Page 9 of His Winter Wonderland

Blinking back tears, she nodded and told him, “Yes, I heard you.”

“You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know....”

“I love you too, Rhen Fujisaki,” she interrupted his sentence with a confession of her own. “I love you so much that I’d give anything not to awaken from this dream. I’d give anything to sleep like this with you for the rest of my existence.”

Which could be forever since she was an immortal.

“But this is just a dream,” she whispered.

It broke her heart to even say those words. She’d gone this long without bringing it up, too afraid of where the conversation would take her. Would it cause the nightmare to return? Now that she’d started down this path, she had to continue.

“You're just a creature my imagination conjured up. Loving you is like loving a fairytale character. It’s nice. But it’s not real.”

He moved her over some so that he could sit up. “What did you say?” he asked.

“I said, you're not real. You’re just a creature my mind created.”

“You’re real?” he asked.

“I am. I mean, I exist outside of this dream.”

His eyes widened. “Please tell me you're not lying. Please tell me this isn’t just part of my dream.”

“Your dream? This is my dream.” Winter cocked her head to the side. “Are you saying that right now, you’re sleeping and dreaming this? You’re dreaming about me?” she asked.

He nodded. "My kind, we don't normally sleep. But I encountered a witch some years ago and she placed a spell on me. For some reason, I fall asleep at the same time every night now."

Was it possible that the spell made him fall asleep at the same time that she went to sleep?

“Forget all of that,” he told her. “Just tell me you’re real.”

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Winter answered him. “I am. I am very real.”

The smile that formed on his face was gorgeous. She touched her hand to his cheek and wiped away a tear.

He blinked then said, “Fuck! I’m crying. I haven’t cried in years. I didn’t know I could.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Tomorrow is Christmas,” he told her.

“Christmas?” What was that?

“Yeah. It’s like, a day you celebrate the birth of the Creator.”

Why would she wanted to celebrate the goddesses who’d created her?

“Where I’m from,” Rhen continued. “It’s a time for family to gather together and enjoy time with each other.”

That sounded nice, if you had a family to gather with.

“Sometimes, people make Christmas wishes. Though, I’m not able to be with my family this year, I still made a few wishes. One, was to be able to return home. Another, was to find my mate. I… I thought finding a mate would be impossible. After all I’ve been through, I never thought I’d meet the female who was created for me.”

Mate? He’d lost her with the word mate. Winter hadn’t been created for him. She’d been created for one purpose, destruction. She was one of the four Goddess of Destruction. The only reason she’d been banished from the Wastelands was because of a crime her sisters committed. And like a good sister, she’d tried to help cover it up. And then they turned on her… She pushed that thought away. She didn’t want to dwell on that right now.

“You think I’m your mate?” She asked.

“I know it,” he told her. “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t want you the way I want you. My inner…” He hesitated. “The other part of me wouldn’t crave you the way it craves you.”