The Snowmaiden, A Bride for Krampus - Jeanette Lynn Page 0,76
got any easier, keeping the balance so the magic that held Hinter stayed strong. He was forced to do things, sacrifices were to be made. This wasn’t like when his soulmate was here. He was drowning without the other half of his soul, the urge to stay Krampen stronger and stronger every year.
His hands stopped twirling the small blue, glass looking orbs. “I’ve a gift for you, my heart.” Lifting one up, he held it out to the smoky visage of his white haired lover, his little Christmas witch. The vision before him twitched and flickered, blinking in and out. It grew worse and worse as the years passed. Soon she’d be nothing more than wisps of a memory. He was dying without her. He was giving in to the madness threatening to consume him without her to offer balance. She’d pulled him from the mountain caves so many eons ago and shown him another way, and offered up a half of her humanity to him in exchange for this world they’d built. He’d never looked back.
All it would really take was one, he thought, eyeing the orb he held out to his love, but what he’d offered Lumi in exchange for her latent magical abilities had given Lumi not only her male back, but the one thing his dearest Lyddie had never been able to attain—the compatibility to bear young with her mate. Krampus did not breed, born sterile. They were created from the fires of their own darkness and only the light could draw them out. Snowmaidens were the light to the Krampussen’s dark.
With Hinter being preternaturally good and all that was right, it was no surprise to learn his Elkfen, created in the image of his female, would so easily fall with the smallest transgressions.
The Elves, Klaus thought darkly, those Loki-like nuisances were all his doing, his immortal henchmen.
Tossing the orb high up into the air as he tucked the second one back into his pocket to be locked up for safe keeping, should his Lydia ever need it again, he turned, offering her his back and the coat discarded on the floor to preserve her modesty, and turned to face the next task at hand.
Fingers steepling, his thick pinkies pressing into his long, fluffy beard, he faced the fireplace in the large, circular room roaring with gold flames.
The cocoa on the table near his throne of a chair had long ago gone cold. Lydia, popping back into existence and with her that feeling of peace she gave him, his coat rustled as she put it on. With a happy sigh, she came up behind him, leaned around his chair and pressed a sweet kiss to the side of his head. A happy rumble of a purr left him.
“Forever, my light,” he whispered, closing his eyes to lean into her touch as her hand stroked his face. The rest of his person immediately responded. She did that to him, lit up his world from the inside out. Her name, etched into his flesh on his thick neck, tingled as if she were caressing the marks.
“Always, my heart,” she purred right back. Taking his cup of cold cocoa, she toddled off, generous hips swaying as she went, a Christmas tune humming from her throat, to refill it. He was going to get thick in the middle again with her at the helm. A slow smile spread across his face as he turned to watch her go. He couldn’t wait.
The gold flamed fire with bells jingling along the wreath over its mantle crackled and sparked. Sitting back in a relaxed pose, he waited. Bels rematerialized as if he’d never gone.
Klausen’d watched him closely this time, mentally tracking the naughty male. He’d been up to something, he’d sensed it the moment Hinter rippled with awareness of a Snowmaiden within its bounds. He’d assumed it had meant his clever mate had found a way to regenerate herself. The stupid Elf didn’t know what he was doing, but Klaus’ Lyddie couldn’t have come back to him with Lumi in residence. The half breed descendant had no place here. Klaus was only too happy to help her go. Shnikel wouldn't have been allowed back into the fold of his herd for subterfuge otherwise. Nothing went on in Hinter that he wasn’t made aware of. Nothing. Like the naughty Elf causing ripples in Hinter’s very fabric right before him.
This was the Elf’s sixth regeneration in a revolution—it was unheard of.