by V. Vaughn
“They know you’re my mate. In our family, that’s enough.”
I’m not so sure. While it sounds as if the Robichaux clan is okay with human hybrids, I have to wonder if that’s because humans are one-dimensional. A shifter of a different breed may be a little tougher for them to handle. I flash to the scowls of Zander’s crowd, and the scent of smoke comes to mind as my stomach churns with nerves. Luke slows to a stop.
As we step out of the car, a girl opens the front door and barrels down the steps to throw herself in Luke’s arms. “Luke!”
He lifts her up and swings her around before he sets her back on her feet.
She rubs his head. “Nice ‘do.”
He steps away from her, and their attention falls on me. He steps beside me to put his arm around my shoulders and says, “Lucy, this is my mate, Holly.” I gaze at a girl with Luke’s coloring and intense blue eyes as he continues to speak. “Holly, this is my twin sister.”
I extend my hand to her. “It’s nice to meet you, Lucy.”
“You too, Holly. Great name for the season. I hope you love Christmas, because I sure do.” She frowns as her nostrils twitch. She tilts her head and glances at Luke. “What is she?”
He winks at me as he answers. “Cougar.”
She smiles at me as if what I am isn’t anything that concerns her in a negative way. “Oh boy, this should be interesting. I can’t wait to hear how you two met.”
Luke reaches behind me and squeezes my bottom. “Fate presented me with my mate, and I grabbed her before she could get away.”
I recall how I bent over to offer myself up to Luke, and I pinch his firm butt back as I say, “He couldn’t have lost me if he tried. I’m here, after all.”
Lucy asks, “Isn’t the mate attraction awesome? Come on in and meet the rest of your new family.”
New family. I glance around before we enter the spectacular home. I notice that my cat is purring with contentment, and I’m finally comfortable in my surroundings, even though they are foreign. I think fate has a plan for me.
When we step into the large entryway, Luke leans in close and whispers, “It feels great to be here with you.” He glances up over the doorway where mistletoe is hanging. He leans in and kisses me and our bond swirls through me like a ribbon in the breeze. When he pulls away Luke says, “This is where you belong. Where we belong. And finally, we’re going to have the Christmas we both deserve. I love you, Holly.”
I look up at my mate and melt in his heated gaze. Christmas magic. “I think you’re right. I love you too, Luke.”
I glance at the two people approaching us, who appear to be his parents. “Merry Christmas!” they say.
Their smiles are warm, and their words ring as true as holiday bells. And I know in my heart I’m where I should be. I turn to Luke and say, “I believe we’re home.”
If you want to read about Luke’s past, he’s in Tempted by the Bear.
For a limited time grab V.’s Bewitched by the Bear Complete Edition for just 99 cents!! (Sale good through the end of December 18)
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V. Vaughn lives on an island in Maine and spends as much time outdoors with her two Portuguese Water dogs as she can. She may have seen a bear or two….
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Dreaming of a Wolf Christmas - Elsa Jade
Bitten and changed—betrayed—by her high school sweetheart, Solange Domingo has spent the last twenty years denying her wolf…and her love. Now her grandchildren are celebrating their first Christmas, and her mate has returned to the little town of Angels Rest. Can the sweetness of the season melt away an old bitterness at last?
Dreaming of a Wolf Christmas
Elsa Jade
Copyright 2018 Elsa Jade
Bitten and changed—betrayed—by her high school sweetheart, Solange Domingo has spent the last twenty years denying her wolf…and her love. Now her grandchildren are celebrating their first Christmas, and her mate has returned to the little town of Angels Rest. Can the sweetness of the season melt away an old bitterness at last?
1
It was Christmas time, and so Solange Domingo cooked.
Actually, she cooked all the time. To be a cook was to always have an excuse. Need a Sunday away from church? Ah, must grind the walnuts for chile en nogada. Cue murmurs of understanding. Want to pop in on a friend for gossip? Ai! Grew too much squash, let me bring over some dried blossoms… Who could say no?
