Page 16 of Hunted in Holly

We clashed and separated again and again in an aggressive play of affection and offense, and I was addicted to the building tension on every pass. When I caught her again, I held her close, and I dipped her low, so she had to hold onto me to stay upright. I teased her with a quick peck on the tip of her nose, before I righted and released her again. The small reminders that she couldn’t escape me mixed with hints of desire was the most genuine expression of my type of love that I knew how to show her.

“Cute.” She said with a scoff, while she started skating circles around me to break the rhythm of our connection.

“Don’t forget who created the game, Dove. Even if I do enjoy your little rebellion, it’s still entirely and only of my allowance that you’re running free. The moment I want you, I’ll have you.” I skidded to a stop as she rounded me once more.

“You think so?” She began, another circle completed. “Because I think you’re a brute with no finesse.” A curt smile graced those cold reddened lips. “And out here, on this beautiful white Christmas, it’s going to take strategy if you want to keep me.”

“Is that so—” I barely got out the words before she threw the small trapping net I’d given her onto my boots, instantly freezing the netting to cage in my feet. Then she stamped down hard with her bladed heel, and severed the ice around me in the same shape as her flight path. She used her skate to push my frozen platform away, creating a few feet of open water between us.

“It is.” She said, offering a curtsy with her long green coat. Icy tendrils climbed from the frosted slab, securing and reinforcing the small net, until both of my boots were completely bound. “The winter belongs to the South Pole. We just let you borrow it,Nicholas.”

The way she said my name, so teasing yet seductive, made my heart skip every beat. The water around my platform started to freeze in small pieces, and the whole panel began tilting to one side.

My eyes widened as my body tensed in an instinctive attempt to maintain balance.

This woman was about to flip me under.

Clever, clever Caroline.

“Your traps are as elegant as you are, My Queen.” I took a bow, a fraction of a second before the platform hit ninety degrees, then I caught her eye with one last smirk before physics took me under. The ice slapped the water hard, but I barely heard the splash as the frigid lake engulfed my entire being. Sub-freezing temperaturessaturated my coat and my pants, while liquid pressed at my nostrils, threatening to fill my lungs on my first misstep.

I acted quickly, dropping to a low squat to untie the laces of my boots. I slipped one foot from the first boot, then started on the other in a race to free myself before hypothermia could rob my body of its strength. Though neither drowning nor freezing could kill me, she was wise to know this could temporarily paralyze me, at least for long enough for her to claim victory.

My fingers went numb as I fumbled with my high-laced, shin-length boots, and I switched to brute force to loosen the ankle enough to tug myself free. No longer locked into the platform, I left my boots behind, and I shot for the surface. I burst through the numbing drink, where I met the deep and widening emerald eyes of my trophy, staring into the water with the foolish hope that her trap had succeeded.

I didn’t give her another second to retreat or react before I grabbed hold of her ankle, and pulled her in with me. She shrieked the second before we both plunged into the cold depths.

Caroline thrashed against me, while I restrained her beneath the ice. She kicked me with her bladed boots, slicing along my thigh with enough force to make the water bloom with red between us. The mix of blood and frost obscured my vision.

I shook my head only enough to express my disapproval, then I spun her around with a jerk of her shoulder, so her back was against my chest. I hugged her against me with uncompromising pressure, while staying under the very ice sheet she’d tipped over.

Being, this time, I had been prepared to dive and she’d not been at all, I would easily out last her in a contestof holding our breath. Not the least of which because her flailing and struggling and tiny punches would only wear her out faster.

Her resistance started to weaken as predicted. She choked out bubbles once she reached the limits of her lungs, and I waited until her whole body went limp in my arms. On the last of my air, I navigated back to the surface, then I pulled myself from the water with my Sweet Noel in tow. We splashed onto the ice, where I had to thrash to stop myself from slipping back into the lake’s frosty mouth, and a loud crack punctuated the impact.

Inconvenient.

The already too thin ice sheet shattered beneath us, and I didn’t have any time left to think things through if I wanted any chance of getting her back to shore.

Chapter 12

Both of us drenched to the bone, I threw her over my shoulder and darted for the shoreline. Ice cracked and separated beneath my heels, and my swift, agile movements were the only thing keeping us from returning to that watery grave.

The gusts had only gotten stronger and colder. The short day neared its end, and fresh snowflakes had started to fall. Our waterlogged clothing froze on our bodies, and I was shattering stiff material just to keep moving. My whole body was numb and begging to shut down, and it was only my adrenaline that kept me animated.

At the edge of the lake, I increased my speed, and I launched myself in a speed skating jump to escape the quickly disintegrating platform. I landed on my back in a snow bank, having twisted to cushion her fall, then wasted not another second getting into the shelter of the trees. I needed warmth, and I needed to block the wind.

It was too far to take her all the way back to my home before frostbite started kicking in, and the chill of my own wet clothing was quickly turning into a brutal prison. I got us to a particularly dense section of Ponderosa pines, whose thick and tall trunks, paired with much higher branches, created a natural storm shelter. I started gathering up shed branches to make her a bed in the snow.

I dropped her into the pine needles, then took a few more moments to build a quick fire. The forest was alive, and the fresh and wet wood didn’t burn the best, but a little fire magic was enough to start a small, life-giving burn.

I shed my wet clothing next, then I turned to my unconscious queen and started removing her coat, her boots, and her base layers. Her lips were slightly blue, while her skin was a new shade of white, as the low temperatures sapped all color from her flesh.

I stripped her down to nothing, and I cradled her body against mine to share my body heat as directly as I could. As a Saint, I could only be killed by losing my connection between my heart and my mind, butherimmortality was foiled by the elements. While she would never age past her prime, and a lost limb or blood loss was inconsequential, frostbite or fire was a recipe for easy death. It wasn’t terribly difficult to murder a simple deity.

I might even say it was downright easy, considering a lowly demon had managed.

I kept her naked body against my chest, until her heart rate and her breathing started to stabilize between us.

---