by Holly Ryan
The tree leaned hard against my back, grinding against every vertebrae of my spine. Bent over as I was, I dug my toes into the snow and slid them wider to spread out the weight of the tree, just long enough to scoop the girl up in my arms and get the hell out of there. I shielded her face and body the best I could as we smashed through the branches caging us in. As soon as we cleared them, the tree crashed down.
I ran toward the swans and my vampires and Krampus, the little girl clutched tight in my arms. Her cinderblock foot slammed into my upper thigh. Her pompom hat went flying. Her blood-drenched hand weaved through the hair of my fallen bun, so close I could taste the sweet coppery goodness. Her warm neck was just inches away from my mouth—
Stop it. My thirst was the least of my worries, or it should’ve been, at least. My stomach needed to learn that lesson fast.
Once I rounded the jungle gym, I spotted the swans. But no vampires or Krampus.
“Sawyer? Jacek? Eddie?” I shouted.
Nothing.
Nothing except two familiar silhouettes across the street, standing on top of what looked like a post office. Eddie and Jacek. They blurred down the side of it faster than Spiderman and stopped to haul up something on the sidewalk. Where were Sawyer and Krampus?
I rushed toward them, cradling the girl’s head in my palm to keep her from baring her neck.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Home. Soon.” The words came out like a growl that made her whimper, and I instantly hated myself even more for not being able to control myself.
The thing Eddie and Jacek were dragging into an upright position was huge compared to them, and hunched over. Then the figure stood and eyed me over their shoulders with a head full of silky black curls blowing in the wind and a pained scowl on his lips.
Sawyer. He was hurt.
I sprinted toward them, put the kid down, and then pressed my hands to my favorite Brazilian vampire’s face. “Are you okay?”
“My knee went to battle with Krampus’s goat foot.” He took my hands and squeezed, a small smile dashing across his scowl. “I’ll be fine, but Krampus won’t be next time we see him.”
“Where is he?” I asked, searching the street.
“We chased him...off.”
I turned to Jacek beside me to see why he’d trailed off, and found his amber gaze stuck to Eddie on my other side. The little girl gazed up at him with her warm brown eyes, her soft curls, now free from her hat, twirling around her angelic face, and reached up to hook her pinkie in his.
“Hi,” she whispered. “I’m Francisca.”
Eddie winced and looked away from her, every emotion he’d ever felt at war on his face. My eyes filled with tears because I could name every one of them—regret, loss, heartache, love. Eddie’s little sister, who’d also been a slayer, had died, and Eddie, being Eddie, had worn the big-brother badge with pride and fierce protectiveness. This little girl obviously sensed that.
I caught his eye and nodded, as if giving him permission to feel everything he was feeling, and to take on the role the little girl wanted him to. Since she’d looked away from me, she’d already forgotten about me since that was how it worked with humans and vampires. But she hadn’t forgotten about him as she gazed up at him with admiration. I knew how she felt.
He flicked his eyes to her—not red like I was sure mine were since he was better at controlling his thirst—and smiled down at her, tightening his pinky with hers.
“Hi,” he said. “Let’s get that cinderblock off your foot and get you home, all right?”
She nodded and flashed him an almost toothless grin that wobbled one out from me as well. Apparently no female of any age was safe with their hearts around Eddie.
I steeled my spine again and tried to pretend I hadn’t just melted into a puddle. “So. Those swans didn’t work?”
“Funny thing about those seven swans...” Jacek came up to me with Night’s Fall pointed at the snow and brushed my wet cheeks with his thumb, a sweet smile on his lips. “There’s only six of them.”
Chapter Four
Six swans. I hadn’t even bothered to count them because I’d been a tad preoccupied with wrestling trees and trying not to slurp on a little girl.