To be a cook was to need no one and yet always be wanted, especially while toting a Tupperware of macarons.
Fortunately, when raising twins and running a landscaping company, there was always someplace for the extra food to go. Besides her hips.
But the twins—Blaze and Easton—were grown now, both with women of their own who fed them. And Sunday Landscaping Inc. had grown too, from a small family-oriented business to a multi-city corporation too big even for her very nice kitchen.
This holiday time of year was harder, of course. Everyone was cooking and baking. People who couldn't tell the difference between a taco and a tort watched one season of the Great British Bake-Off and suddenly didn't have room in their bellies for the simple things. Worse, the health food craze had reached even this most remote corner of the Four Corners high plateau. Which was ridiculous.
But no one had ever accused Solange Domingo of excessive flexibility—she was proud of her sturdy heritages, both physically and culturally—plus, she was nearing forty-five years old, which was old enough to spurn any changes.
Anyway, she'd seen the devils in Angels Rest, and it wasn't butter or lard.
So she cooked. A week before Christmas Eve, she had the perfect excuse. The twins were coming home for dinner. Blaze had retrieved Easton and his girl from the airport in Albuquerque earlier in the day. A brief text had wormed through the notoriously awful cell interference in the Four Corners town of Angels Rest to tell her they were on their way, and they should be here—she checked the clock on the oven that was counting down until the roast was ready—any minute. The Domingo hacienda would be full of life again.
But when they left…
She crushed the thought like it was corn ground too coarse for her liking. She wasn't going to be sad before she was even happy. Although sometimes she wondered—
The oven timer beeped and she turned to it with a mutter of annoyance. She'd been lost in her useless thoughts when she could've been tossing the quinoa salad that she knew Easton’s girl had picked up a taste for at his California university.
Headlights swept through the living room curtains that she'd left pulled back to frame the late afternoon gloom, wanting to know the moment they'd arrived. Her heart jumped with a glee almost as bright, but she took a breath to settle herself before going to the front door. Wouldn’t want them to think she was lonely out here in the desert, far from the edge of town.
She was just missing them; certainly any mother could be forgiven for missing her children. Easton was so far away and busy teaching his classes, and though Blaze lived in town and worked every day for Sunday Landscaping, she’d stepped back in recent years to give him more authority with the crews. Maybe she'd have to start going into town more. But sometimes she looked around at half the townspeople, knowing their deepest, darkest secret, and the urge to scream bubbled up in her like too much yeast. Better for everyone if she stayed away.
She found her smile by the time she swung open the heavy double doors.
"Mom!" Easton enveloped her in a big hug, whirling her in a half circle while she laughingly kissed his cheek. "Feliz Navidad!"
"Almost Christmas," she chided. "We’re not opening presents yet, you."
"Coming home is the best present ever," he assured her. He'd always been the most like her. He liked
his food, as the strapping heft of his torso assured her, and he'd found a way out of Angels Rest, as she'd begged both boys.
Behind him, Blaze shouldered through the doorway, his arms burdened with bags. "Hey, Mom." He bussed her cheek as he passed. Though she'd seen him just a couple days ago at the shop when she was dropping off Christmas tamales and kneeldown breads, she couldn’t get enough of him.
Or her grandsons. “Say merry, merry to your abuelita, hijos,” Annie trilled, hefting the boys in her arms. She was a tiny thing—too blond and too skinny, especially considering she’d given birth only ten months ago. But she lifted the twins with easy strength, and her proud smile flashed with teeth that she’d use to defend her little family.
Minus the blond and skinny, Annie might’ve once been the very most like Solange. She wasn’t born to the secrets of Angels Rest.
Instead, she’d deliberately chosen the devils.
As Solange hugged the girl and the two squirming babes, she reminded herself that not every choice was free.
Of course, some never got a choice at all.
