Home / Romance / Jack Frost's Bride / Chapter 28: Seventeen

Share

Chapter 28: Seventeen

Author: Allister Nelson
last update Last Updated: 2024-10-29 19:42:56

He cursed the day he was born in the snowy wastes of Ded Moroz’s kingdom, quite uncomfortable, and appraised her.

Morozko wanted to tell her that the dress made her look deadly.  She was a witch, he realized, enchanting and terribly beautiful, so far from the girl he knew.  He had the strangest attraction and repulsion at the exact same time and felt quite ill, like a vicious hangover from a night spent flirting at a bar.

Morozko was, in a word, lost.

“Well, Kolya?”  Anya looked at her feet, embarrassed.

“This boy will lose his heart to you,” Morozko finally said.  “And you will swallow him whole.”

Anya laughed uneasily.  “I will take that as a compliment, I suppose.”  She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled hesitantly.  “I think I am quite in love with this beautiful dress – I have never owned anything so fine, save my firebird necklace,&rdq

Locked Chapter
Continue to read this book on the APP

Related chapters

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 29: Wood Wives

    Anya's birthday dawned with much celebration, the entire kingdom coming out into the streets. Dmitri threw a festival in her honor, replete with the finest caviar and buttery champagne and parades through the streets. The only one who seemed to not enjoy it was Morozko, who insisted he was sick and skipped out on the festivities. Anya was quite irritated that her guardian had skipped out on the grand festivities.Their family gathered that morning in the rose garden outside the ramshackle library’s bay window to bless Anya. They passed around a horn of vodka and poured it onto the ground, praising the gods one by one and asking for their gifts to be bestowed upon Dmitri’s precious Anya. The carved hollow ram horn came to Anya at last.She looked to the rising sun, held the horn high, and said a prayer.“Mother Mokosh, Father Perun, Uncle Veles, let my dreams know fruition. Let my wanderings be true. Let

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 30: Moskau

    Anya's alarm sounded bright and early. She awoke, groggy, and yawned, wiping away the sleep-sand that had accumulated in her eyes.“Wha?” she said, feeling a body against her. She looked down to see Morozko asleep beside her, his arms wrapped round her waist. “Huh? What in thrice nine kingdoms?”Morozko stirred. “Go back to sleep.” He grunted.“Why are you in my bed?”Morozko looked at her with cut-glass eyes. “Don’t you remember last night?” he said.“Of course I do. We argued over the dance and... oh. Right.” Anya blushed. “You kissed me?”“Absolutely.” Morozko grinned like the Devil. “And I will do it again, to remind you that you liked it.”“No! Do not even lay a finger on me. Kolya, please, just give me a min

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 31: So This Means War

    Morozko nodded. “So you are paying the First Throne a visit, eh?” Baba Yaga clucked. She took a jar of poison dart frog legs swirling in preservative and plopped them into her stew. The hag sampled the concoction and smiled in approval. “That is the idea, yes.” Morozko helped himself to the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of vodka. He popped the cork off with his fangs and poured himself a glass. “Can we go to Sparrow Hills?” Anya referenced the steep hill above the Moskava River immortalized by so many Russian poets. “Of course, mooncalf.” Morozko tossed back a shot. The vodka warmed his belly as the liquid found its way to the furnace of his stomach. “Well then, get a move on.” Baba Yaga chuckled, making a dismissive gesture. “Do not keep my witch daughter waiting, soap brains.” She ushered them out onto the porch. “Little hut, little hut, turn your back to Buyan and your f

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 32: The Demon Cat

    “You must summon a cherti to defend yourself. These are dangerous times.” Baba Yaga finished chalking a summoning circle onto the floor of her hut. “They are tricksy creatures. Worse than the Devil himself. Your will must be iron. It is much like fishing: you cast your will out into Hell like a lure, and the cherti are drawn to your witch fire. Then you reel your will in and catch them in your own skin as a net. Can you do that, little bird?”Anya nodded. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the pentagram Baba Yaga had chalked on the floor, her hair fishtail-braided over one shoulder. “I think so, babushka.”Baba Yaga lit four tapers for the four directions and set them at the corners of the summoning circle. She handed Anya a bundle of raskovnik plants, rare greens shaped like four leaf clovers - the keys to unlocking the spiritual world. “Now, calm your

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 33: Kosti

    “I absolutely will not tolerate Chort’s hairball in my banya.” Morozko uttered a string of curses, peeling his shirt off as he changed into pajama pants. Anya sat on her bed, petting Aym, her eyebrows raised.“He is my familiar, and his name is Aym,” Anya said. “And it is not just your banya, I live here too. And now, so does Aym. Is that right, little beast?” Anya scritched Aym’s pert ears.Aym purred with laughter. “Bannik, surely there is room in your dive for a dapper cat like me?”Morozko narrowed his eyes. “The schmoozing cat sleeps outside the door. I will not have a cherti spying on us in our sleep, waiting to eat you,” he said through gritted teeth.Aym grinned. “Let's put my bruised past behind us, eh? I'm now the faithful servant of my witch mistress. And I'm sure we can agree that her so

