This sweetly spicy romantic comedy will make you laugh and cry as these unlikely lovers discover how hot a Christmas fire can get.
Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
CHAPTER ONE
Örlogskapten Theodor Lindorm allowed himself to be pushed about as his mother adjusted the sweater she had been knitting for him. Long pins at the shoulder and her curved knitting needles threatened to puncture him. He gritted his teeth and endured while she fussed and scolded.
Anna Lindorm smacked him when he tried to fold his arms across his chest. “Do stand still.” Her hands smoothed the rippled wool. “Your shoulders are broader than when I measured you in March,” she muttered. “Have you been working out?”
Theo chuckled. “The Navy expects me to stay fit, Mamma.”
Lady Severn clucked absently. She settled the sweater across Theo’s back. “I think you’re taller too.”
“Comes with the territory. Haven’t you always said that Papa didn’t stop growing until he was forty?”
Mamma’s voice was muffled by the four straight pins between her lips. She moved him once more and tugged gently at the neckline. “I’m going to have to cut this open and give it a collar. I do wish you and your brothers would stay the same size for twenty minutes together.”
“Then you shouldn’t have married a dragon shifter.”
“The sleeves are not going to sit right. The armholes are too small.”
Theo yanked the bunching sweater down over his flat stomach. “It seems fine to me,” he murmured. “Even if the sleeves are a little short.”
“Stop that. I’m going to have to knit day and night to get it done for Christmas,” his mother scolded.
“If it’s not done by Christmas Eve, my life will be over,” Theo said in a falsetto. “It’ll completely spoil my Christmas if my sweater isn’t finished.”
“Don’t you be sarcastic with me. You can take it off now – be careful not to let any stitches drop.” Anna pulled the sleeves down over his forearms and set them aside. “I’ll try to finish it before your furlough is over.”
Theo’s reply was mangled by a couple of pounds of dark blue wool that caught on his shoulder-length hair and bushy beard. “Thank you for making me a sweater, Mamma,” he said solemnly. “I’m the envy of my comrades.”
“I thought it was your socks they envied,” Anna’s good humor was restored.
Theo regarded his size seventeens which were encased in hand-knitted black socks. “That too. There’s nothing like real wool socks, and there’s nothing better than ones that are long enough.” He lifted his mother up to his face and kissed her on both cheeks. “I’m a lucky devil. Thank you, Mamma.”
“Your Uncle Thorvald wasn’t happy that you didn’t come to his house party,” she said out of nowhere once she was on her feet again.
“The Eldest said nothing to me at Chrissy’s wedding – or when he gave me instructions in September,” Theo pointed out.
“Well, of course not. He was busy at the wedding. And he had Guild business to discuss in September.” Anna held up one hand. “I know,” she continued, “that you don’t want to discuss how your cousin Lars found his bride. But I fail to see why, if a widower can find a second fated mate, you cannot find your first.”
Theo shrugged. He knew Mamma meant, ‘Why didn’t you grab Nicole for yourself?’ He tried to explain. “Lars was incredibly fortunate. And Nikki is a wonderful woman. But she was not my destined bride.”
“I wonder,” Mamma continued, “If it is not time for you to widen your net?”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe you should look at some older women,” she suggested with a scarlet blush.
Theo smiled behind his beard. He guessed that by ‘older women’ Mamma meant ‘not-a-virgin’. He raised his eyebrows at her. “I don’t think I’m ready to abandon the idea of having a family, just yet.”
Firelings were important to him. He didn’t know if children weren’t a possibility, if marriage was worthwhile. Dragon shifters could only get dragonesses pregnant. Lars had been lucky beyond believing to find a widowed dragoness. Theo was still seeking a virgin to turn.
“Maybe you are being too fussy,” she continued.
Theo bit back a sharp reply. “All I want is my fated mate,” he said. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all. But maybe your fated mate is not one of your Aunt’s pretty virgins.”
“Probably not. Aunt Inge’s nieces get younger every year.”
Anna chuckled. “They do not. You get older. But the Van Waals girls are not the only source of virgins in the world.”
