The Snow Queen's Captive by Jill Myles Read Free Book Online Page B

along. “You look fatigued,” he commented between bites. “Not sleeping?”
    She looked utterly surprised that he’d addressed her first, and then pleased. A soft, shy smile crossed her face, so sweet that he’d almost believed it. “No. I have a hard time falling asleep, I suppose. Too much on my mind.”
    “Do you need your blankets back?” he gestured at one of the furs wrapped around him.
    She shook her head. “I know this is an ice castle, but it feels warm to me – over-warm, really.” She wiped her brow and he noticed for the first time that it gleamed with perspiration. “They’ll do you far more good than me.”
    “Thank you,” he told her, keeping the venom out of his voice. He felt a stab of excitement when she gave him another surprised, but pleased look.
    “You’re talking to me.”
    “As you’ve said, there is no one else to talk to.”
    This time, the smile that curved her face was wry. “I know you don’t like me.”
    “You are being kind to me,” he told her, though the words galled him even as they passed his lips. “I can appreciate that.” He tapped a fingernail on the hard icicles that made the bars of his cage. “Even if I don’t appreciate this.”
    She looked just as unhappy at the bars as he felt. “Necessity, I’m afraid.” And she set that little tray of colored cubes in her lap and began to eat.
    He needed to get her attention again. “I’m almost out of food,” he said, and shook his empty pouch at her.
    “Oh.” Her pale white brows drew together. She offered him her tray of colored cubes. “Can you eat these?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never tried them. You’ve never offered them to me before.”
    She got to her feet, tray in her hands, and approached his cell. The icicles were too thick and closely formed to be able to wedge the tray through, which he knew. She picked up one of the cubes and held it out to him between delicate, frost-tipped fingers, and then pulled her hand back, considering. “I don’t know if this is too cold for you.”
    He shrugged.
    She seemed mystified, though, and disappointed as she placed the cube back on the tray. “I don’t want to burn you when I’m trying to give you a treat.”
    “If you want to treat me, Queen, let me out.”
    “Please,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Call me by my real name.”
    “Charlotte,” he said, though it tasted strange in his mouth. “Let me out.”
    “I wish I could.” That wistful look crossed her face again. “I can’t, though. It’s not part of the plan. What do I normally feed you?”
    Did she hit her head? Was that why she kept asking him such strange questions? Or did she lose her memory the more she used her power? When he’d first arrived, she’d only used her powers for small, selfish little whims — such as torturing him with ice. He’d grown to dread the slight crackle that came from the icy floors as she’d passed, the magical domain responding to her. Over the past few days, though, she’d been expelling a great deal of magic – the castle had been filled with the subtle, constant crackles of ice being manipulated. Not for the first time, he wondered what she’d been up to.
    So he decided to test something.
    “Why not let me out as you did before?” he lied. “So we can have dinner together once more, like friends instead of mistress and slave.”
    They’d never had dinner together like that. She’d kept him bound and confined, and when he wasn’t forced to kneel at her feet like a dog, she’d kept him locked away in his cell. But he was curious to see how she’d react to his blatant lie.
    The snow queen considered this for a long, long moment, her pale gaze holding him. He scarcely dared to breathe, waiting for her cruel smile to curve that beautiful mouth into hardness, for her to let on that she was well aware of his game.
    But instead, all she said was, “I’d like to do that…but I don’t trust you not to run.”
    “Ice the doors,” he