Page 11 of Jilted By Jack Frost

“It means you’re all frozen solid and haven’t been near a warm body in decades.”

Gabriel chuckles. “You think we do not know warmth, but we do.” He shakes his head before I can pry further and speaks again. “I expect that your help will come at a cost. While I doubt currency will carry over when you leave us, I have something much more valuable to offer you—a bargain.”

“A bargain.” I repeat the word stoically. Wholly unimpressed.

“A deal, as you might say.”

“I know what the word means, asshat.”

An amused grin lights his lips. “Very well. I am prepared to offer you a way home. You help us cure this ever-warming realm of ours. You work with Jack to find a cure, and I will get you home the only other way I know how.”

“There’s already away? Why can’t we just do that now?”

His eyes flash. “Because it is not without its consequences.” His tone is dark, serious, and chills me to my core. And then he shrugs a shoulder and says, “But those consequences could be worth it, if you were to save us from heat stroke.”

“I was nearly hypothermic when I first got here, and you’re worried about heat stroke?”

He laughs and stands, then holds his hand out to me. “Is it a bargain, Violet Jones?”

I think it through. If I do this, it won’t be the vacation I imagined. It’ll be more likespending hours at a time alone with the assholiest man I’ve ever met. It’ll be exhausting and boring, and I’ll probably want to throw myself off the nearest cliff at least forty times a day.

But I also raise my chances of going home. Because not only will Jack and I be scouring old texts with a possibility of finding a way out of here for me without needing Gabriel’s harder, scary-sounding method to do it, but I’ll also be looking for those answers he wants in case Idoneed to take the hard way out.

Not to mention learning more about the world I’m trapped in for the foreseeable future—I can hardly see how that would be a bad thing, except for the tiny little fact that I’ll be doing it while sitting beside Jack Frost.

Jack Frost, who calls me his mate, despises my very presence, who has encased my heart in ice, and seemingly tethered it to him, somehow.

I help them find their answers, and perhaps get some of my own. Not to mention getting to go home, where a trip to Hawaii willdefinitelybe booked after spending time in the coldest fucking world out there.

The thought of warm sand between my toes and tropical drinks with those little umbrellas makes my mouth water. And if I don’t find those answers, I’m not out anything. I’m just... back at square one.

Though something deep in my gut tells me this bargain will change everything.

“A simple exchange.” He stands and extends his hand, his voice smooth as silk. “Help us solve this warming crisis, work alongside Jack to find answers, and I will ensure your safe passage home. The magic of such bargains requires... discretion. What passes between us—our discussions, our methods—remains between us alone.”

I eye his extended hand, that nagging feeling in my gut growing stronger. “And if I can’t figure out how to help? What then?”

Gabriel’s smile doesn’t waver, but something flickers in his eyes. “Then we’re all simply back where we started. No harm done.”

The words sound reassuring enough, but something about them feels... incomplete. Still, what choice do I really have?

I meet Gabriel’s gaze and stand, then slide my hand against his. His skin burns hot against mine, in contrast to the icy bond that still links me to Jack. “It’s a bargain.”

The moment our hands touch, magic crackles between us like static electricity, and the temperature in the room plummets.

Whatever I’ve just agreed to, there’s no going back now.

Chapter six

Jack

Islam another book shut, dust billowing into the air.

My personal library stretches endlessly around me, a maze of towering shelves and scattered texts that mock my attempts at research. The warming of my realm grows worse, yet answers elude me in this literary disaster.

I haven’t properly maintained these archives since that thieving librarian sold off my precious volumes centuries ago. I’ve just left it to Gabriel to get me what I needed. Now I’m paying the price for my negligence—forced to wade through this chaos alone rather than risk another betrayal. The irony isn’t lost on me that my fear of treachery may doom us all, as somewhere in this mess lies the key to saving my frozen kingdom from melting away into nothing.

And now there’s another reason to regret not taking the steps to hire another librarian—a woman. Violet Jones, more specifically.

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