Christmas Goes Camo

by Allie Standifer, Brenna Zinn, Desiree Holt

  Swallowing hard, Kendil risked lifting her head from the comfort of his body. “What do you mean?”

  He gave her a ‘duh’ look. “I mean, where are we, how did I end up here and more important, how did you get here?”

  All easy questions to answer if she wanted to tell him the truth, but the truth wasn’t something she spoke of lightly. Her people’s whole existence relied on secrecy.

  He must have read the start of lies in her eyes because he gently shook her. “No, don’t insult either one of us with lies after the night we’ve shared.”

  Fine. What were the chances he’d believe her anyway? Her mind made up, Kendil started at the beginning, explaining the communication she’d received to be on the lookout for lost humans, literally running into him buried beneath the snow and creating their temporary shelter out of magic to protect him.

  She’d just started to explain the Vinion threat when he finally interrupted her.

  Leaning up on an elbow, looking better than a human male had a right to, with his shadowed beard, he peered down at her. “Cupid, the little guy with wings and a bow, is out to get Santa?”

  “He’s jealous of Nick’s following and the fact that people all over the planet love and respect him. Cupid thinks since he’s the deity of love, he should have all the attention and devotion. With Nick opening up a new Toyland branch, he’ll have more of both while Cupid loses out.” She stared up at his dark blue eyes wondering when he’d laugh and shove her away. “And Cupid is not a cute, small baby with wings and a bow. He’s over six feet tall with a body made for love and the face to match. He’s just portrayed that way because he pissed off the muses once upon a time.”

  Teague shook his head, dark hair falling over one eye before he impatiently pushed it back. “This is the story you want me to believe? Cupid is a man-whore with sex kittens out to blast you. Santa is real and expanding his business in order to fulfil more children’s wishes?”

  The disbelief in his voice had been expected, what she hadn’t expected was the hurt that filled her. Stupid, she scolded herself. What else had she thought would happen? Feeling like an unschooled, first-year elf, Kendil scrambled out from under the covers, feeling vulnerably naked, and for the first time, she magically clothed herself.

  “If you’re done making fun of me, I’ll direct you out of here and back to your comrades.”

  She waved a hand and dissolved their shelter, feeling a spark of satisfaction at his yelp of surprise as he fell naked into the cold snow.

  “What the hell?” He scrambled out to his feet, shivering and rubbing his exposed skin. “Have you lost the last of your marbles? There is no such thing as magic. Santa, Cupid and the Easter Bunny are just fairytales.”

  “Looks like magic just dumped all over your ass.” Looking at him, his naked body turning red from the extreme temperature, she felt a small spurt of pleasure. So much for magic not existing.

  He shook with cold and disbelief. “This can’t be happening.” Teague turned in slow circles. “Where did the bed go? Where the hell are my clothes?”

  Looking thoughtful, Kendil tapped a finger against her chin. “Since it couldn’t be magic, this must all be one big, bad illusion.”

  “No…not…fun…funny.” His teeth chattered as his pleasure-giving lips turned blue. As much fun as watching him suffer was, she didn’t want him to die.

  Giving him a wink, she waved her hand again and clothed him in the same gear she’d found him in.

  Except she added one minor change.

  “Fuck, Kendil,” he shouted, looking down at his now hot-pink snowsuit. “You are a sick woman. Change it back,” he demanded, holding his arms out wide.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Nodding her head, she repeated, “No. The colour suits your complexion. I bet your colour wheel is spring.”

  “Screw my colour wheel, whatever the hell that is. I can’t wear pick combat gear.” He looked over his outfit, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. “It’s just not right. I’ll be the laughing stock of Special Ops. The other guys will kick me out of the clubhouse.”

  “Then are you finally willing to accept everything I told you is the truth?” Why she wanted him to believe her so badly, Kendil didn’t know. It’s not as if she’d see him after his mission was completed.

  Teague finally stopped spinning in astonished circles. “I have absolutely no idea what I believe anymore.”

