Page 9 of A Mountain Man Christmas

“Gee, I wonder why no one thought of that earlier,” she said through gritted teeth as she picked herself to her feet. She gave an eye-roll she doubted he could see. “Those handcuffs are designed to hold. You’re not breaking them easily. You’d need to use a shit ton of force.”

It occurred to her a split second late that she’d just told him how to get free. Lyla bit her lower lip. “Like I said, you’re stuck with me until further notice.”

Yippee.

God, the longer she remained cuffed to this man, the more she considered kicking him between the legs again. She reminded herself that it was probably a good thing she had the wrong guy, and honestly, he was just as annoying, but she could still take him in, assuming he didn’t kill her.

He growled, a low, inhuman sound, but he did nothing.

“I need to keep moving,” he said. “You will only slow me down.”

Lyla smirked. “Got someplace you need to be?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her as if he thought she was a nitwit for even bothering to ask. “I must find sanctuary. The last thing I need is to be slowed down by a strange woman.”

“Strange? Says the guy who calls handcuffsshackles,” she muttered. “You said you came from a village. I didn’t see any villages on my way down.”

“Frost Mountain is a large place,” was all the reply she got.

Lyla frowned. “Frost Mountain?” That had to be what this place was called. There was only one problem: She’d never heard of it before.

Definitely not weird at all…

“Clearly, you’re not from around here,” the man said, glancing about again like he was expecting someone to burst out of the snow and yell, “Gotcha!”

“No, I’m not,” she told him. “Why the hell would I be living on a mountain like this? Not exactly many motels around here.” She took a deep breath. “I’m from the Bronx.”

The look he gave her made her wonder if he had any idea what she was talking about.

She went on anyway. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

“Awhat?”

“You heard me. My name’s Lyla Jensen—I doubt you’ve heard of me anyway. I was on a plane headed to Chicago, but our plane went down. The next thing I know, I’m on this strangemountain. It hasn’t exactly been fun. Now I’m just trying to get away from this damned place.”

To her surprise, the man simply chuckled.

Lyla felt her irritation grow. “Something funny to you?”

His next words sent chills traveling down her spine.

“Indeed,” he replied, “you can never leave Frost Mountain. You’re trapped here…forever.”

Chapter Four

Welcome to Prison! Want Some Meat?

“Wait…what?”

The woman blinked at him, her eyes widening like a reindeer before being slaughtered. The sight was so comical that Tristan couldn’t help but chuckle some more. Lyla shot him a cold glare, and he immediately fell silent.

“You heard me,” he told her, adopting her choice of words. “No one leaves Frost Mountain, ever. You’re stuck here.”

Disbelief flickered in her eyes, followed by fear and then more determined doubt. Tristan resisted another snicker. She wouldn’t be the first person he’d come across from the other world who’d found themselves on Frost Mountain. Elorn had grown over the past few decades; it was almost the size of a real town now—a characteristic it owed in part to the influx of newcomers from…what was that world called, again? Earth, the world from which the unfortunate spilled into this dimension.

Tristan studied the woman shackled to him. Lyla was shorter than he was, with a slender build barely hidden underneath her coat. Her curls fluttered gently in the soft wind. If she didn’t seem like she might strike him without warning, he might have thought her looks pleasing.

She was human; that much was clear. A supernatural would have had less trouble fighting him. But that didn’t make her harmless. The dull ache in his groin proved that. The woman was intelligent. Shackling her wrist to his was a move he hadn’t seen coming, and now she’d all but impeded his escape. If she was trying to capture him and take him back to Elorn, to Angus, there was little doubt she would have succeeded.

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