THE HOWL BENEATH THE MISTLETOE

(December 24 – 8:17 p.m. to 10:03 p.m.) Aurora Hart had imagined this night a thousand different ways, each one softer than the last. She had pictured Mark waiting by the fireplace, the ring box hidden behind his back, snow drifting past the windows like slow-motion confetti. She had pictured the way the emerald silk would catch the firelight when she finally said yes. She had pictured tears (happy ones) and the first real Christmas she’d allowed herself to believe in since she was ten years old. What she got was the sound of a headboard knocking against the wall and her fiancé’s voice saying someone else’s name. The champagne flute slipped from her fingers and shattered across the hardwood floor in a spray of crystal and gold bubbles. Mark’s head snapped up. For one frozen second their eyes locked across the bedroom. His face was flushed, hair damp with sweat, mouth open in a perfect O of shock. The woman beneath him (his secretary, Claire, the one who always wore red lipstick and laughed too loudly at office parties) twisted to look over her shoulder, eyes wide, lips swollen. “Rory—” Mark started. Aurora didn’t wait for the rest. She turned and ran. Down the wide cedar staircase, past the twelve-foot noble fir still dripping with the ornaments they’d hung together only last night while singing off-key to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Past the stockings she had embroidered herself (M + A in looping gold thread). Past the mistletoe bunch she had kissed him under an hour ago, believing every whispered promise. She hit the front door at full speed, shoulder first. It flew open and the blizzard roared in to greet her. The cold was immediate and brutal. Wind tore the breath from her lungs; snow lashed her bare arms and face like tiny needles. The emerald dress, sleeveless and meant for candlelight, not a mountain storm, whipped around her thighs. Her silver heels caught in the threshold and she kicked them off without breaking stride, leaving them lying like abandoned glass slippers. She ran down the plowed driveway, past the ridiculous glowing reindeer Mark had insisted on renting, their plastic antlers outlined in red and green. The lights blurred into wet streaks as tears froze on her lashes. She didn’t know where she was going. Only that she had to be anywhere but there. The road ended. Pines closed in, heavy with snow. The chalet’s golden windows disappeared behind a curtain of white. Somewhere far behind her, Mark might have been shouting her name, but the storm swallowed every sound except the howl of wind and the frantic thud of her own heart. Her bare feet went numb first, then her fingers. Still she kept moving, stumbling over hidden roots, breath coming in sharp, painful gasps. The ring (the one he had never actually given her, just carried around in his pocket for three days “waiting for the perfect moment”) felt suddenly heavy as lead. She yanked it off and hurled it into the darkness. It vanished without a sound. Time lost meaning. Ten minutes? Twenty? The world narrowed to cold, white, and the ragged sound of her breathing. Eventually her legs gave out beside a waist-high boulder half-buried in a drift. Strange symbols were carved into its surface (spirals and wolves and something that looked almost like northern lights frozen in stone). She had noticed it yesterday on a short hike with Mark and thought it looked ancient, magical. Now it just looked indifferent. Aurora sank to her knees in the snow. Blood from a cut on her palm (she had no memory of making it) dripped onto the stone in slow, dark drops. One. Two. Three. “I hate Christmas,” she whispered to the empty night. Her voice cracked on the last word. “I hate every single thing about it.” The wind answered with a howl that rose and fell like a living thing. Then the stone split open. It wasn’t a small c***k. It was a clean, perfect fissure straight down the middle, as though something inside had simply decided the time for waiting was over. A soft green-silver light poured out, warm and pulsing, turning the falling snow into tiny falling stars. Aurora’s breath caught. She should have been terrified. Instead she felt… seen. For the first time since she was ten years old and woke up to police lights instead of presents, the universe seemed to be looking directly at her. A man stepped through the light. He was impossibly tall, well over six and a half feet, barefoot in the snow as though the cold meant nothing to him. Dark hair lashed across his forehead; a short beard shadowed a hard, angular jaw. Storm-gray eyes caught the strange glow and flashed silver for a heartbeat. Old scars crossed his throat and disappeared beneath the collar of a heavy black wool coat that looked both centuries old and brand-new. He looked first at the blood on the