Chapter 3
ELISE
I try everything.
The cold is brutal, seeping through my wool dress and heavy cloak like they're made of paper.
My teeth chatter constantly, my fingers are numb despite my gloves, and every breath sends ice crystals into my lungs.
But I'm alive—impossibly, horribly alive in conditions that should have killed me hours ago.
Which means he's right about what I am. And that terrifies me more than freezing to death would.
But I won't give him the satisfaction of admitting it. Instead, I deploy every weapon in my arsenal, starting with the one that's never failed me before: money.
"I can offer you more than Father's debt," I say, forcing my voice steady despite my chattering teeth. "I have personal accounts, investments Mother left me. Jewelry worth more than ships—"
"Already mine," Aratus says without looking up from the book he's reading. His breath doesn't mist in the frigid air. He might as well be sitting in a summer garden for all the cold affects him. "Every asset your family owns, including your personal holdings, are collateral against the debt."
"Then other compensation. My godfather is Lord Pemberton—he has connections with three different courts. I could arrange introductions, trade agreements—"
"Lord Pemberton answers to me." His tone is pleasantly conversational, as if we're discussing the weather. "Has for the past five years. His shipping contracts require Frost Court approval."
I try a different angle. "The Ashworth family owes us considerable favors. Their daughter married into European nobility—"
"The Ashworths defaulted on their own Fae loans last winter. Their daughter is currently serving as companion to a Vine Court prince." He turns a page. "Next offer?"
Each failed attempt hits me like a physical blow. Everything I thought I knew about our social circle, our connections, our power—all of it is illusion. The Fae have been pulling strings I didn't even know existed.
"What about the government?" I try desperately. "There are treaties, diplomatic protocols—"
"Written by courts like mine." Finally, he looks at me, and his frozen-lake eyes are utterly without mercy. "Your government exists at our sufferance, Elise. Has for twenty years. Did you think the integration happened by accident?"
I wrap my cloak tighter around myself, though it does little good. The carriage is a moving ice box, and I can feel the cold settling into my bones. But I'm not dead yet, which means I still have options.
I just need to find the right leverage.
"Then what do you want?" I lean forward despite the cold, letting my cloak fall open enough to show the curve of my throat. It's a calculated risk—using every lesson I learned at finishing school about managing men. "Surely we can come to some... arrangement."
I pitch my voice lower, let my lips part slightly, tilt my head in the way that's made stronger men than him forget their own names. I've been practicing this dance since I was sixteen. I know how to use my beauty as a weapon.
Aratus doesn't even blink.
He just sits there, utterly relaxed, watching me perform with those inhuman eyes. Like I'm a child playing dress-up and he's waiting for me to tire myself out.
"Are you finished?" he asks when I run out of seductive poses to try.
Heat rises in my cheeks—the first warmth I've felt in hours—and it has nothing to do with attraction. "You can't just ignore what I'm offering—"
"What exactly are you offering, Elise?" He closes his book and leans forward slightly.
"Your body? I already own that. Your loyalty?
Meaningless when forced. Your affection?
" His smile is sharp as winter wind. "Even if you could fake it convincingly, what makes you think I want the performance instead of the real thing? "
"Because men always want the performance," I snap, my composure finally cracking. "That's how this works. I smile and flutter and make you feel important, and you give me what I want. It's worked on every man I've ever met."
"I'm not a man," he reminds me pleasantly. "I'm Fae. We see through human deceptions the way you see through glass."
The casual dismissal stings worse than the cold. I bare my teeth at him—not a smile, but a threat. "I'll never be finished. I'll fight you every single day—"
"Yes, yes. You've mentioned." He gestures at the window with one pale hand. "Look outside, Elise. We're already past the point of no return."
I don't want to look. Don't want to acknowledge how far we've come from everything I know. But curiosity wins. It always does.
The landscape outside is impossible.
We're climbing into mountains that shouldn't exist—peaks that scrape clouds, valleys filled with perpetual mist, forests where the trees are silver and gold instead of green. The snow falls upward in spiraling patterns, and the very air seems to shimmer with magic I can feel but don't understand.
