Under the Mistletoe
RONAN
I step into the Grand Hall just in time to see Briar placing her hands on her hips, staring at the sorry excuse for a Christmas tree. Sunlight filters through the tall windows, not that it does much to brighten the room. The tree stands in one corner, bent under the weight of faded decorations and dust. A tango of neglect and the lingering magic that threatens to snuff out completely, soon enough.
I hate that tree.
Everyone else is gathered here already—Giselle fussing over a box of ornaments, Nolan bouncing on the balls of his feet, excitement pouring from him like he actually thinks this day will matter. And Briar—always Briar—center stage. Her head tilts slightly as if considering something truly vital, like whether she should add more tinsel, when the world is literally one cracked stone away from collapsing in on itself.
She turns toward me, her eyes catching the dim winter light. “We could use some help here, Mr. Wolfe.” That spark in her voice—hopeful, insistent—ignites something deep in my chest. I shove it down where it belongs.
Before I can get the words “Why bother?” out of my mouth, Nolan rushes over to me, his arms barely managing to carry a garland of tangled lights. “We’re making it better!” he exclaims, eyes wide, reflecting more enthusiasm than I have the energy to smother right now. His small arms shove the coils of wire at me, and I just catch them before they hit the ground.
“Better?” The word drips from my tongue, heavy with skepticism, but the kid just grins anyway, oblivious to my tone.
Giselle, endless in her serenity, straightens from wherever she’d been bent over. “Sometimes it’s worth trying,” she says carefully—as if the world hasn’t already tried to bleed me out. Whatever retort I have dies on my tongue under her quietly knowing gaze.
“Fine,” I growl, more to myself than to Nolan, who beams like he’s just moved a mountain.
Briar bites back a smile as she reaches for her box of ornaments. There’s a hint of a challenge in her eyes. She likes that she’s dragged me into this.
I hate that too.
I stand awkwardly off to the side while the others work on transforming the grand hall through sheer force of will. Giselle instructs Nolan on where to hang sparkly snowflakes, her voice soft and warm. It's almost charming, if you ignore the fact that nothing here lasts long, not in this place, not under this curse. But they don't seem to see it—the way the cold creeps in despite the fire in the hearth, the way the magic slips through the cracks the way blood seeps from a fresh wound.
Briar comes up beside me, untangling a string of lights with the casual grace of someone who shouldn't be comfortable here, in this ruin masquerading as a home. "It's not that bad, you know. Just needs a little attention," she says as if she's talking about more than the tree.
I glance down at her, my hands holding the dozen knots that once used to be a strand of lights. “Attention won’t fix what’s broken here.” Every word is delivered with just enough force to remind her that she’s not cracking through. Not today.
"Maybe." She shrugs, still working on her half of the disaster. “But we could try. Can’t hurt to make things… better, even for a moment.”
Her optimism grates against me like iron nails on stone. She doesn’t understand. That’s the poison in all this. It doesn’t matter what might flicker to life for the evening; it’s all rotting from the inside, same as the castle’s walls. Same as me.
Yet in a moment of weakness—or insanity—I find myself kneeling next to her, methodically working through the tangles. The lights are cold to the touch. Everything is cold now.
When I’ve barely made a dent, Briar taps my hand lightly. The touch jolts, small as it is, but electricity snakes up my wrist all the same. For a second, her fingers linger just there. Too close.
"This kind of thing isn’t usually this hard. But maybe..." She smiles, the corners of her mouth curving upwards in something far too gentle for my current mood.
I release the lights abruptly. “If you insist on fixing whatever pointless wreck this is, do it right," I mutter, passing her the bundle and rising to my feet. The odd warmth stirring within me is more unsettling than the cold that refuses to leave my soul.
Nolan’s laugh echoes across the room, the boy climbing a ladder to drape tinsel on the tree's higher branches. He teeters slightly, and both Giselle and I lurch to steady him. But Briar is closer—she’s there in a heartbeat, her hands ready if he needs catching. She flashes me a look, a blend of gratitude and… something else.
Damn it, I shouldn’t have looked .
The tree begins to take shape—a shadow of something festive, something alive that once stood proud in this cursed hall. For the briefest moment, I catch a flicker of warmth, a tiny pulse of light from the Christmas lights wrapped around Briar’s wrist. I blink, and the magic retreats, like always. Too fleeting to matter—too false to mean anything.
But just long enough for me to notice. Longer than it should’ve been.
"Do you even celebrate Christmas?” Briar’s voice drifts up from where she’s kneeling, sorting through a box of sad ornaments, some chipped, some broken.
