Page 51 of Scrooged for the Holidays
I grit my teeth. “I’ve tried, but I can’t. Like I told you before, we need to stick to our plan.”
“Who says that we have to?”
The hair on my arms stands on end. “What do you mean?”
“The only one trying to stick to ‘our plan’ is you, Sam. But I’m asking you to think. Why do we need to? It’s not as if we have some rule book.”
I should scoff, but I know Kai is being serious. He’s not smiling, and he sure as hell is not laughing.
“For centuries, we’ve helped the people who have been sent here, just like the Nephilim guardians did before us. There is no reason to veer from this path now, especially when you know Greer will forget us and this place when she leaves and goes back to her life.”
His breath puffs against my cheek, and my hands grip his waist harder as if that will get through to him.
“Yes, it has been. But you’re forgetting, Samael: Elysian Pines sent Greer here. Her aura—it’s different.Her energy is different. The way we feel…evenyouacknowledged the restlessness.” He places one of his hands on his stomach. “The hunger.”
My stomach tightens, the voracious feeling inside of me that has not been sated growing. It’s like a winter storm, a turbulent one that will turn the building snowfall into deadly drifts as the wind rages on. It’s impossible to ignore, but I keep trying.
“I told you, Greer’s future is not with us.”
“I don’t know what you saw. But you know better than anyone that futures change. Greer chooses her future, like all of our jobs do. She could take what we show her and ignore it all, or she could change her life. What if there’s a third path? What if it’s even more than that?”
Kai moves in closer so there’s hardly any space between our bodies.
“I fear you’re thinking about this too much, baby.”
“Or you’re not thinking enough. Just look at the past—this is nothing like anything we’ve come up against before.”
“I have, and I’ve learned from it and moved on. Just because we’ve never crossed a line with a job doesn’t mean we can’t now. Is it different? Yes. But different can be good. I’m asking you to embrace what is for now and not think of what was or what will be. Join me and Remi here.”
My hands pulse on Kai’s toned waist, feeling the muscles twitch beneath my fingers. “It worries me, Kai. That this woman has hardly been in our lives and yet you and Remi are already attached. I don’t know if it’s because of the way the town has made us respond to her or simply attraction to a beautiful, independent woman who holds her own. But the more attached you both become to her, the harder it will be when she leaves. And despite all that you say, despite if I choose to live in the moment with you both, she will leave us.”
Kai traces my lips with his thumb. “I love that you are looking out for us, but I think it’s more than that.”
“Meaning?”
“Do you notice that you keep includingyourself in this?”
“I don’t.”
He smiles. “You do. You just did. You said ‘us,’ and last night, you said ‘our’ desire.”
My lungs sting from a sudden inhale of frozen air. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No? Then why have you not been able to leave her side?”
“I told you; I’m babysitting.”
“Are you?”
Kai points to Remi and Greer at the far end of the rink, tugging me a bit out from behind the tree. She’s gained confidence in her skating now. Her legs aren’t wobbling, and her shoulders are back.
Remi is smiling at her as they glide along. Her brick-red hair flows down her back, and with the glow of the sun shining through the clouds, she looks damn near regal. It doesn’t escape me that Remi is not the only one captivated by her.
The other Nephilim playing their roles as townspeople on the rink seem drawn in by her, too, looking over to where she skates and laughs with Remi. They’re probably wondering why Remi is entertaining one of our jobs like this as well. It’s not like any one of us has taken a human ice skating before, much less flirted with them.
But Greer is…the Queen of the Ice at this moment. Not in the way her friends and family mean when they called her an Ice Queen. No, this is different. This feels more like the woman she could have been had she not chosen her current path. Had she not embraced the “Ice Queen” persona she hides behind.
My pulse beats faster in my throat. I shift to move back to the full coverage of the tree, but before I can, Greer’s head turns. Our eyes meet from across the ice, and the smile that had been on her face falls. I will myself to look away, but I’m held captive by her gaze. The town fades, and I no longer feel Kai touching me or Remi’s gaze burning my skin as he watches this moment between Greer and me.
