Page 20 of Frost
I want to argue. I’m not even sure what a mate truly is or why he keeps calling me his. But something inside me calms the anxiousness that had been bubbling. I take a long, deep breath and close my eyes. Despite the cold, I’m warm beneath the same blue wool sweater dress and the festive blanket draped across my lap. My body seems to be buzzing with energy and deep down I feel it. Jack’s not wrong. It’s weird to admit, but I can sense him—his mood, his presence, the rightness that I feel when I think of him. It’s like a flicker of light in the deep recesses of my consciousness.
“I do feel you,” I whisper into the night air finally. “But I don’t understand, we just met.”
“A mate, soulmate,maki, is determined by the Fates before you are even born. They are meant to be yours. Once you find them, it’s as though the pieces just click into place,” he explains as his free hand falls to my thigh and squeezes.
When I open my eyes, lights dot the landscape beneath us. The glow of the city breaks the serene darkness of the night sky. Jack pulls the reins and the reindeer come to a stop, leaving us perched high above the town, safely tucked in among the trunks of the forest trees.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Snow Angel?” he asks as he reaches out to cup my face. “I can go and take care of him myself if you’d rather?”
I think for a moment, weighing my options. But truthfully, I already know where I stand. “No, I want to come. But…”
“But what,litill snær?” he asks, and the way he says the nickname has my pussy pulsing.
“Will you take me back with you after? Or like… what’s the plan here?” I stutter through what I’m trying to say, desperately trying not to sound like a sad, clingy sap. “I just don’t know where my passport, wallet, or phone ended up and—”
He silences me with a kiss. His lips brush against mine slowlyat first but then the kiss deepens. His tongue slips between my lips and I moan into his mouth. His responding growl has me melting in his arms. His tongue dances with my own in a way that has my entire body pulsing with desire for him. When he pulls back, I whine, wanting more of him.
“You’re mine. I will keep you as long as you allow me to. I’m sure you’d like to return to your parents and family but—”
This time, I cut him off. “There’s no one at home. It was just me and my parents but they were killed by a drunk driver. He was put away for manslaughter but just got paroled for good behavior. It’s part of the reason I came here; I couldn’t stand knowing that the person responsible for taking everything from me could just run into me at the grocery store or something. I needed to escape.”
Jack stares at me for a long moment, and I begin to worry that I scared him off with my trauma dump.
“Then we will kill him too one day,” he finally states as if it’s nothing at all. “First though, we’re going to go kill this motherfucker, Hans, and then I’m taking you home and making you mine, Snow Angel.” His deep timbre ripples across my still-tingling lips as he talks. “I’m going to stuff you so fucking full of cum, little one. Split you open and make you quiver around my monstrous cocks like my good girl. Is that what you want?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
I absolutely can’t wait.
The scowl across Jack’s face is almost comedic. His eyes dart from drunk person to drunk person, taking in the barhoppers stumbling down the busy streets. The lights flash, music thrums through the ground, and the stench of body fluids permeates the air. It’s… a lot.
Still, my monster looks downright murderous.
“You look like you’re about to murder someone,” I whisper as I jab him in the side with my elbow.
“We are,” he states matter-of-factly as we step over a large puddle of something gross and brown.
A man stumbles out of one of the bars ahead, throwing both his middle fingers up at the bouncer who just threw him out.
“She fucking wanted it, man! Fucking ridiculous to kick me out for treating her like a hooker when she was dressed like one,” the drunken man yells back at the bouncer.
Next to me, Jack lets out a low growl. “Fucking filthy humans.”
“Hey, I’m a human,” I snark. “Offensive, man.”
“You are not like them.” He nods at the drunken man who’s now prowling the streets, looking for his next victim, no doubt. “Loud, angry, aggressive humans who think they are owed what others do not willingly give.”
I think for a moment about every man who’s ever called me a bitch for not putting out, every mean girl who’s pretended to be my friend, then betrayed me to get ahead, every random asshole who’s kicked me down in order to selfishly raise themselves up. He’s not wrong. Some humans are assholes.
“There,” Jack says, squeezing my hand and pulling me from my thoughts.
I follow his gaze. About a hundred yards ahead, a blonde man slips from a door of a crowded bar. Hans has his arm wrapped around a small woman who looks barely conscious. She stumbles and her head lolls back against Hans’ right shoulder. The bouncer gives Hans a smirk and winks, as if they’re in on this together.
Motherfuckers.
“He gets his ass handed to him for drugging one woman, and he runs off to drug another? What the hell is wrong with him?” I angrily whisper-shout as I watch him lead the poor girl away. We follow behind at a safe enough distance so as not to alert him toour presence.
“It’s about power,” Jack says as his dark eyes track Hans with precision. “Some weak males seek power by taking from those who can’t fight back. They’re cowards. We took away his power play earlier and now he’s seeking to take it out on someone else.” The last words he says are almost like a growl.