Unfrozen Read online

  Had he lost his…

  He couldn’t finish the thought. The idea of it making his skin crawl and fear eat his stomach. A low burn started near his heart,and he couldn’t accept it.

  He hadn’t had a chance to make it right with her. She was his. He accepted that now. He knew she’d never done him harm, and all he’d ever done was humiliate and berate her. Angelica deserved so much better than the male he’d been over this last while, and he wanted a chance to give it to her. He wanted to see her grow big with his child. He wanted to help her off the couch when she struggled to stand. He wanted to see her waddle as the life they had created grew inside her, and after that…he wanted to raise their children with her. He wanted to live a life with her. He wanted to cherish her because…he loved her.

  The realization hit him like a jack-knifed Mac truck.

  He lurched forward and grabbed Kate by the shoulders again. He shook her hard and hissed. “Talk or die. What happened?”

  Her eyes widened and she tried to pull out of his grasp.

  Colt tightened up his fingers, digging into her shoulders hard. He was sure he was leaving colorful bruises, and he’d apologize to both Kate and Jericho for those later, but right now, he needed answers.

  “She fell.”

  “I know that.” He growled. “Start at the beginning. Why did you bring her out here.”

  “She wanted to escape.” Kate yanked her shoulders back and broke his hold. It was easy for her, since he was struck again how badly he’d treated his mate. So bad that she’d tried to run from him more than once.

  “I said I’d help her.” Kate lifted her chin, any sign of tears gone.

  “Colt,” Archer called him.

  “Not now. I’m busy,” he answered without looking back at the Outsider. “Why here?”

  “We got lost,” Kate said. “I thought I knew the area better than I did.”

  Athera snorted, and Colt was inclined to agree with her. Something stank in this story.

  “Why were you off the snow mobile?”

  “I’m getting there. Will you let me tell the story or not?” Kate straightened her spine.

  “Fine, but hurry up.”

  “My machine started to splutter and we stopped. We were going to walk. I told her to stay in my footsteps, to follow my lead, but she didn’t listen.”

  Colt heard the slow trickle of a growl leave his throat and it surprised him. It was his inner bear. Apparently, the creature wasn’t believing the story either.

  Kate frowned, but continued to speak. “I heard a scream behind me and turned. I tried to grab her, I really did.”

  Her eyes began to shine with unshed tears and Colt wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and begin to squeeze slowly. She—in some way or another—was responsible for Angelica’s death. For the death of his mate. There would be no other for him. Angelica had been his one chance at true happiness.

  “She went down the crevasse?” Scarlet asked, and Colt could see something burning in her eyes. He didn’t know what, but he was glad for a second that he was not Kate.

  The female nodded as a fresh tear trailed down her face again.

  “Colt,” Archer called again and Colt turned to yell at the Outsider. “You really need to look at this.”

  “Look at what?” Colt took four large strides to stand next to Archer.

  “Be careful the edge is…melted.”

  “What?” Colt went to his knees, trying not to put too much weight on the edge of the crevasse. He carefully brushed away snow around it and looked down into the chasm.

  Archer pointed. “On the edge about ten inches down.”

  Colt frowned and looked up at Laz who gave him a blank look and stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

  Both Disco and Nanook crowded around Colt as he leaned forward.

  It took him a moment to see it. There were two clear handprints melted into the ice, about three inches deep. It made him scowl. How could that be possible?

  “Looks like a phoenix burned and melted the ice,” Archer said and when he did, Scarlet and Athera hurried over.

  “Move up, let me see.”

  She nudged at him and Colt growled. “Let’s try not to push me into the crevasse, okay?”

  She gave him an unrepentant look and leaned forward to look. “You are right, Archer.”

  Scarlet took her turn looking, then stood, nodding. “Only a phoenix could have done that.”

  “So did Angelica burn those in there?” Athera asked

  “No.” Colt said. “The finger marks point down. Someone…”

  Everyone turned to look at Kate.

  “Bent over the edge and caused the ice to melt.”

  “I’m not a phoenix, so you can all stop looking in my direction,” she hissed at them.

  “Then how about you explain where the marks came from.”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe they were already there.”

  Disco started barking. He kept trying to creep over the edge, and Colt had to grab him by the collar to stop the dog from going over.

  “What do we do now?” Scarlet asked as she wrapped her arms around herself. Colt watched Archer pull Scarlet into his arms to warm his She and felt a stab of regret that he’d never get to do that with his Angelica.

  No. Fuck no.

  Colt walked back to his snowmobile and dug in the back for the rope he’d brought just in case. You never went anywhere without rope in the wild—the uses for it were endless. He started the snowmobile and drove it until he was about eight feet away from the crevasse.

  “What are you doing?” Laz asked.

  “Pretty obvious, don’t you think?” He tied the rope off the handlebars and walked with the coiled part to the edge of the crevasse. He tossed the coil down and watched it disappear into the icy dark.

  “She’s dead, Colt. A fall like that in a jagged ice crevasse would kill even an Eternal. You need to let go.” Archer put his hand on Colts shoulder and Colt jerked his shoulder away.

