patrol, that someone had snuck up on them at the portal and she'd been blinded by a bright red light, which had burned her skin and knocked her out.

She'd seen a male with gray skin take Ivy through a portal. She was currently at the hospital being treated.

"We saw the Entrance opening on the security cameras," Hunter, one of the polar bear Guardians, said through the computer's speaker. "And we were on the way to meet whoever it was, but by the time we got there, it was closed and no one was around."

"You need to get up here," Santa said, his voice booming through the speaker. "I'll open a portal for you, send me your coordinates."

Maverick opened his phone's GPS app and recited the coordinates.

"Chase and Maverick are coming with me," Knox said.

"I'm opening it now. Head outside."

Knox closed the browser and turned to Calix. "I'll be in touch."

"Good luck," he said, following Knox, Chase, and Maverick out of the house. "Go get our alpha female back."

A portal was opening as they reached the back porch. His cat was prowling under his skin, anxious. He couldn't feel his connection to her at all, and he wasn't sure what that meant. He'd told her he could find her anywhere. Frost's abduction had proven him a liar.

She had to be at his lair, the underground bunker where he planned his schemes to take over the Well.

How the hell he was going to get in and get her to safety before he tore out her magic and made her a magicless, evil monster he had no clue, but he wasn't going to stop until he had her back in his arms.

She was too important to him for him to fail.

"Let's go," he said, and raced through the portal to get his mate back.

Frost's magic tingled, the feeling of biting ants crawling up his arms, and he knew that the magical tracker he'd had Azure coat the Northernmost portal with had been activated again. Someone was coming through.

He turned to the images on the screen, the invisible cameras watching the perimeter of Northernmost showing him when a small group came through the portal.

He recognized the group as the ones that had gone through with the elf who was in his dungeon. The males all looked angry, which delighted him on a cellular level. And also gave him an idea.

"Azure!" he barked his number three's name.

The male hurried into the room, ever the eager beaver to do whatever Frost wanted. Sometimes it irked him, but now he appreciated how fast the male was.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, slightly out of breath.

"Bring the elf topside, I want to take her magic and turn her."

"Wait, the female?" Azure frowned, his gray skin pulling around his mouth. His dark eyes, ringed with purple because he was a warlock-turned-evil, were filled with uncertainty. "I thought you wanted to save her for after the solstice. It's less than two weeks away. We'll have to?—"

Frost slashed his hand in the air and Azure stopped speaking, his teeth clicking as he closed his mouth.

"Get the female. Meet me at the entrance. Now."

The male darted away like his ass was on fire.

At least he could hustle.

Jack stared at the video feed. His brother met the shifters along with other guardians—shifters and elves—and they marched toward the edge of Northernmost. They'd cross the border and leave the safety of the town, and then they'd be at Jack's door in an hour.

Of course his brother stopped at the perimeter of the town. He was too scared to be ambushed. Rightly so, of course. Jack would absolutely slit his throat in a heartbeat if he had the chance.

But no matter. He would show the Guardians he was more powerful and dangerous than his brother. While they grieved the loss of the elf, he'd strike again, the plan nearly ready.

Smiling to himself, he left his office to meet the Guardians marching toward him to save the elf in the dungeon.

Jack would be ready for them.