Jack frost, p.1
Jack Frost, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
About Jack Frost
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Look for More Titles by Cassandra Chandler
Jack Frost
Court of the Springtime Fae
Book One
Cassandra Chandler
Copyright Page
You are a good person! You know that stealing is wrong. Remember, eBooks can’t be shared or given away. It’s against copyright law. So don’t download books you haven’t paid for or upload books in ways other people can access for free. That would be stealing.
And you’re better than that.
This book is pure fiction. All characters, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used solely in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any people, places, things, or events that have ever existed or will ever exist is entirely coincidental.
Jack Frost
Court of the Springtime Fae, Book One
Copyright © 2024 by Cassandra Chandler
ISBN: 978-1-945702-06-8
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used, transmitted, or reproduced in any manner or form without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews.
First eBook edition: March 2024
cassandra-chandler.com
P.O. Box 91
Mission, Kansas 66201
Can a cold-bound Fae warm his heart to their little family?
Jack Frost has always been alone. Skirting the lines between the Courts of the Fae gives him the freedom he craves, but keeps him from having a home. That is, until a little boy’s Christmas wish brings them together. Charlie’s concern for Jack melts the edges of his frozen heart, but when Jack meets the boy’s mother, it lights a fire in him like nothing he’s ever felt before—a fire he’ll do anything to protect.
Ava Salgado only wants what’s best for her son, Charlie. Moving to Crystal Hollow, away from her inattentive ex and the bustle of the big city, has given them a new community and a fresh start. When one of her new best friends brings in a huge client, she thinks this is a chance to bring in more business to her flower shop and provide Charlie with some much-needed stability. Ava’s sense of balance is thrown when her son brings home a gorgeous man who seems in need of shelter and quickly finds his way into her heart. When Jack finishes what seemed an impossible task for her, she has to wonder who he really is and why he’s helping her.
Jack can tell that Ava is being tested by powerful members of the Court of the Springtime Fae. What he doesn’t know is why. The more he unravels the mystery, the more he grows to care about Ava and Charlie. Will he be able to protect them from the will of the Springtime Court? Or will he lose his chance at the warmth of a loving family?
Dedication
For all the members of my “found family.” My life is so much fuller from your presence.
Don’t miss out on any of the magic.
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Chapter One
Sun gleamed blindingly from the boughs of the surrounding trees, catching and reflecting every ray of light. Ice perfectly encased the buds that were just getting ready to open along with their branches, and the few early flowers had a fine sheen of frost on their colorful petals.
Jack Frost sighed, a deep smile pulling on his cheeks. His work for the morning was done. He had transformed the park into a crystalline wonderland—and had probably pissed off at least one member of the Court of the Springtime Fae.
Bonus.
He stretched his long arms along the back of the bench where he sat and surveyed his work. It was so good to love one’s job. Spring hadn’t quite arrived, so technically, this was still the time of the Yuletide Court. Everyone assumed he was a member, but he skirted the edge between winter and spring. The Winter Queen was certain of his allegiance to her, though Jack occasionally did jobs for the Oak King. It had been a while since he’d interacted with the King of the Warmer Court.
With Ostara—or the Spring Equinox, as most mortals called it—right around the corner, he had a feeling the Oak King would make an appearance soon. This between time, when winter was just fading as spring arrived, was Jack’s opportunity to shine.
‘Literally,’ he thought, as he smiled at the sunlight catching and refracting in the ice he had formed on the thin branches of the nearest tree.
The flowers had been pretty before. Now they were magical. The buds weren’t so close to sprouting that his visit would cause any actual damage. The area he’d chosen was large enough that he could spread his power out instead of focusing it in one small space.
For a few blessed hours, he could enjoy the warm satisfaction of a job well done. Or rather, the satisfaction of being warm after he used his powers. His smile hardened, mimicking the ice on the trees above.
How long would he have before the cold built within him again, making his skin so frigid that the surrounding air would turn to fog? Would it be days this time? Hours? After all these eons, he still could never predict it. He would just have to find another area to coat with frost. Something higher, perhaps. A building that his powers wouldn’t harm.
Or he could call in his favor…
No, he wasn’t ready for anything that extreme. Besides, he hadn’t worked out how to word it so that when he asked the King of the Yuletide Kingdom to pay up, the favor would manifest precisely as Jack wanted it. King Kringle might have started out as a mortal, but he had been a fairy for centuries now. Some of their trickery had to have found their way into his heart.
‘To experience lasting warmth without losing my powers.’
It was much easier to imagine immediately after expending the energy that had filled him with freezing cold. Jack closed his eyes and tilted his face to the near-spring sun, relishing its warmth. Until it vanished as a shadow fell over him.
