Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (12 page)

“Can I help you?” an older woman offered.

“I’m on a vacation,” he said. “With my . . . girlfriend.” He looked over his shoulder as the door to the small building opened and a gust of cold air blew in.
Because Winter herself stepped inside.
He stared at her, his forever love. Quietly, he told the human woman, “I’m going to marry her. She’s perfect.”

The woman looked at Donia. “Is that a
wolf
?” she asked. “You can’t bring animals in here. . . . Actually, you can’t bring
wolves
in anywhere. What—”

“Sasha, wait for us at the car.” Donia opened the door, and the wolf padded outside and to the car.

As Keenan watched through the window, Sasha leaped onto the roof of the car and stretched out. His gaze didn’t waver from Donia.

“Apparently I’m not protection enough in my . . . condition.” Keenan looked back at the rack of pamphlets.

Donia walked over to stand beside him. She pulled out a pamphlet and flipped it over. “What’s a zip line?”

The pamphlet she held out showed a girl hanging from a wire in a contraption that looked like a cross between a trapeze and a saddle of sorts. The girl wore a helmet and gloves, and she looked like she was mid-laugh as she was suspended over a chasm. Keenan skimmed the pamphlet and read
Evergreen Hills
. . .
four seasons resort . . . trails . . . zip line . . . ski slopes
. He looked at Donia. “Our destination.”

Several hours later, they pulled into the parking lot of a roadside motel. It wasn’t their final destination, but Keenan saw no need to drive all day.
Stops to rest and enjoy ourselves.
He walked inside, feeling relaxed and exceedingly pleased with how well their trip was going.

The motel was everything that their home wasn’t: it was plain and impersonal and somehow oddly charming.

“Do you need me to do this?” Donia asked in a deceptively innocent voice.

“I can do it.” Keenan stepped up to the counter. “We need a room.”

The woman at the counter looked at him from the tips of his boots to the jeans to gray leather jacket to the loosely wound scarf around his neck. “I’ll need ID.”

“ID?” he echoed.

“You need to be old enough to rent a room, pay up front, and—”

“Why?” He didn’t know if he’d ever rented a room. As he stood there at the faux wood front desk, he realized that his guards or advisors had handled this sort of thing. He glanced over his shoulder at Donia. She turned her back, but not quickly enough that he missed her smothered laugh.

The receptionist said, “You need ID and a deposit in order to rent a room here.”

“Identification cards and deposits in case we”—he forced himself to look away from Donia and turned to the receptionist again—“do what?”

“Break things. Steal them.” She rolled her eyes.

“What do you think?” he asked Donia as she walked up behind him.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, and whispered, “I think you are used to having someone else do this.”

“True.” He read the name badge of the woman at the desk— Cinnamon—smiled at her, and asked, “Cinnamon, do you suppose—”

“No.” She scowled. “No ID, no deposit, no
room.
Your sort all think that works. Smile pretty, and we’ll roll over. Not going to happen.”

Donia was laughing out loud. Between giggles, she said, “Just like old times, isn’t it? You think turning on your charm will work, and I get to watch you fail.”

Shocked, Keenan turned to look at his beloved, and for a moment he was speechless. Donia was
laughing
over the curse, the competitions they’d waged over the mortal girls he’d tried to convince to take the test to be his queen.

As he turned, Donia kept her arms around him. She looked up at him. “If the girls who weren’t charmed had known what I know, they’d have been a lot easier to convince.”

“What’s that?”

She released him from her embrace and put her hands flat on his chest. “The . . . person behind the smile.” She stretched up and kissed him, twining her arms around his neck as she did so.

Without stopping kissing her, he swept her up into his arms. They stood in the motel lobby kissing until someone called, “Get a room.”

Donia pulled back and laughed. “That was the plan. They said no.”

At that, Keenan smiled.
This
was what he wanted: Donia happy. That was what he wanted every day now. The Winter Court mattered to him as much as the Summer Court had, but there was no struggle, no worrying over
how
to take care of the court. Donia’s court was healthy and, quite simply, the strongest of the courts. Whether Donia agreed to let him test his theory to become fey again or not, Keenan’s primary responsibility would still be one he undertook gladly: making sure Donia was happy. The difference, unfortunately, was that unless Donia agreed to let him try to become fey again, he’d only be able to do so for a blink. Mortal life spans were so brief as to be a heartbeat in the eternity that they
could
have if he became fey again.

