A Snowed in Valentine’s (Holiday Shifters of Frost Mountain #10)

Chapter One

Elevator Toilet Going Down!

“Nothing beats performing dark magic inside a public toilet,” Daphne muttered, wrinkling her nose.

At least I have privacy, she told herself.

Her reflection gazed back at her, unblinking. Blonde hair peeked out from under the beanie, a fringe covering most of her forehead. Her eyes were a gentle grey with a somewhat bluish tinge.

Daphne couldn’t resist a grin. She certainly did look a sight, wearing so much winter clothing while pretty much everyone else on the flight was dressed for warm weather, but she was beautiful regardless. Underneath all the layers, she was a slender, thirty-year-old-looking woman with full breasts and smooth curves.

Only she wasn’t thirty; she was forty-three even though she looked over a decade younger, young enough to get consistent unwanted attention from men of varying ages. Being a powerful witch certainly had its perks. If you knew the right spells, you could slow down your aging. And when you were young, blonde, and pretty, you tended to get lots of attention, which often meant lots of free favors and opportunities.

She set the Book of Nyx on the sink and pried it open, flipping through the large grimoire until she reached the page she’d been reading before. Her fingers trembled, her vision blurring slightly as she silently read the words.

Svassissimo nepo diovina.

Open the void.

A more modern version of the grimoire would have made this somewhat easier, but Daphne didn’t mind reciting spells in a different language. Being an adjunct linguistics professor at UNLV, she found the challenge interesting. Besides, the language the Book of Nyx was written in had traveled through the Emerson bloodline. She’d grown up studying it.

She sucked in a deep breath. “You can do this, Daphne. You’ve performed powerful magic lots of times in the past.”

But even as she uttered the words, she couldn’t help feeling a smidgen of doubt. She was a powerful witch. But there was a difference between regular magic and dark magic. Heck, it was called dark for a reason. This kind of magic was incredibly complex and dangerous, not to mention that it typically came at a cost.

And that was merely from performing dark magic. If she messed up the spell or got interrupted, the consequences could be dire. If she hoped to find this portal and make it to and from Frost Mountain in one piece, she was going to have to be extremely careful.

The thought of what lay ahead sent a shiver down her spine. Once she completed the spell, the grimoire would vanish. All copies of the Book of Nyx were rigged to do so whenever powerful dark magic was performed using them. From what Daphne had learned, the book was rigged that way as a safeguard against magic users performing too many powerful spells at one time. The book disappeared for a while, though nobody knew for how long, and it returned later.

Once she performed this spell, she’d be on her own for some time. But Daphne knew the spell. Once she reached Frost Mountain, she could try to create a new portal.

There was no turning back now. She was going to do this. She had to.

With a sigh, she read the words on the page again. Thankfully, the instructions were clear enough.

“I can do this,” she said to her reflection. “It’s just a bit of dark magic, right?”

The woman in the mirror merely blinked back at her.

Feeling like bees were buzzing in her stomach, she braced herself on the sink, staring hard at the words on the yellowed page.

Do it, she urged herself. Now.

“ Svassissimo nepo divana, ” she muttered, and at the same time she concentrated her magical energy on the spell, thinking, Frost Mountain. A portal to Frost Mountain.

She felt a sharp tug in her gut at the last word. She braced herself again, waiting for the air before her to shimmer and for her surroundings to change. The die had been cast. Whatever happened next… there was no going back.

Nothing happened at first, and Daphne frowned.

Then the plane gave a violent jerk, knocking her into the door. She grabbed the sink to steady herself, just in time to see the Book of Nyx dissipate into black smoke. The spell had worked!

So why was the plane trembling like this?

Did I somehow mess this up? she wondered. Did I ruin the protection spell?

She heard a series of muffled screams from the cabin before she had time to dwell on that thought. Something was definitely happening out there, and it wasn’t turbulence. There was something terribly wrong with the plane, and Daphne suspected it had something to do with the spell she’d just cast.