Francisca, by the way, got the royal treatment from my three vampires as they gently worked her foot out of the cinderblock and then delivered her to the same home address she knew by heart. Eddie was positively smitten. Pretty sure they all were. And yes, me too, even though when I’d been alive, children were creatures I ran away from faster than dark unknowns. But I was also secretly in awe of them, too, with their normal, non-slayer lives. What might that be like?
After we took Francisca home, I’d scoured the park since Krampus must’ve taken her there for a reason but came up empty. The six other missing children were nowhere to be found.
“This book is very clear about seven swans.” I turned the page in Eddie’s book and leaned against the pool table in the basement where Jacek was organizing the balls in the center. Or “racking the balls,” as he’d called it, but that sounded too painful. “There’s nothing about what to do if there’s a kidnapped swan.”
“Eddie’s working on it, Slayer.” Jacek gently took the book from me, closed it, and set it on top of a pinball machine against the wall. “He’ll figure it out.”
Eddie was already elbow deep in internet research while Sawyer rested his knee from the hoof-shaped bruise that was fading quickly.
“I know,” I said. “I just don’t want to find another kid running scared through the night.”
Jacek looked at me then, likely reading every thought I didn’t want to analyze, just as well as my other two vampires. “You saw Francisca and saw yourself at that age running from monsters.”
Boom. Nailed it.
“I saw her fear and felt it all over again. I was older by a couple years, but...I was still just a kid. I don’t think I’ll ever forget wandering through the dark toward the graveyard that first time, with this weird urge that dug down deep into my toothpick bones, an urge I didn’t really understand. I still don’t, and I’m not even really the slayer anymore. But there were monsters that night, and I did run.” I ran my fingers over the green felt on the pool table. “And tonight...I scared her. I was the monster.”
Jacek frowned as he picked out a pool cue from a rack in the corner. “Then I’m a monster too. We all are.”
“Just me.”
He cocked his head and eyed me closely. “How is that fair?”
“I don’t see you three as monsters.” I shrugged.
He picked out another pool cue, a shorter one, and sauntered toward me. “If Francisca could remember the lady who rescued her from Krampus, I’m positive she wouldn’t think you’re a monster. Monsters don’t save people. That’s not the way it works.” He handed the shorter cue to me, the lamp light over the table casting a greenish hue on his short dark hair. “But you know what I do see? A hot vampire slayer whose sexy ass is about to get kicked. Cue up, Slayer, and show me what you got.”
A whole lot of nothing, it turned out, but that didn’t keep me from trying. And really liking the parts where Jacek tried to teach me. He pressed up against my back, his mouth at my ear, while he told me something about how to position the cue stick between my fingers. Some other stuff, too, I think, when he had me lean over the table to line up a shot, but by that point, all I could focus on was how hard his cock was against my ass. Still leaning over the table, I nudged backward and rubbed against him.
“You’re not concentrating,” he growled as he grasped my hips.
“Oh, I’m definitely concentrating.” With my tongue trapped between my teeth, I smiled over my shoulder at him while I grinded into him.
He gripped my hips tighter, the muscles in his arms growing taut, his eyes morphing into a hungry red. “I’m guessing you’re not interested in pool anymore.”
“Are you?”
Instead of answering, he moved his hand down inside
the front of my jeans and cupped my pussy, already swollen and wet and ready.
“You’re not wearing any underwear, Slayer,” he rasped.
I rocked against his hand and let out a moan. “Merry Christmas.”
He gave a rumble deep in his chest as he curled two fingers up inside me. I rolled my hips forward, rubbing my clit against his palm, and feeling his fingers work deeper.
“I want to fuck you, Belle,” he said, his voice rough and hot. “Right in the ass as you fuck my fingers. Okay?”
Ah, so he didn’t want Eddie to have all the fun knocking at my back door. That was more than fine with me.
“You can do anything you want with me,” I said, bowing against his hand to take his fingers in deeper.
But he pulled them out of me and strode toward a nearby shelf with a metal Game Time sign on top, and decks of cards, board games, and pool accessories among the items on the shelves. He took a white bottle that read Silky Cue, his other hand stroking himself through his jeans.
