CHAPTER 13

LIFE CHANGES BUT also doesn’t.

As days became weeks, our separate paths began to merge without force. Instead of trekking out for hours at a time, Krampus would linger in the library beside me. Over time, as I kept hitting roadblocks, I started abandoning my research more and more.

Once, he found me in his workshop watching him naked—save a pair of buckskin pants—running a small blade down a plane of wood. He had his tongue clenched between his teeth as he focused with such precision, it was a lucky thing I didn’t have any panties on to ruin. When he broke from his work to find me creeping from the door, he invited me in.

As painstaking as it was, he taught me to carve. First with a hunk of wood, then a full plank. I did my best, but I had no hope of matching his talent to make a lifelike deer leaping out of a wall. “So,” I asked, proud of my lopsided snowflake and Grinch tree. “Am I ready to have a go at one of the wall panels?”

Krampus took my crude carving in his hands and walked to the fireplace. I half expected him to toss it onto the flames for warmth, but he placed it on the mantle instead. “Do as you wish, but your work will be on the wall for centuries. Are you prepared for it to live in eternity?”

“Yeah, I think I need a bit more practice before that.”

His only answer was to kiss me on the forehead and return to etching every single hair on a squirrel’s tail.

Dinners became events. Some days I’d find him cooking from dawn ’til dusk with so many pots boiling he’d have to use hot stones to keep things warm. Feasts of venison, bourbon-glazed carrots, au gratin potatoes, and cheese tarts with a sprig of mint became the regular. I didn’t even want to think about how much weight I gained from them, but he never cared. If anything, he seemed to revel in the widening of my hips—his claws always digging into the soft flesh with every hard fuck across his castle.

I stopped thinking about the red door. Then I stopped seeing it entirely. Life was good. I discovered happiness in the simplicity, but also joy at discovering miracles I never knew existed. Krampus would find all manner of delights in his old rooms. One night he revealed an old box that, when cranked, would play music. It wasn’t easy dancing with a man with two left hooves, but he scooped me up into his arms and kissed me.

That was the first time we made love.

The next day he left.

Not for any nefarious reason. There was a village forty miles down at the base of the mountain. He needed supplies and, as much as I’d be willing to try, I couldn’t survive the trip. The weather was subzero by day, never mind at night, and all I had were my leather socks to keep my feet warm.

One week, he promised me, then he’d return with goodies in hand for another mess of joyful months. For the first day, I reveled in the kind of freedom only found in solitude. Even if I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t when he was around, the fact I could made me light on my feet.

After five days, I took to hunting out the window for a glimpse of a black spot trudging through the snow. By the seventh day, I tried my hand at cooking beyond the cold venison sandwiches I’d survived on.

It didn’t go well.

But I didn’t set his kitchen on fire. That would have been impressive as it’s made out of rock.

Still, sitting with my burned meal in my tightest leather dress, I waited.

And I waited.

The candles snuffed themselves out before I rose from the chair.

He’s delayed. Anything could have kept him. Maybe another storm made the path more treacherous. I’m worrying over nothing.

I spent the eighth day wrapped in his robe doing nothing but reading and sipping hot tea. By the ninth, digging my fingers through the furs on the bed and wishing they were his, I finally admitted it aloud.

“I love him.”

The tenth day rose and my certainty shattered. How long will this take? What if he never comes back? What if I’m stuck waiting and waiting in the cold and furs like a Viking Miss Havisham? What if he’s hurt?

What if he’s dead?

No. He’s older than the sun. He can’t be hurt, or dead. He’s taking his time. He’ll be back.

The eleventh sun came and went.

Holding a candle so tight, the wax nips my fingers, I stare out the window. Sadistic winds tear the snow off the ground, turning the entire world into a black-and-white canvas. I don’t need to go outside to feel the cold battering against the glass pane. It seeps under it like a ghost come for a miser. If I took one step outside, my feet would freeze to the ground and snap off.

I hope he’s not in this.

But I need him here. I can’t be alone forever, and neither can he.

What if magic’s holding him at bay? Some cruel spell that took away his court is also keeping him from me? A curse that says the Krampus can never be happy?

He’s a talking goatman who makes jingle bell sounds whenever he fucks so anything seems possible.

For the first time in months, I see the red door.

How long can I stay and wait? A week? Two months? A year?