The lights overhead flickered dangerously, like a Morse Code warning of the danger that was about to befall the plane and its passengers. She could hear them screaming and crying just beyond the locked cubicle door. Her gut clenched as she glanced up from the spot where the grimoire had been moments ago.

And she nearly shrieked.

The woman staring back at her was her reflection, alright. Her flowing locks were blonde, her wide eyes grey. But everything else was different. Her reflection was covered with specks of snow, her lips almost cerulean, and the fingers clutching her cheeks were in the first stage of frostbite.

And her face… her face was twisted in horror and dread.

Daphne’s breathing ceased for a moment. “What in the—?”

She never got the chance to complete her statement. There was another tremendous tremor, and she heard a deafening groan above the screams of the passengers. The lights flickered even harder, then went out.

“ Svarta!” she cried.

Then the plane came apart, and the cubicle plummeted toward the earth with Daphne still in it.

***

He hadn’t met her yet, but he already loathed her with every fiber of his being.

August Kane stood up to his ankles in the snow, the lapel of his brown coat flapping in the gentle west wind, and waited for the witch to appear so he could kill her.

In one hand, he clutched a curved blade. In the other, the Kane insignia emblazoned across it was a silver brander, the only magical object he owned. With both weapons and his wits, it shouldn’t take long. All he had to do was wait for the witch to fall within his sights.

“Where on this damned mountain are you?” he muttered, sweeping his gaze around. There wasn’t much in sight besides the snow and the cabin behind him. In the distance, he spotted clusters of trees and valleys. The sky was clear, the afternoon sun beaming its light over Frost Mountain.

Barely minutes ago, he’d seen her. He’d been resting inside his cabin when the vision jerked him back to alertness. It had been little more than a sudden flash, really—a small container, a mess of blonde hair, flailing arms, and wisps of dark smoke—but it had been enough to lure him outside. The visions were never a good sign. They meant something terrible was coming.

A witch, to be precise.

He gazed around some more. She wouldn’t be the first witch he’d killed or the last, but the thought of taking her down in the snow made his heart race in anticipation. Hatred burned in the pit of his belly. Their kind deserved to die. It was only fair after everything they had done to his ancestors, to his mother, his wife…

He shuffled his feet. That was odd. He usually didn’t feel this restless. After the first few kills, hunting witches had become less of a thrill and more of a duty. Something wasn’t quite right.

It’s been a while since you hunted a witch , he reminded himself, brushing the concern aside. Don’t worry about—

A deep boom made him look up.

In the distance, east of him, a circle of light had appeared in the sky, shimmering just long enough to let a vessel through. It was a plane, August realized, one of those machines from Earth. He remained where he stood, watching as the inevitable began to unfold.

The wings of the plane were being sheared off and bursting into flames as they fell to the ground. The plane itself began to plummet, breaking apart in midair. But it was a section of the plane that caught his eye. As the plane came apart, a small container dropped from it like a rock, then picked up speed.

Even before it hit the ground, August knew what was inside it. Or rather, who?

His blood rushing in his ears, the witch hunter headed eastward, marching across the side of the mountain to where the container had fallen, his blade and brander at the ready.

The witch had arrived.

Time to hunt.

***

Falling from a plane sounded like an adrenaline junkie’s fantasy.

For Daphne, it was more of a nightmare.

Luckily, she’d banged her head against the ceiling of the cubicle and passed out within seconds, so she didn’t have to witness the entire thing.

She dreamed she was lying in bed, back in Vegas. And then her eyes flickered open. She was still in the cubicle.

“Ow,” she groaned.

The back of her skull throbbed. She started to sit up, then realized the cubicle now lay on the ground, and she had barely enough room to move. The lavatory had been damaged in the crash. The mirror now lay at her feet, reduced to shrapnel, and the cubicle itself had been dented.

The details came rushing back to her: the plane, the spell… the crash. She’d crash-landed. The impact should have killed her instantly, but other than her aching skull, she seemed mostly unhurt. Her last-minute protection spell must have worked.

How long had she been out? An hour? Days?

