by Holly Ryan
I looked around us, considering. “This place is already decorated.”
“We can take them home,” he said. “Or there’s a whole park we’ll be going to later that isn’t decorated if you’d rather do that.”
I smiled. It was awfully hard to resist anything to do with popcorn and Sawyer.
So, Sawyer popped some popcorn while I found a needle and thread, and then we sat side by side at the kitchen island, trying not to stab our thumbs. I definitely planned on replacing supplies and cleaning up before we left here for good, but in the meantime, this was relaxing. It required just enough concentration to keep my mind off everything else, including the hollowness in my chest made sharper this time of year.
“Is there anything you’d like for Christmas?” Sawyer expertly needled his popcorn and added it to the five-feet length we already had.
Cleo sniffed around our chairs and cleaned up after us.
“I already have everything.” I kissed Sawyer’s cheek while leaning over to grab another popcorn piece. When my ass left the stool, there was a loud crack, followed by a sharp sting on my butt cheek.
I sat back and stared. “Did you just spank me?”
“Yes.” He lifted his eyebrows. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I grinned because of course I’d liked the spanking. “Okay, then, if that’s how it’s going to be. I want the admission office to approve my college application tomorrow. I want world peace and a new pink collar for Cleo.”
Cleo barked in agreement.
I started to stab my popcorn but got a little too overzealous with my puncturing skills. Blood welled at the tip of my finger.
Sawyer pulled it to his mouth and sucked, pooling molten heat between my thighs. I squirmed and shifted closer, my gaze locked on his lips as he drew my finger back out. His eyes were bright red and shuttered with craving.
“I mean things I can actually give you,” he ground out.
I roamed my hand over his thigh and between his legs where his erection pressed thick and hard against his jeans. “I can think of one thing you can give me.”
In a flash of movement, he stood from his stool, lifted me from mine, hefted me over his shoulder, and smacked my ass again. I gave a yelp but ended it with a moan. The mix of pain and pleasure flared until I was nothing but one slow pulse of need.
“My cock is yours. Always. You’re still not answering my question.” His voice was rough and blistering as he carried me from the kitchen.
Blood rushed to my head, making me feel a little delirious as he marched us up the stairs. His ass flexed while he climbed, and damn, it was a gorgeous sight from this upside-down perspective.
“You’re going to punish me until I tell you?” With a grin, I fit my hands into his jean pockets and squeezed.
“Yes.” His chest rumbled right where my pussy was, and I pressed myself against him to feel it again.
“Sawyer?”
“What?” he said, throwing open a bedroom door.
I moaned, feeling that vibration again. “I really do want your cock though.”
He set me down on my feet then and then growled low as he pulled me back to him for a searing hot kiss. He speared one hand through my loose curls at the back of my head and wrapped the other around my waist to grind me against him.
My body shut down my brain and took the lead so I had no control. Fine with me. I sank into his kiss and let it consume me.
He undid my jeans and shoved them past my hips, and then another loud crack sounded, this one even harder than the first. I pulled away from his kiss as the sharp burn morphed into fuel for my already raging inferno.
“Tell me what you really want for Christmas,” he rasped.
“Jeans.” I went to kiss him again, but he moved his head back. “New jeans. Jacek ripped my other pair to tatters.”
Sawyer rubbed my sore spots as he kissed me again, then when he freed his hard cock, he hiked my legs around his waist. Still standing, he thrust inside my wet heat, all the way to the hilt. I threw back my head, wrapping my arms around his neck, while my body grew accustomed to his massive size. His fingers dug into my hips as he pulled out just enough to drive back in again.
“What else?” he demanded.
“A vibrator,” I said, matching his thrusts. “One that fits in my pocket and is super quiet.”
He smiled and kissed me hard, his hips working faster and slapping against mine. “And?”
