Chapter Six

Christmas Eve in the North Pole.

No, the Northern Reach. Chelly stood watching as people hurried around her. She wasn’t the only mortal. As she stood in her borrowed jeans and sweater, cuddling Bryan against her chest, she saw more mortals rushing by than she could count.

It was easy to pick them out.

The humans, including herself, were less…vibrant.

Lacking something. The elves had larger eyes, Bambi’s eyes, Bryan had called them, almond shaped, large and gleaming, in brilliant jewel-tone hues. And shimmering, gleaming hair. Even their skin seemed to glow with vitality and health and…life.

The humans were…human. Pretty, handsome, some more so, others plain.

But then her eyes started to pick out a human she thought at first was an elf. Eyes that gleamed, not quite as brightly as an elf’s. But more than a mortal’s, a human’s would. Hair that shifted and swirled and gleamed with a life of its own. A fire inside.

Not wholly human.

But not elf either.

“Elf-touched, elf-mated,” Nikolai murmured behind her, sliding one brawny arm around her waist.

He brushed his lips across her head as she jumped, and Bryan laughed at the look on his mama’s face. “Nik fwighten Mama? Mama jump.” The boy clapped and tugged, jerked and squirmed until she set him down and he made a beeline for the window to the workshop, trying to raise up on his toes and peer inside. “Can’t see nothing…magic windows.”

“The Northern Reach is full of magic.” Nikolai was murmuring to her as they watched the small child pace back and forth, casting awed glances at the workshop. Such a frantic pace inside. Nik had taken a short, quick break to come see her, but then he most go back. Too much to do, too little time to do it in. Would she understand? “I want to share that with you. Chantelle, please...”

Chelly stood stiffly in his arms, folding her arms over her belly, rubbing her hands up and down against some inner chill. “Elf-touched? What do you mean?”

“They’ve mated with one of my kind.” He gently turned her in his arms, taking her hands and lifting them to his mouth. “Joined souls, minds, life essence. Their bodies are mortal no longer. They are not truly elf, but not truly human, either. My mate...this is what you are to me, have always been. I've just been waiting for you. I could have taken the time to explain before bringing Bryan here, but he did not have the time, so I did what I knew you would have wanted, da?”

Chelly felt her breath leave her lungs in a hot, shuddering rush as Nik’s lashes lifted, revealing the smoky, smoldering depths of his cobalt blue eyes. “I wish to share that with you, all of my long life, all of my heart. I have loved you since you were eighteen, Chantelle, and I shall love you for all the years that I walk upon this earth. I do not wish to spend those years without you. And I hate feeling your anger and helplessness.”

Helplessness...a choice taken from her.

Yes, he had saved Bryan, and brought her here against her will.

Lifting her eyes, she met his and just mutely shook her head. And then she turned away from him.

She only heard his rough sigh, but she knew when he was gone. Chelly could feel his absence in her heart.

“You made the right choice.”

The voice was friendly enough.

There was no reason for her to dislike the owner of it so intensely before she even saw the emerald green eyes appraising her so thoroughly. None at all. But she did. Meeting that intent stare, she patted Bryan on the back and told him to keep playing. He studied the visitor with distrusting eyes before going back to the brightly colored picture in front of him, one hand gripped a chunky crayon tightly.

Then she rose in a smooth, fluid motion and met the man’s eyes. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, lifting a dark brow. Her eyes, a softer green than the elf’s, were blank and polite.

“Nikolai is infatuated, but you cannot truly believe he would love a mortal, can you?” He smiled as he said it, as if to take the sting away. “You are a sweet thing, I’ve no doubt. But surely, you can see this is not a fated thing.”

Chelly studied him with curious eyes. He was a handsome, almost angelic man, with long golden blond hair that fell just below his shoulders, and those big green eyes. “You expect me to believe that Nikolai doesn’t know his own heart?” She smiled in return, just as politely, sliding her hands into her pockets and cocking her head.

His eyes glinted, flashed, with what looked like amusement but it was gone so fast, she couldn’t be sure. “Elven men are quite captivated by mortal women—” He moved toward her in a smooth, stalking gait, muscles rippling and flexing under his clothes.

A mountain lion. Her head spun dizzily for a brief moment, then she shook it and threw off the odd, muffled feel inside it, the nagging sense of fear that resided inside her belly. It didn’t feel right, didn’t feel like her. And as soon as she thought that, the fear fell apart, and he was in front of her, glaring angrily at her. “Captivated by your stubbornness, your charm, the way you cling to your short, insignificant lives—”

Chelly narrowed her eyes and spat, “Insignificant? You pompous, self righteous bastard. Insignificant? Because I won’t live forever?”

He smirked at her. “No, because you could have. Because you could have had everything you had ever wanted…and you turned it down. Because you fear tomorrow. All mortals do. And that fear robs you of your joy of today.”

He turned on his booted heel, an old style boot, to match his old style velvet breeches—that same impossible green of his eyes. He smiled at Bryan who stared at him with a rather ambivalent stare now, instead of outright distrust, and left in smirking silence.

That fear robs you of your job of today…

Oh, hell.

Chelly knelt beside Bryan and ran her fingers through his downy soft blond hair. “What have I done?”