Page 125 of North Bound

The six men stand around Damon so he can transport them using his powers. As she looks at the men, she can't quite believe this is her life now. And she couldn't be happier. Nick winks at her. 'I love you.'

'I love you too.'

And then he disappears.

Epilogue

When he signed hiscontract to be the Boogeyman, Damon hadn’t put much thought into what it would mean for him long term. Maybe he should have. Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted, just because anything would have been better than the life he was living at the time.

He’d been so desperate to escape, he’d said yes without even listening to half of what the role entailed.

Santa. Jack Frost. The Sandman. Those are contracts you could accept without having to think for too long. Even the Horseman would be a tough gig to pass on. That horse is seriously freaky.

But as he hides in the shadows in Nick’s workshop, watching all the happy, carefree humans interacting with each other, he knows he made a mistake he can’t undo.

It’s not the first time this thought has hit him. Won’t be the last either. His job is to scare people, to punish them. There’s a lot of other shit he has to do, but that’s the core of his existence. Has been for fifty odd years now.

His life improved when Nick signed his contract. The new Santa's stubbornness means he is a fan of doing things his way, instead of how they’ve always been done.

Which included befriending him.

No one was more surprised about that, than Damon himself. The two men just clicked from the first moment they met.

It wasn’t the only thing that changed in his life when Nick took over.

He melts further into the shadows, as Eve walks through the workshop, stopping to speak to a group of women. She laughs with them, as she runs her hand over her pink hair.

Eve is unlike any woman he’s interacted with since he became the Boogeyman. She’s wary of him. That’s not surprising. Everyone is. His appearance is far from approachable. At his core, he is a demon like Krampus. When he’s in his true form, he has fangs, horns, and wings. In human form, all the physical traits of the Boogeyman disappear. All except for the thirst for pain. That never leaves him. Not for one second.

Just what every woman wants from a potential mate.

She climbs the stairs and walks towards him. As much as he wants to show himself to her, he stays in the shadows, hiding from her, like he’s done so many times before. He reaches out as she passes, desperate to make contact, even though she won’t feel it.

Eve stops just opposite him and turns to face him. She can’t see him until he takes solid form. Even so, she stares at him through the shadows, like she can see him. His throat dries as she continues to look at him. He shouldn’t let her get to him the way she does. He should disappear and go back to his house. Leave her alone and stop watching her from dark corners.

But he doesn’t.

---