This isn't my world anymore. Maybe it never was.
"Where are we?" I whisper.
"The borderlands between human territory and the true Fae realm." He follows my gaze out the window. "Your people see what we allow them to see. But this is what the world actually looks like when magic flows freely."
"It's impossible."
"So was your father's shipping empire before we protected his vessels from storms that could sink steel.
So was your family's prosperity before we eliminated his competitors.
So was your entire life, built on Fae gold and Fae favor.
" His voice is matter-of-fact, but there's something underneath it that might be pity.
"You've been living in our world for twenty years, Elise. You just didn't know it."
The implications hit me like an avalanche. Every success, every advantage, every bit of good fortune my family has enjoyed—it was all orchestrated. All part of some vast plan I'm only now beginning to understand.
"How many?" The question comes out broken. "How many families like ours?"
"Enough." He settles back against the silk cushions. "The integration required careful management. Certain bloodlines needed to be preserved, encouraged, prepared. Your people adapted faster than expected—humans are remarkably flexible when their survival depends on it."
"You mean you've been breeding us." The words taste like bile. "Like livestock."
"Like partners," he corrects. "Though I suppose the distinction matters less than the result."
I turn away from him, pressing my forehead against the crystal wall despite how the contact burns with cold.
The ice is so clear I can see my reflection perfectly—auburn hair disheveled, face pale with cold and shock, eyes wide with the kind of horror that comes from understanding too much too fast.
I look like a ghost of myself. Like someone who's already died but doesn't know it yet.
I refuse to eat the provisions he offers.
It's a small rebellion, but it's all I have left. When he produces a basket of food that shouldn't exist—fresh bread, perfect fruit, cheese that smells like summer meadows—I turn my face away and pull my cloak tighter around my shivering form.
"Suit yourself," he says mildly, taking a bite of an apple that crunches like autumn frost. "But we have two more days of travel ahead of us."
My stomach clenches with hunger, but I ignore it. I've gone without meals before when my tantrums made eating impossible. I can outlast him.
Except this cold is unlike anything I've experienced.
It's not just temperature—it's a living thing that creeps into my bones and sets up residence there.
Every breath hurts. Every movement is agony.
My body is burning through energy just trying to stay alive, and the smell of food makes my mouth water despite my determination.
By midday, I'm lightheaded. By evening, I'm desperate.
"The bread is still warm," he observes, not looking up from his book. "Magic keeps it fresh indefinitely. Seems wasteful to let it go uneaten."
"I'm not hungry," I lie.
"Of course not." He takes another bite of apple, and the sound of his chewing is torture. "Though you might want to reconsider. Tomorrow's travel will be more... demanding."
"What do you mean?"
"We leave the carriage behind. The final approach to my palace must be made on foot." His smile is sharp with anticipation. "The mountain paths don't accommodate vehicles. Even magical ones."
The thought of walking through this supernatural cold makes my stomach clench with more than hunger. At least in the carriage, I have walls and a roof. Outside...
"You'll freeze me to death," I whisper.
"Will I?" He tilts his head, studying me with clinical interest. "You've survived eighteen hours in conditions that should have killed you in minutes. Your lips are blue and your hands are numb, but your core temperature remains stable. Your body is adapting exactly as it should."
"As it should for what?"
"For an omega paired with an ice-wielding alpha." He sets down his book and leans forward. "Your biology is changing, Elise. Preparing for transformation. Soon the cold won't hurt you at all—it will feel like coming home."
"I'm not an omega," I insist, but the words sound hollow even to me. How else could I survive this? How else could I still be conscious and talking when any normal human would be dead?
"Aren't you?" He pulls a slice of bread from the basket and holds it out. "Prove it. If you're fully human, you should be dead by now. The fact that you're not suggests otherwise."
The bread smells like heaven. Like warmth and comfort and everything my starving body craves. But accepting it would be admitting he's right about what I am.
"I'll never admit to being what you say I am."
"You don't have to admit anything. Your body speaks louder than words." He takes a bite of the bread himself, making a soft sound of satisfaction. "But suit yourself. Starve if it makes you feel better. I'll still be here when you're ready to be reasonable."