  He sounded so defeated part of her yearned to wrap her arms around him and offer comfort. The other half wanted to face plant him in the snow and do the Jingle Bell Hop on his naked ass.

  What to do, what to do, she wondered thoughtfully?

  The decision flew out of her hands as a grey-tipped arrow flew by her, narrowly missing her arm. If she hadn’t had elf speed, the damn thing would have nailed her.

  “Duck,” she screamed at Teague as she launched herself across the distance separating them. Wrapping both arms around his knees, she tackled him to the ground as a volley of arrows flew over their heads.

  “Damn horny bitches,” she muttered, while gathering her magic. “Next myth celebration, I’m freezing their asses into ice sculptures.”

  “Can you stop threatening the arrow-shooting crazy people and get us out of here?” Teague asked. His voice sounded calm, though muffled. Dimly realising she’d smashed his face into the snow, Kendil let up on the pressure.

  He lifted his head scant inches, spat out snow and glared at her. “I take it those are the Vinions you were trying to warn me about?”

  His long, dark lashes were tipped with ice and even in the midst of all the danger, the lower parts of her body clenched in desire and need. She so wanted to slap herself upside the head. Where in the name of tinsel had her brains gone?

  Absently, she nodded her head while her eyes tracked the area around them. Antarctic summer had nothing but daylight, so it should have been easy to see the red-clad hookers, but nothing clashed against the whiteness surrounding them.

  “We need to get out of here before they try again.” Cautiously she pushed to her feet, felt around mentally for her magic and decided she had just enough to transport them to the ice caves just North of their position.

  “Grab onto me and don’t let go,” she instructed Teague once he’d got to his feet.

  “What? Why?”

  “If you don’t want to get hit by an arrow dipped in impotence then I suggest you save the twenty questions for later.” Just a few more seconds was all she needed to build up enough power to get them both safely to her base.

  At the mention of a possible limp dick, Teague grabbed onto her with both arms and held her tight. “Uh, I’m ready to go anytime you are.”

  “Lovely to have your cooperation.”

  His response got lost in the shriek of feminine screams and another round of arrows, this time with tips made of shiny white material, along with the normal greys and reds. Seeing this made a knot loosen in her belly. White she could deal with, it was no real threat to them if they managed to hit. Grey would render Teague useless in the bedroom and red would turn him into a walking, talking, fucking machine.

  “Shit, move, Kendil or we’ll be kabobs.”

  Not sure what or who kabobs were, Kendil unfurled her magic transporting them through space. They shimmered out of the snowdrift just as two arrows successfully hit their marks.

  “Fuck a deer,” she muttered and concentrated on getting them out of there.

  * * * *

  One second they’d been standing in the middle of a snow covered hell, and the next Teague found himself in a cave covered with fur, jewels and blessed heat.

  He took a step, intending to get warm, before his balls froze off when Kendil’s panicked voice stopped him.

  “Teague, wait.”

  He heard her grunt of pain and turned to find Kendil pulling an arrow out of her sweetly rounded stomach.

  “Get the arrow out of your thigh and tell me the colour.”
>
  Dumbfounded, he looked down to discover there was, indeed, an arrow lodged very high on his upper thigh. “What the fuck?”

  “It won’t kill you,” she swore holding up her own white tipped missile. “I just need to know if it’s white, grey or red.”

  His stomach jumped in fear. He knew one of those would render him a eunuch, but he didn’t know what colour meant what. Almost too afraid to find out, he gingerly wrapped his hands around the protruding shaft. Before he pulled it he had to know. “What do the different colours mean?”

  Since the first time he’d met her, Kendil averted her eyes. “If you got hit with a grey bolt, forget about ever getting Mr. Happy to rise to any occasion. The red is simply a lust hit. You’ll want to fuck like snow bunnies for a week then it wears off.”

