The Naughty List (25 page)

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Zeit shook his head slightly to rid it of the ringing. Wow. Hannah was loud when she wanted to be. He glanced down. A hundred foot drop. His skis had fallen in an X pattern. Land here. “I guess I’m not getting the deposit back on those skis.”

She laughed—a shaky, nervous laugh. “I don’t think I want to do another run today, anyway.”

“No?”

“No.” She swallowed. “Uhh, I know I was all gung-ho and rah rah earlier, but I’d rather not die.” She was shivering, and it most likely wasn’t from the cold.

“That sounds like a good idea.” If he talked calmly, maybe she’d assume he wasn’t as scared as she was. Maybe. “How about you climb up me and get back on solid ground, then?”

“You think that’s what I should do?” She looked up and down. There was no way going down was a good option. “I think you’re right.”

“I think so. I also think maybe you should hurry just in case this root and I part ways.” He had a good grip on it, but he wouldn’t bet her life on it.

“Oh, okay.”

It was the longest minute of his life—his entire immortal life—as he helped her climb up along his body back onto the cliff edge.

When she’d scrambled over the top, he twisted toward the rock face, wincing as muscles ached. Along with the pain in his chest, other portions of him were determined to suffer for his courtship of a mortal. Grasping the root with his other hand, he climbed the side of the cliff slowly before pushing himself up over the edge. Hannah grabbed his shoulders and pulled him toward her.

He wanted to tell her to stop and not to help him.

He wanted to tell her to stay away from the cliff’s edge, but as they both collapsed in the snow, breathing heavily, he felt weak and tired… and mortal.

And he hated it.

Chapter Nine

That was the longest shower she’d ever taken. The first half hour was to warm up. The second half hour was to stop the shaking fear coursing through her veins.

When she stepped out of the bathroom wearing a thick robe, she glanced over at Zeit’s room. He’d turned off the lights, but she could see him stretched out on his bed.

It wasn’t even six p.m., but he looked like he was going to sleep.

She padded over to their shared doorway, putting the locket around her neck as she did. “Zeit?”

He called her name softly before saying in a gravelly voice—a voice too tired to be his, “Come here.”

The dim light from her room cast him mostly in shadows. He’d forgone a shirt, but the bedspread was at his waist. She walked toward the bed, and his gaze followed her as she pulled up the covers and slid in beside him, without removing her robe.

Turning on his side to face her, he whispered, “I have something I need to tell you.”

Hannah inched closer until their faces were only a breath away. “Okay.”

His swallow was loud in the quiet room. “I can’t stop time anymore. I haven’t been able to since Christmas Eve.”

That explained why they’d had such close calls these last two times. “Okay.” Lifting her hand, she traced his jaw. He was no longer scary intense—just sexy intense, and he’d saved her life forty-one times.

“There’s something else.”

“Okay.” She kept saying that, but it fit.

The other shoe was about to drop. Maybe he was going to tell her that he was leaving—that he was tired of saving her life.

But the last few days had been so wonderful and by the end of each night, he’d been smiling—like really smiling, and all the shadows were gone from his eyes. Even if the morning brought them back, she was still sure he was beginning to care for her as deeply as she felt for him.

“I’m exhausted.”

“Okay.” Maybe she wouldn’t have to say anything else. That one word kept working.

“No, it’s not okay. I’ve never been tired like this, and my back and shoulders feel like I went over a cliff. I’m not supposed to feel this way. I just want to sleep and take some of those pills—what do mortals call them? Medicine.”

“I have some ibuprofen.”

“No, well, I mean yes… maybe, but what I’m saying is: I’ve lost everything. I’m basically mortal. I don’t think the Fates trust me to take your life this time, so they’ve taken away my powers. I’m mortal, Hannah.”

Her heart pounded with a dozen emotions all at once. He was dark and intense, and she loved him. She wanted to be with him, to lay in bed like this, and to wake up together in the morning. And they no longer had his immortality making their lifespans a problem.

But… he had deep grooves in his cheeks—that weren’t from smiling, and his face was as serious as the morning after Christmas. His expression made all the giddy joy in her stomach shrivel up and die.