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 34: Bone

    “Who is there?” Anya called. Her voice echoed in the wind.The music stopped. “A wanderer,” came a voice like a waterfall.Anya squared her shoulders. “That is not a name.”“You may call me Kosti,” he replied. “I see that you are armed. What a pity. Fair things like you should not live in fear.”“I am not afraid.”“That, my girl, is a lie. My music tends to stir up… rather unsettling emotions. But I beg you relax. You are safe.”“Am I?” Anya said. “The anglerfish's lure gives comfort before its bite.”Kosti laughed. He stepped from the pine's shadow. “I am far from a fish.”Anya caught sight of him in the morning light. He was slender and tall, dressed in furs and a white kaftan, a violin at hand. His skin was pale and h

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 35: Storm Brewing

    “I do not trust Kosti,” Morozko hissed, looking at Anya. “I do not like how he danced with you. I do not like how that blasted koldun even looked at you.”“You know that he is a koldun too?” Anya asked.“Of course he is.” Morozko wiped dust from his jacket. “A powerful one.”Anya shivered. “He creeps me out.” Anya did not want to admit that she was also intrigued by Kosti, albeit in a sickening way.Later that night, as Anya slaved over homework at her rickety desk in the kitchen, Iosif came in, his fur bristling as he swept. He moved about frantically.“Whatever is wrong, Osya?” Anya asked.Iosif let out a low moan. “Something is amiss. I have seen something horrible in my kasha. There is a dark presence in this inn, only I cannot place the face. I fear it is your cherti.”

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 36: War

    Anya woke early the next morning, restless. She dressed in jeans and a pale sweater, then went to fix herself a bowl of Cheerios. Morozko slept all the while. Pouring over the cereal, Anya stirred the milk idly. There was a scratch at the door.“Mistress, you seem unhappy,” purred Aym. He slinked in on jazzy feet, bending his ears as if tipping his hat to her.“No. I am just tired. That is all. I cannot for the life of me sleep.” Anya took a bite of cereal.Aym leapt onto the table and settled beside her, his tail twitching. “And what has you blue, damselfly? Is it a man?”“What?” Anya echoed.“You look frazzled, that is all. Bags under your eyes, hair askew.” Aym licked his paw. “Usually the signs of love troubles.”Anya was amused. “And what does a cherti know of

Latest chapter

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 48: Happy Ending

    The problem with gods is that often, they like to stay hidden. And the most sacred place in all Buyan, the World Tree, where Perun nested in the branches and Veles snaked round the roots, was not really a tree, but a woman.Mother Mokosh, whose name Russian peasants centuries ago would swear on by taking dirt into their mouths – Mokosh’s body - and spitting it out, like the Greeks making an oath on the River Styx, echoed a tradition that may as well have been Neolithic.To swear on Mother Mokosh was to swear on the vitality of the land, summoning the very magic that bound Buyan together. But that magic was failing, reckless, with vines choking forests, greenery growing like mad beyond even the leshys’ control. Dmitri’s forest was nearly unnavigable, and the tsar went out each day, pruning and plucking, trying to put a stopper on the wilderness.Anya and Morozko stowed what little they had in the oversized bac

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 47: Promenade

    They backpacked Europe, hostel by hostel. It was Anya’s insistence that they travel simply, no planes, all train, bus and foot. Morozko mastered the art of smoking when you were a walking refrigerator. Anya learned to pack light. Both needed time to heal – one had lost his body, the other had lost her soul.Despite the marvels of the Old Word – the museums, the culture, the castles and cathedrals - Anya could not sleep. When she shut her eyes, she saw the deathless girls, each whispering silently, tears on their cheeks like pearls. Alina was always at the forefront, swirling into dust.It had been a year since they set out on their journey, though Anya’s body had stopped aging. Physically, she would always remain eighteen, perpetually frozen in time. She turned, restless, in Morozko’s arms, glamoured like him, for now light poured from her throat. It made sleeping even more diffic

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 46: Falcon Wild

    “I missed you too. You do not, um, mind that I look like this now, do you? I thought, in order to save you, that I had to become something else. Someone I am not.”Anya avoided stepping on a mushroom. “Well, your skin is cold, but you are still you. You put on Ded Moroz’s crown for me. If you can accept me as I am now, as a – as Bilobog, or whatever, then I can still love you.”Morozko stopped, taking both of her hands into his. “Anya, I would not care if you became a hag. I would still adore you. Remember? I am your sidekick. All I want is your happiness.”Anya leaned into him. “Thanks, Kolya. You mean the world to me, too.”Their lips met.Aym coughed up a hairball. It landed square on Morozko’s cheek, interrupting their kiss. Aym purred with laughter as Morozko wiped the matted fur from his f

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 45: Gardens To Tend

    Morozko could barely see through the fury of the storm. Lightning split an amethyst birch in two, setting the jewel tree aflame. From behind the fallen tree slunk an orange tabby. “It is about time that you arrived,” purred Aym. Morozko stopped in his tracks. “Pus in boots? How the hell did you get here?” Aym laughed. “I have my ways. You look rather blue – sadness at my mistress’s disappearance must have taken a toll on you. I would say that you are practically frozen in sorrow.” Ivan rounded a corner on Greyback. His eyes gaped wide. “Something has changed,” he breathed. “I can feel it in my soul, now bound to another master. Actually, no – mistress? A – a goddess? But how?” Aym wove in between Greyback’s legs, purring. “You wouldn’t happen to have any cream, would you, bud? The deathless lands have lackluster food, and that’s an understatement.”

