Ribbon of Darkness (The Trouble with Elves Book 1)

by Decadent Kane

  Draven drew her in tightly to him and crushed his mouth to hers. Her body melted into him, soft, pliable. Pushing his tongue past her parting lips, he lapped at the sweet taste of syrup. She bit his lower lip and pulled back. “Are you happy to see me or is that a candy cane in your pocket?” Her hand cupped his cock through his jeans and squeezed. He narrowed his gaze on her as his attention ran straight to his groin.

  “Candy canes have no business here.” He ripped the brown leaf dress from her body, causing a gasp to escape her lips. He’d give anything to hear that sound come from Ribbon. Damn his brain. His cock only grew harder at the image of the rogue elf and her black hair sliding over her shoulders.

  Draven pushed Maple down onto her cottony bed and removed his own clothing from his straining body. He had to rid himself of the human-raised Donella, a dark haired elfin girl. He crawled on top of Maple. Her skin glistened with her desire. She smelled as sweet as she tasted. Woodland elves were notorious for their sugary flavor and sexual appetites. He leaned over, trailing nips down to her pussy. As much as he wished to take her, he was going to make sure she was ready for him. Her breath hitched as his tongue found the hidden nub. He flicked softly at first with the length of his tongue. She writhed within his attention. He pulled her lips apart and set in to devour her clitoris until her breath came in short gasps. He flicked and sucked until she finally caved.

  “Draven, I need you inside me. Now!” Her voice was husky with desire. Her eyelids half-closed, watching him. Begging him.

  He slid his body over hers, positioning the head of his cock at the opening of her wet, wanton lips. Slipping his legs between hers, forcing them farther apart, he slowly pushed himself in, watching his prick be devoured inside her, shaking with the desire to pound his way through. He wouldn’t, not yet. He reveled in taking his time filling every inch of his intrusion upon her. Teasing both himself and her; he thrived on it.

  His cock eased ever deeper into her folds. The hot sheath of her pussy engulfing him as he buried himself to the hilt and she arched. That was all he could take. His muscles strained with their resistance. He imagined the roguess arching against him and began the steady in and out of building her climax. He wanted to keep that arch, to draw out the pleasure as long as possible. His head flew back as he increased his pace, pulling out and thrusting his way back in. Maple swiveled her hips to match his pacing, causing a friction that was hard to ignore.

  Maple moaned beneath him and her walls tightened, squeezing him so hard his eyes rolled back into his head from the sheer pleasure of the firm grip. That was his undoing; he could not withstand the urge any longer. He clutched Maple against him, her arms wrapped around his neck. Embracing his fevered movements. He held her just above the bedding. He pushed and pulled, penetrating faster, harder, concentrating on the building in his groin. Then he felt it, the crash over the edge. He groaned as his cock jerked and pulsed, spilling his seed out into her core, releasing the image of Ribbon as he submerged himself in the Sylvan woodland elf. Sating both their needs.

  Chapter Three

  Ribbon stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and wiped the steam from the mirror. Her elf ears had grown since yesterday, at least another half-inch. When would they stop? They came to a high tip at the very end, elongated past any normal ear she’d ever seen. She’d hoped it had all been in her head, but nope, here they were. She bent them backwards and tried to tuck them under themselves.

  No matter how many times she touched them, she still could hardly believe they were real. As if she had stepped out of an elf cartoon, only flesh and blood. When she shook her head, the ears shook too. How would she live with elf ears? Things like this didn’t just happen; she’d never heard of one single case her entire life of someone growing ears like hers. Maybe she could hide in her apartment for the rest of her life so no one else would know.

  There was no way she’d go into work today. It was impossible to hide her ears from anyone. She reached up and tried to bend them down, but they stayed stiff and true. Somewhere, something had gone terribly wrong with her genes. How much would it hurt to cut the tips off, go to the hospital, and claim some strange accident? She could tell them she walked by, what...a random meat slicer that happened to be in the middle of a sidewalk and managed to somehow only cut the top of her ears instead of slices of her head? Yup, that would go over well.