  “If it were Scarlet down there, would you just accept her death?”

  Archer didn’t even need time to consider the question. “No. I’d have to see it with my own eyes, and I’d know. My beast would know if she were dead.”

  “Well, my bear isn’t saying anything about our mate’s death. I believe she’s alive, and I’m going down there after her.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Archer said.

  “No. I need you to make sure the rope doesn’t slip and go in.”

  “I am coming with you,” Laz said in a low tone. “I need to rid her of that ghost that’s clinging to her.”

  “What ghost?” Kate asked.

  They ignored her.

  “I’ll hold the rope, then you can all go,” Kate offered, stepping forward.

  “No offence…” Athera started, and then stopped. “Wait, I don’t give a shit if you take offence or not. I believe that you shoved Angelica down that crevasse, one way, or another, and I’m going to make you pay for it. I would never trust you at my back.”

  Kate gaped at Athera, then flushed, but she didn’t answer.

  “Who said you are going with us?” Colt asked.

  She glared at him. “I did, and I feel sorry for you if you try and stop me because I will burn you.”

  Colt ignored her and wrapped the rope around his waist. “Will you help me out?” He looked up straight into Archer’s eyes, and the Outsider nodded.

  Colt balanced his weight at the edge of the abyss as Archer took up the rest of the rope.

  “I’ll call up when I reach a point that allows you to follow me down,” he told Laz.

  “Okay, and I’ll bring Athera with me.”

  Colt looked over at Athera and she responded by putting her hands on her hips, that stubborn tilt to her chin he had come to recognize as one of Angelica ‘s traits, too.

  “Fair enough.”

  He started to climb down, then nearly had heart-failure when Disco leaned over the
edge putting a paw on his shoulder.

  “No, boy, you have to stay here,” he told the Husky. Disco responded with a whine that led to a howl.

  “Stay!” Colt’s tone was a bark of command.

  The dog whined, but climbed back up and moved away from the edge.

  “Make sure they don’t try and jump in here please, Archer.”

  “Will do.” Archer called from his place near the front of the snowmobile where he held the rope steady.

  Colt took a deep settling breath and started down the ice again.

  His foot slipped on the slick ice and he frowned. There was a runnel of water trickling down, and there shouldn’t be. It was too cold for the ice to be melting like this.

  “Something melted the ice to make it slick in here,” he called up.

  “What was that?” Athera leaned over the edge and looked down. Colt had gotten quite far down already and it was getting darker, so her face stood out against the sky.

  He repeated what he’d said and she turned and spat words out. She must have been talking to Kate again.

  He was sure Athera was right. Kate had pushed Angelica into this ice-fissure. He couldn’t prove it, but if he found a way to do so, Kate was a dead woman.

  He reached a ledge. It was quite wide, but he had to swing over to get to it, and the ice creaked alarmingly all around him.

  It would be a good place to wait as Athera and Laz descended.

  He landed and looked around. There was a good anchor spot, so they could anchor the rope and descend further. He wrapped his arm around himself and shivered. It was damn cold down here. How his Angelica must have suffered.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, send Laz down.”

  Soon he heard the necro coming down the ice, and drops of water and slivers of ice fell past him to the darker depths of abyss.

  How far down did this thing go? He didn’t know, but he knew he wasn’t going to stop until he found Angelica—dead or alive.

  Chapter Four

  Angelica woke up in the dark. No. Dark was an understatement. It was black, black as the bowels of a dragon. She giggled at her simile, then stopped herself.

  She had no idea how precarious her position in the ice shaft was.

  She didn’t even know why she’d giggled—belated hysteria perhaps?

  She had landed on her back and lost consciousness, but now she needed to make sure she was okay. Without moving excessively, she tested her limbs, feeling for breaks or pains. Everything seemed to be in working order.

  The next thing on the to-do list was to figure out where she was, or rather, whether she could get out of there. As an Eternal, she couldn’t die of starvation or dehydration, but going through starvation and dehydration would be horrible. She didn’t want to have to do it if she didn’t have to.

  There was no light above her—not the faintest trace of light from the top of the crevasse. She had to be able to see. That meant she had to risk letting her hand flame, but she was so cold.

  As the thought hit her, a shudder ran through her frame.

  No. Lift your skirts. You are not a whining woman You are a strong phoenix female.

  Angelica yanked her glove off her hand with her teeth and closed her eyes to try to focus. Closing her eyes in the pitch dark seemed funny and she laughed again before sobering and getting her mind to work with her body.

  She held her hand up to—roughly—where she thought her face was and pushed energy into the limb.

  Heat started at her shoulder, inching up her arm at a pace that made her grit her teeth in frustration, but it was too slow. She prayed for patience and waited as the heat reached her wrist. It stopped there, not moving forward.

  No! It had to go up into her hand.

  Angelica felt a whoosh of heat, and light danced in front of her closed eyes. Angelica opened them and found herself grinning.

  “Where are we?” Michael’s voice had an instant effect—the flames starting to peter out.

  “You are sucking what little energy I have. Go away Michael, so I can get myself out of this mess.”

