Chapter Four
“Call 911”
The cold didn’t bother him much anymore. His body had adapted to the weather over the weeks. It was the hunger that nearly drove him insane.
He leaned heavily against the nearest tree, struggling to keep his eyes open and his body from falling as he swept his gaze around. More trees. More snow.
More unanswered questions.
He knew that it had been weeks since he broke through the frozen surface of that lake and found himself here. What he didn’t know was where here was or how he’d ended up here. One second, he’d been crossing a presumed frozen lake, and the next thing he knew, he was on a behemoth of a mountain blanketed by snow.
Besides the trees and a few animals he’d spotted over the weeks, there hadn’t been any other sign of life.
Where is everyone, he found himself wondering for the thousandth time since he’d arrived here. Where is… she?
A scream echoed through his mind, and his heart clenched as the memory hit him: Julia’s eyes widened as the ice gave away beneath them, plunging them into the lake’s freezing depths.
Her arms flailing as she struggled for survival. Red hair billowing around her head as she sank out of his reach.
Up until a few weeks ago, he hadn’t realized that memories could also become nightmares. All that was needed was a catalyst like fear or tremendous guilt.
By now, Valentine’s Day had passed. No dance. No Julia. For all he knew, she could be dead. She wasn’t on this mountain. He would know if she were. She’d drowned in that lake. That was all on him. He should’ve known not to cross that lake with her. He should have known the ice wouldn’t support their weight.
I’m probably dreaming, he thought. It made no sense that there was no one else here. He had to be dreaming. For all he knew, he could be lying in a coma in some hospital right now, hooked up to a machine that beeped incessantly.
Do coma patients dream?
His stomach growled, providing a grim reminder that he was awake. Hunger was always a good indicator. It was a reminder to try to survive, like the CHECK ENGINE light that flashed on the dashboard of his father’s truck. Damon hadn’t eaten more than a few nuts and half-frozen berries since he’d got here. The hunger gnawed at the pit of his stomach, causing his vision to blur.
It also caused him to see other things. Dark shapes moved around in the corners of his vision. He couldn’t sense anyone around, which had to mean he was hallucinating. He’d never tripped before—a few guys on the football team were rumored to have LSD in their lockers, but he’d never been one to try that sort of thing.
As far as first experiences go, he thought, as he heard the sound of water trickling, this hallucination sucks.
But what if he wasn’t hallucinating?
Another growl from his stomach decided for him, and he staggered northward through the woods, dragging his feet through the snow until he came across the source of the sound.
It was a river.
“Water,” Damon said.
That was all he managed to get out before his legs gave way beneath him, and he toppled forward, hitting the snowy riverbank.
“Urgh,” he groaned.
A pair of dark shapes appeared in the corner of his vision. And then they drew closer, coming into focus. It was not a hallucination.
Two men stood gazing at him from the other bank. Well, more like a man and a boy. The man had to be in his late twenties at least, with dark skin and a mustache that reminded Damon of Dick Dastardly from Wacky Racers . The boy was slightly shorter. He looked about Damon’s age, with short, silvery hair and hooded grey eyes.
“We have to help him,” the boy said to his companion. “He’s already half-dead.”
“I’m not so sure we should. Grim Jim might not—”
“You helped me, didn’t you?”
The man’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but his expression soon relaxed. “Of course, Jan.”
Damon blinked at the duo. “Who… are you? Call… 911.”
The boy chuckled. “Man, have I got news for you.”
***
The trees gave them cover, or so Damon wanted to believe. It was small consolation to imagine, if only for a moment that here, deep in these woods, no one could see them. But 15 years of living as a Collector had taught him otherwise.
It certainly did not help matters that, as they trudged among the trees, Julia kept grilling him about his time on Frost Mountain. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before she asked for his resumé.
“So,” she said after minutes of traveling in silence.
“So,” he replied, keeping his expression as even as he could.
“Been up to anything interesting since you got here?”
Like stealing items and kidnapping shifters for the most dangerous man on Frost Mountain? He shrugged. “There’s a lot you can do in 16 years.”
He thought she might prod him some more. To his relief, she simply nodded, glancing up through the trees at the sky as it turned copper. It was almost nightfall. The woods were mostly silent, although he heard the occasional sound of small animals scampering about. Not for the first time, it occurred to him to shift into dragon form and fly the rest of the journey to Caprichor, but something told him that shifting now wouldn’t be a good idea.
