“Know what?” Rudy tilted his head at me.
“The eat me and drink me… the magic,” I stressed when he stared blankly at me. “That they could protect me.”
“What are you talking about?” Hare rubbed his ears, his eyes glazing over.
I pinned Rudy with my eyes. He knew. I know he did, but he only stared at me like I was a Martian.
“You did cut it a little close.” Scrooge shifted, his leg skimming me as he stretched, leaving it pressed into my side.
“Well, it was very last minute. A lot needed to be worked out.” Smoke curled around Rudolph as he went between smoking and chewing on the actual leaves.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely happy you were there. But I’m also curious how you knew we had been taken?” Scrooge lowered his lids on his friend.
“You are not the only one with sources who see.”
“Don’t start the ‘he sees you when your sleeping, knows when you’re awake’ bullshit,” Scrooge snorted, gulping down the liquid. I couldn’t stop licking my lips, wanting more of the drink. It made me feel I was wrapped in a warm delicious blanket of happiness.
Rudy flipped the last bit of his joint into the fire. “You are all safe.” He rose up swiftly, his eyes on me. His timbre was even, but he had a directness to his gaze that fixed me to the floor. “I will retire for the night.”
Like the smoke still hovering around his antlers, I felt his declaration slink around me, telling me it meant more. Everything he said I felt there was so much he wasn’t saying.
“O-kay.” I watched him.
He continued to stare at me.
“You can go, Venison. We’re fine out here,” Scrooge growled over the lip of his bottle.
Rudolph took another beat, his concentrated gaze rolling over me. Then he nodded and bounded to one of the doorways, disappearing into the dark room, the door shutting behind him.
Hare let out a sharp laugh, wagging his head.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Hare chuckled. “But haven’t you ever seen two dicks lock horns?”
Chapter 15
Popping and snapping, the blaze danced in the fireplace, casting a trance. Hare continued to snicker in the chair before Scrooge barked at him to be quiet. The heat and pressure of his leg still brushed against my side, but I ignored the dancing sugarplums in my stomach; the hyper-awareness his presence drenched the room in suffocated me.
“I almost had my head chopped off today.” A crazed snicker gurgled up my throat as I still stared at the fire. “That’s a first.”
“Not for me,” Hare muttered, smacking his mouth as he took another swallow.
“I saw her necklace…” I cuddled the half-empty bottle to my chest, pulling in my legs. “She was the one who took your foot, huh?”
Scrooge stiffened next to me as Hare scowled, his attention going down to his absent foot, wiggling the stub up and down.
“Yeah. The twisted bitch took it all right.” He sighed, his forehead wrinkling, appearing lost in the memories of the past. “Wears it as a good luck charm… a taunt and warning to me and others. I guess I was lucky it was all she took that day.”
“It’s hot in here.” Scrooge bolted up, ire crunching up his shoulders to his ears. “Need some air.” He stomped out the front door, fastening it with a harsh click.
My mouth parted, staring after him, then I slowly looked back at Hare. “What was that about?”
Pain flicked over Hare’s face before he shook it off, moving himself higher into the chair. “That day I lost my foot, but he lost much more.”
I tried to swallow, a lump expanding in my throat.
“He watched all of us being tortured.” Hare flicked his chin to the sleeping forms on the sofa. “Punishment for him defying her.”
Sorrow pricked behind my lids as I looked over at Dee, Dum, and Penguin. Their scars were so deep and horrific; I couldn’t imagine the pain they endured getting them. Half of Dee’s face was so marked it was now deformed. To watch the people you care about being tortured because of you… the weight of the guilt he must endure was inconceivable.
“My foot is nothing in comparison…” Hare slipped back into the curve of the chair, his good foot bobbing at the edge of the seat. “What he carries with him every second every single day is so much worse.”
“I can’t imagine,” I whispered. I barely knew this group and I already felt deep ties to them. I knew there wouldn’t be anything I wouldn’t do for them.
“No, you can’t.” Hare shook his head. He paused for a few moments. “She didn’t just force him to watch us being tormented… but his wife and kid too.”
