I laughed like he was joking but the heated looks the four of them were giving me said that they'd taken that remark a hell of a lot more seriously than me. Oh shit.
"Come on, bella, I want to see your face when you open my gift - it's clearly the best," Dante purred as he got to his feet and moved around the breakfast bar to stand beside me.
He took my plate from my lap and placed it on the counter behind me before plucking a cherry from it and pushing it between my lips. He grazed his thumb over my fangs as he drove it into my mouth and I moaned softly at the taste of his blood as I sucked on his thumb and he stole my attention from Ryder.
Ryder growled possessively, his hands sliding up my calves and onto my thighs as he fought to win me back to him and my skin heated as I found myself between the two of them, memories of our night in the hotel making me ache in all the right kinds of ways.
"You can save that for after presents," Leon announced loudly, shoving both of them aside so that Dante's thumb was tugged from my lips before Leon's hands closed around my waist and he hoisted me into his arms.
He carried me across the room and placed me in the big chair beside the fire right next to the Christmas tree. I looked up at the tree and took in the decorations for the first time, wondering if the guys had done that. They were cute and kinda reminded me of the tree we used to have at home. Mom just used to use her earth magic to grow one and we had a bunch of handmade paper decorations and glittery nipple tassels we stole from the club to hang on it. We had a box of glowing butt plugs that we used to use for Christmas lights too and I actually missed them now even though it had always seemed like a joke whenever we hung them up.
Gabriel stacked the plates in the sink and Leon shoved the other guys out of their spots at the breakfast bar, directing them all to sit down on the couch which they did with varying levels of enthusiasm. Ryder and Dante chose opposite ends of it, leaving Gabriel to sit between them.
"Why don't we make this more interesting?" Gabriel suggested. "You have to pick your favourite gift out of the four and the winner gets to have you alone for the night."
"No one's having her alone for the night, stronzo, haven't you been paying attention to Leon this whole time? He wants us to get along and learn to share her better, not come up with a schedule for taking turns,” Dante said.
"How about the winner gets a kiss?" Leon suggested with a smirk, clearly pleased that Dante was getting onboard with his plan here even if the others didn’t seem so inclined to be excited about it.
"Are we specifying where on the body we get to kiss her?" Ryder asked, his gaze dragging over my body as he devoured me with his eyes and I bit my lip at his suggestion.
"I'm not picking a favourite," I put in. "It will just cause arguments."
"Yeah, when you realise mine's the best and the others all suck, bella," Dante promised.
"Don't start arguing again or I'll get Elise to put you in the no sex naughty corner when we start going at it later," Leon warned and Gabriel laughed like he actually liked the idea of that. "Just grab a gift from under the tree, little monster, and let's get on with this."
I decided not to weigh in on the naughty corner nonsense and turned to grab the first gift out from under the tree instead.
It was a big box wrapped in red paper with a golden bow on top and a card stuck to the side.
I opened the card first and grinned at the image of a golden lion wearing a Santa hat on the front of it. The whole thing was covered in glitter that fell off of it to coat my lap and when I flipped it open, I found a poem waiting inside.
Roses are red and violets are blue,
Merry Christmas, little monster, I want to bone you.
"Wow, this is so romantic," I teased as I grinned at it, placing it on the table before opening the box.
The first thing I found inside was an envelope and I ripped it open to find a photograph of a beautiful wooden house on stilts standing over a turquoise sea with sun loungers outside it and a bridge leading up to it from the beach. It looked like a luxury honeymoon destination, the kind of place that people with money went to drink fancy booze and swim with dolphins. My gaze flicked up to Leon's as I tried to figure it out. "Are we going on vacation?"
"Better. I bought you that place. It's a vacation home, so we can go there whenever you like. And it’s on this sick complex with a spa and water sports and these amazing restaurants with every kind of food you could ever want. Plus it’s got a triple super king in the bedroom in case you wanna bring anyone else with us." Leon grinned excitedly.
