by Kristie Cook
“Looks like the storm has passed,” Tony murmured in Claire’s ear. “I’m sure you’ll want to take off soon.”
Claire turned to look up at him, a smile dancing on her lips. “You know as well as I do that the storm wasn’t what kept me here. Just as it wasn’t what kept you here.”
“Didn’t you get what you wanted, though?” he asked, his voice cocky as he smirked at her. He traced his fingers over her cheek before kissing her forehead.
“Mmm ... yes, I did,” she answered, her eyelids becoming heavy as she stroked a hand over his hard chest and down his abs. “But I think ...” Her hand moved lower, and Tony’s eyes widened as he throbbed against her. “I think I haven’t had quite enough.”
He let out a growl while grinning at the same time. And then he devoured her ... well, devoured her body in every way she’d let him.
“Had enough yet?” he asked a few hours later.
“Not sure ...” Claire drifted off to sleep, and they both dozed for a while. When they awoke, it was snowing again. “Oh, damn. Looks like we’re stuck here for another night.”
“You are insatiable,” Tony said with a husky chuckle.
“I have a lot of being good to make up for.”
His chuckle turned into a full-out laugh. “Show me how bad you can be.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” she asked, her voice full of mischief.
He gathered her curls into his hand and pulled on her hair, lifting her head so she’d look at him. “I want whatever you want.”
She smiled. “Good answer.”
So Claire did what she wanted, and so did Tony, because they both wanted the same thing—each other. As many times as possible. And they both agreed on a twist to what the Normans preached on this holiday: It was better to give than to receive ... but it was always best when both happened at the same time.
MIRACLE:
A Vampire’s First Christmas
In this next story, Miracle, we get to know a secondary character from the Soul Savers Series, but in a whole new context. If you’re caught up with the series, you may find this story confusing if you try to fit it in somewhere in the timeline. If you’re new to the series or not quite caught up, you may think as you start reading this that you’ve been spoiled. I wouldn’t do that to you! I ask that you not worry about how these events and characters’ actions relate to the main series. They don’t. Many things here make no sense in the context of the main series. So I ask that you think of this as a parallel universe to the real one in the primary series. Yes, I just said that—the “real” one. Just go with it. Try not to read too much between the lines, and simply allow yourself to enjoy the miracles of Christmas.
Chapter 1
The blood-red card sat like a tent on the antique table in my suite, looking deceptively beautiful and innocent. No picture adorned the front, though. Only a flourish of script in black ink that reminded me of my pre-vampire days. None of this typed text of today’s world, or worse, the sloppy and shaky handwriting of someone who can’t be bothered to write cursive with a pen except when they have to. This was old school and gorgeous, like calligraphy.
“To Vanessa”
Curiosity didn’t just kill the proverbial cat—it had nearly killed the very real me numerous times, and it got me again. I snatched the card off the table and opened it, only to find:
“I’m watching you.”
“What?” I snarled at it. “What the hell does that mean?”
I looked around the room, but I knew that these walls may not have eyes, but this mansion did have ears. Actually, minds—ones that could hear others’ thoughts. Was this a threat from Katerina or Alexis? A reminder? Or did it come from someone else? A tingle ran down my spine, and I hated tingles with a passion. They signaled something was about to go wrong.
I stomped down the stairs and followed my nose to the grand kitchen, where I knew I’d find someone by the smells and sounds of it. The witch wasn’t exactly the one I’d expected to find—she was centuries younger and blond—but she might have been even better than Ophelia, the mansion’s head servant, to give me answers.
“I know I’m not exactly welcome here,” I said as I stopped at the butcher-block island, “but this is really uncalled for.”
Blossom stood on the other side of the island, messing with some kind of dough. She looked up at me with a raised brow, and I threw the card down in front of her.
“Who would do such a thing?” I demanded as she wiped her hands on her apron and picked up the card to investigate it.