  There was a moment when she thought he’d ignored her, but the presence vanished and the flames doing a jive on her fingertips steadied again.

  Angelica looked around. She seemed to be at the bottom of the crevasse, not on a ledge, so she sat up and looked around more.

  The space was tight, but she had moving room about two feet around her. She saw solid ice to her left, but when she moved her hand right, she was amazed to see the opening of a tunnel. She judged it was high enough for her to stand upright in it.

  Angelica rose to her feet and winced when pain shot up to her hip. She must have landed hard. She limped a step forward, then another. Inside her, a debate raged—should she stay where she was, or should she test the tunnel and see where it led?

  What if Colt is looking for me?

  But what if he isn’t?

  She made a sound of frustration. She couldn’t wait around to see if he would turn up looking for her. She had to be proactive about her own rescue. Hadn’t she seen that enough while watching Bear Grylls through the portal in the phoenix plane?

  She made her decision. She would follow the tunnel and see if she could find a way out of the glacier by herself. Once she was out, she would decide what to do next.

  Scrap that—she knew what she had to do. She had to find her way back to Colt and warn him about Malta-slash-Kate. There was no way she was going to let that bitch get her poisoned claws into Colt. Yet a nagging sense of guilt twisted her gut. She’d promised Michael that she’d take him back to Radcliff.

  And I will, just as soon as I save Colt. She nodded and started walking.

  She’d ask Colt to take her to the mining town so she could put the signet ring back and leave Michael to rest in peace.

  It got colder the deeper she went in the tunnel, and she could perceive a downwards slope. She didn’t need to go deeper into the glacier—she needed to get out of it. Worry gnawed at her, but she kept going, since there was nowhere else she could go, and sitting around waiting wasn’t an option.

  It felt like she’d been walking forever. Her hip and ankle stabbed with pain at every step, and at times, her flames flickered, threatening to die completely.

  She felt entombed in ice, but if an Eternal were going to be entombed, you wouldn’t find anywhere prettier. The light from her fingers bounced off the ice, making beautiful flashes of light that seemed to make the ice walls penetrable.

  At one point, she could have sworn she saw the mummy of a mammoth trapped in the ice millions of years before. She stopped and tried to see it again, but it was gone.

  The deeper she went, the more color she saw in the ice, the oranges, reds and blues of her flame starting to weave together, making colors Angelica was sure wasn’t on any artist color chart.

  She stopped. Ahead of her was a steep slope leading up.

  Finally, she was going up and not down. There was one small problem. The slope was at what she guessed was a forty-degree angle, and there weren’t any hand or footholds in the ice.

  She sat down on her backside and jerked her boots off, then took her socks off. She would use another trick she’d learned while watching Bear Grylls. She put the boots back on, not an easy task with one hand, but if she let the flames die, she wasn’t sure she could start them back up again, so she was going to have to manage.

  It felt weird having boots on with no socks, but she needed the socks for something else. She pulled the socks over the front of the boots, and stood up.

  There, now she’d have some traction on the ice.

  Using her free hand to balance on the wall, she started up the slope. As long as she went slowly, she was okay. There was one heart-stopping moment when her foot began to slip, but she switched her weight to her other foot and it worked. She stopped then, breathing heavily and trying to get her heart to stop pounding.

  She started moving again. As with the tunnel, the incline seemed
to go on forever, and she would have sworn it got steeper, but eventually it leveled off and she could see that it was straight.

  Angelica debated putting her socks back on her cold feet, but she knew they would be wet, and rather than giving her heat, they’d give her frostbite.

  She’d leave them on her boots for extra traction, and when she got out of there, she’d make a fire and dry them.

  Getting out of the tunnel consumed her. Colt, and Malta’s claim on him. were constantly on her mind. She loved the stubborn ice-bear, and even if he didn’t return that love, she’d find a way to save him, and she had enough love for both of them. She had to admit she was curious about making love to him again. She wanted to know what it would be like to explore his body. When they’d had sex, he hadn’t given her chance. She hadn’t even really seen him properly naked yet.

  Next time, she wouldn’t let him rush her. She was going to take her time and discover what made him mindless with passion.

  Distracted as she was, it took her a moment to realize that she could see light ahead. Angelica shook her hand, dousing the flames on her fingertips, walking faster. The ice was shedding rainbows from light other than her fire, which meant there had to be a way out soon, didn’t it?

  She moved faster, smelling fresh air, the scent of pine needles and flowers permeating the tunnel.

  The light got brighter, and she felt her eyes water. Then she was out, and she lifted her forearm to shade her eyes. The light was blinding.

  Angelica took in a long deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of…spring?

  She squinted trying to see in the glare. A moment later, she felt her jaw unhinge.

  Angelica stared at the glory before her and was astounded. She was looking at a valley, green hills rolling gently amidst mountains, and evergreen and deciduous trees mingling like lovers in a dance.

  Wildflowers filled the grass that crept over the hills, and bees buzzed. She could also hear bird song.

  Angelica turned around. Behind her, the tunnel mouth opened up into the glacier. As far as she could see above her and ahead of her was ice, but when she turned she was in the valley.