“Um.” The extreme pressure between my legs began to tingle. The powerful orgasm steamrolling toward me was making it hard to concentrate. “I think... I think... Oh.” I convulsed so hard around him that I couldn’t do or think or say anything else. My hips thrust with his as I sank my fangs into his neck, riding that powerful wave while he reached for his release too.
Then he found it, shooting his come into me with a long, head-to-toe shudder. While I continued to drink from him and quake against him, he buried his head into my neck and started sucking. We stayed locked together like that, even after we’d drunk our fill, long after the aftershocks faded.
“Is that all, Belle?” Sawyer smoothed his hand down my curls and cupped my cheek, making no move to pull out or put me back on my feet. Not that I was complaining.
I gave him a sated grin. “I think so, yeah.”
He kissed the tip of my nose and held it for a long second, his eyes closed. “Am I going to have to do this every Christmas?”
I grinned against his chin. “I think so, yeah.”
He chuckled. “I’ll also spank you when you downplay yourself and everything you’ve done. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
I settled my head into the crook of his shoulder, completely content at the moment even though what he said was true. “I am my own worst enemy at times, yes.”
“Well, stop it,” he rumbled. “Or next time I won’t be so nice.”
“Promise?”
We both laughed.
“Merry Christmas, Belle.”
I sighed and wrapped him up even tighter. “Merry Christmas.”
AS SOON AS THE SUN went down, we used Night’s Fall to transport to the swans in the park. It was snowing hard but gently at the same time since no wind cut through the air. With no sounds of screaming or jingle bells, I took the opportunity to study the stone statues in more detail. Sawyer kept close to me while Jacek and Eddie scoured the rest of the park for where Krampus might’ve been keeping the children.
“Why here do you think?” I asked Sawyer, and the swans, too, if they cared to answer. “Why this park?”
He crossed his arms as he stared down at one statue, frowning. “Krampus has always had a weird fascination with kids. Eddie’s book said Krampus used to punish them before he was caught. There’s probably a psychological reason for it, maybe something to do with his brother, Santa. The park reflects that.”
I looked over at him, nodding. “Damn, Sawyer. You’re good.”
“Almost nine hundred years of human observation will do that.” He shrugged. “It’s why I’m good at my job. Humans are complicated, sure, but we all have the same basic needs.”
“Like love for one.”
He smiled as snowflakes collected on his long lashes. “Like love.”
“Is it weird to feel a little sorry for Krampus? He missed the mark so badly with these swans trying to make himself hot with kids’ blood, but he was trying. Trying to get love, when he couldn’t from somewhere else.” It was sad, really. No one should ever feel that alone, especially during Christmas.
Sawyer nodded. “I think it’s normal to feel sorry for him.”
“Maybe he just needs a hug. Not from me, though.” I turned back to the swan statue in front of me, then knelt on the ground with one knee pressed to the snow to get a closer look at the tip of its wing. “Sawyer?”
“Yes?” he said, crossing toward me.
I peered closer and then pointed. “What does that look like to you?”
He lowered his bulky frame n
ext to me, his movements just as graceful as the birds we studied. “A ring... A ring made of stone.”
“Yeah.” I stood and dusted myself off, keeping my ears peeled for any sound that shouldn’t be there. “Swans don’t wear rings.” I skated my gaze over the rest of the statues, catching on the rings fastened to their wings. Their left wings, all in the same position...almost like wedding rings.
Uh-oh. The devil had said that someone in his employ had helped Krampus escape and had made him seven rings. Had Krampus forced the rings on them, sort of like the devil’s marriage proposal he’d forced on me? From these swans’ positions and expressions, they weren’t happy. At first, I’d thought they looked terrified, but now... Maybe they were pissed. Maybe it had been the ring to turn them into stone long enough to keep them out of Krampus’s fur so he could collect the blood of seven children. Since the swans were supposed to turn Krampus to stone, maybe somehow the rings turned their magic back on them.
Tricky dick move.
In the distance, the ring of jingle bells sounded.
Sawyer and I whipped around.