stone, then at her bleeding hand, then (slowly, carefully) at her face. His nostrils flared. Something ancient and reverent softened the sharp lines of his mouth. “You’re freezing,” he said. His voice was low, rough, like gravel wrapped in velvet. “And you’re mine.” Before Aurora could decide whether to laugh, scream, or demand to know if he was some kind of hallucination, he shrugged out of the coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. The moment the wool touched her skin, warmth exploded across her collarbone (not painful, but bright and electric, like stepping into sunlight after years in the dark). A mark flared to life just above the neckline of her ruined dress: delicate silver runes shaped like tiny wolves chasing threads of northern lights across her skin. It glowed softly, then settled into a faint shimmer. Aurora gasped. The stranger’s eyes widened; the gray bled away until the irises were pure molten silver. The world tilted. A cord of light (invisible yet undeniable) snapped into place between them, tugging gently at her heart and something deeper, something she had no name for. He caught her before her knees hit the snow a second time. “I’ve got you,” he murmured against her temple. His arms were like steel bands around her shaking body, but gentle, impossibly gentle. “I’ve waited a very long time. I’m not letting go now.” Aurora tried to speak (tried to demand who he was, what he had done, why her skin was glowing), but the cold finally caught up. The warmth from his coat was spreading through her limbs, but the edges of her vision were going dark. The last thing she felt was him lifting her against his chest, one massive hand cradling the back of her head, the other under her knees like she weighed nothing at all. The last thing she heard was his voice, fierce and trembling all at once: “Stay with me, little star. Just stay.” Then the blizzard closed over them both, and the rune-stone sealed shut behind him as silently as it had opened. The clock in the distant chalet struck ten. Christmas Eve had only just begun. She woke to the smell of pine and woodsmoke. For one disoriented second Aurora thought she was back in the chalet, that the entire night had been a nightmare. Then she registered the flannel shirt she was wearing (soft, worn, far too large) and the fact that she was in a bed she didn’t recognize, under quilts that smelled faintly of cedar and something wild. She sat up too fast. The room spun, then settled. The bedroom was huge, all dark wood beams and stone. A fire crackled in a river-rock hearth big enough to stand in. Moonlight poured through a wall of windows, painting the snow outside in shades of blue and silver. The storm still raged, but the glass held it at bay. Her emerald dress lay folded neatly on a chair, cleaned and mended somehow. Her bare feet were clean too, the cut on her palm wrapped in soft gauze. And on her collarbone, just visible above the flannel’s open collar, the silver mark still shimmered faintly, like moonlight trapped under her skin. The door opened without a knock. The man from the storm stepped in carrying a tray: steaming mug, thick socks, a plate of something that smelled like cinnamon and heaven. He had changed into a dark thermal shirt that did nothing to hide the breadth of his shoulders or the scars that crossed his throat. He stopped when he saw she was awake. Relief flashed across his face so fast she almost missed it. “You’re up,” he said quietly. “Good.” Aurora pulled the quilts higher. “Who are you? Where am I? And what the hell did you do to me?” He set the tray on the nightstand with deliberate care, as though sudden movements might frighten her. Then he did the strangest thing: he lowered himself to one knee beside the bed so she didn’t have to crane her neck to meet his eyes. “My name is Lucien Vale,” he said. “You’re in my lodge, three miles north of where you… fell. And as for what I did—” His gaze dropped to the mark on her collarbone, then back to her face. Something raw and ancient flickered in his silver-flecked eyes. “I didn’t do anything, little star. The mountain did. The bond did. I’ve been waiting two hundred and three years for it to choose me back.” He said it so simply, so matter-of-fact, that for a moment Aurora could only stare. Then the absurdity hit her all at once. She laughed (one sharp, broken sound that turned into a sob halfway through). Lucien didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He simply stayed on one knee, watching her with the patience of someone who had already waited centuries and was willing to wait a few more minutes. Outside, the storm howled on. Inside, the fire crackled, the mark on her skin pulsed gently like a second heartbeat, and Aurora Hart realized with sudden, terrifying clarity that her worst Christmas was only just beginning.