“You don’t want to be mortal,” she whispered.

“Of course I don’t.”

Her limbs started shaking again, and she blinked back tears. “No, of course not.” Her voice shivered—weak and fragile. She was that snowflake ornament he’d just shaken to pieces.

He brushed at her cheek with the pad of his thumb, wiping at a stupid tear that had fallen. “Don’t be scared. I will do
everything
to keep you safe.”

She shook her head. “Maybe if things go as they were meant to a year ago… maybe you’ll go back to being immortal and get your powers back.”

She met his gaze. It would be okay. It’d be like giving her life for him, and that was worth it.

He leaned in and cradled her head in his hands. “Hannah, I only want to be immortal to keep you safe.” His lips brushed her forehead.

Oh.

She cleared her throat of tears. “What if I was fine, but you were still mortal?”

He shrugged.

Reaching up, she tipped his chin down so that his gaze met hers. “No, really, would you hate being mortal if I was safe?”

One half of his mouth tipped up. “Well, this pain isn’t as fun as the commercials make it look, and I actually might need sleep, but I think I could handle it.”

“You’d grow old.”

“With you.”

They both smiled.

“I can have dinner sent to our rooms,” she offered.

“I’d like that.”

“Then, I can kiss all your pains better.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Will that actually work?”

“Probably not. But I also have ibuprofen.”

“In that case, we should probably try both… just to be sure.”

That night, he was the one who fell asleep first, and he did it long before the movie was over.

She stayed awake, lightly tracing the lines of his face and memorizing how he looked. If everything went wrong, she wanted these moments to keep. If only she could freeze time.

When midnight turned on the digital clock near the bed, she slipped from beneath the covers and away from his warm body and went to the window. He spoke of Fates and Father Time, but she didn’t know enough to even know who she should ask a favor of, but she had to ask.

As she slid her locket back and forth on the chain, she whispered at the cold winter night, “I never got a doll for Christmas, even though I asked Santa for one every year for six years, but I’ve been good despite that. If anyone is owed one good thing—after a lifetime of disappointments and bad luck, you owe me this. You owe me a changed fate.” She swallowed. “If for no other reason than I love him… and because you tried to kill me with a falling star.” Whether it was meant to mock her or just a coincidence, a shooting star streaked across the night sky.

Sighing, she rested her head against the window. Maybe she should have pleaded a little more. Maybe even begged. But, to be honest, begging would’ve killed her… and it sounded like it could stand in line for that.

Chapter Ten

He woke up inch-by-warm-inch. Hannah was stretched out beside him, almost across him. This was his new favorite way to wake up. No wonder she’d been in a good mood the last few mornings when she’d woken up beside him. It felt good.

He turned and groaned as every single one of his muscles screamed out at him. He had a rather nasty bruise on his back to show for yesterday. It was the bruise that had finally convinced him what his lack of powers had failed to do. He was mortal… and a helluva time for that to happen.

“What?” Hannah bolted up in bed. “What’s wrong?” She leaned over him. “Are you okay?”

“No. I think I’m dying.” Then, he grinned. “So, you must be an angel.”

She raised her eyebrows as a smile slipped across those beautiful lips of hers. “I’m definitely no angel.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, so you’ve never felt pain before?”

He shook his head. Pain was for mortals… and immortals who fought fate, apparently.

Dropping down, Hannah pressed her mouth against his neck… and bit. He arched against her and pulled her closer. His breath was all pants and gasps until her teeth let go seven mortal seconds later.

Hannah lifted her head. She couldn’t quite pull off innocent as she asked, “Did you like that?”

Did he like that? His father or any of his brothers could show up now and take him and he’d die happy. Did he
like
that? He had no idea that pain could be so supremely erotic. No wonder mortals put up with the rest of it. Maybe pain didn’t suck.

“It was… interesting.”

She propped her hands on his chest and placed her chin on top of them. “Interesting, huh? How many chocolate oranges have you had this week?”

“Counting the one I saved for today?” It was a good thing he’d summoned an extra one because his ability to summon things was gone as of last night. They might have to start
buying
chocolate oranges.

“Mm hm.”