  He waited for her to mention the white one, but she didn’t say another word. Afraid it meant a sudden and painful death, Teague hobbled over to her, took her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his eyes. “What’s the white one do? Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

  Sighing deeply, she closed her eyes. “The white one is useless unless used in the right circumstances.” Her beautiful expressive eyes popped open. “This is so not the right circumstance, so we’re good. Now pull that sucker out and let’s find out how happy or depressed we’re going to be.”

  Something about her explanation didn’t sit right with him and Teague was a man who always followed his instincts. He did so now by shuffling away from her, turning his back then yanking out the arrow.

  Dread and something else stirred within him at the sight of the glowing white tip. Whatever this thing did, it wasn’t harmless like Kendil wanted him to believe. Though he dropped to his knees grateful his dick hadn’t been rendered useless, he still held some suspicions with all this magic crap floating around.

  He heard her come up behind him and quickly snapped the arrow in two. At once, the metal tip dissolved, leaving only the wooden shaft in his hands.

  Kendil peered over his shoulder. “So, what colour was it?”

  A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that his magical lover was holding her breath, waiting for his answer.

  “Red,” he said, the lie flowing smoothly and easily from his lips.

  Her breath came whooshing out in a relieved sigh. “Thank the Toymaker. Give me an hour or so to rest up and I’ll transport you to the nearest city full of hot women. You can play fuck bunny when you get there.”

  He didn’t like that idea. Or the thought that Kendil could so easily dismiss him from her life. She acted eager to send him into the arms and bodies of strangers. He sure as shit didn’t enjoy the thought of kissing and stroking other women. The very idea turned his stomach. Kendil was the one he wanted and she was damn straight the only one he would have. Maybe lust had been added into that white arrow, along with whatever else those crazy, bow-hugging women had thrown in.

  “Why wait,” he murmured turning around to capture her in his arms. “I see exactly what I want right here in front of me.”

  Pushing herself out of his embrace, Kendil stomped away, arms clutched protectively around her stomach. “Stop this, Teague. You don’t really want me, remember? Magic doesn’t exist. I’m just a crazy woman with padded walls and pretty pills waiting for me.”

  With his words thrown back into his face, Teague winced and ran a hand through his slightly snow-dampened hair. “Look, I’m sorry, Kendil, but what would you have done if our positions were reversed? I’ve spent my whole life knowing nothing of magic or myths and suddenly I’m trapped in the middle of a holiday war with creatures straight from fairytales. It’s a little hard to swallow and yeah, I said some things I shouldn’t have. I’m human. It’s what we do. We open our mouths, say stupid things, then regret them. I didn’t really mean any of it.”

  Wanting to coax her back into his arms, Teague walked over and gently rubbed her arm. When she flinched away from him, the pain of her rejection slammed into his stomach almost taking his breath away.

  “You want sex, Teague. I get that. I really do, but I’m not willing to sacrifice myself to get you off. You’re horny, so go take care of it yourself.” She turned from him and stomped around the nicely furnished cave.

  Furs covered the ice floor and walls. A huge, four-poster bed dominated the cavern, covered with lush skins and silky-looking sheets. He literally ached to crawl between those sheets and pump his throbbing cock in and out of Kendil’s wet, tight heat.

  Why didn’t she believe him? Then again why should she? In the span of twenty-four hours, they’d spend five minutes talking and the rest fucking or sleeping. He’d given her no reason to believe a word coming out of his mouth. So they’d talk. He’d ask questions about growing up in a world of make believe. Tell her all about his childhood on a Texas ranch. He’d show her the man he truly was. Then he’d fuck her brains out.

  Teague chose to stay on his side of the cave and leant back against the fur-softened stonewall. “Can you give me another chance? I want to talk with you. Get to know you. Try and show you I’m not really that big of an asshole, hopefully while getting warm.”

  Kendil didn’t bother to look at him. “Behind that wall,” she pointed to a section in the very back, “you’ll find a path that leads to a fork. Take a right and go down about half a mile. You’ll walk straight into a hot spring pool. It should warm you up faster than anything else I can think of.”

