CHAPTER 11

THINGS STARTED OUT rather rocky. The Krampus’ centuries of bachelorhood made him adept at surviving on his own. It’s also made it difficult for him to adjust to having anyone else in his castle. I’ll never forget that huge monster barreling through the bathroom door, drawing open his robes and unleashing a firehose stream on the toilet. I got a front-row seat in the bathtub.

Oh, there’s a bathtub, and it’s gorgeous. Carved out of wood like nearly everything else in his apartments, it’s a good twelve feet long to accommodate his length with gold poured inside up to the lip. Laying in it, I feel like a mermaid waiting for the prince to kiss her. After a few days, a small jar of salts appeared on the ledge that used to have nothing more than a bar of hard lye soap and a bottlebrush. No matter how many times I empty it, it always refills the next day.

He opened up all of his locked rooms, revealing not only the fancy bathroom but a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves, a shop for his woodworking and tanning, a parlor with a small table, and a ten-foot wide circular window overlooking the snow below. But best of all had to be the garden.

I asked about the vegetables in the stew—also, who knew the Krampus was such a good cook? How can he get carrots and peas in a world where it never stops snowing? Rather than answer, he took me by the hand and led me up the stairs. I swear his cheeks turned rosy and he danced back and forth on his hooves in excitement.

Pressing his chest to my back, he turned the lock and pushed open the door to another world. Green erupted through this land of white and brown. It wasn’t a nicely tended greenhouse, but an entire forest inside another snow globe where the blizzard raged outside the glass. Vines crawled along the ground and back up the windows. Wherever there was a gap, leaves the size of my face stretched for the light. Planters rested on tables of varying heights, some resting above my head. At the center of it all were his pride and joy, two pomegranate trees. Their red ruby fruits hung like hot air balloons from branches straining across the ceiling.

“I suppose I should plant more,” was all he grumbled, but—with a hand to my back—he guided me to an empty patch of dirt in need of seeds and TLC. I never really grew anything in my apartment, so finding joy in watching tiny shoots break through the black soil shocked me. I’d spend so many afternoons in the greenhouse with him laughing, digging, playing in the dirt. Despite the winds pelting snow into the glass, it grew hot in there.

In less than an hour, his robe always tumbled to the floor and my skirt found itself hitched up my waist.

Oh? Did I forget to mention the dress? Turns out Krampus sews. He makes his robes—from the elaborate crimson one for his Christmas missions to the plain dark tans and blacks he wears the rest of the year. One day, I woke to find a package on the bed at my feet. No note, but it could only come for him.

A dress of tanned buckskin, soft as butter, was nestled inside. It fits like a sweater down my arms and over my chest before flaring out at my hips. Somehow, it keeps my body warm in the cold apartments, but also cool enough when I venture downstairs. Over time, he started to leave more little gifts. A soft jacket lined in fur, a scarf of fine wool, and pink silk panties. I did wonder what happened to that fucking nightie.

My mornings were spent in his salon drinking teas plucked from the garden while we watched the snow. Then he would venture out into the storm to hunt or dip into his workshop while I’d scour the library. I found books on the history of nations I’d never heard of, many in a language I couldn’t read. Those I saved to ask him about later.

By the afternoon, if he’d been out in the snow, I’d join him in the hot spring or the sauna upstairs. It never took long before we took advantage of our naked bodies sweating together. He could be soft with me—tender even, but if I so much as tugged on that piercing, the monster came out and I came harder than ever before.

Night was easily my favorite time together. After a supper of fresh vegetables he’d prepared—sometimes with my help—and a long soak in his tub, we’d lay in the garden. My whole body would rest on his chest, his arms draped over my waist as we watched the northern lights caress the sky. Blues, greens, purples—the show was ever-changing and always beautiful. A sense of peace would overcome me…until his claws happened to tug on my robe and my breast would spill into his hand.

Life was simple and quiet, back-breaking and hot, serene and thoughtful, pussy destroying in the best way possible. But I was here for a reason, and time was ticking away. I couldn’t hazard a guess how many days had passed. As seven before fourteen, then thirty I lost track. Days faded into nights, our schedules cementing as we went apart then came together—five or six times a session.

So I don’t think much of it when I stumble upon a mysterious book in the library bound in red leather. It bears no title, only a stamp of a goat on the cover. Curious, I crack it open just as Krampus walks through the door.

He doesn’t waste a second hunting for me and walks right to the massive armchair. Bending clear over, he kisses my cheek, then warms his hands by the fire. “Good reading?”

