jacket he had purchased in London before they had left, a black one that could thankfully withstand the cutting wind that scoured the bleak white landscape and battered him. It wasn’t the only layer he was wearing. A heavy woollen jumper and a thermal layer sat beneath his coat, and he had donned something called salopettes, black ones that the store clerk had assured him went with the jacket and would protect him down to a temperature that Hartt had thought adequate enough at the time.
Now, he felt it was nowhere near close enough to the level of protection he needed.
His feet were frozen in the heavy waterproof and insulated boots he wore, his fingers numbed despite the gloves that protected them, and his face felt as if the wind was attempting to flay the skin off it.
Hartt buried his nose into his scarf, tugged his woollen hat down to his eyebrows and his hood up higher, trying to stop the cold from invading.
Mackenzie looked as cold as he felt as she shifted foot to foot beside him, the snow the wind whipped up spotting her black clothing and her gloves as she peered through a pair of binoculars.
He lifted his head as he wrapped his arms around himself and fixed his gaze on the warm light that glowed faintly in the distance, near the base of a towering cragged mountain bathed in moonlight.
His breath fogged on the air as he stilled.
Incredible, colourful light danced above the mountain, shimmering shafts of green, blue and red that sent a chill running over his arms and down his spine.
“Wow,” Mackenzie breathed as she lowered her binoculars to take in the display nature was putting on for them. “That’s something. Almost makes freezing my tits off worth it.”
He chuckled at her. “Almost. I’m not sure when I last saw my balls though. I believe they are currently somewhere near my kidneys.”
Her soft giggle warmed him. “I can help you find them later if you want.”
Gods, as much as he wanted to take her up on that, he wasn’t sure he would ever defrost enough to want sex, not while they were stuck in this arctic hell.
He shuddered as another blast of dangerously cold wind buffeted him and seemed to find cracks in his clothing to slip icy fingers inside.
“Oh, gods, I take it back. I hate the cold. It’s worse than rain.” Mackenzie shivered and he felt bad for her as she pouted. “I can run hot, but not hot enough to counteract this if I want to keep my clothing intact. I don’t want to lose my precious clothing. I’m not getting out of these things once while we’re here.”
He couldn’t agree more.
His clothing was staying on.
Unlike his mate, he couldn’t run hot at all. He didn’t have the luxury of being able to warm his body at will. Although, Mackenzie didn’t have that luxury either. She had confessed that her species felt the cold more than most did and that using her phoenix fire to remain warm was a drain on her strength and was therefore something she couldn’t afford to keep switched on. He agreed with that. He didn’t want her tapping herself out when a fight was liable to erupt at any moment.
He knew whenever the cold got too much for her and she risked using her fire to warm her body though, because she got a dazed edge to her eyes that had made Rosalind ask her whether she had been relieving herself in her salopettes to keep warm.
Mackenzie had blushed hard and sputtered at that.
Prince Vail had gently admonished his mate.
Hartt lowered his gaze to the compound in the distance, envious of the warm light that constantly emanated from it. It made him imagine roaring fireplaces and hot baths. His gaze shifted to his left, up the tree-covered slope to a ledge barely visible above the frosted tips of some of the pines. A tiny flicker of light struggled to chase back the darkness, a small fire in the heart of the cave that was all that they could risk without alerting the witches to their presence.
Witches plural.
Rosalind had performed another spell, one that had tallied everyone in the compound and revealed they were up against more than a dozen mages.
The low number had been amusing to the vampires and Syn, until Hartt had told them that the witch they were after could create copies of himself, clones that were strong and could fight for him. Those