Page 82 of Never Kiss a Krampus
“I release you,” I said, the final words a surrender and a promise all at once. “Not because I want to, but because I have to. Because I would rather have an eternity of you being whole somewhere in the winter than a few more minutes of watching you fade in my arms.”
The light slammed into him.
He didn’t gasp or cry out. He simply… drank. His form absorbed the river of gold, and as it did, he changed. The faded outline sharpened, the wisp of shadow becoming solid fur and muscle and bone. His horns gleamed in the brilliant light, no longerdull, but polished and dark. His eyes opened, and the amber was no longer weak, but burning with the intensity of a captured sunrise.
He was whole again. More than whole. He was radiant.
He looked down at his own hands, flexing his long, clawed fingers as if rediscovering them. He looked magnificent. Powerful. A god of winter restored. And he was looking at me with an expression of such profound, bottomless love it stole the air from my lungs.
“You did it,” he said, and his voice was the deep, familiar rumble I remembered, but with a new resonance, a warmth that had been absent before.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I whispered, my own tears finally breaking free and tracking hot paths down my cold cheeks. “I wasn’t going to let you disappear.”
“The transference was meant to return me to the source. To the cold.” He took a step towards me, leaving the circle. The golden light faded from my palm, the connection severed. “But your offering… it was not just energy. It was everything.” He tapped his chest, right over his heart. “You are woven into my essence now, little light. You didn’t just send me back. You brought me… home.”
The implications of that were staggering. My knees threatened to give out. “Home? Here? With me?”
“Where else would I go?” he asked, a slow, wondrous smile spreading across his face, transforming it. He reached for me, and I flinched, half-expecting him to be a mirage, a ghost of a memory. But his hands were solid and warm as they cupped my face, his thumbs stroking away my tears.
“You’re staying?”
“The binding is broken,” he clarified, his amber eyes locking with mine. “But the choice is mine. And I choose you.”
The last of my control shattered. A sob, full of relief and joy and a bone-deep exhaustion I hadn’t even realized I was carrying, tore from my throat. I launched myself at him, wrapping my arms around his waist and burying my face in the soft fur of his chest. He was real. He was solid. He was mine.
His arms came around me, holding me tight, a perfect, secure anchor against the storm of the last few days.
“I thought I lost you,” I mumbled into his chest.
“You almost did,” he murmured, his lips moving against my hair. “It seems you are a more powerful witch than you realize.”
“I’m not a witch,” I protested, my voice muffled.
“A conjurer of miracles, then,” he corrected. “You gathered enough light to reforge a soul. I believe that qualifies.”
I pulled back just enough to look up at him. “So, what does this mean? The… choice. What happens now?”
“Now,” he said, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead, “we live.”
The word was so simple, so human, it was more shocking than any display of magic.
“But… What about your purpose? The punishing?”
“I appear to have found a new purpose.” He looked around the shop, at the glittering tree, the mismatched ornaments, the lingering traces of the golden light. “This town. This shop. You.This is my purpose now. To protect the light, not punish the dark.”
“What about the Krampus… stuff?” I asked. “The switch? The sack?”
He chuckled, a deep, warm sound that vibrated through me. “I think I can find other outlets for my more… assertive tendencies.”
The look in his eyes as he said it made my stomach do a slow, lazy flip. “Oh, really?”
“Really.” He bent lower, his lips hovering just above mine. “For instance, I am finding an overwhelming urge to enforce a strict rule about the proper placement of festive throw pillows.”
I laughed, a real, breathless laugh that was half-sob. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you,” he murmured, finally closing the distance and kissing me, “are everything. I love you, little light.”
It was a gentle kiss, full of promise and relief and the quiet certainty of a future that was finally ours. It wasn’t about magic bindings or desperate battles. It was about us. A grumpy Krampus and a chaotic human, standing in a Christmas shop that wasn’t just saved, but was home.
