Chapter 19 #2
“This conversation is over,” he said, his voice clipped and formal. “We have work to do.”
“Bastian—”
“The shop requires your attention. I require your attention.” He gestured around us, at the half-unpacked ornaments and the disorganized displays. “This is why I am here. To assist with this. Not to engage in… this.”
He said “this” like it was a dirty word.
“This is what you’re afraid of,” I said softly.
“I am not afraid. I am… focused.” He picked up a strand of tinsel, examining it with an intensity that suggested it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “These garlands are inadequately secured. They will fall.”
“They’ve been fine for weeks.”
“They will fall,” he repeated, and started securing them with the grim determination of a man defusing a bomb.
Fine. If that’s the way he wanted it.
I spent the next hour unpacking ornaments and arranging them on the display tree with meticulous precision. He reorganized my wrapping station with surgical efficiency, creating a color-coded system for paper, bows, and ribbon that was so beautiful I almost cried.
He was avoiding me.
Every movement was deliberate, every action focused. When our paths crossed in the small space, he would make a subtle shift, creating distance. His tail, which had begun to relax and swish casually around me, now remained tucked close to his body. A clear, defensive posture.
I hated it. This forced distance was worse than the charged tension. At least the tension was alive. This was… dead. Cold. Like the shop before he’d arrived.
“There,” he said, stepping back from a display of vintage nutcrackers he’d arranged in ascending order of height. “Acceptable.”
“It’s perfect,” I said, my voice flat. “You’ve successfully sanitized my chaotic shop into a model of bland perfection.”
He turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “You believe my efforts are bland?”
“No. I believe your attempts to avoid me are bland.”
“I am not—”
“You are,” I cut in. “You haven’t looked directly at me in an hour. You’ve reorganized the same shelf three times. And your tail hasn’t moved, which is how I know you’re upset.”
His tail flicked once. A sharp, defensive twitch.
“I am not upset. I am maintaining appropriate boundaries.”
“Appropriate? Since when have you cared about appropriate? You’re a Krampus. Your entire job description is inappropriate.”
“That is a reductive and inaccurate characterization of my role.”
“Is it? You chase naughty children with switches. You haul wicked people off in a sack. You scare people into being good. How is any of that appropriate?”
“It is justice,” he said, his voice losing its strained formality and dropping into that deeper, more authentic rumble. “There is a difference between justice and… whatever this is.”
“This is us. This thing that’s happening between us.”
“No,” he said, the word clipped and final. “This is an unfortunate side effect of the binding. A magical byproduct. Nothing more.”
I flinched. The words were sharper and more painful than a switch ever could be. A byproduct. A side effect. Nothing more. After the way he’d held me, the way he’d looked at me, the way he’d admitted my touch affected him… to have it all dismissed as a magical glitch was a special kind of cruelty.
“Fine,” I said, my voice dangerously bright. “A magical byproduct. Got it. In that case, you can finish the displays by yourself. This byproduct is going to take a break.”
I turned and walked towards the back, my spine straight. I didn’t look back. I didn’t dare. I kept my chin up and my steps even until I was safely in the stockroom, now a pristine temple of organization thanks to him. Then I sagged against the door, the cheerful facade crumbling.
Stupid. So incredibly stupid. To think there was something real behind the attraction. To imagine that a being of ancient power and purpose could actually care for me. He was right. It was a magical byproduct. An inconvenience. A mistake.
“Noelle.”
I jumped. He was standing right there. I hadn’t even heard him approach. He looked so formidable and yet so conflicted that my anger immediately dissolved into a dull ache.
“Go away.”
“Noelle—”
“You made your position very clear. I’m a magical byproduct. A complication. I get it. Now please respect my boundaries and let me have a moment to be… byproducty in private.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Byproducty is not a word.”
“It is now.”
He stepped closer, and I didn’t move away. I was too tired to keep fighting the current, too weary to keep pretending I didn’t want him near.
“I did not mean to hurt you.”
“Then why did you say it?” I looked up at him, at the complex emotions warring in his amber eyes. “Because it definitely hurt.”
“Because I was frightened.”
The words were so quiet, so unexpected, that for a second I thought I’d misheard him.
“Frightened of what? Me? Please. I’m about as threatening as a marshmallow.”
“You are the most terrifying thing I have encountered in centuries.”
A hollow laugh escaped me. “Right. The girl who decorates with fuzzy snowflakes and keeps a cat named Jingle Bells. I’m a regular monster.”
“You are not a monster.” He took another step, close enough that I could feel the heat of his body. “You are light. You are hope. You are everything my kind are taught to avoid, to distrust. You touch me without fear. You look at me without revulsion. You see something… worth saving.”
“You are worth saving.”
“I am a creature of judgment and punishment.” His voice was a low, painful confession. “I do not get saved. I do not get happy endings. I certainly do not get the girl.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone. Everything. The nature of my existence.” He reached out, then pulled back as if touching me would break him. “Do you know what happens to a Krampus who… fails in his duties? Who forgets his purpose? Who allows himself to be distracted by… light?”
“No.”
“They don’t get a reprimand. They don’t get demoted. They are… unmade. Their essence is scattered, their power absorbed back into the winter. A fitting punishment for a creature who has forgotten the cold.”
The ice in my veins had nothing to do with the temperature. “You’d be unmade? Because of me?”
“It is not because of you,” he corrected, but I heard the lie in it. “It is because I am failing. I am here, playing shopkeeper and reorganizing storage rooms when I should be dispensing justice. I am…” He struggled for the word. “…content. And that is the most dangerous transgression of all.”
I understood then, with a clarity that was as sharp and painful as ice. Every look, every touch, every almost-kiss—it wasn’t just him fighting his own desires. It was him fighting for his very existence.
“Oh, Bastian.”
“So you see,” he said, his voice bleak. “A magical byproduct is the kindest explanation. Because the alternative… the alternative is that I am selfishly destroying myself for the sake of a few weeks of warmth.”
“It’s not selfish.”
“Isn’t it? To chase a fleeting comfort when my purpose, my entire being, is at stake?” He finally looked away, his gaze fixed on the perfectly organized shelves. “You need to go to the Holiday Market tomorrow. I will remain here. To observe the shop.”
And to put distance between us. He didn’t have to say it.
“Okay,” I whispered, the word feeling like a surrender. “Okay.”