"I...you...what?" My mouth fell open and I just gaped at him as I tried to take in what he'd just said. "You bought me a house?"
"Yeah," he said with a huge grin.
"Leon, no. I don't want it, it’s too much. I've never even owned a car-"
"Funny you should say that." Leon leapt out of his seat and bounded over to me, grabbing the next envelope out of the box which had a small parcel taped to it.
"What's this?" I asked nervously as he shook the parcel and it jingled at me. "Leon, I-"
"I know you didn't mate me for my money, little monster," he teased, leaning forward to nuzzle against my cheek before pressing his blazing hot lips to mine in a kiss that stole my breath. "But I do have money. A fuck ton of money which I worked damn hard to steal. And you're the only person I want to spend it on, so you can't say no."
He shook the parcel at me again and I glanced at the other guys, finding Ryder looking semi pissed, Gabriel schooling his features and Dante seeming amused in a resigned way.
I bit my lip and tore the parcel open, finding a car key like I'd guessed with the addition of a ring with five silver keyrings on it. I looked at them carefully, finding the constellations for five different star signs on each of them in diamonds. I didn't even ask if they were real diamonds because I was willing to bet they were. There had been this whole article in the papers a few weeks ago about a museum being robbed and their display of priceless aqua diamonds going missing and Leon had been suspiciously absent from our bed that night. Leo, Gemini, Scorpio, Capricorn and Libra. My kings' signs and mine all together like we were now, though the keyrings seemed to be more willing to cohabit than the real deal.
I tore open the envelope and stared at the stunning lilac Cadillac in the photograph. The roof was down and the sun was shining over the cream interior. It was fucking stunning. Like, my dream car if I’d ever dared to have dreams big enough to incorporate car ownership.
"I got them to give it a custom paint job," Leon said with a wink. "Though they didn't know what 'utterly fuckable lavender' looked like so I had to show them a photo of you."
"It's beautiful, Leon, but it's insane," I murmured as I stared between the picture of the house and car. I'd barely even owned any clothes when I came to the academy and now I was set for life. It was too much for me to even process.
"No, insane would be plucking a star from the sky and getting our names carved into it," he said as he reached into the box and pulled out the last gift with a smirk that almost made me blush. Fuck, he was so pretty it hurt to look at him sometimes.
I opened the box and a surprisingly heavy black meteorite fell into my palm, the names Leon & Elise carved into it and making my fingers tingle with magic as I traced them over it.
"That’s like, honest to the stars solid good luck you're holding, little monster," Leo said, in a low voice just for me as he reached out to tuck a lock of my lilac hair behind my ear. "Because you've had way too much bad luck in life and I want that to change for you more than anything in the world. I want you to know that I'm always on your side and fighting your corner and that I'll back you in anything and everything until the bitter end."
"Shit, Leo, you're gonna make me cry," I teased but in all honesty my heart was racing at his words and as I thought about them, I had to wonder if my luck had already changed. I never could have imagined spending Christmas with one man who loved me this year, let alone four of them.
"Let her open some
one else's presents or we're going to be sat here all day doing this," Ryder complained and as I glanced his way, I swear I caught Gabriel smirking but he wiped his face clear of the look quickly enough that I couldn't be sure.
Leon took his gifts from me and placed them on the coffee table as I pulled out the next gift which was wrapped in white paper. As I took the card from the top of it, I recognised Gabriel's cursive handwriting spelling out my name.