“I know. And I have looked, Mamma, believe me.” Theo sighed. “Lady Drake has introduced me to any number of tender young women.” He shook his head. “Nice girls, but not mine. I have never met any woman I wanted for a lifetime. Maybe I am just destined to be an old bachelor.”
“Thirty-four is not old,” she scolded.
“I’m thirty-five,” he reminded her dryly. “I declared my Mate Hunt when I was twenty-five. That’s a long time to be on the hunt.”
“Not really.” Anna cleared her throat. “If you aren’t interested in women,” she said, “Well, your father and I just want you to be happy.”
“That’s not it either, Mamma. I just haven’t met the right woman.”
“When you do, you bring her home, son.” Anna squared her shoulders. “Even if she’s an older woman.”
“I love you too, Mamma.” Theo went whistling on his way.
* * *
“We’ll go after breakfast.” Lord Severn’s affectionate glance took in his entire family.
“We need a taller tree this year. Twenty feet will be about right,” Lady Severn announced. “But not too big around. I want a slender tree.”
“If we get a twenty footer, it will scrape the ceiling in the sitting room – and be twenty feet around,” Theo objected.
Anna nodded absently at her eldest son’s words. “The star should just miss the ceiling. We need plenty of room for the ornaments. Christina and I went shopping in Oslo.”
Across the table, Theo locked eyes with his only sister. “I might have known you were to blame.”
Christina chuckled and nudged their nephew who was next to her. “Do you remember last year, Leo?”
Leo’s round blue eyes got even more round. He wriggled on his booster seat and only his aunt’s swift grab saved him from falling. “We cut down the biggest tree.” He banged his spoon on the table.
His mother captured his flailing wrist. “Spoons are for eating,” Ingrid Lindorm said softly. She removed her hand from her son’s smaller one. “Are you ready to finish your porridge?”
“Yes!” shouted the four-year-old.
“Sorry,” mouthed Leo’s father Victor, across the table to his mother. He winked at Theo who grinned back. Leo’s antics never failed to delight him.
Anna’s blue eyes twinkled. “Only people who have eaten all their porridge can come with us. If you don’t eat your breakfast, Leo, you won’t have the strength to chop down a Christmas tree.”
Her grandson returned to his bowl of mush with renewed energy and began shoveling it in as fast as he could. Now it was Anna’s turn to silently apologize to his parents.
“All the trees on this island seem so huge, how do you find one that’s only twenty feet tall?” asked Christina’s husband Ivan Sarkany. “Do you have a special plantation?”
“Not exactly, although we are always planting.” Lord Severn wiped his mouth. “But we’ve been scouting out the best trees for months. We put tags on the ones we thought most beautiful back in the summer. So today we only have to decide which one will make the best Christmas tree.”
“I haven’t been out in the forest since March,” Theo said.
“That’ll give the rest of us a head start,” Christina cut in merrily.
“Yes, but,” began Gunnar, the youngest of Anna and Severn Lindorm’s children. Whatever he had been g
oing to say, his uncertain bass was smothered by its abrupt transition to reedy treble. He ducked his red face and concentrated on eating.
“It’s a family tradition, Ivan,” Christina explained. “We all want to be the one to find our tree.”
“So it’s a contest?” Ivan looked around at his in-laws. He reached for Christina’s hand.
“Certainly not,” said Anna serenely. Her placid murmur was drowned out by raucous laughter.
Christina patted her husband’s knee. “We Lindorms are a touch competitive.”
The room rocked with the laughter of happy dragons.
It was good to be home, Theo decided. Good to see his parents. Victor and Christina were obviously happy with their fated mates. Victor and Ingrid’s new son was asleep in his cot. Their eldest son was as sturdy and naughty a fireling as had ever borne the Lindorm name. Christina was glowing in her first pregnancy. Ivan adored her. Gunnar had grown another six inches. There was nothing to compare with being surrounded by family.