“Well, it could be anybody,” Blossom mused as she studied the inside. “Even Ms. Katerina, for all we know.”
My eyes narrowed. “I doubt the matriarch would stoop to this level. She and everyone else have pretty much said to my face how they feel about me being here, and that they’re watching me.”
“Really?” Blossom asked, her tone curious but I sensed skepticism. She turned her back to me to pull something out of the oven. “That’s what they said?”
My body wanted to squirm, but I only shrugged and picked at a piece of dough stuck to the counter. “Well, not exactly. They were nicer about it. You know how the Amadis are.” I looked back up at her. “Which means this did not come from Katerina or Sophia. Maybe Alexis, but she does say it to my face every chance she gets, so I doubt it’s her. Some asshole has access to my suite and left me a threatening note, and I don’t like it!”
“Threatening?” Blossom sounded genuinely perplexed as she placed a metal sheet full of freshly baked cookies on the counter. “I wouldn’t call it threatening.”
My eyes widened. “Then what the hell would you call it?”
“Oh, come on, it’s kind of fun, don’t you think?”
“Fun?” No other words came to me, and I stood there staring at her, my mouth opening and closing.
“Oh, my God, you don’t get it, do you?” Blossom’s lips twitched, and then she giggled.
“What?” I demanded.
“It’s a game, Vanessa. Christmas merry-making.” She held out the card to me and pointed at a line of script that I had missed:
“From your Secret Santa”
“It’s like how the Norman parents tell their kids that Santa is always watching them to know if they’ve been naughty or nice,” Blossom explained. “Your secret one is watching you.”
My hands went to my hips. “I have a Secret Santa?”
“It looks like it. So stop worrying. It’s going to be fun.” She picked up a spatula and started scooping cookies off the sheet and sliding them onto a plate. I watched her while mulling over this news.
“I don’t like this Secret Santa thing,” I finally said. “It feels like a set-up.”
Blossom’s big, hazel eyes rolled up to look at me. She’d finished removing the baked cookies, and now she dropped mounds of dough on a clean sheet. “You need to relax.”
“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “I’m trying to remember why I’m here. Trying to be good. And not be selfish. But how am I supposed to return the favor to this Secret Santa if I don’t even know who the hell he or she is?”
The witch tilted her head. “You could pay it forward, you know, give something to someone else. That’s kind of what Christmas is all about: giving, not receiving.”
My stomach dropped. I was so not going to be good at this Christmas thing. Giving and not receiving? I’d been working hard at learning how to give, but I loved to receive. In fact, I loved to receive so much, that I pretty much always simply took whatever I wanted. I wasn’t supposed to like any of that anymore, though, so I’d resolved to never receive any gifts again. At least, not without giving in return. And now this whole Secret Santa scheme made everything so confusing.
“I’m so going to suck at this Christmas thing,” I grumbled.
“You’ll be fine. Why don’t you help me decorate these?” Blossom picked up the plate of white cookies and took it over to the table where bowls of colored frosting and all
kinds of decorations sat. “It’s a very Christmas-y thing to do, and people love to eat them. It makes them very happy.”
I blew out a sigh and followed her over to the table. This was me: giving. Making people happy in return for nothing.
I picked up a cookie in an odd shape.
“I might have used my magic to create some new shapes,” Blossom admitted. “A trick Aunt Sylvie taught me when I was little. We used to make all kinds of cookies together throughout the Christmas season. She would make it so much fun! I took me a few years to learn how to use magic without screwing up the whole recipe.” Blossom paused when she saw my blank expression while I still held my cookie in the air. “Anyway, that one can be a face. See the nose and the chin? You can make it whoever you want.”
I wasn’t an artist, and I wasn’t magic. Making it whomever I wanted was impossible. So I did my best in at least making it resemble a face while Blossom told me stories of baking and decorating cookies with her aunt.
“Um, that’s, well, interesting,” Blossom said a few minutes later after looking over at my cookie.