I take a slow breath. The innocent question feels like a dart in my back. "Not lately." I hadn’t meant to sound so curt, or maybe I had. Either way, her fingers still for a split second before she continues pulling ornaments from the box.
“So, growing up, then? What was that like?” Her tone isn’t pushy, and I can tell she’s trying to draw me out. God knows why.
"Before the curse?" The words are surprisingly bitter, even to my own ears. I silence myself for a moment with the weight of that. Years ago… no, decades now… there was laughter, warmth. My parents' most elaborate celebrations were held right here in this hall. But what does it matter now? That boy is gone.
Gone with the part of me that could still feel joy.
“I remember,” I finally answer, surprising even myself. “Once—Rurik... my brother—he... convinced the staff that decorating wasn’t enough. We needed to make it perfect by cutting down our own tree.” Ghosts of half-remembered scenes filter through my mind. The laughter. The cold—so much like now—but bearable then. “Rurik got stuck halfway up a tree, covered in sap.” I can’t help the faint smirk that forms, not when I picture my brother, back when he was still someone worth saving.
Before everything went straight to hell.
When I glance at her, Briar is smiling softly, like she can picture the whole thing. “That sounds... wonderful.”
I shrug, immediately regretting the openness. That life is dead now, burned to nothing. I remember the sounds of cracking bone, the curses on our family... the sickening wrongness that took everything. And I can never have it back.
Too much truth rests between us. Too many dangerous emotions want to claw their way past my carefully erected walls. But Briar’s still smiling, as if believing there’s more to find here, as if the smile wasn’t ripped from me along with everything good, years ago—no, ages ago.
I say nothing else, turning back to the tree, but I can feel her watching me. Waiting.
Always waiting.
The air shifts as I step toward her and place the final decoration—a small, worn star atop the tree. It's battered now, the silver dull, but it’s been part of this damned tradition for as long as I can remember. Nolan claps, grinning like we just built the entire world out of something more than shadows and lies.
As for Briar... she's standing closer than I should allow. She tilts her head to look up at my work, her lips parting slightly in approval. Her breath curls out in soft clouds in the cold morning air, just inches from me, and for a split second, I’m not thinking about the curse, the danger, or the looming weight of my broken life. I’m thinking about the way her auburn hair frames her face, the way her green eyes catch the sunlight, the way her body hums a strange, magnetic energy that the castle pulses in time with.
“You’re not bad at this, Mr. Wolfe." Her voice is teasing, but there's warmth in it too, a softness that threatens to burrow under my cold skin.
I force down the pull from her, battling the instinct screaming for me to take another step closer. It’s the same part of me that wanted to claim her last night. The same part of me that’s fought every moment since she arrived.
“I doubt this spectacle will last," I respond with clipped tones, breaking through whatever spell she’s casting on me. “This place doesn’t allow for much…” I falter on the word joy . Joy is dead here, along with everything good.
She steps closer again, her shoulder brushing mine as she hangs another ornament. But there’s something else—above us, a shadow of green and silver catches my eye, hanging just overhead like a threat. No—not a threat.
I lift my hand—before I can stop them—and pluck the sprig of mistletoe from where it’s wound itself to the garland. Briar looks up, briefly confused, her breath hitching as I hold it just above us.
What the hell am I doing?
She glances at the doorway, where Nolan and Giselle have disappeared into the adjoining parlor—no witnesses. Her eyes return to mine, hesitant at first, then something shifts. Her lips part, and the way she’s looking at me—like I’m not already too far gone—is my undoing.
I lean in—just an inch. Then another. Enough for her breath to warm my lips.
I don’t kiss people under mistletoe. I don’t let anyone this close.
Yet here I am, pulling her in. And she—god, she moves with me, our lips fitting together with a deep wanting ache before I remember I’m about to end the world.
But for just a moment, it doesn’t matter.
Her lips are soft but firm, pressing back in the same way I push toward her—like everything we’ve left unsaid just got poured into the open.
I want her. In ways I shouldn’t even consider. I can feel it crackling beneath my skin, lightning grounding itself straight into her. My hands go taut against the back of her waist, not able to restrain the need to hold on to something solid. For once, something real.
It doesn’t last nearly long enough. I pull away, the echo of her taste still on my tongue, looking down to see her breathless and blinking in disbelief.
I don’t know whether what I’ve done is worse for her… or me.
I drag myself back into the cold faster than she can untangle from my shadow. Heat pools low in my gut, battling against my better judgment, threatening to spill over if I make one more slip.
I can’t let her in.