Only he, the eldest son, was still unmarried and unmated. He and little Gunnar. It looked as though his fourteen-year-old baby brother and his nephews were all the children he would ever have. But it was Christmastime, and he needed to put his private disappointments away and join wholeheartedly in the family rituals.
They gathered in the back hall of the sprawling house to put on their winter coats. Leo was coaxed into his puffy red snowsuit and padded gloves. Ingrid announced that she was staying home with little Thorvald. The rest of the family went laughing and chattering into the white and frozen beauty of Severn Island.
Theo drew in the frigid air delightedly, enjoying the smell of pine trees and ocean. The scent of home. After months at sea, being here was a treat. He loved Severn Island, even in winter when the wind blasted off the freezing waters of the Gulf of Bothnia, and snow lay waist high. The Gulf and the archipelago that made up Severn Island or Islands, lay between Sweden and Finland, a dragon-shaped cluster of hills and rocks that had been a Lindorm refuge since the Middle Ages.
In front of him, his father and mother immediately began to fill the crisp air with song. Everyone joined in. Even Gunnar, who couldn’t trust his changing voice, bellowed out the familiar carols and, in forgetting his self-consciousness, achieved a powerful baritone. The songs they were singing were new to Leo, but his piping treble did its best. Theo added his bass as counterpoint, as the family entered the wooded ridge of the island, where the deep snow changed to a mere dusting over a springy carpet of brown pine needles.
Four-year-old Leo was riding on Victor’s broad shoulders. His clutching hands threatened to pull his father’s hat off. Leo only stopped tugging at the tassel to knock snow off passing tree branches. Anna and Severn walked behind their son and grandson, amused by his mischief.
Ivan stalked watchfully behind his wife. Despite her pregnancy, Christina was moving briskly, dodging tree roots and stepping across holes dug by animals. But Ivan was plainly alarmed by the uneven trail. Lord Severn nudged his arm and shook his head once. Correctly interpreting this to mean that he shouldn’t offer assistance that would be resented, Ivan kept his hands off his bride and his eyes on the terrain.
Theo brought up the rear, keeping his eyes peeled for the perfect tree. The song of a trilling redstart lured him off the path and into a grove of trees he did not recall. This wood seemed to have sprung up overnight – although the trees were too tall and large for that to be the case. He stood amidst the column-straight grove, unaware that he had abandoned his family.
These tall trees were wind-defyingly straight-limbed and symmetrical. Theo couldn’t believe that the others had missed them. He had only to choose the loveliest specimen, and he would have won before lunch.
The hush was absolute. Peaceful delight and happiness filled him. He neither saw nor heard his noisy family. Not a bird called. Earlier he had seen the distinctive red plumage of several pairs of pine grosbeaks, and heard a redstart. Now, not even their fluting calls disturbed the silence.
He got his hand-ax out and, without giving the others a second thought, set to work on a blue-green beauty. The trunk was bigger around than his two hands could span but he had no doubt that he could manage it on his own. There were advantages to being over six feet eight inches tall and being built like Viking warrior. His ax bit cleanly into the trunk of the tree and he soon had to unzip his parka as he warmed up.
Something fierce stung him behind his ear. He batted it away absently. He notched one side of the trunk deeply, before circling to the opposite side. With a shriek like a man in pain, the conifer fell neatly between the other trees – precisely where he had intended it to fall. Theo tied a rope to the trunk and tucked his ax away. There was still complete silence and no sign of his family.
He whistled loudly for them. He wanted to show off his prize. Another biting insect attacked his neck. It hurt worse than before – as if the pest had injected venom. This time he did not have to drop his ax to smack whatever had stung him. His padded leather glove closed on a bird-sized creature.
CHAPTER TWO
Theo opened his fist to cautiously examine his captive. A fat pinecone rested in the hollow of his white glove. Its dark brownish-gray scales were tightly closed. It felt heavy for its size, and it looked like no pinecone he had ever seen before. The tip of every scale suddenly sprouted an inch-long spike that bit through his leather gauntlet. He dropped the pinecone instantly. Instead of falling to the ground, it flew off.
“How dare you?” shrilled a faint voice.
