Page 32 of Christmas Eve with Krampus

I let the sack of oranges fall to the dirt. Releasing my luggage next, I hear a thump as it falls behind me, but I’m already stumbling forward. My new hip works like a dream after all the physical therapy, but my need to get to those eyes coupled with the fifty-pound backtrack strapped to me makes my run awkward.

Ruprecht, on the other hand, bursts from the trees, running easily on his cloven hooves.

“Alte liebe. Josie. Can it be you?”

Joyous tears well up in my eyes. My whole life, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone sound so happy to see me—until now.

Within seconds, I’m wrapped up in his warm embrace, and the chill I’ve been suffering from since I woke up alone on the twenty-sixth finally thaws from my bones.

He strokes his claws through my hair. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“That’s your fault,” I say, putting enough tease in my voice so that he knows I’m only a little serious about that. “I was waiting.”

Taking me by the elbows so that there’s still a connection, Ruprecht pulls back so that he can search my face.

“I cannot leave Blackmoor?—”

“Krampusnacht,” I remind him. “December 5th.”

A hint of red bleeds into his gaze. “You are my good girl, Josie. I would never punish you. No matter that it is what I was created to do, or if you were naughty while we were apart… you are safe from me. You always will be.”

Oh. I know that. I knew that from the moment he brought me to his cottage and he watched over me as I slept that first night. And, true, I woke up with my arms chained, but he was just making sure the elves couldn’t steal me during the night while he, ahem, took care of himself.

I was never really afraid of Ruprecht—and I don’t think I ever will.

“Duh. But I did what I was supposed to for the Feast of Saint Nicholas the next morning. I put out my shoes and sugar cubes. If you were checking to see who were naughty and nice, you should’ve at least stopped by that night.”

Releasing my elbows, Ruprecht takes me by one hand. “If I passed by your home, I would’ve put you in my sack and stolen you away.”

I shrug, loving how earnest he said that. “Yeah? It would’ve saved me a flight if you did.”

“Josie? But I thought… once you saw both sides of me, you wouldn’t have ever stayed.”

I pat him in the chest. “See? Now that’s what us mortals call assuming. And you know what happens when you assume?”

It makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’—and causes a whole year where we stayed apart.

“I do not,” he murmurs softly. So softly, I don’t have the heart to be a bitch about our last year’s separation.

Besides, it was what I needed. In order to find a partner that I could trust, that I could settle down with and know instinctively that he’ll never stray, never cheat, never dump me when I needed him like Colin did… first I had to finish what I set out to do.

It would’ve been so much easier to let Ruprecht use magic to heal my hip. But I wouldn’t have earned it. And maybe I’m being ridiculous, feeling some sense of accomplishment that, after seven years of chronic pain, I was responsible for finding my own relief… but I needed that.

And now I need him.

So, instead of giving him shit, I smirk up at him. “Don’t worry about. Besides, I don’t know why you thought I’d jump ship because of your baggage. I met your brother. He’s a freaky weirdo Santa, and I will never let him anywhere near our bed again, but he’s not a dealbreaker.”

When Ruprecht frowns, I’m not sure if it’s because of my modern way of speaking—since, sometimes, my English is probably as indecipherable to him as his German is to me—but it isn’t long before his eyes dim and I realize there’s more to it than that.

“Nicklaus will never,” he vows. “As long as the legend of Krampus persists and I survive, you are my mate… whether you exist in the mortal world on your own or in Blackmoor with me.”

It sounds like he’s still trying to give me the chance to go back to my old, boring, dead-end human life.

Um. Pass.

And then he says, “And it is not Niklaus that I speak of when I mention the other half of me, “ and I know we have a bigger problem to tackle before he can accept that there’s no shaking me now.

“Then what is it?”

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