“I’ll distract him for as long as I can so he can’t take another child,” he said and ran off toward the post office across the street.
“Don’t get eaten!” I called after him.
“You either,” he called back.
Didn’t plan on it. I started searching again, scouring the park through the falling snow. Sometimes I’d catch glimpses of Eddie and Jacek searching, too, as well as hear the sound of jingle bells, coming closer.
If I were Krampus, where would I hide the kids? I couldn’t even wrap my brain around the question, let alone the answer. I retraced the path Francisca had taken when she’d run away from Krampus. He’d been leading her behind the jungle gym, so that had to have been on the way to where he kept the rest of the kids. Or near it, at least. But, as I already knew, there was just snow-covered ground.
A light rush of blustery wind creaked the swings behind me, and as I turned, I saw something jutting up from the snow behind the line of trees to my left. One of the trees still lay on its side, its icy branches resting in a pile from our wrestling match. I strode closer to whatever poked out of the snow, which was two trees down from the fallen one.
The corner of a cinder block, almost a complete block of ice. Up ahead and behind the trees lay a whole stack of them, one on top of the other. Curious, I marched toward them, and when I neared, the thud of my boots vibrated up through my teeth. The ground here was different. Metallic.
I dropped to my knees and frantically started clearing the snow, then sat back on my heels as I stared down at a door. It was like one of those that led into a tornado shelter, or this was how I imagined those anyway. As soon as I touched the pile of cinder blocks, they sparked blue magic. Goat demon magic, if I had to guess. I flung the cinder blocks aside and then had a heart-to-heart with myself.
This isn’t the trapdoor like the one in the mausoleum back in Podunk City.
Doors are friendly now. I like doors.
What I find underneath won’t whither up my soul.
I snapped the thick lock free and threw it open. Then hurled myself backward with a yelp.
Stone eyes stared up at me out of a swan’s elegant, though huge, face from on top of a set of descending stairs. The seventh swan. Achievement unlocked.
I focused on my vampires’ bites all over me and sent them a message, “Found the swan.”
Maybe the kids, too, because she had to be here for a reason.
Lit multi-colored Christmas lights were wrapped around her bird body, which was odd. Her large wings were spread wide, reaching past the width of the inside of the entrance. I crept closer and slithered underneath one of them, worming my way past enough to see, hardening myself to what I might find.
The Christmas lights draped from the statue behind me and showed me everything.
“Belle!” Eddie shouted from up above.
I couldn’t find my voice to answer because there, clustered at the bottom of the stairs, were six children in coats and hats, all made out of stone. Alive? Dead? I had no idea. My eyes filled with tears.
The Christmas lights draped down from the swan’s wings and wrapped around them, as if in a protective cocoon.
The rings...
I gazed up at her left outstretched wing where a large crack bent it at a weird angle where the ring was.
The rings had turned the swans to stone, but Krampus wanted them alive to love him, so being turned to stone wouldn’t kill them. They were alive. This swan must’ve somehow escaped being turned to stone long enough to protect the kids, and then had turned them into stone so they wouldn’t freeze. She had wrapped the lights around herself and them. It was the same kind of thing as travelling as a group with Night’s Fall—we all had to be touching.
The swans were alive. So were the kids.
Quickly, I unwrapped the lights from around them as Jacek and Eddie clambered down the steps. The stone instantly faded from the kids’ skin and coats, their cheeks turned rosy, and their breaths puffed in the air as they began shrieking and crying.
I forced down a sob of relief and turned back toward the steps.
“You’re going to be okay,” Eddie said soothingly to them behind me. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Let’s take them to the police station,” Jacek said.
Once they’d scooped up three kids each and hightailed it out, I wadded up the Christmas lights and bounded up the stairs.
“You’re a genius, seventh swan,” I croaked out around the lump in my throat. “See you in a few.”