There’s my only salvation out of this purgatory. All I have to do is let him go, let everything we’ve had go. Forget the way he piles honey into his tea with a knife. How downy soft the fur on his thighs is. The way he cradles the back of my head before he kisses me. That indescribable scent of his that burns my brain until I’m a panting doe in heat. How beautifully he describes the northern lights while curling around me as I fall asleep on his chest.

Forget the time and go back to who I was before I was taken by the Krampus on Christmas Eve.

My foot stirs. I hold my breath. Panic turns to pain gnarled in my heart. I struggle to pull in air, each rise of my chest embedding thorns through my lungs. He’s gone. He’s never coming back. I’m going to die here, just like all the others. He’s immortal. He doesn’t understand the passage of time like humans do.

He’ll come back in fifty years, thinking it was a week, and find a skeleton sitting on his throne waiting for him.

I reach for the knob. The candlelight catches on the brass and it gleams like new. I don’t have to walk through tonight. I can wait, and wait, and wait. Let myself slowly slip into madness until I forget what the door is, or who I’m even waiting for.

Pulling in a breath, I close my fist and knock against the door.

I can’t do it. I can’t leave him, not now.

But when?

I don’t know, but when it does happen, I’ll tell him to his face. Even if I’m some wrinkly old lady clinging to a stick. Laughing at the idea, I raise my fist back for another knock when a huge slam strikes the whole castle.

Gasping, I dash for the center of the room to confront this intruder. I hold the robe tighter to keep myself warm should a wall or roof cave in. Another knock shakes the room until wax streaks down the wall off of the sconces.

A sea of white appears through a rising gap that becomes a doorway. Holding a hand over my eyes, I blink through the snowy darkness as a figure steps into view. His sack strikes the floor and he shakes back the snow.

“Ho, it is so-o-o col—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish as I wrap myself around him. The snow iced to his fur bites at my skin, but I hug him tighter, melting it with my heat. Krampus drapes an arm around my back and bends over until his horns caress my head.

“I didn’t expect you to be awake,” he says. “I’d hoped to surprise you come morning.”

That sounds sweet. I fight off a rash of happy tears and cry out, “Where were you? You said a week! It’s been—”

“I know.” He takes my hand, then the mighty Krampus drops to his knees. I try to wipe off my eyes before he’s staring into them. “I am sorry, my doe.” Cupping my cheek, he traces down the tear that escaped.

“I missed you,” I blubber.

His pained look softens to a smile. “And I you. I’m afraid the market was not what I expected. Almost all of the shops are inside buildings now. When did that occur?”

I laugh, wondering when was the last time he took a trip down the mountain. “I dunno, in the nineties?”

“Oh, no. They were quite open and easy to visit in the nine hundreds. Even with the new millennium, I could still use a robe and hood to make my purchases.”

“The nineteen nineties, not…” I thud my hand against his chest. It’s supposed to be playful, but my fingers brush over his fur. Without thinking, they clench onto it and I pull myself to him.

Kissing with a fire that’s been stoked for twelve days, I smear the last of my tears on his cheeks. His hands swoop up my body, conveniently prying open the robe, before he cups the nape of my neck.

“I missed you,” he says. “Here.” He points to his head. “And here.” He lays his hand on his chest just beside mine. I try to unknot my fingers from his fur, but it’s hard to let go. By some miracle, I manage, and Krampus rises up onto his hooves.

He begins to fuss with his sack which is hopefully full of goodies to make this all worth it. “As the nights grew longer, I feared that I would return and find you—”

“Never.” I dig into his biceps and he smiles at me.

“Then…” Krampus sweeps a hand around my waist. With ease, he plucks me up until I’m resting in his arms. “Shall we adjourn to bed?”

Fuck yes. Do you have any idea what smelling you next to me every night but not touching you has done to my brain? I’ll probably come from just sitting on your thigh.

God that sounds good.

I run my palm down his horn watching his eyes roll back at the touch. Just before I reach the velvet part, I glance down.

“Or you could tell me what you got that’s kept you away so long?”

His pant fades and he smiles. Even while holding me, he bends over to the sack. “You know patience is…”

Using his horn, I yank myself up until I can whisper in his pointed ear, “Then we can fuck on the staircase.”

“Patience is highly overrated,” he declares and dumps his goodies across the floor. Before I look, I kiss him as hard as every night without him has been.