LOGIN~Amber’s POV~ I had imagined my mating ceremony so many times when I was a little girl that even at that age, I had been smart enough to know that I needed to stop before I hunted down my mate, not that I would know who he was at that age, just so I could make it a reality.But it always started with a picture.A million white roses because that was the highest number my little brain could come up with at the time. And then what would follow was sunlight radiating through them, golden and warm, which even back then I still knew was impossible because mating ceremonies only happened under the moon.But a little girl could dream, right?Dream of a simple but breathtaking mating ceremony where I would walk toward my mate, even if he wasn’t the man predestined for me, and he would be standing at the other end looking at me with nothing but love. The way my father used to look at my mother before she died.Deep down I had always expected that things might not turn out exactly the way I
~Axel’s POV~ “Amber?”“Uh… uh?”I glared at her with as much force as I could muster from a frozen floor. “My h-heart is still beating.”“Uh… uh.”“Amber!” I snapped and that caused her head to turn to me and her whole face went red despite the cold, which was genuinely impressive given that the temperature display behind her now read -22°F.“Will you s-stop looking at it?” I said flatly. “It’s the cold.”“Uh uh.” But her head just turned back to the outline of my length straining against my trousers that had apparently taken her whispering “I will always hate you Axel Edgewood” as its personal cue to make itself aggressively known through wet frozen fabric that was leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.“Amber!”“O-okay okay.” She snapped her head back to me, pressed her lips together. “I’m s-sorry. I’m doing it now.”She brought her fingers back to my neck where she should have kept them ten seconds ago instead of gasping with her eyes wide as soon as she noticed it, and I
~Amber’s POV~ “I’m s-sorry.” The words came out in broken pieces, my teeth slamming together between each one. “I couldn’t have h-heard you right because it sounded like you just asked me to f-fucking kill you.”The silence that followed was only filled with the hum of the freezer and the violent sound of my own shivering.“Do you know that for a p-princess,” Axel said, his voice rough and fractured, each word looking like it cost him visible effort, “you curse way too m-much.”“Yes. I k-know. I will t-think about quitting o-nce we get out of here.” I pushed off the door, my frozen hands leaving frost prints on the metal, and turned to face him fully.“Now g-get off your ass and come help me.”He didn’t move.Not even slightly.“I cannot move.” He said it quietly. “In a literal sense.”My chest tightened.“And I did not ask you to kill me.” His eyes, glassy and frost-rimmed at the edges, stayed steady on my face. “I asked you to stop my heart.”“What the h-hell is the difference?!”T
~Axel’s POV~ It is a known fact that people did the craziest things for love.So it would be incomprehensible to anyone who would hear it, once I got out of here, that I had indeed come here alone to save a woman I absolutely knew that I couldn’t stand. So much so that sometimes it could be likened to hate.Because I had thought I was dealing with a scorned woman. A human with a grudge and limited options. I had every intention of simply killing her, retrieving Amber, and being back to doing literally anything else. Unfortunately for me, she was aware of the supernatural. And the apparent counterpoints to every advantage I had, which I hadn’t expected at all.With a lot of hurt to my pride, I admitted, if only to myself in this frozen hellhole that I had been taken completely by surprise.Which was exactly how I ended up here, slumped against a freezer wall, staring at Amber.I really needed to start doing more in-depth background checks on my employees.“What could you p-possibly
~Amber’s POV~ “Having fun, are we?”If I wasn’t so exhausted and literally panting trying to catch my breath from almost being drowned seconds ago, I would curse the hell out of her and this time it would be very much deserved.“The moment I get out of here—” I managed to grit out between gasps, my lungs still burning from the water I had swallowed, the adrenaline still coursing through my body making my hands shake.“You are going to kill me?” She finished for me, and I couldn’t see her but I could picture the smile on her face, stretching those lips that I knew were still painted that corporate red. “You couldn’t think of something less cliché?”“I should be asking you the same thing, you psychopathic bitch!” I screamed out, still gasping, feeling a mix of rage and fear coursing through me in equal measure.I was shivering now. Violently. My entire body was soaked through from the water room, my dress clinging to my skin like ice, and I couldn’t tell if the shaking was from the c
~Axel’s POV~ The witches had been casting location spells for the past forty minutes.Nothing.My warriors were sweeping the city in a grid pattern, following scent trails that led nowhere.Nothing.The restaurant’s security footage showed her walking into the bathroom.Never walking out.And whoever took her knew enough about supernatural tracking to block every fucking method we had.I stood in the doorway, phone pressed to my ear, coordinating three different search teams while the King paced behind me.“Expand the perimeter to fifteen miles,” I said into the phone. “If the witches can’t locate her, she is either heavily warded or underground. Check abandoned buildings, warehouses, anywhere with reinforced basements.”“Yes, Alpha.”I hung up. Dialed another number.“Security footage from every traffic camera within a ten-mile radius. I want to see every vehicle that left this area in the thirty-minute window after she disappeared.”King Roland’s voice cut through from behind me, t