  Ribbon had already called in sick with her father, claiming a cold. She didn’t like lying to her parents, but until she could come up with a suitable way to explain her deformity, she couldn’t face them. Or anyone else who might show up at the shop. Like Draven—the name curled over her mind like a warm blanket. “Draven,” she said to herself and shivered. There’s a man she could work up an appetite for.

  Ribbon opened the door a touch to let the hot air escape. She needed some kind of release. She’d bought the blaze book with the Santa hat and devoured it in a few short hours before bed. Making her body a complete disaster overnight. That led to rather naughty dreams and Draven as the center of her interest. She’d bucked under him all night long, her orgasm always just out of reach as his hot breaths danced in her thoughts. When she had awoken, her clit had been throbbing, but quickly dissipated. A wet streak formed on her inner thigh at the thought of that man’s attentions lavished solely on her. His tongue, his lips, his hands... There was no time like the present. Ribbon dropped the towel.

  Closing her eyes, she pictured him standing before her naked, stroking himself. His eyes searching her body. His muscles clenching and releasing with each stroke of his strong hands. She pictured his cock growing hard as he squeezed himself to the sight of her. She imagined the desire she’d see in him. Ribbon spread her legs, pretending it was his hands helping her. Two of her fingers slid down her flat stomach and over her neatly trimmed mound, then she dipped them inside herself and pulled out remembering her dream. It felt amazing to have something penetrate her. It’d been so long since her last lover—a little over a year, to be precise—on her birthday. She’d run into an old friend and one thing led to another. Ribbon didn’t mind, but she had never imagined spending a lifetime with one man. It was much more fun to play the field.

  Her pinky circled around her sensitive clit. She let her other hand find a nipple, teasing it between her fingers, pinching lightly. Warmth spread over her, building a heat that coiled into a hard roll between her thighs. Squeezing her nipple harder, pretending it was Draven’s teeth nibbling, she thrust inside, clenching herself around her fingers, and slowly moving them out and gliding quickly back in. She tugged on her taut peak and twisted. She slid the two fingers up to her clit and flicked back and forth, building a slippery rhythm. Toying and teasing herself into a heightened state. She found herself rocking into her own hand, begging for more. Wishing it was all Draven’s doing.

  Her hand moved faster and she pinched her nipple harder, pulling, seeking that little bit of pressure tip her over. The first wave began; she came close to cresting. Ribbon licked her fingers and let the wetness slide over her sensitive nipple. Holding her breath, she directed the tips of her fingers to the pearl peeking from its hood, and applied direct strokes. She was there. The wave came, heading straight for the edge, about to tip—

  “Sweetheart, are you okay? I brought some soup,” her mother called from the front room.

  Her eyes shot open. Hells bells! “Mom?!” Ribbon dropped to the floor, instinctively covering herself. Please don’t walk in here...

  “You in the shower?” Her mother’s voice had come closer.

  Wasn’t the whole point of moving out of her parents’ house and into an apartment actual privacy? Ribbon slammed the door shut, squeezed her legs together, and bit her lower lip. Her clit throbbed in protest. Damn the woman’s timing. “I’ll be out in a minute.” Ribbon threw on her fluffy white bathrobe and sought to brush out her hair, when she remembered her ears. Craptastic! There was no way or time to hide them from her mother.

  Ribbon looked around for anything t
hat might help. Toilet paper, alarm clock, towels. Nothing would help, unless... The idea came so smoothly, it would have to work. She snapped her fingers, as if that would make it go any faster, and grabbed the discarded towel from the floor. She rolled her hair up in it, twisted, and pushed it back. She had just come from the shower—of course, she’d have a towel on her head. Brilliant.

  She looked at herself in the mirror—it covered everything it needed to. Satisfied, at least in that regard, she opened the door. Her mother stood before her in a soft pink summer dress and white heels. Her short black hair bobbed right below her chin.

  “Did it help?” Her mother searched her face. “You look flushed, dear.”

  “I just got out of a hot shower. ‘Course I’m flushed.” Ribbon straightened her shoulders and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes it helped. Can we go sit in the kitchen?” Her mother just had to pick today to be observant and Ribbon wanted as far away from the bathroom and her dirty thoughts as possible.