Jack looked up to see a young boy staring at him from just the right spot to block out Jack’s morning sunbath. Tufts of unruly brown hair stuck out from underneath a knitted blue hat with a pattern that he could only describe as ‘white blobs.’ Were those supposed to be snowflakes? He wore a similarly awkward scarf around his neck, along with a bulky coat. His thick gloves held a sheet of paper. He blinked his dark cyan eyes a few times, probably to clear his eyelashes of the frost that still lingered near Jack.
“What?” Jack said.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
Jack glanced down at his midnight blue button-up shirt with the top buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows tucked into faded jeans that brushed against shiny black boots with very good treads. He was usually walking on ice, after all. No hat covered the even more unruly black hair that stuck out in short waves all over his head, and no scarf disguised the chiseled lines of his jaw or chin.
He looked back at the boy. “What’s wrong with being dressed like this?”
“Mister, you’re going to freeze out here.”
Jack scoffed and shook his head.
“Don’t you have a place to go?” the boy asked.
A tendril of cold wound around Jack’s stomach, his chest flooding with the feel of ice. It was so soon after using his powers. Too soon. This boy was affecting him somehow.
“Go away.” Jack scowled at him. The boy shifted his weight uneasily and glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to Jack. “Does that ugly hat muffle your hearing? I said go away.”
“My Auntie made this hat, and it’s not ugly. It’s…” The boy struggled as if trying to remember something. “It’s heartfelt.”
Jack scoffed again, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His breath came out in little puffs of fog—but just his breath. At least he was warm enough to still enjoy that.
The boy looked down at the paper in his gloved hands and sighed, then clumsily folded it and tucked it into one of his pockets. He turned back to Jack and said, “Mister, you need to get inside.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at the interloper. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”
The boy let out another sigh, his hands curling into fists as he stood straighter. He couldn’t be more than a decade old, but he managed a surprising amount of moxie.
“My name’s Charlie.”
Not quite the boy’s full truename, but close. He really needed to be more careful who he spoke to. Giving a fairy his name could be very dangerous.
“You’re supposed to tell me your name now,” Charlie said. “I tell you my name and you tell me yours.”
Aside from the incredible rudeness of demanding Jack’s name—at least, according to Fae manners—the child’s persistence was both confusing and irritating. Especially since it was kind of endearing. Jack wasn’t looking for any human pets. He didn’t collect stray children the way the lords of the Yuletide Kingdom did.
“What’s your name, mister?” Charlie insisted.
“You are annoying. Go away.”
Charlie wasn’t daunted. If anything, his resolve seemed to grow as he stiffened his spine even more. All Jack wanted was a chance to enjoy what apparently were only going to be the few moments of war
“It’s for a reason.” The boy showed no sign of giving up. “What’s your name?”
“Fine. It’s Jack.”
It totally wasn’t ‘Jack.’
Jack Frost had never told anyone his truename. Not even the Winter Queen. He’d been calling himself ‘Jack’ for so long, he could trick people into thinking it was his truename. He had even sort of accepted a place in the Court of the Yuletide Fae using the false name. Keeping his truename to himself was the only thing that prevented them from having power over him.
“There,” Charlie said. “Now we’re not strangers.”
Jack snorted as he shook his head and rubbed his hands together.
“Don’t tell strangers your real name if they ask.” Jack hadn’t meant to say that. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, or why he was bothering to teach this little brat how to protect himself against fairies.
“Why?” Charlie asked.
“Because you don’t know who you’re dealing with. They could be a trickster.”
“A what?”
“A trickster. Someone who wants something from you and will trick you into helping them get it.”
“Are you a trickster?”
Jack chuckled. “Oh, absolutely. One of the worst.”
Charlie narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “Nah. You’re not a bad guy. You’re just lost.”
The cold that had been spreading through Jack’s chest stilled. He held his breath, wondering what was happening to him. Was this really a mortal child? Or some fairy who had found his way into this realm, looking to mess with people? Charlie shouldn’t be able to affect Jack’s powers. To affect Jack at all. He didn’t even have Jack’s full false name.
Charlie pulled off his hat, making his hair stand out at even odder angles. He placed the hat on Jack’s hands, that were still clasped in front of him. Warmth clinging to the yarn seeped into Jack’s skin. It flooded up his arms and through his body, pushing away the cold.
“Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “I’m going to help you.”
The warmth Jack had been enjoying suddenly grew, as if the child had lit a fire in Jack’s chest. He sat back, rubbing the spot, brow furrowed as he tried to work out what sort of magic this was—because it had to be magic. Jack had never felt such warmth before.