“What?” I gasped, pain ripping over my chest. Scrooge had a wife and kid? “How? Why?”
“That’s his story to tell. He’ll probably want to take my other foot for telling you what I have.” Hare took a slug, the liquid hazing his irises. “The point is: I’ve known him a long time, and since he lost them, he’s been angry, aloof, vacant. Full of hate and bittiness. Stingy and cruel. Not that he wouldn’t do anything for us. I know he would.” Hare motioned to the group next to me. “We all would. We’re family. But he died with them that day.”
My throat closed, a single tear escaping from my lashes. Mrs. Claus murdered his wife and kid? Holy shit… I understood she was twisted, enjoying death like a sick high. But a child? Innocence, joy, and love, the child represented everything Christmas was supposed to be.
“You are the first spark I’ve seen in him in a long time,” Hare slurred and slipped farther down, his lids lowering.
“Me?” I held the bottle tighter to me, trying to hold back the emotion in my chest. “I doubt that. How old was his kid? When did this happen?”
Silence echoed my questions, Hare’s whiskers wiggling, his mouth parting.
“Hare?”
Nothing.
“Hare?”
A sputtered snore emanated from him. Out cold.
“Of course.” I slumped back into the sofa, surrounded by slumbering forms. Absently I rubbed my chest, as if it had been cracked open. Scrooge’s story went far deeper than I ever expected, and deep in my gut, I knew there was so much more. My head filled with endless questions, wanting to know everything about him.
Since the moment I met him, I had been irrevocably drawn him. His touch, his presence, filled every molecule of space. His voice called me back when I had almost slipped away from the fever.
My neck craned to stare out the picture window. Shadows from the trees flicked across the glass, streaks of moonlight casting down on the white snow. I couldn’t see him out in the night but could feel him as though I had been spelled.
He had been in love, had a child, a family. As sick as it was, a tiny piece of me was jealous of this revelation. That he had loved someone else so deeply… probably still did.
My wobbly legs pushed up, ambling for the door without thought, the need to be near him taking over my intoxicated mind.
Stepping out into the temperate weather, I still gripped his shirt tight to my frame, my toes sinking into the snow. It seemed odd there was no coldness to the snow or breeze to the night. Or the fact it was always night. Was there ever day here? Did they ever see the sun?
My legs moved, my gaze scanning the shadows. I followed an unspoken pull as I rounded trees and bushes, heading to the stream.
“Looking for something, Ms. Liddell?” His voice cut from the dark, making me jump with a gasp. An outline of a man leaned against a tree; his blue eyes flickered with light, like an animal caught in headlights.
“Holy Christmas cookies!” I patted my chest. “You scared me.”
He tilted his head, his gaze sharp on me. Something had shifted, squashing the air in around me. “You can’t be scared of something you were seeking.” His voice lowered until it rumbled with a carnal tone. His body curled, stalking me.
Daring and perilous. The wild beast I had seen earlier scratched under his skin, demanding to get out
, animating his posture. He inched forward; a hunter ready to strike his prey. “Tell me… what were you hoping for once you found me?”
Everything screamed at me to run, to turn around and head back to the cabin, but I couldn’t get my body to oblige. “N-Nothing.” I stepped back, my heart thumping in my ears.
“Really?” He licked his lips. “Hare told you about my unspeakable past.” It wasn’t a question. “So now you think you know me? Want to save me?” He advanced, causing me to stumble back more, my tailbone hitting a tree, halting me. Brutally his gaze sliced down my frame. I felt as if he were stripping away the little clothing I had left. The man who had walked out of the cabin was no longer; this guy was feral and dangerous. And all it did was make my thighs pulse; hot need lacing with fear stretched and folded every nerve ending. “You came out into the night, searching for me, dressed only in my shirt, smelling of me… and you want nothing? Please, Ms. Liddell, I think you can come up with something better than that. I can feel the need coming off you. Your body is craving for me to touch it again.”
