The guy was fucking huge. She figured the top of his head probably came out to 6'5", but then he had massive horns that curled on either side of it, probably bringing him up to a full seven feet tall. His torso was broad, muscular, with defined muscles under a thin layer of hair. A glance downward revealed his legs to be.... that of an animal, though what kind she couldn't tell. Not now. Not with how taken aback she was by the entire encounter.
His face, though, was handsome, and he raised his eyebrows as he held one very-human finger over his lips.
She opened and shut her mouth several times, trying to find the words she needed to ask the questions she had. But she couldn't find them when looking into his eyes. She wondered if there was a supernatural reason for that, or if it was merely a result of her own heightened emotions.
Fear, that was. Or maybe something other than fear? Maybe something additional? She wasn't sure.
She pulled her gaze away from his, her eyes falling to his other hand. The chains she'd heard were looped around his shoulder and fell across the opposite hip, but his hand held something like a stick, or perhaps a riding crop. She gulped.
"Wha-who are you?"
He tilted his head, then opened his arms wide in something like a bow as he introduced himself. "Why, I'm Krampus," he said. "And if I'm not mistaken, you're Lainie Wiles, and you've been a very naughty girl this year."
She made the mistake of making eye contact with him as he said this, and this time his expression made his meaning clear: there was a definite innuendo in his words. She felt a blush crawling up her cheeks and did her best to ignore it, but she was pretty sure she caught him smirk at her in response.
"I don't... I don't believe we've met," she said, trying to diffuse the tension she felt creep up between them.
He laughed, an expression that seemed filled with absolute mirth rather than any kind of malice, and she found herself becoming more comfortable with him, much to the dismay of the sensible part of her. "We haven't," he said, "though I'm somewhat hurt you haven't heard of me. Gotta get my reputation out there more, it seems. Used to be that everyone learned about Krampus as a child. Or, at least everyone east of the Atlantic."
"I don't follow."
He shrugged, then waved a hand dismissively. "My predecessor lived and worked in Europe. He was... a little scarier and a lot meaner and he went after naughty children, not sexy and naughty women."
Lainie thought back through stories she'd been told as a child. Nope, nothing. But hadn't there been-
"Didn't they make a movie about you?" she blurted out.
He shook his head. "Nope. That would have been about my predecessor. Like I said, I'm still building my reputation here in the states. Plus, the whole thing with a different, er, audience."
"I don't really understand."
He moved toward her faster than she would have thought possible given his stature. He smelled like brimstone and warmth. Her breath caught in her throat, not entirely from fear. She put up her hands reflexively to protect herself, and he stopped when he hit them such that his defined abs rested against her fingertips.
Something told her that was intentional.
One of his fingers ran through her hair and down the side of her neck, warm and rough against her skin. It traced her collarbone, and she exhaled with the slightest—the very slightest—moan before she realized what she was doing and reeled it in. His abs, moving with his breaths, pulsed as if with silent laughter, but he didn't say anything about it, not outright. Instead, the finger traced its way back up to her chin, another one joining it to tilt her head back and make her look into his eyes.
"I'm here to punish you," he told her.
"So you're going to kill me?" she asked. Her voice felt hollow even to her.
His eyes were full of pity. "Of course not. You just seem like the type who might.... well, like the type who might want some holiday kink. But perhaps I misjudged?"
Her mouth fell open. "You came here to fuck me?"
He burst into laughter one again, hoisting her into his arms as he did so. His hands were huge on her ass, his cock firm against her torso, and she held on more tightly than she meant to. She told herself it was so that she didn't fall. It wasn’t.
Her whole body rested against his chest, and his face was buried in her neck. He shifted her ever so slightly, moving her form so that his lips had better access to her ear. "I came here to punish you, but only if you want me to, and I won't say no to using my cock to do so."
He pulled her body into him harder for emphasis, and that action alone was enough to drown out all other thoughts.
"Okay," she said, "so do it."
"Do what?"
"Punish me."
He chuckled, setting her down and somehow taking off the top of her pajamas in one swift motion. Her slippers had fallen at some point, she realized—she'd been distracted, to say the least—and he kicked them aside. He turned her around, pressing her into the wall such that her face hit the cold of the smooth paint, then pulled her pajama bottoms down roughly, scratching her hips and the outside of her thighs as he did so. He pulled at one of her legs, and then the other to tell her she was to step out of them, placing her feet for her so they were just over shoulder width apart.
"You are to do as I say and take your punishment without complaint," he told her, pacing behind her. "You are to refer to me as Sir during the time we are together. Any deviations and I promise you'll regret it. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir," Lainie said.
"Good," Krampus replied, brushing the stick along her sides in a way that made her melt into it.
She took a deep breath in and relaxed, her tension and desire growing as it was pulled back from her body. Then, he struck. She yelped as it hit her sides, then her ass, a sharp pain that made her ever more aware of her body exposed to this stranger—this monster—she would not have believed existed even an hour ago.