As the trio of young people bustled into the house, she stepped out onto the neat cobblestone pavers that fronted the hacienda. The circling arms of the courtyard blocked the worst of the winter wind, but still she shivered a little in her very ugly Christmas sweater. She’d knitted the horrible thing herself, with all its pom-poms and googly eyes and tiny decorative bells, knowing it would crack up the boys and entertain the babies.
Easton’s girl, Dena, was still sitting in the back of Blaze's extended cab. She was a tough country girl, born and raised, but the monster truck made her seem delicate as she sat with her eyes closed, her legs dangling out of the gaping door. The fringed ends of her ridiculously long scarf flitted below her knees. Solange knew it was a pattern from some science-fiction TV doctor—who, she couldn’t remember, since she’d never liked shows about monsters.
Dena’s face was tipped up to the last of the winter light, and the hazy, silvery glow gilded her sharp features like frost. For a moment Solange hesitated, not wanting to intrude on the solitary moment. But when had she ever let that stop her? If there was trouble between the couple, she wanted to know so she could set it right.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she sauntered past the low adobe walls of the courtyard and out to the half circle drive. "Did my son forget you out here? No cookies for him."
Dena grinned before she opened her eyes. The amber glint—startlingly gold in the hoary light—stopped Solange in her tracks.
Dena shook her head, not so much settling as rearranging the riot of brown curls on her head. "I told him I just needed a minute out here. Your patch of desert smells so good." She inhaled and held it. "Roast venison and chili rellenos." She sniffed again. "And snickerdoodles?"
"Churros," Solange corrected. "Most of the same ingredients, just arranged in a different way."
Dena laughed. "And fried. Everything is better fried." She gazed at Solange. "Thank you for feeding us tonight. East has been looking forward to this for months. He loves coming home."
That hadn't always been the case. Solange had told him to go, wanted him to escape the confines of Angels Rest when he could be so much more. Or maybe so much less, leaving half of himself behind.
But then he'd found Dena. Solange returned her daughter-in-law's steady gaze. She'd warned her son not to get involved with the sprightly local girl. But Dena had surprised her, moving easily between the vastly different worlds of little Angels Rest and the big-city university.
Solange herself had never mastered the technique.
"Thank you for bringing him back to me,” she said, “if only for a little while."
Dena tilted her head, fluffing her curls in a new direction. "You know, we have an extra bedroom in California. It's an easy walk to the ocean and backs to a nice open area. You can come anytime you like."
Solange glanced away. She didn't deserve this daughter, so easy, so loving. The least like her.
She dredged up a smile. "Maybe, one of these days." She held out one hand. "Come into the house where it's warmer."
Dena took her hand and slid down from the seat with a little grunt and a surprising lack of grace. When she straightened, Solange could only gape in shock.
With a little chuckle, Dena put her hand over the belly of her coat, which hadn't straightened when she did. The bump stuck straight out from her wiry body like she was smuggling all of Santa's burdens under her silly scarf. "Surprise, Mama," she said, a wary squint squeezing the gold out of her gaze.
Solange blinked hard. "Oh my, I didn't know." She tried to pull back but Dena tightened her grip, keeping their fingers locked.
"We didn't tell anybody," Dena said. "Last spring, we…lost a baby. Not very far along, but it still hurt." A shadow, like winter storm clouds, passed over her eyes, but was as quickly gone as any change of weather on the high desert plateau. Her wry smile returned. "East wanted to tell everybody once we were past the danger, but I guess I got a little superstitious."
Solange squeezed her hand. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Dena. And so, so happy for you and Easton now.”
To her even greater shock, Dena threw herself forward for a forced hug, ringing and then smothering the sweater bells. "We haven't told anyone except Blaze and Annie about the miscarriage," she murmured into Solange's shoulder. "I couldn't even tell my mom or aunties. I knew they'd be heartbroken."