“You’re right,” she said, jumping a little as a twig snapped under her feet. “I’m just surprised to see you, to be honest. For a while… I thought you were dead.”
I thought you were, too.
He wanted to say the words, but they were lodged in his throat for some reason. Just looking at her made him want to freeze completely. Only years of learning to perform under pressure kept him from turning into a block of ice under her blue-eyed gaze. He felt a tug in his stomach, but it was hard to tell whether it was from unease or simply his body urging him to give in to his desires and pin her against the nearest tree, kissing her for all he was worth. He wondered what those lips of hers tasted like. Over the years, she’d become incredibly attractive, more than he’d ever imagined.
The memory of her standing naked before him flickered across his mind. Almost reluctantly, he dragged his focus from the titillating image of those bare curves and distended nipples and how they would feel grazing his torso as he kissed her.
“…it’s been so crazy these past few weeks,” Julia was saying. “I might have ended up losing my mind if I hadn’t seen you. What a weird coincidence, isn’t it?”
Damon forgot to respond. Coincidence was one way to put it, but Damon’s mind, which had been working overtime ever since she had revealed herself to him, had already made connections. Time wasn’t as simple on Frost Mountain as it was back on earth, but he guessed they were roughly in the middle of January, which meant Valentine’s Day was only weeks away. That was the first thing that sent pinpricks up his spine. The second was that it was around this time, 16 years ago, that he’d lost Julia.
A coincidence was a concurrence without an instigator. This time, Damon couldn’t shake the feeling that fate was toying with him. He could imagine some cosmic being tossing Julia into his path like, Here, buddy—it’s the woman you’ve loved since high school. Now you get to be with her. Well, except the thing is, you actually have to kidnap her in exchange for your freedom. Ta-da.
Yup. Definitely waist-deep in crap.
At the very least, this was a shocking turn of events. Nothing could have prepared him for what was happening right now. Hours had passed since he’d found Julia, and he was still struggling to process it all, especially the fact that she was a shifter. It was almost ironic how he’d processed something as impossible as Frost Mountain but was having trouble making sense of everything from her presence here to the fact that she was a snow leopard shifter.
Then again, it was this snow leopard shifter who’d watched him from the stands and made his heart skip during football practice.
This snow leopard shifter deserved to know what was going on and how much danger she was in.
But he knew he couldn’t tell her because doing so meant opening a can of particularly nasty worms he would rather not open.
Am I doing the right thing, he wondered, taking her with me to Caprichor?
On the one hand, he’d be saving her life, keeping her hidden and safe from whatever Grim Jim had in mind for her. On the other hand, if he did as he’d been instructed to and captured her, he’d be saving his neck.
He could still remember Grim Jim’s words. You have a debt to fulfill. A debt to me, and I am collecting it now.
Why did things have to be so damn complicated?
He glanced sideways at Julia, who was wrinkling her nose as she brushed flecks of snow out of her hair. He watched as she stepped around a tree, her frame shivering slightly.
I can’t let anything happen to her, he thought.
Overhead, the sky was a blanket of deep blue and fiery orange as day slowly faded into night. Stars scattered across the expanse of darkness, twinkling from a distance as crossable as that between this dimension and earth. It was almost like a constant reminder of the home they’d never return to, a home just as out of reach. The witches who’d created this place either hadn’t given enough thought to the interior décor or had a sick sense of humor.
“Do you think we could get some rest soon?” Julia asked suddenly. She leaned against a tree. “My legs are killing me. Maybe I should just shift back and—”
“No,” he snapped.
She blinked. “Beg your pardon?”
Crap.
“There’s no need to shift,” he assured her. “We’ll soon be out of these woods. If we walk a bit longer, we should get to Dragon’s Den, and we can spend the night there.”
Her eyes widened at his words. “Dragon’s… what?”
“That’s just the name of the town.”
“There’s a town on this mountain?”
He couldn’t resist a chuckle. “There are villages, towns, even cities scattered across Frost Mountain. It’s an infinite dimension. If you travel far enough, you’ll always find something new. Let’s move quickly.” Under his breath, he added, “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get in without anyone dying.”