North Pole City Tales 02 - The Heart of Frost Read Online Free PDF Page B

dressed in a royal purple jacket with gold braiding, black trousers with gold stripe going up the sides, shined black boots, and a velvet purple cape lined with white fur, large enough to conceal a wooly mammoth.
    As soon as the photographer was done, he turned to Jack with a nervous twitch. Bah humbug . “May I have one of you and your cousins, your Highness?”
    “Like three little circus monkeys,” the Mouse King said with a pleasant smile.
    Hollis immediately bristled. “Holy Holly berries, do you ever shut up?”
    Jack gently grabbed his cousin by the collar and pulled him closer. Vale quietly came to stand beside Jack. The photographer took a few steps back, looked through his camera, then frowned. “Erm, perhaps we should take it over here where you can sit down, your Highness.” He motioned to the pristine cot beside him.
    “Why?”
    “Because if not, he won’t be able to see the other two pinheads behind your ginormous, mountainesque form,” the Mouse King replied with a snort.
    “Say one more word and I’m freezing your tail off,” Jack growled, taking a seat where the reporter indicated while his cousins stood one to each side of him. Was it his fault he was so blasted tall?
    The rodent let out an amused laugh. “Ooh, it’s like a game. Which one of these doesn’t belong?”
    The beast could try Kringle’s patience. Once the photo was taken, Jack merely had to lift an eyebrow and the elf all but tripped over himself in his attempt to flee the room. This was taking far longer than it should. Remaining seated, he asked Vale to remove the Mouse King’s cape. It was probably best he keep Hollis away from the infuriating rodent.
    “You can’t rid yourself of me,” the rat hissed.
    “I certainly hope so. Now if you’ll please hand your illustrious tablecloth over to my cousin—the one who doesn’t look like he wants to knock out your two front teeth—I would be most grateful.”
    “Do you really think this is how it ends? I will have my revenge, Frost.”
    Jack stood and came to tower over the Mouse King, his voice grave. “When you’re banished—and you will be—I will personally escort you to the Mountain Fortress where you will be encased in ice for all eternity, and I will enjoy every moment of it. Yes, this is how it ends, and no, you won’t have your revenge because you won’t be able to so much as blink, much less give an order. Which reminds me, your little pack of hoodlums will soon be joining you.” He grinned broadly. “I think I might line you all up in pairs. Two by two, like a little tray of mousecicles.”
    “He deserves far worse. This wouldn’t have happened in the old days. He would be stripped of his immortality and extinguished like the foul rodent he is,” Hollis muttered, sulking beside his brother, who was folding up the purple monstrosity, or at least attempting to. He seemed to be getting lost in it with every turn.
    Vale frowned. “Well, we’re no longer in the old days. Blast it, Hollis, will you help me out with this. It’s like some fathomless stretch of taffy. I swear it’s getting longer by the moment. Anyway, as I was saying, we’re no longer in the old days. We have a system of justice and it does what must be done.”
    “At the pace of a glacier with enough paperwork to account for every tree Kringle has created.” Hollis made two attempts to help fold the cape before giving up and snatching it from his brother’s hands. He rolled it up into a massive boulder of velvet and whistled to one of the toy soldiers posted outside. “Here, take this.”
    Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and summoned patience. “Your grousing is giving me a headache, Hollis. Can we please get this over with?” To think, right now he could have been having hot cocoa and cinnamon toast in bed with Rudy, followed by delivering his own personal brand of Christmas cheer. Instead he was here elf-sitting his cousin and doing laundry. “The rest of it, fiend,” he said