  Her mother turned and headed back down the carpeted hall. Ribbon followed, biting her tongue. She stared at the back of her mother’s head until they reached the table. It was all she could do not to blurt everything out, demand why this was happening to her. They sat at the small square table. Ribbon had two chairs, and didn’t care to get more. She liked the sparse furnishings. Her parents’ house had always been stuffed full of things. Ribbon didn’t want to live the same way; she liked an open space, freedom in a sense, outside their rules and regulations. Her mother pulled up the sack she’d carried and uncovered homemade chicken soup. Guilt snuck in. Her mother only made that when she was really worried.

  “You’re father said you had a cold. Is there anything I can do?” She wrung her hands, noticed, and then smoothed them out on the table. Her eyes flicked back and forth over the apartment, in disapproval, Ribbon was sure. She seemed nervous...

  “I’ll be fine, Mom. I’m just under the weather.” Ribbon moved the soup over and made a big deal about sniffing the hot liquid. “Thank you so much for making me soup. You really didn’t have to.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  Ribbon looked up at her mother. “Afraid of what?”

  “Has something happened?”

  Ribbon cleared her throat. “Um...no.” She shifted her eyes back to the soup. What had she given away, her near-orgasm so rudely interrupted, or the ears?

  “Then take off the towel.”

  Deck the freaking halls! Her breath hitched and she tried to come up with a solid good reason not to take off the towel. “Why?”

  “Ribbon, sweetie, take off the towel.”

  She hated when her mother used the mom voice. Even at twenty-four, it proved effective. Ribbon pulled the towel down into her lap. It lay heavy and humid on top of her slender legs. Her wet hair slunk into her face, leaving wet streaks behind. She risked a glance at her mother.

  “I thought so.” Her mother reached over, pushed her hair behind Ribbon’s pointed ear, and gave a sad smile. “You should know something.”

  “And by that, you mean I was adopted?” What other explanation could there be? Maybe her real parent had done drugs to cause such deformities, or perhaps something else had happened to her as a child. If she really contemplated hard enough, she might even be able to come up with some fantastical reason like medical testing. Oh heavens, had she been a test tube baby?

  Her mother laughed. “No, no.” Her face straightened and her eyes became serious. “You’re an elf, a Claus elf.”

  “A what elf?” Ribbon’s eyes widened. She could feel them bulging out, staring at her mother. Impossible. She understood the elf part, okay, but Claus elf? Was that some sort of old folk talk for strange? Or maybe just the talk of a senile mother?

  “A Claus elf. You see, your father and I ran off to the human realm when I was still pregnant with you. We were ready to live a different life, and wanted to raise you outside of magic. Outside of rules that would keep you stuck in one place. Granted, we didn’t intend everything that happened, but we wanted you to have more than us. You have to understand that we didn’t want to keep it a secret from you forever. I knew eventually your ears would grow, but in an elf’s life, it tends to happen slowly. So I’d hoped we had a tad more time.”

  “Wait. What? Okay, give me a minute here. You’re telling me that you and Daddy are elves too?” Ribbon stood from her chair causing the seat ends to scrape along the floor. She paced back and forth, chewing on her lower lip, risking glances at her mother, then back to the floor, then to her bedroom. Could she hide from it all? She pinched herself. It had to be a dream, a weird nightmare she’d wake up from any minute.

  “Yes.” Her mother straightened her shoulders, closed her eyes, and snapped her fingers. Pointed ears protruded from the side of her head, just like Ribbon’s. “There’s more, but first let me explain some things to you.”

  “No. No. This isn’t happening. Elves?” Ribbon shook her head.

  “Yes, elves. You are an elf, Ribbon.”

  “I’m dreaming. That’s the only explanation. Ears don’t just randomly grow pointed. Santa Claus doesn’t really exist with elves.”

  “Ribbon, sweetie, take a deep breath. I can assure you this is real. I’m sorry; I should have told you sooner.”