Solange smoothed the flyaway hair out of her face, at least as much as she could. "And you thought I wouldn't be."
Dena pulled back, her eyes—just plain brown again—widening with chagrin. "I didn't mean—"
"It's all right.” Solange touched the girl’s cheek. “Sometimes you need someone to cry with you. Sometimes you need someone to scream."
Dana nodded slowly. "That's why I love you, Mama Domingo." Her irrepressible grin flashed again. "That and your cooking.”
Solange hugged her again and turned her toward the house. "Now let's go inside."
She ordered the boys to finish the meal, set the table, and watch the babies, while she and the girls drank spiced cider in the living room. She might come from Old World stock and live in an old-fashioned rural town, but even with the bad wifi signal she managed to download enough internet articles to know that successful modern marriages needed equitable division of labor. Or so she told the girls.
Annie laughed. "I don't mind being a stay-at-home mom to the twins and picking up a few shifts at the roadhouse every once in a while," she admitted.
Dena snickered. "But I notice you're not jumping up to go get the kiddos," she noted slyly.
Annie waved her cider in a magnanimous gesture. "I'm giving them all boy time," she declared.
Dena curled back in her seat, resting her glass on her belly. "I'm only having the one, I think." She rubbed her other hand over her Christmas sweater, which was properly ugly but no rival to Solange's. "And I feel that it's a girl. You think it's crazy for me to know that already?"
"A mother always knows," Annie said portentously. "And if she doesn't, she can look it up."
They laughed, and Solange smiled, though the warm cider inside her turned to icy slush.
When she'd been pregnant, she had no one to ask about the strange changes in her body. More changes, as if she hadn't already suffered enough. Realizing she was pregnant, knowing she would give birth to the next generation of monstrous secrets in Angels Rest hadn't delighted her—she been terrified. Not just morning sickness, but a nauseating horror of the creatures that would burst from her belly.
And back then, she hadn't even had Google.
From the kitchen, the boys—her very own monsters—called them to dinner, and she didn't have to think about that anymore.
Easton said grace and Annie opened her blouse to feed the twins. She rolled her eyes at Dena and Solange. "Not all labor can be divided equally," she murmured.
Blaze gave her a confused look. "Did I leave the toilet seat up again or somethi
ng?"
She made smooching noises at him over the twins' heads. "You are everything I ever wanted, mi fuego."
Solange's throat tightened so she could barely swallow the hot chilies. Whatever else she'd done or lost or feared, this was right: her children loving and beloved.
After dessert, when they would've stayed to do dishes, she shooed them off. "It’s late. I'd rather you got to town before I go to bed so I don’t sit up worrying about you.”
Easton kissed her cheek again. "We’re doing a round of all Dena’s relatives the next couple of days, but we'll be back for Christmas Eve. Don't make any more food," he scolded her. "We can just eat leftovers."
She nodded as she walked them to the door. "Of course, if that's what you want." Of course she had no intention of listening to him.
He scowled as if he'd heard the thought. She nudged past him to hook her elbow through Dena's. "Talk to your mother and your aunties, tell them what you told me," she urged. "The only thing that would break their hearts more is if they find out you needed them and they couldn’t be there for you." She stood back as Easton settled his hands on Dena’s hips and lifted her into the back seat. "Anyway, your people will know best about your baby.”
Dena bit at her lower lip. “You’re right.”
"I always am. Everything will be fine." The lie slipped so easily off her tongue, she felt as if she'd been practicing for it her whole life.
But Dena's wide, relieved grin was worth it. "Love you, Mama Domingo."
"Love you, fille de mon coeur." She reached across Dena to touch the cheeks of the slumbering, swaddled twins locked down in their car seats. "Love you all."
She stood back and waved as Blaze wheeled the big truck around the driveway. The lights of the Christmas tree framed in the living room window illuminated the courtyard, but the cheery glow couldn’t reach the shadows beyond the adobe walls.