Theo turned in a complete circle. He was surrounded by pine trees. Nothing moved. Snow lay thinly on the ground, unmarked except by his own boots. The belligerent, ear-piercing whine grew louder. This time by his right ear. “How dare you, Theodor Lindorm?”
Theo snatched at his ear and again his fist captured a creature. Instead of a pinecone, he held a bundle of green leaves that exploded on his palm. Even his sharp dragon vision could not focus on it. He grabbed tighter. Gradually, his captive resolved into a tiny female dressed in fluttering layers of green gauze. Tiny, translucent wings grew from her back.
“You cut down my tree!” Her wrathful words buzzed in the air.
Theo blinked warily, momentarily distrusting his eyes. Lindorms had lived on this island for a long time. The forests of Finland were supposedly home to myriad forest creatures, including the Haltija or Forest Elves and the Joulutonttu or Christmas Elves. Whichever this miniature female was, it behooved him to show her respect.
He opened his fist. “Who are you, Fröken?” he asked courteously.
“I am the guardian of this wood,” the little female announced imperiously. She tossed her head and, seemingly from nowhere, a blazing corkscrew mane of red curls erupted on her head.
“You cut down my tree, you oaf.” Her words rang like glass chimes. As quick as thought, something bright flashed in one of her bare hands. She stabbed him deep in his palm. “I claim you, Dragon, in recompense for my home!”
Theo’s howl of pain brought Gunnar and Papa running, as his ax-work and his whistling had not. “What’s the matter?” they asked in mingled surprise and concern. Theo gestured to the tree. His pixie had vanished, leaving only the burning pain in his palm to suggest he had not dreamt her.
“Oh, Theo,” cried Gunnar, “It’s a beauty – but you should have let Leo help!”
With a chortling Leo riding astride it, they dragged Theo’s tree home to the long low house built into the side of the hill. They sang as they walked, accompanied by a chiding, swooping redstart that circled Theo and dive-bombed his ski hat.
* * *
At least she managed to wound that prick. How dared he laugh at her? Lexi glowered at the Lindorms from the top of her tree. Theo and his brothers had wedged her home into a stand filled with water. Her tree was dying. The needles were still bright green, but beneath the smell of resin was the miasma of death. Theodor Lindorm had destroyed her home.
He had taken off his outer clothes
and was directing the others. Even in a black tee-shirt and jeans, he was overly large. Too tall. Too broad. Too thick. His arms and thighs bulged with muscle as did his chest and shoulders. He looked as much like a marauding pirate as any of his thuggish ancestors. He had seemed smaller before she captured him.
Perhaps he was too big, after all. But she had chosen, and started the magic. It wasn’t as if there was a better male on offer. The others were mated, or impossibly young. Every now and then her chosen dragon surreptitiously rubbed his right palm on one massive denim-clad thigh. A rusty patch grew as the wound she had made with her trident continued to bleed. Served him right, that mocking tree-murderer.
The sister and mother came into the drawing room with their arms full of boxes. The youngest brother staggered behind them carrying a red plastic tub that was bigger than he was. Lexi backed deeper into her branch and hid behind a clump of needles. She had transformed herself from a bird into a pinecone, and they weren’t expecting to see a Forest Elf, but why take a chance on dragon vision?
Her dragons were laughing and teasing one another. The youngest brother wanted them to be sure to leave something he had made in the box. But the mother was laughing as she unwrapped it. She held it up to be admired. It was about Lexi’s size and looked like an ancient pinecone that had been nibbled by squirrels. Peculiar splotches of red clung to it like clumps of fungus. Why would anyone want to save that wretched piece of ugly? Her woods were full of prettier ones by far. Toss it on the fire.
Theo took the horrid thing out of Lady Severn’s hand. His rich chuckle rolled over Lexi in comforting waves. He clapped his brother lightly on the back. “This one isn’t Gunnar’s, Mamma.” He pointed to the base where something was written in faded runes. “I’m responsible for this waste of sentiment and glitter glue.” He feigned crushing it in his fist.
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