  “Damn right you should have. Look at me!” Ribbon threw her hands up. She didn’t know if she should be scared or angry, but both were fighting for dominance inside her.

  “Will you please lower your voice? Yelling won’t change what has happened. It won’t fix it.”

  “Then maybe going back to bed will. I’ll wake up and this will all be some oddity I can’t quite remember and—”

  “Ribbon Lee Winters!”

  Ribbon snapped to attention. “It’s real, isn’t it?”

  Her mother’s eyes softened. “Please listen to what I should have told you a long time ago.”

  Ribbon listened as her mother told her about the North Pole, about the magic that keeps elves from aging, and how magic dies over time in the human world. There was a lot to take in, a lot she wasn’t sure she could even believe. Ribbon kept staring at her mother’s ears. They really did look just the same as hers.

  “And of course, one last thing, sweetheart. That man you bumped into yesterday at the shop—”

  “Draven.”

  “Yes, Draven North. He’s a spy for Mr. Claus. I fear he’s found us out.”

  Ribbon put a hand to her mouth. She was a rogue Christmas elf fantasizing about having hot sex with Santa’s spy. If that didn’t put her on Santa’s naughty list, she didn’t know what would...

  Chapter Four

  Draven had been camped outside The Leaflet Bookstore for the better part of two days. So far, the only Winters family member he had spotted was Mr. Winters. The other two hadn’t come in. He’d seen all kinds of humans—the child folk, the teen folk, and even some older generations—all walking by without the slightest clue he existed, let alone stood on the same sidewalk. Draven watched Mr. Winters through the big window in front that had the half-off sticker for Christmas titles. Mr. Winters put books in where there had been gaps on the shelves and took some books out to display in front. He’d looked up a couple times and Draven half-expected the older elf to notice him. But he didn’t, not once.

  Even if he had, Draven wasn’t sure yet how he would talk them into going back to the Pole. He couldn’t walk up and say ‘Hey come with me’ or ‘You’re needed back at the Pole and by the way I’m Mr. Claus’s spy.’ Yeah, he could see that go over like a broken toy. Yet he wasn’t about to lie to them either. They were needed back in Christmas territory. They had no idea the effect they left behind. Part of the North Pole actually began dying the moment they chose in their hearts to live in the human realm. And no elfin kin had expected the reaction either. Claus elves didn’t normally just get up and leave. As a matter of fact, in all of existence, the Winters family were the only family to have done so. The harm caused remained detrimental, the magic
sputtering out and blackening the pure white snow. The Pole just wasn’t whole without all the Claus elves there to take care of it. Even if Santa were to pass on, it’s the elves that ran it all, clear to the core of the system. The Christmas magic had been born unto them alone and no other elf could hold the candle. There had to be some way to talk the family into returning.

  It had been so long since even Draven had returned that he didn’t know the extent of the damage anymore. From his talks with Mr. Claus, he assumed it progressively grew worse at a rate that made Santa desperate for the Winters family home coming. Draven knew they would not wait around for him to explain everything. They would run if they saw him. The missing women clued him in to the fact that they might know who he was. Which meant they might not return to the shop either.

  Two days invisible in Florida heat was worse than shoveling reindeer shit. He couldn’t handle another entire day with the hot sun beating down on him. He was sweaty, cranky, tired, and had a serious need to actually see Ribbon in person again. The damn woman refused to leave his thoughts, even his dreams. He closed his eyes, let out a frustrated sigh, and then he heard her voice. Like a single bell ringing only for him. His cock responded. There was only one reason he’d have this much of a reaction to the roguess; she was his mate, meant for him. The realization both pissed him off and made him happy at the same time. Why did it have to be an elf born in the human ways? She was so independent...and beautiful. His thoughts softened as he watched her waltz by.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t try to hide ourselves more?” Ribbon asked Mrs. Winters. The women strode right by him and into the shop. She smelled like chicken soup and fruit.

  “I’ve covered your ears with my own magic; no one will know you’re an elf. If we’re lucky, we’ll spot the spy before he comes to get us. We could easily overpower him three to one. Besides, your dad will make sure he doesn’t come within five feet of us.”