With a grin over his shoulder that curled my toes, he said, “I doubt anal is one of its intended uses.”
“Cue, cock. What’s the difference, really? Besides, I like anything that’s silky.”
“Would you like to apply it?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
I sat on the edge of the pool table with my legs spread and winked. “Whip it out, bad boy.”
He undid his jeans, slowly, his heated gaze on me. His cock sprang out, heavy and so ready.
I licked my lips and dug my fingers into the pool table, feeling myself grow even wetter.
He nodded toward me as he rubbed his thumb over his tip. “Your turn, bad girl.”
“You want me to whip mine out, too?” I sank my hand between my spread legs and pressed my fingertips into the wet crotch of my jeans. “You won’t find anything cue-shaped here.”
“Something better, though.” He stroked all the way to his base and then shuddered as his fist glided upward again. His fangs popped out and his tongue teased over them as he prowled closer. “Show me.”
My turn to shudder, and I forgot all about undressing when I fisted my hand into his shirt and dragged his lips to mine. His kiss was fire, blazing through me and burning my need for him brighter. My hands fumbled for the Silky Cue and then poured so much along his cock that it dripped to the floor. I took his shaft in both hands and spread the lube along every inch.
He tore away from my mouth with a loud groan, his hips pumping in a blur while he fucked my slick hands. “Fuck!”
I was drenched with lube, so much so that I couldn’t remove my clothes, so with one violent rip from Jacek, my jeans slid to my ankles. His hands went to my hips and squeezed hard, then lifted me from the pool table. He twirled me around and bent me over, shoving me hard against the edge. I pressed my grin to the green felt as some of my own lube leaked down the inside my thighs.
His hands gripped my ass cheeks, spreading me wide. “I’ll try not to hurt you, but I can’t make any promises because I want you so fucking bad.” He slid just the tip into my ass.
I cried out, not from pain, but because I needed more. I pressed myself backward, moaning at how good it felt to have him fill me up like this. He groaned until he was buried into my ass up to the hilt, and then pulled out slightly to slide back in again.
“Holy. Shit,” he said through gritted teeth.
I laughed as I spread my arms over the table to enjoy the ride.
He slipped one arm around my waist and slid two fingers inside me, then three. He sped his pace, slamming into me again and again while I grinded against his palm. I moaned, and he answered it with a groan that vibrated all the way into me.
His thumb circled my clit, just a single stroke, and it undid me completely. I came in great, pulsing waves, crying out my release in a garbled mess of sounds. His fingers dug into my hips with bruising intensity, the fingers between my legs still milking my orgasm. He roared as he came, still fucking me hard, and right as I was spiraling down my orgasm high, another one throbbed through me, just as strong as the first one. My pussy clenched around his fingers, my hips never once slowing their thrusts against them.
Eventually, gradually, we slowed, and without pulling out, Jacek bent over me, his chest to my back, and bit his fangs into the curve of my shoulder. I took his hand from between my thighs, sucked his soaking wet fingers inside my mouth, and bit down gently. Blood and the tangy flavor of my come filled my mouth, and I drank it down.
With a low chuckle, he licked his bite clean from my skin. “I think you broke me, Slayer,” he said as he pulled out.
I twirled in his arms, his fingers still in my mouth, and pulled them out slowly, my bite now completely healed. “Do you need me to put you back together again?”
“I’m afraid Humpty Dumpty will have to wait,” Eddie said, striding in through the arched doorway to the game room, the Krampus book in his hands.
Jacek tucked himself back into his jeans with a smile. “You here to read us nursery rhymes?”
“Not quite.” Eddie turned to me, his eyes blazing red as they roamed over my body, naked from the waist down. He licked his lips. “I have some info, but Sunshine, you’re making it hard to concentrate.”
“Among other things.” Sawyer came in, too, his eyes the same fiery color, and wrapped me up in his tattooed arms. He was, in fact, hard when I pressed myself against him.