He hit her again, then again. At first it merely hurt; as a young adult, she'd been around her share of BDSM scenes, but her body had not known what it was like to be on the end of a switch for years now. Soon, however, her skin warmed up and the pain melted into pleasure until it was one and the same and there was nothing she could do but pant and moan and obey him.
He was right, after all: she'd been deliberately bad this year. Or, well, "bad." Certainly not good. But she'd prioritized pleasure over productivity, her momentary desires over her long-term dreams, not because she didn't believe in her potential but because she didn't know how to live uninhibitedly otherwise. That had been something the BDSM community had given her, all those years ago: a confidence in asking for what she wanted that, somewhere along the way, she'd lost.
So a sexy beast here to deliver it to her? Well, it was pretty much a Christmas miracle.
This all passed through her mind in a matter of seconds, in pieces and memories between thwacks. He hit her again, and she whimpered, feeling desire build between her legs and wetness that coated the inside of her thighs. He took her sound as an invitation, hitting her harder and faster until she writhed against the wall, until tears fell from her eyes from something other than pain.
Relief? Maybe.
"Stop moving or I might hit something I'm not aiming for," Krampus ordered.
She moved without thinking when he hit her again.
He sighed, his breath on her neck. She shivered; she hadn't realized he was that close. One large hand grasped the back of her neck, pulling her away from the wall and pushing her toward her bedroom. She heard the clanking now and wondered if he'd set the chains down or if she'd really been that lost in the actions to notice the loudness.
They made it to her bed, and he pressed her over the end of it, shoving her face into the comforter she hadn't spread evenly across the mattress. The jangling intensified; she peeked from her place on the bed to watch him pull the chains off a clasp he'd been using to secure them. He looped it around her headboard, tightening it, then clasping cold metal bonds aro
und her wrists and a softer, leather one around her neck.
"Like I said," he reiterated, "don't move."
With that, he hit her again, harder and harder until the switch bit into her ass and she screamed.
"You complain an awful lot for someone who wanted me to punish her," he commented coolly. "Change your mind?"
"No, Sir," she nearly screamed into her bedding.
He laughed, giving one final hit. This time, it made a loud cracking noise on impact, but she didn't dare turn to look at what had happened.
"Seems you broke my stick," he said. "Whatever will we do now?"
She was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question and he had something else in mind. She wasn't certain. She was certain he wouldn't be especially happy about her answering it without a direct order, so she bit her tongue and focused on trying to catch her breath instead.
"Oh, I know!" Krampus almost shouted behind her, and her breath caught in her throat again as the warmth of his lips hit her cunt.
Punish her? Fuck, she couldn't convince most of the men she slept with to put their mouths anywhere near her crotch. And she'd definitely asked.
He moved against her folds slowly at first, as if warming her up to the idea of him between her legs. Then, the softness of his tongue slipped into her, gently yet firmly, rolling in circles in ways no human man she'd ever been with had managed. It went deeper within her, and then deeper still. She thought she remembered images shown to her by one of her friends in school, images of a long red tongue from the body of a beast, and maybe she was imagining it, but did she care?
No, she didn't, not now, not when Krampus had made himself manifest in her living room and brought her to bed and had her at the mercy of that tongue. It pulsed within her now, wriggling around her folds and against her clit in a way that brought her increasingly close to coming, building an orgasm he would not give her. It seemed he knew he was taking her to the edge only to hold her back at the last moment. She tried to pulse her body back, but the chains held her, metal cuffs digging into her wrists when she tried too hard to move. She let out an exasperated moan, but didn't dare complain, not verbally.
She knew better.
But her exasperated moan was enough to make Krampus pull away, leaving her wet cunt open to the air. There was a slight draft from her apartment window, and it made her tingle in a way that wasn't altogether unpleasant.
Was he finished? She didn't want him to be, but maybe that was ultimately the punishment. Maybe he would leave her like this until the gravity of what she'd done—not that he had at any point actually told her what she'd done—really hit her.
She was considering how difficult it would be to break out of the chains in the event he left her here when he entered her, his massive cock filling her in one smooth motion that made her cry out. Now, she reflexively tried to move away; again, it was initially almost painful, and her body was not prepared, wet or not. The chains held her at first, followed by his massive hands, one wrapped around her shoulder and the other around one hip and the small of her back.
The beast growled behind her, pressing his length into her until he bottomed out, again and again, his growls turning to roaring moans. She screamed under him, pain turning to pleasure, a crescendo of sensation that eventually erupted into orgasm. He moved faster as she came around him, eventually finding his own release, his nails biting into her skin and drawing blood as he did so.
He pulled himself out, licking at the cuts on her body. "To soothe the pain," he said by way of explanation, though she wasn't entirely sure she believed him.
She wasn't entirely sure of anything now, really, and she laid on the bed in deflated pleasure as he moved around her, unlocking the clasps on her wrists and taking his chains off the bed.
Had he even taken any clothing off? It didn't seem like it, but perhaps she had missed it. Everything was vague.