Her tone made my brows push together, and I frowned at my artwork. “It’s not very Christmas-like, is it?”
“Well, the blood is kind of ... no, not really.”
I dropped it on the table. “I told you! I’m hopeless!”
“Relax. Just eat it and try on another one.”
I didn’t really want to eat it, but I didn’t want to disappoint Blossom any further after she’d been so nice to me. I could eat normal food, and my body could sort of digest it—my blood basically disintegrated it into nothing, kind of like acid does—but it always tasted bland and dry to me. Remembering I had a bottle of blood in the wine rack, I poured myself a glass.
“Oh my God, Vanessa,” Blossom shrieked as she jumped up from the table. The oven’s timer was buzzing, but she simply stood there, staring at my cookie with her nose wrinkled. “That’s so disgusting!”
I glanced at the cookie that was now stained red. Without realizing I was doing it, I’d dunked it in my glass of blood. Red juiciness ran down my hand, and I licked it up.
“Ewwwww.” Blossom shuddered and gagged before hurrying over to the oven. “Are you ... are you sure you don’t want a cup of milk?”
I popped the blood-soaked sweet in my mouth, and it tasted delicious. When I turned down the milk and Blossom frowned at me, I knew I’d screwed up again. I couldn’t even enjoy a simple Christmas cookie the normal way.
“I told you I suck at this.” I pushed away from the table and stood.
“I have an idea,” Blossom said. “Sheree’s in the media room, watching all those sappy Christmas movies. Why don’t you go join her? You could learn all kinds of things, so you won’t suck at it.”
She was probably just trying to get rid of me before I ruined anymore of her cookies, but maybe she actually cared about trying to make things better for me, too. Regardless, I followed her suggestion and left the kitchen, in search of the media room.
Chapter 2
After wandering around for several minutes, I found the media room at the end of a long hall on the first floor and discovered that this old stone mansion hadn’t been completely left in the 19th century. I’d learned long ago to accept change, even if I didn’t exactly love everything about modern day technology. And some things just made more sense than the old ways. Like overhead lights, for example. Why were there so many fire sconces in this place instead of normal electric lamps? I was always afraid my hair would catch when I passed by one and light me up like a bloody torch. The media room had overhead lights, as well as computers and a wall full of several television screens.
All but the largest screen, which hung in the middle of the vast wall, were black at the moment. The center one showed a little boy dressed in a snowsuit with his tongue stuck to a light pole and a group of kids surrounding him laughing. I walked around the row of theater-style seats and found Sheree curled up in one with a blanket over her legs and a bowl of popcorn in her lap.
“Hey, Vanessa,” she said without tearing her eyes from the screen. “Want to watch movies with me?”
I shrugged as I fell into the seat next to her. “Blossom says it’ll teach me all about Christmas and put me in the spirit.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea! This one I’m watching right now is a fun one.”
With nothing else to do anyway, I sat back in the recliner and watched as a boy tried to convince all the adults in his life to get him a BB gun for Christmas.
“I don’t get it,” I said after a while, opening my mouth wide in a pretend yawn.
“It’s a fun, timeless story about family and love and Christmas. It kind of reminds me of my family ... before ...” Sheree frowned and pushed a hand through her dark brown hair. “Okay, I guess if you don’t have anything to base it off of, it’s not the best way for you to understand. I’ll put something else on.”
“Oh, don’t change it on my account. I’ll just find something else to do.” I began to stand up. See, I could be giving. Not that sitting here mindlessly staring at a screen was much to be giving up.
“No, it’s okay. I’ve seen it a million times.”
My butt planted back in my seat as I stared at her. Was she serious?
She shrugged. “We used to watch all of these movies when I was a kid. Every year starting on Thanksgiving and all the way to Christmas, my brothers and sisters and I would pile on the couch with blankets and pillows and popcorn and watch every Christmas movie we could find. This was one of my favorites. But here—” She pressed a couple of buttons on the remote control and the screen showed a black-and-white film. “It’s a Wonderful Life is perfect for you!”