Charlie leaned forward and clasped the hand that was still resting on Jack’s knee. That silly hat encased Jack’s other hand, pressed close to his heart. Charlie urged Jack to stand and kept his hold on Jack’s hand as he started down the sidewalk, pulling Jack behind him.
“My mom’s shop isn’t far from here,” Charlie said. “It’s warm, and she always has snacks. There are even blankets and a cot in the office for when I take naps in there after school, but I don’t really do that anymore. She still treats me like a little kid.”
“You are a little kid.”
Charlie glared up at him briefly, bringing a smile to Jack’s face. “I’m not that little. Anyway, it’s just the two of us, and I think it makes her feel better to kind of baby me, so I let her do it.”
Jack’s smile deepened. He was really starting to like this kid.
“What about your dad?” Jack asked.
Charlie’s grip tightened and his lips pulled into a stern frown. The warmth Jack felt flooding him ebbed a bit.
“He’s not around,” Charlie said. “But it’s okay. We don’t need him.”
Jack squeezed Charlie’s hand. He wasn’t sure why. It had been almost an involuntary reflex. But fairies didn’t have those kinds of instincts. Did they?
“What’s your mom going to think of you bringing home a stranger?” Jack needed them to change topics. This one was making him feel weird.
“We’re not strangers anymore, remember? I’m bringing home a new friend.”
Jack outright laughed. That sounded just like something he would say. Yeah, he definitely liked this kid.
“Okay, what’s she going to think about you making a new friend who’s a grown man?”
Charlie shrugged. “She might think it’s kind of weird, but she’s always saying we need to help people out whenever we can and that we’re all in this together. So, if she says something about it, that’d kind of make her a hypocrite.”
“A hypocrite, huh?” Jack smiled down at the boy, who was still staring straight ahead as he led Jack along. “You read a lot, don’t you?”
“It gives me something to do. I go to the library almost every day after school.”
“It’s hard to argue with someone who’s well read,” Jack said, and meant it. “Lead on, little man.”
Charlie glanced up at him with a smile. Jack couldn’t help but return it.
Chapter Two
This order was going to be the end of her. Ava stared out over the massive piles of daffodils, tulips, and early-spring roses resting alongside bright yellow, gold, and gleaming white ribbons, and small crystal vases perched on every available horizontal surface of her shop and wondered how she had gotten herself into this mess. Right, she hadn’t. Her best friends, Hayden and Emma, had gotten her into it, agreeing to plan, cater, and provide flowers for a gigantic party that was well beyond their tiny shops’ abilities to handle.
Hayden was keeping their client a mystery, dealing with him directly since she was the event planner. Emma and Ava had taken to calling him Prince Charming, considering the way Hayden’s eyes got all dreamy when she talked about him. It was yet another clue that they were in over their heads with this job. She had almost thought it was a joke when she received the list of very specific flowers, colors, and arrangement requirements—right down to the type of knot to use for the ribbons. He had chosen a Celtic design that was absolutely beautiful, and took forever to make.
Whoever the client was, he seemed to be a complete control freak. The fact that he had also only placed the order two days ago had complicated it further. She had called every flower vendor to procure the flowers, but the greenhouses were picked over and spring seemed to be taking its time waking anything up this year. In the end, she would have had to make a ton of substitutions if the client hadn’t conveniently remembered that he apparently had some sort of source she could only dream of. It almost seemed to have been a test to see if she was up for the task.
She obviously wasn’t.
“That kind of attitude won’t get you anywhere.” She picked up a daffodil that she had ordered from the local greenhouse along with the rest of the flowers and added it to the arrangement she was working on, being careful not to mess up the specified knot in the ribbon. Her cheat-sheet on how to do it was lying next to her.
“One down, twenty-six to go and I still have…” She glanced up at the clock, a trickle of unease threading through her. It wasn’t just that she only had seven hours left to finish all the arrangements and get them delivered to the banquet hall in time for the client to review and approve them—then figure out how to store them all on site until the actual party in two days. Something else was nagging at her.
“Oh crap.” She bolted from her seat. “Charlie.”
It was almost eight, and he hadn’t left for school yet. He was out in the square, ‘on a treasure hunt.’ His backpack sat beneath the empty peg where he hung his coat, his lunch neatly packed in its cooler. At least he already had his winter gear on. This spring had been unseasonably cold. She launched herself from her chair, and was just grabbing her own coat from its hook when the door to her shop opened.
Charlie came in, whispers of frost coating the ends of his bangs. Where was the hat her best friend, Hayden, had made for him? The things were ugly as heck, but Hayden put her heart into them. Her friend knitting a hat for Charlie had been one of the first times that Ava felt she had made the right decision to move them both here, out of the city. A pang echoed through her chest at the thought that he might have lost it.