As I pulled it out, a brush of magic caressed my fingers and when I opened the card, a tumble of red and white rose petals cascaded into my lap, twisting to and fro until they spelled out the words Merry Christmas on the carpet before me. I smiled widely as I unwrapped the present next and my breath caught in my throat as I pulled out an exquisite snow globe created using water magic. The glassy orb which contained the water inside was actually made of permafrost which was freezing cold against my fingers and as I held it up to the light an impossible scene was revealed within it. A tiny little city constructed with earth magic and so full of detail that it looked real was awaiting me within the globe, thousands of real tiny snowflakes tumbling over it as I turned it back and forth. I'd rarely seen magic as delicate and detailed as this and I could hardly fathom the amount of skill it must have taken to design it. My lips parted as I spotted a little black Pegasus flying above the city with a girl with flowing blonde hair riding on his back as they flew away from everything, destined for freedom and a better life.
"Oh, Gabriel," I murmured as I just stared and stared at it, seeing more details everywhere I looked and marvelling at just how powerful he was. "I love it."
"Happy Christmas, little angel," he said in a rough voice and when I tore my gaze from my gift to look at him, the emotion I found in his eyes had my heart racing.
Dante muttered something about show offs before moving to pull his own gift out from beneath the tree and pass it to me.
I smiled at him as I carefully placed the snow globe down and accepted Dante's gift which was wrapped in green paper and had a sprig of mistletoe tied to the ribbon.
He smirked at me as he plucked the mistletoe from it, holding it above us before placing a kiss against the corner of my lips that left me aching for more. Three days without any of my kings was a long damn time and all of the testosterone in the room was making my libido get some seriously interesting ideas.
I opened my card first and grinned as I found a hand drawn picture of a sleigh with a lilac haired girl in a Santa hat being pulled through the sky by a navy blue dragon wearing reindeer antlers. There was glitter stuck to it which came off on my hands and inside there was a long note written in Faetalian.
"What does it say?" I asked him as I looked up from my card.
"It's utter filth," he replied with a teasing grin. "I'll whisper it in your ear the next time I'm making you come and you'll get the idea."
Ryder snorted irritably and my gaze fell over the words again as I tried to figure out the meaning. I was pretty sure he was lying to me though. Because I could decipher the meanings of several of the words and I had the feeling they were heartfelt, not dirty at all.
I unwrapped the gift and pulled out a glass jar which had been decorated with little Christmas drawings on the lid.
Ryder barked a laugh and Dante growled at him as I lifted the jar high and found a mini tornado trapped inside it, filled with lilac glitter that tumbled and whirled within the movement of the magic.
"I would have added lightning to it, if some stronzo hadn't locked my Dragon down for the last three days," Dante explained with a growl aimed at Leon. "And air magic may be good for a hell of a lot of things, but crafting is not one of them."
"I love it," I assured him, trying not to laugh at the scowl he shot Gabriel's snow globe.
"But," Dante went on. "I do happen to have something with me which I've wanted to give you for a while now anyway."
He took my hand in his and slipped the ring his father had given him from his finger before pushing it onto my thumb.
"In my family, when we give someone our heart, we give them something precious to us to prove to them how much they mean to us. This is the most precious thing I own and you're the person who can claim ownership of my heart, so it's only right I give this to you. Tu sei il mio intero mondo, Elise."
I stared at the ring on my thumb, running my finger over the initials M.O. for his father as I forced myself to accept it from him, knowing it would offend him if I tried to refuse even though the meaning behind that gift made my heart patter with emotions so strong they overwhelmed me.
"Ti amo, Dante," I breathed as I looked into his honey brown eyes. "I'll treasure it."
He smiled so broadly that it made my soul sing with pleasure and Ryder released a frustrated breath as he waited for me to turn my attention to his gift.
Dante grabbed it for me and dropped it in my lap with a taunting smirk. "The snake clearly didn't know how to wrap a gift, bella," he teased before moving away so that I could inspect my last present and I sucked in a breath as I found it wrapped in a pillowcase.
I shot out of my seat as tears stung the backs of my eyes and all the memories of Gareth leaving me Christmas gifts wrapped in his pillowcase came flooding in on me at once. I'd been trying not to think about him since I’d gotten here, focusing on this completely different take on Christmas so that my grief didn't colour this day too much, but that wasn't right. Of course I should be thinking about him, and remembering the things like this that he did for me to make me smile and show his love for me was exactly what I needed. And Ryder had known that. He'd felt my pain when I'd told him that story and he knew it well enough to know that I should feel it today.