He carried her out of the lobby and to the car, where Sasha waited. Beside the car, he lowered her feet to the ground. “So, navigating this human world seems a bit more complicated than I thought.”

Donia slid a hand into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. She opened it, and extracted two cards. “Not really. Hand her these.” She held one up. “Identification.” Then she held up the other one. “Credit card.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Are those new?”

“No. Cwenhild had them procured for you last month.” Donia slipped them back into the wallet, returned it to his pocket, and kissed him again. A few moments later she pulled back and opened her car door. “Come on.”

“But if I had them . . .”

She shrugged. “I figured if you couldn’t charm her, she has bad taste. Why stay in a motel where they have bad taste?”

“You’re a peculiar faery, Donia.” He walked around the side of the car and got in.

“We’ll find a nicer place. There’s a bed-and-breakfast I saw that looked pretty,” she suggested as she sorted through the pamphlets they’d collected.

And Keenan figured it didn’t much matter why she wanted to stay elsewhere. He’d walk in and out of every hotel and motel along the road if it made her smile and relax.

A short while later, they were settled into an admittedly nicer hotel. Sasha was out wandering now that they were stopped for the night, and Keenan and Donia were alone in their “honeymoon suite.” He had opened the doors to the balcony, and snowflakes were fluttering into the room. Donia still marveled at seeing her once-sunlit faery not flinch from the snow.
From me.
She’d thought she was done being surprised when she became Winter Queen. She hadn’t expected that—or becoming a faery or that the boy she’d fallen in love with so many years ago was anything other than human.

Or that he’d
ever
become a human.

He’d sacrificed immortality and strength for her. In part, he’d sacrificed his court for her. Now, he wanted to risk the brief human life he still had.
For me.
She knew there were plenty of dangers if he remained human: he was vulnerable to threats from any faery that crossed their path—and Keenan had nine centuries of living during which he had made enemies; he was susceptible to human diseases, aging, and any number of threats; and he was in danger from her. The Winter that she carried in her skin could easily kill him if she lost her temper or lost control in a moment of joy.

But he’s alive.

Trying to become fey could take away the few human years he had.

Or give us eternity.

“You’re awfully far away,” he said.

She realized she’d been staring, but she wasn’t embarrassed as she had been for most of the years she’d known him: he was
hers
now. She could stare all she wanted, so she did. “I was thinking about how beautiful you are.”

He smiled. “Can you think that
nearer
to me?”

“Not if I want to have dinner.” She walked toward him even as she said it.

“Do you?”

“Not now,” she murmured as she slipped into his arms.

Later, when Keenan came out of the shower, he was greeted by the sight of the Winter Queen standing on the balcony looking out over the not-yet-snowy mountainside. She could’ve been carved of the ice that was her domain.

Beautiful.

He walked over to stand beside her. Unlike her, he was not as comfortable with the chill. To the Winter Queen, it was
more
comfortable to be cold, but he was mortal now. He shivered.

Silently, Donia drew the cold into herself, pulling the bite from the air with only a moment’s effort.

“No.” He went to the bed and pulled the heavy quilt from it. After wrapping it snugly around himself, he returned to her side. “I’m fine.”

When she didn’t release the cold back into the air, he repeated, “I’m
fine
, Donia. In fact . . .” He bent to the floor, opened his bag, pulled out thick socks, boots, several warming layers, a heavy coat, mittens, a scarf, and a hat. As she watched, he dressed, and once he was completely bundled up, he caught her gaze. “I’m going for a walk.”

“But . . . I don’t have all of that.” She pointed at his winter-weather clothing. “I didn’t know
you
had all of that.”

“You’re a faery,” he said gently. “Unless you choose otherwise, the only one here who will see you walking with me is
me.
You don’t need all of these layers.”

He held out his hand.

She looked down at the thin nightdress she wore.