Sheree cried at the end while I was still trying to figure out what the stupid knob on the bannister had to do with anything. She put in another “classic,” Miracle on 34th Street, and cried at the end of that one, too, but I’d missed half the storyline, my mind going back to the 1930s and the havoc I’d been wreaking at the time. She put in another that totally lost me.
The only thing I noticed that was interesting was a guy hanging mistletoe in a doorway and grabbing kisses from all the ladies that passed through. I couldn’t help but daydream about where I’d hang mistletoe—in the hallway in front of Owen’s door. Then he’d have to kiss me every time he went in and out of his room. I longed to feel his arms around me ... to taste his lips ... to see something real in his bright blue eyes, so much deeper than my light blue ones. Mistletoe wouldn’t get him to care about me, though. I’d seen glimpses of it, but I didn’t know if he could really care about anyone ever again.
“Vanessa?” Sheree’s voice sounded distant at first, and I realized I’d drifted off into a vamp-doze. Not really sleeping because I didn’t need to, but not quite conscious either. “You didn’t like that one, did you?”
I didn’t really like any of them, to be honest, but I couldn’t tell her that. “How come they all take place in the ’30s and ’40s? Not exactly my favorite time of my life.”
Sheree made a face. “Sorry. I didn’t think of that. Here, maybe you’ll like this one.”
When it showed what looked like Victorian England, I growled quietly. Definitely not a happy time of my life. In fact, in my two-hundred-odd years, I didn’t really have any good memories to focus on. At least in the 1930s I was enjoying myself, even if I was being evil.
“Give it a chance. It’s got ghosts and stuff.”
Well, that sounded interesting. But it wasn’t the ghosts that pulled me into the story.
“I really like this Scrooge guy,” I said after a while, before any ghosts had shown up.
Sheree groaned. “You would.”
“Am I not supposed to?”
“Well, at the end you are.”
By the end, though, I’d lost my admiration for him. “What a wuss.”
“No, he’s not! Being kind and generous doesn’t make him a wuss.”
“Then what would you call it?”<
br />
“He changed for the better, just like Tristan. Like you.”
I rolled my eyes and stood up. “Not just like Tristan and me. This dork changed overnight because of his dumb dreams. Not exactly realistic.”
“It’s just a story,” Sheree said. “A good Christmas story about a mean old guy who saw his wrongs and became a good person. I thought you’d like it.”
“Yeah, well, I did until it got stupid. Overdone, like all of these movies. In real life, this guy would have gone back to his old stingy self the very next day. That’s how people are, aren’t they? So is that what Christmas is about? Faking generosity for a day so everyone will adore you and forget that you’re an asshole the other 364 days of the year? I don’t get it, Sheree. I don’t think I ever will.”
Sheree stared at me with bewilderment written all over her face. She opened her mouth a couple of times, but apparently didn’t know what to say. I strode for the door. Sheree called after me, but I didn’t go back. I instantly felt bad for leaving her like that, when she’d been trying to help me. She and Blossom thought the movies would do me good, but all they did was prove even more that I sucked at Christmas.
Not wanting to face anyone else in the mansion, I flashed to the village on the other side of the island. You’d think people would be used to my presence by now, but not all were. As I meandered through the crowded main street, people’s expressions ranged from mild shock to total distrust. I tried to ignore them and focused instead on the shops. One particular window display drew me inside, where I might have found vampire heaven.
Packaged in what looked like wine bottles with pretty labels was blood of every type imaginable, including lots of mage blood. A particular bottle with a red label and the Amadis symbol stamped in silver on it grabbed my attention. I picked up the bottle and fingered the symbol’s shape. “Heavy with the essence of regeneration from one of our rarest sources.” Remembering the time I’d tasted such essence myself, my mouth watered at the thought of the bottle’s contents.
