by Drea Roman
Once we make it to our room, he undresses me as I stare at him. His skin glows, and his eyes shine brighter than seems humanly possible. He is definitely not human.
“You’re magic,” I whisper. This isn’t like before, when I claimed him. No, now I feel his magic surround me, pulling us together from the inside. “This is different, more.”
Tuck nods as he tosses my shirt over his shoulder and makes quick work of my zipper. “Yes, I know who I am now. It makes a difference.”
“Who are you?” I murmur as he kneels to remove my socks, then pulls my pants, underwear and all, down my legs, and I step out of them. The clothes land in the pile forming behind my kneeling mate.
“Oh, I thought you might have figured it out by now. I’m an elf.”
“Elf?” I whisper. Though he’s accidentally said it before, this time his voice is confident and sure.
“Yes, a Christmas elf.” His blue eyes sparkle as he stands. He snaps his fingers, and a soft glow fills the darkening bedroom. The sun has set, but now a set of gayly twinkling white Christmas lights adorn my previously bare ceiling. He smiles tenderly at me before placing his hand on my bare chest, giving me a powerful shove, and I fall back onto the bed. I lie there, blinking up at him as he throws his own clothes off in a rush before climbing up to straddle me, his thighs resting against mine.
“There were so many clues, Darren. I’m short, petite, and my ears are pointy.” He flicks one and I’m shocked to see what I hadn’t before: sharp elf points.
“Your ears,” I pant, and he smiles down at me, mischievously. “Your ears have points.” Tuck nods, giving me a wink.
“Plus, I can do this.” He snaps his fingers again, and soft music begins to play from somewhere, probably the sound system in the living room because I don’t have a radio in here.
My elf mate. My Christmas elf mate. My mind spins, all of the little pieces of the puzzle fitting together. Tuck’s magically quick recovery from his injuries. The new flashlight I never told him I needed. The special cookies and favorite dinners I hadn’t told him about yet. The rocking horse toy for the orphaned little boy. My face must register my shock because Tuck’s expression softens. He leans forward, bringing our groins together as he lies down on my torso, propping his elbows on my chest, so he can hold his chin in his palms.
“Flexible elf.”
Tuck laughs. “Happy elf.”
He scoots up my body so he can reach my lips. This time, Tuck is in charge, and I follow his lead as he touches me, kisses me. I can do nothing but lie pliant for him as his fingers dance across my chest and abdomen, making their slow way to my stiffened dick. His tongue follows, and before I know it, I have an elf enveloping my cock with his warm, slick ass. He rides me slowly at first, and I’m mesmerized by how his body moves on mine, how his breath catches, his soft moans. Fingertips curl into my chest as Tuck speeds up, bringing himself down on me harder. The spell seems to break, and I grab Tuck’s hips as I surge up into him. My chest rumbles with my wolf’s growl. More, more, make mate come. I follow the dictates of my inner animal, reaching for my elf’s hard dick as it bobs up and down with his thrusts. As soon as my hand clasps him, he arches back and cries out, his orgasm spilling his cum all over my hand as his ass clenches my dick rhythmically, triggering my own release. My knot swells, sending him high again, and the sounds him makes as he falls forward on my chest would make me come if I hadn’t already.
“Darren,” he says in a squeaky pant. What must be a rush of magic flows through me, and I’m shocked as I come again deep inside him, my knot throbbing and my breath stolen from my lungs. I would scream out his name if only I could breathe through the intense pleasure. It feels like we are one being, our climax joining us together. When our bodies finally relax and Tuck’s muscles allow me to slip from his body, we sigh at the same time, causing us both to laugh.
“Good elf,” I rumble against the top of his head as he lies curled up on my chest.
“Sleepy elf.” He yawns against my nipple, and his breath tickles.
I am about to suggest a shower, even though I would much rather lie here, holding my magical mate. Instead, I hear Tuck snap his fingers, and a cool breeze flows over us, leaving us clean, warm, and dry.
“Well,” I chuckle, “that’s handy.” Tuck nods into my chest, and his breath evens out in sleep. Snuggling him tighter, I bask in the contentment of our bond and drift off to sleep with my mate, my heart and soul, draped across my chest.
13
Tuck
When Christmas Eve dawns, I wake up almost vibrating with energy and happiness. We are developing a routine, Darren and me. I make him coffee as he sleeps in for a few more minutes. This morning, though, I am far too excited to tell Darren about all of the things I remembered through my conversation with Ren yesterday. So I wake him up by pouncing on his blanket-covered form.
“Umph. Why are you tackling me so early in the morning?”
I sit on his thighs and stare down into his dark chocolate eyes, still heavy with sleep. “It is time to wake up, wolf-man. I have so many things to tell you and so many things to do. It’s Christmas Eve! We have to get a move on.”
Darren grumbles, but I slide off of him and pull him up to sitting by his hands. “Come on,” I whine. “Or I won’t make you pancakes.”
My mate grins. “Now that is how you get me out of bed.”
When I finally have Darren settled at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee, I start making blueberry pancakes. We didn’t have any fruit, so I snapped my fingers for a cup of fresh Maine blueberries straight from a little organic farm in the northernmost part of the state. I grin because I really do know myself and my life now.
“What are you smiling about, my love?” Darren asks between large sips of coffee.
I toss a grin over my shoulder at him. “I am just so excited to have my life back.”