The bark of the tree dug into my scalp as I locked my gaze with his, showing he would not intimidate me. If that was all I was feeling, I could have handled it myself and demanded him to move away. My body ached for him, to pull him into me, feeling every inch of him pressing into my figure. To feel him inside… losing my mind as he pounded into my body.
As if every dirty image displayed over my face, his eyes flashed with desire as he arched an eyebrow. He moved in closer, his hips pushing into me, setting my skin on fire. My mouth parted for oxygen.
“That’s what I thought.” He smirked, his mouth only inches from mine. I wanted nothing more than for him to close the distance. His fingers grazed my blazing cheeks, his voice harsh. “How hard and deep do you want me to fuck you, Ms. Liddell?” I sucked in deeply as longing submerged me in a whirlwind. “For everyone to hear you scream?” He pushed into me, rolling his hips, his hard length grinding into me through the thin layers between us. I hissed, my body overflowing with desperate need, though I could feel a streak of maliciousness. Hate. As though he wanted to punish me for something. “Is. This. What. You. Wanted?” He crushed his hips into me again, going slow enough the warmth and friction of his pants spun my head with lust.
Never in my life had I felt such annihilating desire for someone, where no part of me didn’t need this like a drug. I got caught up and jumped into a lot of relationships and sex because it felt good in the moment, but this wasn’t even in the same universe. A single touch from him set my blood boiling, rendering me numb to the reason I came out here at all.
“You want to fuck me, Ms. Liddell?” Violence vibrated in his voice. Grabbing my wrists with one hand, he pinned them above my head, moving closer into me, staring at my mouth hungrily. His other hand slid down my neck to my chest, stopping where the buttons clasped the white dress shirt together at my breasts. He licked his lips, a crazed glint in his eyes. “Want me deep inside you? Fucking you completely senseless?”
The word yes stuck in my throat, the craving so deep I couldn’t even speak, as if his touch short-circuited any logic I had into puree.
His fingers jerked down the shirt, popping the buttons off, raining them over the ground like snowflakes. The shirt fell open, exposing my heaving chest, my black bra, and underwear. My skin flushed with electricity. Desperation.
A growl climbed into the back of his throat, his eyes turning even more turbulent. A clash of desire, ire, and loathing combated over his expression. A warning flared somewhere in my brain, telling me to stop, but it was drowned out by everything storming inside.
“Is this what you came out here for?” he demanded, his fingers digging harder into my wrists, his other hand gliding between my breasts. My skin shivered at the feel of his skin touching mine. His eyebrows furrowed, his nose flaring, his chest hauling in clipped breaths of air. “Tell me, Alice.”
Stop this. He had a wife and kid. They were murdered in front of him.
I bit down on my lip, the battle between my body and mind leaving a gapping chasm, quaking my bones.
“Because I will gladly give you what you want.” His hand curved over my hip, pushing it back into the tree. “I will fuck you so hard and thoroughly you’ll explode into particles, not existing in any realm.” He fiercely ground into me, rage and need flashing in his eyes. “But that’s all you will be. All you could ever be. A fuck,” he seethed. “You want to screw a shell, Ms. Liddell? It’s all that’s left of me.”
With a whoosh, reality dumped ice water on me, jerking me back with a slap. I heaved in, my limbs stiffened, and my mouth twisted with revulsion. Anger at his crude words and absolute disgust with myself overwhelmed me.
“Get off.” I shoved his chest.
Without a fight, Scrooge stepped back; a vicious smile curved his mouth. “Is that a no?”
“Fuck you.” I glared at him, flames of rage licking my spine.
“Now you’re sending mixed signals.” He tipped up his brow, cruelty skimming his voice. “Rudy would be more than welcome to let you into his bed. He was offering, if you didn’t get it. You could always try there.”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to respond. Hurt and embarrassment corroded in my stomach, turning to abhorrence. I whipped around, wrapping the torn shirt against me, marching across the snow back to the cabin, trying to ignore the prick of emotion stabbing the back of my lids and throat.
“I warned you, Ms. Liddell. I am the last thing you should ever trust. You’ll only end up regretting it.”