That didn’t matter right now. She needed to get out of there. She tried to unlock the door, but it was jammed shut.

She groaned again. There was only one way to get out of this. The spell had drained her of most of her energy, but she still had enough to blast herself out of there.

She drew a deep breath. “ Tsepmet!” Bring the storm.

There was a deafening boom as the cubicle burst apart, shrapnel flying in multiple directions. A powerful gust of wind swept up the snow as she got up, growing stronger by the second and…

Wait a minute, she thought. Snow?

She gazed around. Flecks of snow spun about her, making it hard to see. She stood ankle-deep in the snow, her breath condensing into steam with every breath. The snow stretched as far as the eye could see, a blanket of pure white covering rock formations and tree clusters.

“I’m on Frost Mountain,” she muttered, unable to believe the words even as they tumbled from her lips. “I did it.”

The wind howled in her ears. The storm she’d created was more powerful than she’d realized. She was going to have to reverse it once she regained some of her energy, but that was the last thing on her mind right now. Her spell had worked!

“I did it!” she repeated, a lot louder this time.

She’d brought herself here, and she was still alive. The first step was complete. And now…

Her chest tightened suddenly. The other passengers on Flight 18… had they survived? The protection spell should have worked. But if it had, the plane wouldn’t have crashed. She peered through the storm. There was no sign of anybody else, or the plane for that matter. Had Flight 18 crashed back on Earth? They’d been flying over Nebraska when she’d performed the spell.

Guilt settled on her chest like a ten-ton rock. She couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, her spell had caused the crash. This was all on her.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

She was still scanning her surroundings when a dark shape appeared in her field of vision. Because of the swirling snow, she could barely make out who it was, but she could tell it was a person. As the figure drew closer, heading straight for her, she realized it was a man.

“Hello?” she called, yelling to be heard over the wind.

There was no response. The man drew closer, close enough now that she didn’t have to squint to see him clearly. He was tall, with short brown hair and broad shoulders. A pair of dark eyes stared back at her as if trying to pry her apart from a distance. The man wore a brown coat that dragged in the snow as he walked.

In one hand, he clutched a silver object she didn’t recognize. In the other was a curved blade.

“Witch!” he snarled.

What the hell is—?

Before she could fully process the threat, the man lunged, striking her with his blade. He moved quicker than she could react; the blade swung in a perfect arc, aiming for her neck just above the collarbone. It could have chopped her head clean off.

Instead, the blade simply bounced off her skin.

The man recoiled, his eyes blazing with fury and surprise. Daphne’s eyes were just as wide. She should be dead, but apparently, the protection spell hadn’t worn off yet, not that his attack didn’t hurt her a little.

“You tried to kill me!” she screeched, rubbing her neck.

But this wasn’t Vegas. Back on Earth, an attack like this would already be gaining views on YouTube, and maybe a couple of bystanders would’ve tried to stop the man from stabbing her.

But this was Frost Mountain. And she was pretty sure Earth rules didn’t apply here. On a mountain like this, all she could do was fight for her survival.

“You deserve nothing but death, young witch,” the man said.

“I’m forty-three years old, you jerk!”

The man struck again. This time, she was quicker to react, sidestepping him. He brushed past her, the tip of his sword grazing her arm, and she cried out in pain and surprise. Blood trickled from a cut just above her elbow.

“Oh, crap!” The protection spell had worn off.

A triumphant gleam appeared in her attacker’s eyes. Daphne raised both arms in front of her. She had barely enough energy left, but she had to try something, anything , even if it was another protection spell.

“ Tsepm— ”

Before she could complete the spell, the man attacked again, this time with the object in his other hand. Daphne had only a split second to think, He’s really quick , before his hand clamped over hers. When he removed it, there was a mark on her wrist. It looked like an ornate K .

He’d marked her.

“ Tsepmet!” she cried.

Nothing happened.

“Your magic is bound now, witch,” the man sneered. “You won’t be causing any more trouble here.”

With that, he raised his blade, and the white blanket of snow that surrounded her faded into blackness.