"Then I'll carry you." I move toward the door, ice crystals forming in my wake. "Ten minutes, Elise. Don't make me come back."
I wait in the hallway, listening to the sounds of frantic packing through the door. She's crying again—trying to hide it and failing. Good. Let her mourn the life she's losing. It'll make the transformation easier when she realizes what she's gaining.
Eight minutes later, she emerges. She's changed into traveling clothes—a wool dress in deep green, practical boots, a heavy cloak. Smart choices. The merchant's daughter showing through despite everything, choosing function over beauty when survival matters.
She's also managed to compose herself again, though I can see the tears still threatening at the corners of her eyes.
"I'm ready." Her voice is steady. Empty.
"No," I correct. "You're defeated. There's a difference."
I lead her through the mansion toward the front door, noting how the servants watch from shadows. They know what's happening—have probably known longer than Elise herself. Human staff always recognize the signs when their masters make deals with my kind.
The carriage waits in the circular drive, exactly as I left it. Carved from a single piece of ancient ice that never melts, pulled by horses made of crystallized winter wind. Even in the pre-dawn darkness, it gleams with internal light.
Elise stops dead when she sees it.
"It's impossible," she breathes.
"So was your father's shipping empire before Fae magic protected his vessels." I open the carriage door, revealing silk-lined seats and windows of clear crystal. "After you."
She doesn't move. Just stares at the impossible vehicle that will carry her away from everything she's ever known.
"I can't." The words come out broken. "I can't just leave. This is my home."
"This was never your home," I tell her gently. "It was a prison you didn't recognize as such. Beautiful walls, comfortable cage, but a prison nonetheless."
When she still doesn't move, I simply lift her. She weighs nothing in my arms—all that fire and fury contained in a delicate human frame. She starts to struggle, but stops when she realizes how effortlessly I'm holding her.
"Let me go," she gasps. "Please. I'll do anything. Just let me go?—"
"No." I set her inside the carriage, where the temperature is well below freezing. Cold enough to kill a normal human in minutes. She gasps at the brutal chill, her breath immediately misting in the frigid air.
But she doesn't die. Doesn't even pass out, though her lips are already turning blue.
More proof of what she is. What she's always been.
I settle onto the opposite seat and close the door with a gesture. The crystalline horses begin moving, pulling us away from the Montgomery mansion toward the road that leads to the mountains. To the territories. To home.
Elise scrambles to the far corner, pressing herself against the crystal wall and wrapping her cloak tighter around her shivering form. She's freezing—miserable, teeth chattering, fingers going numb—but she's surviving conditions that should have killed her already.
"Three days," I tell her calmly. "Three days to my palace. I suggest you use the time to adjust your expectations."
She pounds on the ice wall with both fists, though I can see her hands are already stiff with cold. It's like hitting stone—perfectly unyielding, impossible to crack. "Let me out! Stop this carriage right now?—"
"I won't." I lean back against the silk cushions, utterly relaxed while she shivers violently across from me. "And screaming won't help. We're already past the city limits. Already in territory where human law doesn't apply."
"I'm f-freezing," she gasps, wrapping her arms around herself. "This is inhuman. You're going to kill me before we even reach your palace."
"Am I?" I tilt my head, studying her with clinical interest. "Any normal human would be dead already, Elise. The temperature in here is twenty degrees below freezing. Yet here you are—cold, yes, miserable certainly, but very much alive."
Her eyes widen with dawning horror. "What does that mean?"
"It means your body knows what you are, even if your mind denies it." I watch her shiver, noting how her lips are blue but her breathing remains steady. "You're surviving this because you're omega. Because your body was designed to endure an alpha's environment, no matter how harsh."
"That's impossible." But she's staring at her own hands now, seeing how they're pale and stiff but still functional. How she should be unconscious or worse by now.
"Is it?" I lean forward slightly. "Tell me, Elise—how many other people do you think could survive in this carriage? How many would still be conscious after an hour in these conditions?"