His hand stayed outstretched to her. “Walk with me. The cold is pressuring you, so we’ll walk a little ways.”

“We’re in higher elevations, and I didn’t think about the temperature here and—”

“Walk with me,” he interrupted. “I’m already dressed, so you might as well give in before I overheat.”

She winced at his words; her reaction to his loss of Summer and his loss of immortality was still as sharp as it had been the day he woke up human. Keenan stepped closer to her and took her hand.

“Donia?” He waited until she met his gaze. “I’m happy. If I’m human or if we find a way to return me to being fey, I’m happier
now
than I’ve ever been in nine centuries. The only sadness in my life is that you worry over things you don’t need to . . . so stop.”

Donia half hid a small sob. “I thought about going out later while you slept, but I didn’t want you to worry so I thought about telling you I was going but—”

He kissed her, swallowing her frosty breath, pulling her ice-cold body against his heavily clothed one, and silently cursing those layers. He’d happily freeze to death rather than be separated from her skin.

Which is exactly why she worries.

With that sobering thought, he pulled back. “I can be careful.” He cupped her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. “I grew up in a home of ice with Summer inside of me. That’s not so different from living with Winter as a human. I’ve been trained for this. I can
do
this.”

Then he stepped back, held his hand out, and asked in an even voice, “Would you like to take a walk with me?”

Donia could feel the weight of Winter inside her skin; the blissful pressure tangled with worry over the now-very-human love of her life.

“Trust yourself. Trust me. Trust
us.
” He spoke quietly as they walked through the lobby, and she realized with a smile that there was something oddly freeing in being invisible to the humans they passed, but not to Keenan.

She’d never shared the joy of the first snow with anyone. It was a heady feeling, this first. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “No one but you can see me, but they can
all
see you.”

He couldn’t answer just then, as they were passing the front desk.

The Winter Queen flashed him a wicked smile before nip-ping his earlobe.

Keenan startled visibly enough that the desk attendant gave him a puzzled look.

“They can’t hear me either,” she said in a level voice, and then she told him how she wanted to celebrate the first snowfall.

Keenan laughed and said, “There are days I feel like the luckiest person alive.”

“That’s nice,” the desk clerk said tiredly. “Have a nice night.”

“I will,” Keenan answered with a look at Donia, who understood now the sort of joy that made Summer faeries dance and spin.

She blew him a kiss and raced outside.

By the time Keenan caught up with her, she was standing at the edge of the parking lot. He took her hand and led her farther from the light. Once they were hidden from any passing humans, he kissed her soundly.

When he pulled away to catch his breath, snowflakes were falling like a thick curtain all around them.

“Where to?”

She pointed at the ski slopes in the far distance. “There.”

“That’s miles away. Let me get the keys,” he started.

“No.” Donia shook her head. “No cars. I am the Winter Queen, Keenan. I’m not going to start my season with a
car.
We go on foot. Anyhow, the slopes aren’t open yet, so we’d attract attention.” She paused and frowned. “You’d attract attention with the whole
visibility
problem.”

Keenan thought yet again that he’d be too much of an encumbrance to her if he didn’t shake his mortality. He didn’t bring it up, not tonight. He wasn’t going to risk the change back to fey without her agreement. They’d spent too many years at odds for him to want to start his second stretch of eternity with discord between them.

“If you hold my hand, I can be invisible with you.”

“Exactly . . . and we can still
run
as if you were fey. Hold on to me,” she invited him.

“Always.”

Without another word, they ran.

It felt but a few moments until they reached the very top of the mountain, despite their having gone miles. Donia closed her eyes and exhaled. Keenan stayed beside her, but he released her hand—becoming visible as he did so.

Reflexively, Donia became visible as well. He had faery sight, but they were alone on the mountain. She wanted to be as he was; she wanted him to watch her with his mortal eyes. Never had she scattered snow on the earth when she was visible to any other than faeries. Here, in front of her newly mortal beloved, she would be truly visible. She knew that faeries had seen her create snowfalls, but she’d never noticed their presence. With Keenan, she was as aware of him as she was of the snow and ice.