  Hot springs? In the middle of freaking Antarctica? How was this even possible? So he asked her, amazed as usual by her answer.

  “There are other B.E.L.L.S. here. We combined our magic to form the spring and keep it contained. Our work will have no impact on the environment or this continent. We’re all about protecting our home, not destroying it like some people.”

  He knew the barb was aimed at him, or at least humans in general. Since she was partly right, he let it go. Teague had more pressing needs to attend to, before he could get down to the serious business of wooing his woman.

  His woman? His brain shrieked at the possessive words, but his heart seemed to open up and absorb them. A feeling of rightness swept over him.

  “I’ll head to the spring and get cleaned up,” he told her while moving past the bed. “Please be here when I get back. I really would like to talk with you. Nothing more, I promise.” Quickly seeing the hole he’d backed himself into he backpedalled. “Unless you want to that is.”

  He swore he saw her lips curve in a slight smile before she angled her head away. “Go. Clean up. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Thank you,” he said sincerely and brushed a swift kiss on her temple before racing away to the tunnel.

  Chapter Three

  The human confused her at every turn, Kendil admitted to herself, once he’d left the room. The lust shot should have worked him into a slathering beast, desperate for sex. Instead, Teague surprised her by his willingness to stay and talk when she could have easily transported him to a city filled with willing women.

  The thought of him kissing, touching or fucking another female with his perfect cock made her want to do something very un-Christmas like.

  “How do I get myself into these situations?” she asked the empty room, but she knew the answer. Had known it before the white weapon of love struck her.

  She’d told Teague mostly the truth about the Vinions’ weapons. Red did cause lust, grey rendered a man’s cock flaccid, but she’d hedged a bit on the white one. The arrow of love had hit her. In normal circumstances, she could have brushed its effects off within a day or two, but Teague’s presence changed everything.

  If the heart had opened, then the magic in the arrow caused it to embrace the source of the emotion. In her case, the strange yet handsome and thoughtful human warrior she’d found buried in the snow.

  Unless she could find a way to make him fall in love with her before the spell wore off, she’d spend the rest of her immortal life pining for one man.

  With lust burning through his v
eins, maybe she could parlay that into genuine emotion. Relationships had been started on less, or so she’d been told. Of course that meant ditching any get-to-know-you-touchy-feely talking that the man seemed so insistent on.

  Really, what normal male, human or otherwise, wanted to talk when he could fuck? Could he really restrain himself long enough to swap childhood stories without some sort of release?

  “That penguin-loving fart train,” she swore as understanding dawned on her. Teague hadn’t raced away to the hot springs to get warm. He’d gone there to jack off.

  Fury sped her steps as she ran from the room and down the long, winding tunnel. The closer she moved to her destination, the more her anger grew. Had last night been all in her mind? Teague had seemed insatiable to her, never getting enough of touching and tasting her. So why go solo now? Unless he had indeed had his fill.

  Men were men no matter when or how they were born. All eager to move on to the next conquest almost before they were finished with their current one.

  “Whale-humping deer dropping,” she continued to mutter to herself until another voice rose above her own.

  “Ah fuck, Kendil baby, that’s it. Mhhh, suck my cock.”

  Kendil stopped in her tracks, unable to believe what she’d heard. Teague jacking off to her, or at least to some fantasy of her? Her stupid heart raced with hope even as she tried to squash it. Hadn’t she just warned herself about men? How easily led they were? Sure he could use her to masturbate. After all, she’d been the most recent woman in his bed.

  “Kendil,” his husky voice cried out as his breathing sped up. “Fuck, woman, what I wouldn’t give to have you here. Those sweet lips wrapped tight around my dick, sucking me hard and deep down your throat.”

  Okay, so maybe last night had meant something more to him. In fact, it pretty much sounded as if he was begging her to come in there and get him off. The more she thought about it, the better she liked the idea.