Page 29 of His Winter Wonderland

“But I’ve requested some healers from the compound to come help me with Winter. She’s getting stronger. She needs rest. But, she also needs to be healed. Her body isn’t healing fast enough on its own.”

Shame crept all over him. He lowered his head as more tears fell. “I’d planned to finish my mission and then search for her. I thought I’d have my bloodlust under control by the time I found her,” Rhen whispered. “I thought…” The words stopped. He was too choked up to speak.

“Time heals most wounds. Give her time.”

“I don’t think time can heal this wound.”

“You’ll have to wait and see. Rhen, I need you to leave. Please.”

He didn’t want to go. But he knew if he stayed, she wouldn’t get the treatment she needed. The healers from the nearby compound wouldn’t come here if a vamp was nearby. He had to go. He had to leave her. But he’d be back. He had to come back. Without uttering another word, Rhen turned and left the medical building of the village Silvia lived in.

When he stepped outside, his brethren were waiting for him. Right now, he wanted to be alone. He shook his head then headed toward the woods. Silvia could see him cry. His crew couldn’t. As their leader, he needed to seem strong, unbreakable, at all times. And right now, he was about to break the fuck down.

He’d just reached the cover of the forest when the tears came bursting out. He cried in a way he hadn’t cried in decades. The tears wouldn’t stop falling. They wouldn’t subside. He almost couldn’t breathe. Rhen dropped to his knees in the snow and lowered his head. He knew he was making himself vulnerable to any creature that wanted to attack.

He didn’t care. Hadn’t his mate wished he’d die? No, wait. She wanted him to live. She wanted him to live a life without her because she knew he’d marked her. And she knew it would be unbearable for him to exist without her by his side. He was issuing him a punishment worse than death.

And Rhen deserved it. He didn’t want it. But he deserved it. He just needed a chance to talk to her. To explain. He at least needed for her to know that he wasn’t a monster. Not always. And he could tame his monster. He needed time. He just needed her to trust in him one more time and he’d fix this. He’d make it right. He’d… Shit.

The only thing he could do was cry and pray.

Two things he hadn’t done in years.

Part Two

The Present

Christmas was a time for miracles.

And Rhen definitely needed a miracle.

Chapter Eleven

Rhen

Years later…

Regret and sadness were his constant companion.

Every day, he smiled and joked like nothing was wrong. Deep down inside, nothing was right. Nothing had been right since that Christmas night long ago. Nothing would ever be right again. To keep others from thinking him weak, he pretended to be a nonchalant vamp who loved to party and bullshit.

So far, no one was able to see through the lies. Males on the Frostlands plane were jealous of him and wanted to be him. Women loved him. They wanted to be near him. He indulged them, up until a certain point. And then he let them down easy. His excuse for why he couldn’t fuck them was always the same. Because you’re not ready for this dick?

He’d said that so much that even he had started to believe he wasn’t ready for this dick. Truth was, his dick could only get ready for one woman, his witch, Winter Warren. But she didn’t want his dick. That made his dick sad. It made Rhen sad too. It had been so long since he fucked that he wasn’t even sure if his dick worked right any more.

Yeah, he could jack off while fantasizing about Winter. But that was it. Whenever a woman tried to touch him seductively or when one of the bolder ones stripped naked in front of him, his dick didn’t respond. It was embarrassing. That’s one reason why he couldn’t let women get too close to him.

If they touched his down there, they’d know his excuse of, because you’re not ready for this dick, was just a lie. A front to cover up the fact that he was taken. But the woman he belonged to didn’t want him. In truth, he was homeless. A cast away. One of the forgotten. That’s what he was.

He was the leader of the Frostlands vampires who could have anyone he wanted. Yet, he hadn’t touched a woman in years. His body, his heart, his soul, his dick, belonged to one woman. The woman he wouldn’t even acknowledge him as his mate. The woman who killed anyone who tried to tell her she was his mate.

He’d lost three brethren because of that. Rhen bowed his head for a moment and whispered, “May they rest in peace.” Their deaths had been their own fault. He’d told them not to say that in front of her. They hadn’t listened. She’d burned them alive. A horrible way to go. The rest of his clan now kept their distance from her.

And she kept her distance from him. She tried to pretend he didn’t exist. And that pissed him off. Which was why, every now and then, he had to do little things to remind her that he existed. Flirting with other women didn’t work. It didn’t make her jealous. It only led to him getting irritated with the women for being near him.

Then he felt like a dick because he was the one who’d led them to believe there was a chance. Finally, he stated flirting only with women who he knew would never want him. That was safer. He even told them he was doing it to make his mate jealous. If they agreed to play along, he paid them well.

A waste of money. Winter didn’t give a damn. She never got jealous. She never even acknowledged his playboy antics. The only thing he could do was irritate her. That was the only way to get a response out of her. And he desperately needed her to respond to him. Even if it was only to curse him out.