Page 4 of His Winter Wonderland

Chapter Two

Winter

Years later…

The day time was always the hardest.

During the day, she was forced to face the harsh reality of life. Lying in her bed, Winter stared up at her ceiling with a slight smile on her face. Last night’s dream had been amazing. Rhen had cooked for her. They’d enjoyed a quiet candlelight dinner. She’d eaten the delicious food he made and he sipped champagne while watching her eat.

They’d talked for hours about any and everything. Then they’d retired to his room for a late-night snack. At least, that was what Rhen called it. It actually didn’t involve food at all. She was the snack. Blushing, Winter pulled the covers over her face. Of course, the kisses and caresses they shared in dreamland weren’t real. Rhen wasn’t real.

That didn’t stop her heart from racing whenever she thought of him and their time together. That didn’t stop her body from tingling whenever he stared at her with those dark, mysterious eyes of his. Winter was head over heels in love with a mirage. And she was okay with that.

Real love in the real world was impossible for her to obtain. She was satisfied with her dream lover. She did not know much about real-life relationships between men and women. But she did know familial relationships. And if dating was anything like that, she’d rather not date. In the real world, relationships were complicated.

Real people could betray you. They could lie and steal from you, cheat you. People were the worst. In her dreamland, she didn’t have to worry about any of that. In her dreamland, Rhen was the perfect life partner. They didn’t discuss her past or try to predict the future. They only focused on their time together.

Since they knew their time together was short each night, they tried to make each moment count. They didn’t waste their precious moments on trivial things. They used them to grow closer together. With a sigh, Winter lowered the covers. She couldn’t stay in bed all day thinking about her Rhen.

She had potions to brew, spells to cast, and other realms to spy on. Tossing the covers off, she climbed out of bed and began her morning rituals. Winter spent the entire day in her kitchen, brewing a potion for a friend. For this particular potion, she’d spent three nights in a cave, digging up herbs that only grew in places that had never been exposed to sunlight.

She’d battled all sorts of creatures during that time. Unlike her, they hadn’t been in the cave because of the herbs. They’d been there because they’d scented her. After fighting for the herbs, she then had to treat the herbs like they were the most precious items in the realm. If she boiled the herbs for too long, they would lose their magical capabilities.

If she didn’t boil them long enough, their magical capabilities wouldn’t be activated. Creating this potion was a tedious, time-consuming task. The person she was doing it for needed it by tomorrow night. Which meant she didn’t have any room for error. If she messed up, she didn’t have time to trek back to the cave, dig up more herbs, and repeat the process.

While she worked on her potion, the wards that surrounded her gate chimed twice. Only twice. That had to be a record low. The average high was up in the thousands. Creatures in the Frostlands were always hunting for food and shelter. Her lonely house in the middle of nowhere should be off their radar.

Wrong. It was on the radar of almost every creature who lived there. Countless times she’d had to stay up at night and kept watch to make sure her wards held up. Countless dreamless nights that she could never get back. Thankfully, the attacks at night had lessened. She was now known as one of the more ruthless creatures of the Frostlands.

Some creatures thought twice before stepping to her small cabin in the middle of nowhere. After Winter finished the potion, she placed it in a vial then stored the vial in a spelled case. Right now, the color of the potion was black. Once it turned green, it would be ready. That would take about sixteen hours.

She was right on schedule to meet with her client tomorrow night. Winter stretched. She leaned left then right, righting out the kinks in her shoulders and sides. Spending all day making potions was tiresome. But it paid well. And if she wanted to barter for more supplies, she needed the money this potion would bring in.

Leaving her kitchen, she strode into her living room. Pulling the curtains aside, she stared out her window. The wind was howling. So were creatures of the night. Their cries could be heard off in the distance. Here, only the strong survived. The weak became prey. Coldness and death were one of the few constants in this realm.

Similar to how heat and death was a constant in her home realm. The clock on her back wall chimed. A smile crept across Winter’s face. It was almost bedtime. Her favorite time of the day. Releasing the curtain and letting it fall back into place, Winter rushed to her bathroom.

She bathed and then put on her scented lotions. Lotions she’d made herself. She chose Rhen’s favorite scent. Whatever she fell asleep in was what she had on in her dreams. No matter how she tried to will her imagination to change that, it wouldn’t. It wasn’t like she had any stores to shop at for sexier clothing.

Sometimes she could use her magic to pull items from other realms using her mirror of realms. Some things didn’t require much energy to cross over. However, bringing clothes to this realm required too much energy. And Winter had no idea why bringing over a bar of chocolate required less energy than bring over a pair of thongs.

It made no sense. And her mirror of realms would only allow her to bring over items at a certain time. If she tried to do so outside of the allotted time, she would suffer the consequences. For one outfit, she was not about to risk her body shutting down on her and forcing her into a deep slumber while it rejuvenated.

Who would make sure her wards stayed strong during that time? Who would protect her sleeping body from the creatures of this realm? The price of an outfit was definitely too high. She’d have to settle for the whatever she had on hand. She shifted through her clothes looking for the perfect ensemble. It didn’t exist.

In the end, she decided on something she’d worn to bed plenty of times before. Black cotton pants that were loose fitting and a black long sleeve shirt that fit a little tightly. It was one of her few outfits that didn’t have slashes, bullet holes or burn marks on them. As for her undergarments. Tonight, they would be non-existent.

Winter tried not to smile. She really did. The task proved to be impossible. Ugh, she was acting like dream her while she was wide awake! But she couldn’t help it, just like she couldn’t help but smile as she recalled Rhen’s last challenge to her. He’d told her that taking off her clothes required too much.

He’d uttered those words while ripping her clothes from her body. She’d joked that maybe she’d stop wearing underwear. That should make things easier for him. Honestly, she had no idea where she’d found the courage to joke like that. Even though she was a fearless warrior, when she was with Rhen, she always felt shy and nervous. At first, she’d thought those feelings made her weak.

Now, she didn’t give a damn. It was a dream. If she wanted to relax and let someone else talk the wheel, she could. Plus, Rhen never treated her like she was weak. Yes, he protected her whenever creatures found their location and attacked. But he also watched her back when she battled alongside him.

In his eyes, her being shy wasn’t a weakness. And her being willing to go toe to toe with a huge creature didn’t make her a monster. In his eyes, she was simply Winter. He accepted and praised all of her traits. They had a perfect balance in their relationship that couldn’t be duplicated in reality.

However, when it came to intimacy, Rhen was different. He didn’t treat her as his equal. He treated her as his possession. There was no other way to describe it. Outside the bedroom, they were partners. In bed, she was his to do with as he pleased. Outside the bedroom, he was a charmer who smiled and joked with her.

In bed, he was a beast who demanded she give him everything, all she had to give. And she obeyed, because everything that she had, everything that she was, was his. Giving it up, doing as he wanted, was no hardship at all. Which was why she was eager to return to his side. She was ready to give him everything she had.