I dropped the pillowcase onto the couch beside Ryder as I pounced on him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him hard as I fell into his lap.
His hands came around my waist the moment he got over the surprise of my fast arrival and he growled hungrily as he kissed me back with the taste of pain and heartache on his tongue and a thousand promises on his lips. Ryder knew the darkest, most broken pieces of my soul in ways that I wasn't sure anyone else ever could, because he had that kind of ache and darkness in him too. It wasn't just about grief, it was about survival, learning to adapt to the person you were after the worst had already happened and accepting that the person you used to be was gone now. He felt the need in me to move on, but he understood better than anyone that I needed to be sure I didn’t forget either. I loved Gareth in a way that would never fade, or falter. It was irreplaceable and unfathomable and irrevocably a part of who I was and I never wanted to forget that, no matter how much it hurt to remember sometimes.
I was half tempted to rip his clothes off of him right then and there and bathe in all the heartache that echoed between us as we soothed each other's aching souls, but he pulled back before I could do it.
"I know I've already won the contest for which gift is best," Ryder said, looking way too fucking pleased with himself as he peered up at me. "But maybe you should actually open it, baby."
"Why the fuck has he won with something tossed in a pillowcase?" Dante demanded.
"It's something Gareth used to do for me every year," I explained, turning to him with tears in my eyes as I grabbed the pillowcase gift again.
"That's something you might know about her if you actually listened to her rather than just trying to stick your cock in her at every moment, Inferno," Ryder taunted and I swatted him on the chest to tell him off.
"Don't be an ass. Dante knows things about me that you don't too."
"Just not any that could help him out when it came to getting you the perfect gift."
Dante growled and I pushed out of Ryder's lap with my pillowcase gift in hand as I moved back to my own chair. "I love all of my gifts," I insisted. “The pillowcase just has its own kind of special place in my heart."
I gave my attention to its contents as Dante continued to look pissed off over the whole thing and Gabriel exchanged a loaded glance with Ryder. Le
on looked like he was having the time of his damn life and I almost laughed at how ridiculous this whole thing was.
The first gift I pulled out of the pillowcase was Ryder's sweater, the scent of him lingering on the black fabric and making me smile even wider at the nod to Gareth's first pillowcase gift to me. Beneath it, I found a wooden box with my name carved into it, clearly crafted using his earth magic.
I carefully lifted the lid and gasped as a flower bloomed to life inside it the moment it was open. As the flower grew, the stem reached up towards me and a black rose blossomed in the centre of it, the petals opening to reveal a bracelet laying inside it.
I lifted it out carefully, inspecting the woven vines which had been hardened like leather and finding little grey stones nestled amongst them. One had the Aquarius constellation marked on it and another had the letter G, the next a little Pegasus flying through the clouds. A darker vine amongst the bundle had words faintly marked along its length.
Some loves leave a scar on your heart which you never want to heal.
I almost started crying again at the beauty of the gift, loving the fact that he'd given me something that I could remember Gareth with every day in such a beautiful way. I slipped it over my wrist on the same hand as the ring that Dante had given me and when I looked up at my kings, I found the two of them regarding each other with a quiet kind of respect in their eyes.
The silence grew thick and heavy around us and my gaze scoured over the four of them as I wondered what we were supposed to do now. I'd never exactly had many traditions growing up, so I wasn't sure how other people tended to fill Christmas Day.
"What now?" I asked as the rest of them didn't seem inclined to say anything.
"Now I think it’s time we find out if this little bonding exercise has really worked," Leon said, his gaze falling down my dress and landing on my bare thighs as he got that look in his eyes which always ended up with both of us being naked.
"And how do you plan to test that?" I asked.
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