“Nine, but you shared the first one, and banging them is a large part of why I like them.”

“So, would you say you find biting just as interesting as chocolate oranges?”

“Possibly more, but it’s hard to judge anything from a single… experience… a single taste. Do you like biting?”

She grinned, and their gazes held. “We’re both getting coal in next year’s stockings,” she said.

“I hope so.” He really hoped they’d both be around for stockings and, yes, merit receiving coal. As they looked into each other’s eyes, he was reminded of that silly show he’d watched on TV on Christmas Eve. The male mortal had said this was the first Christmas he’d ever known what the season was about and that the female mortal had brought hope into his life. Zeit shared that sentiment. He wouldn’t say it, of course—only an imbecile would say that out loud.

She leaned over him, and her hair tickled his collarbone where it brushed his skin. “Too sore to leave the room? I can have breakfast brought up.”

If they started off the day this way, his jaw would be sore again from smiling. He opened his mouth wide and rubbed his cheek.

She raised her eyebrows.

“My face hurt yesterday from smiling.”

“Well, you’re having to deal with all sorts of misery, aren’t you?”

Dipping her face down, she kissed his cheek and then ran her lips along his skin up to the corner of his mouth. Her tongue traced the edge, making him groan, and pull her mouth to his. Hannah smiled against his mouth as she teased him with short open-mouthed kisses. When she grabbed his lower lip between her teeth, Zeit rolled her over onto her back despite his protesting muscles. He’d given her the upper hand for far too long.

Her expression was wholly unrepentant.

“You are…” And then that niggling picture coalesced in his head, and he stopped. Damn.

“What? What is it?” Her body shifted from soft and welcoming to alert right away.

He shook his head as he pushed up off her and sat on the edge of the bed. He’d expected it. The clock had been ticking on this moment for a year.

Coming up behind him, Hannah wrapped her arms around his neck. “What?”

“I have my mortal sacrifice. Hannah Lyons. Room 117. This lodge. Midnight tonight. It’s the same as it was a year ago.” He rubbed both his hands down his face.

“What happens if you don’t do it?”

“I’m not going to do it.” She had to know that. There was no “if.”

“What happens?”

The Fates were not happy, and someone else would be sent. He sensed it as solidly as the information that played through his head like a song on repeat. He’d hated this aspect of New Year’s Eve already. All day, he spent anxious for it to end so the replay could be over. Usually he crossed planes to get where he needed early, and then summoned a music player and earphones. It was part of the reason he listened to music and went to concerts all year—to gather a day’s worth of music.

“Someone will be coming tonight. But I won’t let them get to you.”

“Will you be able to stop them?”

“Yes.” He was going to try—and then offer an exchange if all else failed. Hannah would see the new year no matter what. Twisting, he grabbed her and dragged her onto his lap. “It’ll be fine.”

She put her hands on his cheeks. “I don’t believe you, so I vote we make the naughty list in advance.”

“Maybe after some more of your mortal medicine.”

“And breakfast.”

Mmm. “We
will
need lots of energy.”

She reached into the table beside the bed and pulled out a pen. Uncapping it, she wrote “ZEIT” in big block letters on her hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Now, you’ll have two things with your name on them that belong to you.”

He kissed her until she bit him, and then he kissed her some more.

* * *

At fifteen minutes before midnight, her body was so taut with stress she’d shatter if someone bumped into her.

“You were doing much better before they announced the time,” Zeit said, bending down to kiss her neck.

He’d been teaching her how to dance at each of the nights’ dances. On previous nights, there hadn’t been kids around, and Zeit’s version of dancing was a shade shy of indecent. Tonight’s tamer dancing wasn’t enough to distract her. Hugging her tight, Zeit edged them off the dance floor toward the large fireplace. When they reached it, he tucked them into a nearby corner.

“It’ll be fine.”

She loved that Zeit was as freaked out as she was, but was putting on a brave façade. Actually, she just flat-out loved him. “I wish you could still stop time because I swear it’s sped up.”

He sighed.

“No. You will not feel guilty because you don’t have super powers.” She hugged him. “Zeit, no matter what—you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”