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 44: A Goddess Is Born

    Morozko and Ivan did not encounter any other ghosts. Morozko suspected Maria Morevna held her spectral sisters at bay, already having claimed Ivan as her own. He wondered if Ivan’s deaths each night at Maria’s hands was the tithe they were paying to enter the deathless lands, for everything here had a price. Food was scarce, game nearly nonexistent, and they often went hungry.The morning of the summer solstice came, and they arrived at a steep rim of mountains that ringed the deathless lands. A great lair of a cave lay atop the tallest mountains: the domain of Zmei Gorynych.Greyback made quick work of the scree with Ivan on his back, and Morozko rose as a winter storm to the mountain’s peak. Still, the summit was tall, and it took them half a day to scale it. In the interim, the sun sang her solstice song, luring Zmei out of his cave. The dragon took wing and courted his celestial love with a radiant d

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 43: Even Gods Can Be Killed

    Ivan Tsarevich and Morozko trekked farther each day. Ivan told Morozko of the legions of cherti that guarded the deathless lands, of the women who had crumbled to dust upon trying to leave Kashchei’s kingdom. Their spirits haunted the thick black forests bordering the area. So many maidens that had been spirited away over the centuries now lingered there. Bodiless, they roamed the wilderness, leading travelers astray to try and suck the life out of them. There were packs of vucari, Greyback’s people, who would as likely help a traveler as eat them. Finally, there was Zmei Gorynych, the fearsome three-headed dragon who guarded the portal to the deathless lands.“Zmei leaves his cave once a year, on the summer solstice,” Ivan said as he turned hares over a spit for their dinner. “A being of fire, Zmei cannot resist the call of the sun. He flies as close as he can to her, fancying the star his lover, a

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 42: Ivan Tsarevich

    Morozko was on the shadow-side of Saint Petersburg, in Buyan’s reflection of the metropolis. He rode the train aimlessly, smoking cigarette after cigarette. All of his searching had turned up ash. Dirt. Nothing. There was no sign of where Kosti had disappeared to, and the fear of what had happened to Anya was a bird freezing in its cage in his snowy ribs, where his heart would have been, if Anya was in his arms. Instead, she had flown away, because he had been foolish enough to make his wish on a firebird girl.Morozko caught his reflection in the dark window. There were his lips, a dark blue, and his cheeks sunken in like a junkie’s. His hair was hardened with ice. He could barely smoke cigarettes now: the cold of his mouth put them out. He cursed his new form under his breath.Morozko touched the window’s glass and traced Anya’s face in the oily smudge. Just her eyes, really, a

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 41: Lion in a Cage

    Anya sank onto the bed, head in her hands. “No,” she whispered. “That is not right. You disgusting liar.”“Would I lie to the daughter of a goddess?”“The gods are gone. They abandoned Buyan eons ago. You are delusional, you bastard.”“Which is perhaps why Baba Yaga found you on Earth, little demigod.” Kashchei sat beside Anya and put his arm around her. She was too panicked to resist.“No.” Anya looked out the open window, at the treacherous beauty of the land of the deathless. Anya clutched the firebird pendant at her throat and inhaled sharply.“And here Baba Yaga has raised you all this time, keeping you in the dark about your heritage so you could be her perfect little pawn.” Kashchei tapped his shoeless feet on the ground. “Cruel, really. Keeping your true family from you.”&l

  • Jack Frost's Bride   Chapter 40: Glazed

    Ded Moroz's eyes seemed to pick the meat clean from Morozko's bones. Father Frost stroked his hoary beard, glacial icicle spiked crown resting atop his brow. His courtiers thronged round his throne, whispering at the scandal of his scion, the bannik bastard born out of wedlock to Snegurochka.“So,” Ded Moroz boomed. “You wish to be reinstated to the family legacy and become my heir? A responsibility you have shirked since your birth, all to save some orphan witch?”Morozko sweated, the furnace in his belly roaring. “Yes,” he said, temple throbbing under the scrutiny of his forefather, a man he had never wanted please.A thin smile graced Ded Moroz's lips. “I cannot say that I am glad that it has taken so long for you to accept your heritage. But for the love of a woman, you are willing. So be it. I will give you your crown, my grandson.”Morozko let out t

DMCA.com Protection Status