I twisted around, loathing my shaking limbs. “I already do.”
I stomped into the small cabin. The hum of slumbering figures still danced around the space, the fireplace the only light over the room, flicking across their outlines. My teeth sawed into my bottom lip, fighting back the tears wanting to spill, the humiliation reeking from me.
Anger at myself and him stacked in my chest as a wall built around me. How could I be so stupid? I had just heard about his family being killed, and what did I do? Practically beg him to screw me against the tree. What had I gone out for? Was it to comfort him, or was it to slip under his skin, become something he hungered for, craved, like I did him? To mean something to him?
Heartlessly, he made it clear where I stood. A place I promised myself I would never be again. So many times I had let myself believe a man cared for me more than he did, only to be crushed under his feet as he walked off with another woman. Or the times I leaped into a relationship only to find myself bored and restless, wandering away like a lost child, seeking the next shiny object.
I would not be that girl again. I was a strong independent woman. I didn’t need a man, but my impulsive nature always had me jumping in before I looked. Falling too fast and loving too short.
You don’t even belong here, Alice. You need to find a way home and leave all this behind.
Telling myself all this didn’t seem to take away the sorrow fastening to my heart. Moving around the sofa, I crawled down on the rug, every ounce of my mind and body drained of life. Curling into a ball, I wrapped my arms around my legs, losing myself in the pirouetting flames inside the hearth, letting a few tears slip out, before sleep lowered my lids.
My mind was drifting into slumber when I heard the door open and close, footsteps walking toward me. My lashes stayed cemented together, exhaustion claiming me with a fierce grip, tugging me into a dream world.
As I slipped away, I could have sworn I felt him touch my face. “Hating me is the only way, Alice, because I can’t allow what I truly want.”
Chapter 16
My lids peeled open. I blinked several times, trying to understand where I was. My face was pressed into a fluffy sheepskin, my bones ached with soreness, and my coiled-up frame was dressed in a ripped dress shirt. Memories of the night before rushed in like a movie, every bizarre, horrifying, humiliating detail. Shit on tinsel. I was still here. This was real. No delicious smells of coffee or breakfast wafti
ng up to my room. No sister running and jumping on my bed. I hadn’t awakened in my bedroom at home thinking about the crazy dream I had, telling my sister Dinah about it while we drank coffee and munched on Mom’s pancakes.
My stomach growled with thoughts of food, and my head pounded from downing half a bottle of that amazing liquid last night. A fire flickered over the shadowy wooden cabin. Rudolph’s cottage. Hare, Penguin, and the twins still snoozed, but low voices in the kitchen caused me to lift my head. The cover that draped over me slid to the floor. Reaching out, my fingers felt the soft velvet maroon fabric.
Scrooge’s jacket.
A frown creased my forehead. He covered me with his jacket? Why would he do that? I was pretty sure he made his stance clear. This was a kind gesture, conflicting with the cruel line he firmly set between us.
“We’ve run out of choices,” Scrooge’s voice clipped. I jerked my head to the two forms standing in front of the small dining table, the darkness and the chair concealing me from view. Two shirtless men faced each other, their physiques equally toned and built, their heights almost matching, but they were nowhere near the same to me. I could feel Scrooge’s pull as if I were a puppet.
“No,” Rudy responded, his antlers shaking.
“I will do this with or without you.” Scrooge’s voice was layered with annoyance and determination. “But it has to be done.”
My curiosity slid me closer. What were they talking about?
“You think it will be that easy?” Rudy tipped his head to the sofa, freezing me to the spot. “They won’t let you. They’ll try to stop you.”
“I’ll be long gone by then.” Scrooge rubbed his head.
What? He was leaving? Running from us?
“You don’t know where. And I will not tell you.”
“Yes, you will. If you care about them, about her, you will.”
Rudy folded his arms over his chest. “Tell me you aren’t doing this for her?”
“No.” Scrooge gritted his teeth. “She’s some girl I don’t even know, nor will she be staying here much longer if I can help it. I’m doing this for them.”
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