“I’m not sure.” I flip the pages, trying to get a sense of what I’ve found. The book is withered with age, but I’m getting better at finding my English hiding in the old words. “I think… Oh my god, this might be it.” I push my legs under me in the chair so I can sit up higher to face him.

He swings his head around and I laugh. Snow’s built up in his eyebrows and beard. At my giggle, he furrows his brow and I point. “You’re an old man.”

Krampus smiles but he doesn’t laugh. While wiping away the snow with one hand, he reaches over to take the book. For a moment, I freeze. I’ve been hunting for anything to explain this place, him, how to get back without forgetting to stop DeVere. I might finally have an answer and… I’m being silly. Of course, he’ll want to see it.

Letting go, I sit back and calmly reach for my cold tea as he stares down the page. “It’s the history of the Krampus. Of you.”

He’s still.

“Right?”

A snort is his only answer.

“There’s got to be an explanation in there. A reason for why, how to break this weird memory curse so I can go out that door and—”

The book slams shut. He rises to his full height, his horns glinting in the sun. “It’s worthless,” Krampus rumbles.

“What? No.” I wiggle to my feet and walk over to him. He’s standing dangerously close to the fireplace. I reach for the book, my fingers nearly brushing over the cover. “If I learn about your history then—”

“Stop!” he roars, wrenching the book out of my grasp.

My blood runs cold. In all our time together, he’s never once raised his voice like this. It’s not the man eyeing me up, but the animal with claws, fangs, and horns. Steam bursts from his nostrils, his head drawing lower so I can only see a sliver of his eyes. Darkness consumes his face and he snarls. “You will not pursue this.”

The threat is obvious in his tone, his tightening sinews, his muscles ready to unleash a force that can snap bricks in half. I shrink, every part of me aching to get away. Then I catch the book. It has the only answer to a problem I’ve been hunting for over months. “Yes,” I thunder, lifting my head to his. “I will.”

I hold out my hand.

“This is my home and you dare to disobey me?!” he roars, the force tearing back my hair so hard my ponytail slips free. Krampus pants hard, his arms extended, and claws out for a fight.

I take a deep breath. In the calmest voice I can manage, I say, “Yes.”

His lips wrench up into a snarl. A threatening rumble rises up his chest. He lifts the book as if about to toss it into the fireplace—my worst fear. Whatever the hell’s in there that he doesn’t want me to read I have to have now.

“Please.”

It’s a simple request with no tears. No begging. Just one word asking for civility from the monster.

The Krampus recedes. His shoulders stoop, his posture shrinking. With his head hanging low, he shoves the book back into my hands but doesn’t look at me. Once I have it, I press the book to my chest and try to slip away, but he doesn’t reach for me. With his back forever to me, he walks to the door. Hooves skitter across the floor instead of clomping with pride.

“This is not your home, human.” Red eyes peer over his shoulder, peeling me to the quick. “You don’t belong here.” With that, he vanishes, slamming the door behind him.

Panting, I press the book so tight to my chest my ribs ache. What the hell was that? This is bad. This is a twenty-foot-tall red flag, Amaya. Get the hell out before the man doesn’t snap back and, instead, he snaps you in half.

I try to focus on the book, hoping that an explanation lurks inside. Some of it establishes the rules I already know. Krampus goes to the houses of naughty children, kidnaps them to work in his mine for a day, and leaves behind a bundle of sticks to remind them to be good. None of this makes any sense. Why did this book enrage him when he told me this himself?

Nope. I can’t shake it. My heart keeps pounding, my ears pricking to listen for hoofbeats. I have no idea where he’s gone, but I can’t face him again. Not like this. For the first time since I found the children, I flee toward the red door.

He isn’t waiting there to stop me. No, he told me to leave. All of this has been what to him? Free sex? A chance to have a bit of company, then once he’s sick of it, to chase me off? The second I challenge him, he can’t handle it and he gets rid of me?

My fingers grace the doorknob.

One turn and I’ll forget it all. Be right back to Christmas Eve. No more bean shoots woven into their little trellises. No long nights nestled against his chest while his heart lulls me to sleep. No laughs when I’d press my feet to his back and he’d yelp at the cold. All of him gone—the bad and the good.

That’s what I want. Right?

To walk through that door and…

Huh?

The lights to the throne room are lit. In all the time I’ve been here, he’s never gone anywhere near that archway. I’ve avoided it too, so it’s sat cold and dark. But now the orbs are blazing under the archways.

Why?

My hand falls off of the knob, and I turn to investigate where the Krampus has gone.