He cleaned her up with a towel he'd found in the bathroom, then scooped her up to tuck her into bed. She noticed he'd grabbed a water bottle from the kitchen and a bottle of Tylenol ahead of time and put them on her bedside table. She wasn't sure whether to consider that thoughtful or pretentious. Maybe it was a little bit of both.
"Sleep well," he said as he left.
"Where are you going?"
He tilted his head. "I have some errands to run. But don't worry. I'll be back."
She drew the blankets up around her face, narrowing her eyes. "You'll be back?" she asked.
He smiled. "Of course I will. Unless you’re suddenly excited about your job?"
She shook her head, yawning. Fuck, she hurt. "No, of course not."
"Great," he said. "So you can be my next project."
"I don't understand."
"You're not all that naughty," he said, "what you just let me do to you notwithstanding. You just need to learn to take your power back. And I've decided to help you do that." He shrugged, then smiled even more widely. "Sleep well. You're gonna need it. Happy Krampusnacht."
The End
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About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Edeline Wrigh is an eccentric storyteller with a penchant for swearing, drinking too much caffeine, and spending more time with cats than people. She writes fantasy, romance, and love stories without happy endings from her house in the Midwest. When she's not putting words on paper, she's busy up leveling her martial arts game or taking in stories in any way she can.
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Read More of Edeline’s Books
Betwixt Realms Series (Lesbian Harem Paranormal Romance)
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Sirens (Polyamorous Paranormal Romance)
The Traitor of Tyiku (YA Fantasy Romance)
A Rueful Equinox
Stacey Jaine McIntosh
About A Rueful Equinox
Violet Grayson is set to marry Fox Donovan on the Winter Solstice. But this isn’t an ordinary wedding. For the pair come from vastly different worlds. Violet is a wolf shifter and Fox a faerie prince. Will they find their happily ever after?
A Rueful Equinox
Pale stone buildings of every size and shape jutted out against all the white. A massive city greeted me, and I couldn’t help but turn in circles, completely in awe of my surroundings. It almost felt as if I'd stepped back in time to Victorian London. Fireflies lit up the tree-lined streets, which added to the etherealness.
Snow fell in soft flurries, blanketed the ground before me in a thick carpet of white that despite the early evening gloom the sun could still be seen rapidly sinking below the horizon to the east.
As I approached, the gates, I spied two guards in midnight blue livery, standing one on either side.
“Can I help you?” one guard asked. It was common knowledge that faeries and wolf shifters had a mutual dislike of one another but a lot of time and effort had gone into trying to repair the relationship between the two races over the years. I had hoped things wouldn't have been so strained still but it appeared they were.
“My name is Violet Grayson, I'm here—”
One guard nodded, cutting me off abruptly. “Prince Alexander told us you'd be coming.”
Prince Alexander. I scoffed. Fox hated it when the fey called him that.
“So, will you let me pass?” I asked.
Both guards looked me up and down, silently judging me, before stepping aside and allowing me to enter the Winter Palace.
It had grown colder in the time I’d been standing still. My chills became uncontrollable shivers. No matter how I tried, I couldn't keep my teeth from chattering, and the strain was setting in. My jaw ached. My fingers ached when I could feel them. I felt as much as heard the sound of my teeth colliding in my skull. They were ice cubes, and my he
ad was the glass violently shaking them around. I was sure I was only moments away from shattering.
I could barely manage another step, I was that cold, and yet somehow, I did. Twenty in all, I'd counted.
The doors were easily seven feet high and appeared as if carved from quartz.
They were pulled open from the inside, and a gust of frigid air hit my face, stinging my cheeks.
I blinked back the tears that the cold had wrought, clearing my vision.
Once inside it felt as if I had slipped into a faerie wonderland. Yule decorations hung from the grand staircase and a fire was lit in the hearth.
Had I been back in Knox, I would have been enjoying eggnog right about now. Instead, I’d be subjected to mulled wine or mead. Neither of which I cared for overly much. I missed the familiarity of Christmas rituals from years past. Being in Arcadia during the Winter Solstice for my pending wedding seemed all too surreal.
My wolf was on edge and a small part of me wanted to run on back home to all the creature comforts that I was used to. But I forced myself to stay.
And with good reason, because at that moment Fox came meandering down the staircase.
“Fox!” I shouted. The relief at seeing a familiar face was instant.
“Ready for tonight?” he asked, a cheeky grin plastered across his face.
“It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” Zooey stated. She wore a gown of midnight blue and silver heels and came sweeping down the staircase behind Fox.
“Mom!” Fox groaned.
“Violet,” she greeted with a smile. “I’ll show you to your suite.”
And just like that she took over. Ordering palace staff around to fetch this or that. All of them ready to address her every need as well as mine.
At just before midnight, I made my way down the staircase for the final time that day, hair coiffed and dressed in a white crystalline dress I was almost certain was made from spiders’ silk.
Curse of Christmas: A Collection of Paranormal Holiday Stories Page 39