“You’re okay?” I asked.
“Some slight bruising still, but nothing major.” He glanced at Eddie. “What’s the info?”
“It turns out, Krampus has a thirst for blood and not just vampire blood. He’s not all that different from us.”
“We don’t kidnap children,” Jacek countered.
“Or smell like goat,” I added.
“But Krampus does like blood,” Sawyer said.
Eddie nodded. “Only once he has a seventh child. There’s a spell, probably about as old as Krampus himself, where if you take the blood of seven children and drink it, you’ll become...pleasant to look at.”
“Krampus wants to be hot?” I asked.
“That seems so vain,” Jacek said. “He probably thinks this whole holiday is about him.”
I laughed. “Hot for who, though? Vampires? Maybe he could try not eating us.”
Sawyer jerked as if he’d just been shocked. “The swans. They captured him the first time. Maybe he fell in love with them.”
“I mean...” Jacek started, “it makes sense. Look at us. We fell in love with the slayer who was hunting us.”
“Supposed to be anyway.” I winked. “But then you guys fed me pie.”
“But they’re swans,” Eddie said. “Overgrown stone swans.”
I shrugged. “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”
Jacek grinned. “True enough.”
“Leave it to a goat demon, though, to be a creeper in order to woo the swans. Drinking the blood of seven children to make yourself hot?” I shook my head, unimpressed. “That just proves how shallow he thinks the swans are.”
“How should he have gone about it, Belle?” Sawyer asked with a little smile.
“Pie. Obviously.” I grinned at their laughter. “But also unflinching support ant trust when life steamrolls over you. You three are hot, don’t get me wrong, but if you’d turned your backs on me when I needed you the most, you would’ve morphed into a pile of warts in my mind.”
Jacek squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “That’s a horrible visual.”
Eddie nodded. “So that could explain the ‘why’ behind the seven swans and seven children. But not the ‘what now?’”
“We wait for the sun to go down.” I strode through the arched doorway, my bare ass getting chilly. “And then we get Krampus right where it hurts—his heart.”
Chapter Five
Still hours before sunset, I paced. I couldn’t sleep. I hated the unfairness of daylight because it was such a disadvantage. And every passing hour was a reminder that there we
re children out there, missing, terrified, cold children I hoped with every dead cell in my body were still alive.
“Belle.”
I whirled from the living room window, which was fully draped, a tad jumpy.
Sawyer stood next to the Christmas tree, its twinkling lights reflecting off of his still-damp hair. “Sniffing the drapes?”
“They smell like raisins for some reason, which makes me feel disappointed, like when I see cookies and immediately think they’re chocolate chip.” I sighed like this was the most tragic thing ever. “Curtains should smell like chocolate chips.”
He rolled his lips to fight back a smile. “Are you okay?”
“No.” My shoulders sagged. “I feel useless.”
He looked at me then, peering into my soul like he always did, deeper and deeper until he peeled back the layers and saw everything. And I let him.
“Can I make an observation?” he asked, his head tilted slightly.
“Sure.”
“You haven’t once talked about today. Christmas. Past traditions, new traditions...” He pointed to the tree. “Decorations.”
“This is a hard time of year,” I said, my voice husky.
“I understand that.”
He would, better than a lot of people since he worked for a suicide prevention hotline.
He crossed toward me, the kindness in his eyes warming some of the memories about Mom I’d kept frozen.
“She...” I swallowed thickly. “My mom and I used to decorate our dinky little tree with popcorn strings and goofy handmade ornaments I’d made since childhood. We couldn’t afford anything else, but it had been enough. In the years since she died, I haven’t even bothered to put up a tree or celebrate in any way. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
He reached out and stroked my arm with his comforting touch. “Popcorn strings?”
I nodded.
“I saw some popcorn in the kitchen, you know.” He crossed his huge arms and shrugged. “It might help pass the time.”
