Page 39 of Santa Daddy, I'm Not the One

What? I hardly dared to believe.

Landon, his cheeks kissed by the tree’s newfound brilliance, inhaled sharply. His chest rose and fell with a gentle rhythm that hadn’t been there moments ago. He was breathing. Alive.

A cry escaped my lips, one of unadulterated relief and joy. The villagers shifted their attention from the tree to the boy at its base. I touched his face, half expecting him to vanish like a mirage. But he was real, his skin warming under my fingers, his breaths steady and strong.

“Landon?” I whispered, my voice breaking. Tears streamed down my face, but they were tears of gratitude, of love, of a hope that had been restored as miraculously as the tree’s lights.

His eyelids fluttered and then slowly, so slowly, opened. His eyes, those deep, expressive eyes I’d thought I’d never see again, met mine.

“Nils?” His voice was weak but unmistakably his. “What happened?”

I couldn’t find the words. Instead, I laughed, a sound of pure happiness, and pulled him gently into an embrace. “You’re alive,” I said over and over, as if saying it enough times would make it more real.

“The tree,” he murmured.

“It’s alive.”

“I know.” He touched my cheek. “I saw it when I died. The tree. It spoke to me.”

“It did?”

He nodded. “They told me not to be afraid. That I had to die so I could live. My fate’s entwined with the tree. For as long as I live, it shall too.”

I stared at Landon, and the truth settled within me. I’d felt it the day he’d been kidnapped by my elves and brought here.Landon was my soulmate. That he, too, was now connected to the tree was all the proof I needed.

“You believe me, don’t you?” he asked. “Or am I going crazy?”

“I believe you. My fate’s entwined with the tree too. It’s the reason for my immortality, and now you…you died to become an immortal.”

“Is that what happened?”

I laughed, pulling him into a tighter embrace. “As long as you stay in Twinkle Glen, you’ll never die. We’ll live and love forever,” I promised him, my voice choked with emotion. Landon wasn’t the first person I had ever loved, but something had always prevented me from loving completely until him, and now I knew why. The others had all lived the expected lifespan of a human before dying, but he was different. He’d died a human and woke up an immortal.

“Let’s go home.”

14

LANDON

Someone was staring at me. I felt it even though my eyes were closed, and I had a pretty good idea who it was. I’d caught him doing it too often. Smiling, I opened my eyes and found the familiar sight of Nils watching me from his place next to me in bed.

I giggled and covered my face with my hands. “Stop it,” I teased. “It’s creepy the way you watch me every day. Why are you always watching me while I’m sleeping?”

He caught my hands and pulled them away from my face to kiss them. He smiled, a tender look that made my insides melt. “I have to make sure you’re okay.” The intensity in his low voice sent shivers down my spine. “You’ll just have to deal with it because I have no intention of stopping.”

I made a face at him, but the truth was, I didn’t mind. Not really. After everything that had happened, waking up to his watchful presence was more comforting than creepy. “I’m good.” I sat up and stretched. “See? Alive and kicking.”

He chuckled, then leaned in and kissed me, a slow, loving kiss that spoke volumes. I’d never had anyone love me, and it felt electrifying coming from this man. I was even more grateful for it since he’d explained to me everything Frostheart had done to rip us apart.

I almost didn’t experience his love.

Throwing a leg over his hip, I deepened the kiss, gently tracing the muscles of his back. Nils responded in kind, tightening his grip on me as our bodies pressed together. His hands traveled downward and teased the skin on my lower back. I gasped against his mouth.

A knock on the door broke the moment. Nils pulled away, a sigh of regret escaping his lips, and rested his forehead against mine. “It seems we won’t get any privacy this morning,” he murmured. “Who is it?”

“It’s Eirik. Some of the elders are here.”

Nils’s frown deepened. “What are they doing here?” he muttered, more to himself than to me. I sensed the tension in him, the lingering disappointment and hurt from the night of the tree.

---