I concentrated on my bites and sent a quick message to Sawyer—“Almost ready for Krampus behind the trees.” Then I sprinted toward the six other swans, risking a glance across the street.
Sawyer and Krampus were leaping off the last building now and landed in the middle of the road, only thirty feet away.
Pausing only long enough to find one end of the Christmas lights, I circled around the statues, twining the lights around their necks, a wing, or a beak. Then, still gripping one end of the lights, I surged into the center of the circle, the six swans and I now touching via the lights.
Footsteps and hoof beats pounded toward me. Close enough that I could read every question in Sawyer’s eyes, see the falling snow piling up around Krampus’s tall horns.
I thrust Night’s Fall into the air and shouted, “To the seventh statue.”
Wings sprouted from the bird-sword. Darkness crushed in, and I was no longer standing in the middle of the statues. I existed in nothing but a black void, crushing the string of Christmas lights in my fist. Then Night’s Fall dropped me into existence again, dead center of all seven statues arranged in an almost perfect circle. Imperfect only because one of them still stood on a set of descending stairs.
From my view between the thick, icy branches, Sawyer hadn’t missed a beat. His surprisingly quick steps had altered direction with a smooth slide of his feet. Krampus followed, his angry growl rumbling through the air.
The trees were so icy and weighted down that I doubted Krampus could see what was waiting for him on the other side. Besides, he seemed laser focused on catching a fine piece of ass like Sawyer.
Ten feet away from the nearest swan statue.
I backed up slightly, waiting.
Five feet.
If this didn’t work for whatever reason, I was out of ideas.
Sawyer burst through the trees and into the circle between two statues. Krampus appeared next, then slowed, his eyes going wide, realizing too late where he was skidding.
I had no idea what was supposed to happen next, but I didn’t want Sawyer or me to be involved with it anymore. With my hand on the bulk of Sawyer’s arm, I dragged him from the circle.
The stone rings turned golden and sparked blue magic that quickly dwindled. The statues’ eyes glowed green instantly, all aimed at Krampus, even the one on the stairs. Stone came alive all over his body, crawling like gr
ay veins across his red eyes, webbing up over his tall horns, crackling down over his furry cloak. He froze mid-step. The bells on the hem of his cloak stopped mid-jingle.
He was turning into a statue, and as the stone continued to expand over him, it faded from the seven swans. White, downy wings stretched and flicked the golden rings to the snow. Their graceful necks arched, and their black eyes gleamed with Christmas lights and freedom. They were gorgeous, but also a little bit frightening because last time I’d checked, swans weren’t supposed to be bigger than I was.
The one on the stairs climbed up, her billed feet slapping the ground lightly, and bowed her head toward me. She was a little smaller than the rest, a little frailer, but she’d been the one to save the children.
“You did it,” Sawyer said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“We did it,” I reminded him, my gaze on the swan. “All of us.”
A loud “whoop” went up from about thirty feet away where Eddie and Jacek were striding toward us.
“Krampus is toast!” Jacek hollered.
The seven swans turned as one in the direction of the sound with barely a rustle of their feathers. Their beady eyes stared.
“So...” I cleared my throat, and when their attention was back on me, I nodded toward the statue of Krampus. “Thanks for that. Did you...enjoy your migration here?”
Stupid. I was terrible at talking to swans.
They weaved their necks back and forth, almost like a nod of agreement that I really was terrible at talking to swans. Their not-so-spindly legs carried them closer.
“Nice, pretty swans. We’re on your side, okay?” I stood to block them from my vamps, Night’s Fall raised, in case the swans did something weird.
Like now.
What the hell?
They were losing their feathers, not like dropping them to the ground, but turning them into smooth, human flesh with a silvery quality to it. Their bodies shifted into human shapes, still with long, graceful necks and perfect white hair that flowed over their very female, very naked skin.
Whoa. No wonder Krampus had fallen in love with them.
“The vampire slayer,” one of them said after she’d shifted, her voice like liquid sugar.