Darren looks at me quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like I told you last night. I remembered everything. I guess I just needed something familiar to help my mind put together all of the pieces.” Taking a deep, calm breath, I plunge ahead, almost unsure of where to start. “Like I told you last night, I’m a Christmas elf.”
Darren’s expression does not hold as much excitement as I expected it to. I chalk that up to morning grumpiness and turn back to the stove and my pancakes. I pour several on the hot griddle and twirl the spatula in my hand. “My magic is maker’s magic. I can make things. Food, toys, clothes, trinkets, just with a snap of my fingers. But,” I laugh, “I am an elder elf. Seven hundred years old I am, but that is middle age, really. Last of my generation to find a mate.” I hum “All I Want for Christmas is You” as I flip the pancakes so they can brown on the other side. “I’m retiring, you know.”
“Retiring from what?” Darren’s voice sounds squeaky and stressed, so I turn to look at him. His fingers are curled tight around the handle of his mug, and his face looks worried.
“From delivering toys with Nick on Christmas Eve, of course. What’s wrong, my love? Are you not feeling well? Have you caught a cold?” Laying down the spatula, I walk over to him to lay my hand on his forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.”
“I’m okay, just worried about you.”
I laugh at that and turn back to the stove. “About me? I am the best I have ever been in my life. I know who I am now, and I have a mate. The only thing I’m worried about is that vision in the magic snow globe.” I look back at him over my shoulder. “That is why I came to look for you, you know. The globe gave me a vision of you, in your wolf form, running around in the snow with a burning barn behind you.” I shiver at the memory. “I wasn’t supposed to be looking through it, but it was my cousin Sven’s coming of age ceremony. That’s when you look into the snow globe in order to see your destiny. I haven’t been near the globe since my own ceremony hundreds of years ago.”
I continue to chatter about my life as I cook, so happy I can finally remember it. “I fou
nd myself drawn to the globe again, so I took a peek, and there you were in your beautiful coat, running across the snow. I knew I had to come to you.” I glance at Darren again, but he doesn’t seem to have any questions for me.
Shrugging at his weird mood, I continue telling him about my life. “Christmas elves are originally from the Netherlands, so we speak Dutch as well as many other languages. I know about ten, but my one of my cousins knows twenty-seven.”
“I’m surprised Nick hasn’t shown up yet. I hope he and the reindeer are okay. We drank so much wine that night.” I laugh, so relieved to be able to access the memory with ease. Darren’s quietness surprises me. I expected him to be bursting with questions. I look over my shoulder at him, but he hasn’t moved and isn’t looking at me, but his coffee mug instead. Shrugging, I return my attention to the pancakes so they don’t burn.
A creeping sensation of cold builds inside my chest, and I am unsure of its origins at first. Darren hasn’t said a word, but I can tell through our mate bond that something is wrong with him. I try to finish up the pancakes quickly so I can figure out the reason my mate has withdrawn inside our bond. When I glance over at him in the silence, Darren’s expression has turned pained. I flip the pancakes off of the griddle and onto two plates. Switching off the stovetop, I carry them to the table and slide one in front of Darren. “Are you sure you are okay? You don’t look well, and I can feel something is wrong through our bond.”
Darren just shakes his head. “A snow globe? You saw me in a snow globe?”
I nod as I sit down across from him with my own plate of pancakes. “Yes, it is magical. Our people have followed its visions for centuries.” As I butter my cakes, I laugh, trying to dispel the growing cold inside my heart with merriment. “Well, it’s more like you get a hint from the snow globe about your future. It might show you scenes years in advance or, like with me, send you immediately on a new path in life.” I look up and smile at Darren, who has not touched his plate. “Are you not hungry?”
He shakes his head and swallows hard as if he has something caught in his throat. Laying down my silverware, I stand up and go to him. “Darren, what is wrong?”
“It’s not real,” he whispers, confusing me further.
“What’s not real, honey? You’re starting to scare me.”
He looks up at me with pain in his dark brown eyes. “You can’t really be one of Santa’s elves.”
That catches me off-guard, and so I laugh. “Of course, I am, silly. What else would I be?”
Darren shakes his head again. “An elf, maybe, but Santa doesn’t exist.”
Now I am totally confused. I must not be explaining this right, so I try again. “It may come as a surprise, but I promise you, he most certainly does exist. He’s been my best friend for at least five hundred years. He wasn’t originally called Santa Claus, you know. He doesn’t like the name at all and will talk your ear off about why the Germans were wrong to name him that. Hell, his name isn’t really even Nick, and he is certainly not a saint. He is the closest thing the world has to Father Christmas, though.”
I sigh. “It is confusing, but Nick is Nick, an immortal being who settled down with the elves and decided to be the world’s manifestation of love and kindness during the coldest, saddest part of the year.”
“It can’t be real, though,” Darren whispers, the look on his face scared.
“Honey, I have no idea what’s wrong.” I pull my chair over to sit down in front of my mate. I take his hands in mine. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.”
Darren swallows hard. “It must be the head wound.”
Now I am really confused. “What must be? You are not making any sense.”
“Neither are you,” he whispers, the look on his face tortured.
I am so taken aback by his statement that I sit there staring at him dumbfounded. It takes me a moment to recover enough to ask, “What are you trying to say, Darren? That you don’t believe me? That makes no sense. You’ve seen my magic.” I desperately cast about for evidence of what I know to be true because I have just figured out what is wrong with our mate bond. Darren doesn’t believe me. “You saw my ears last night.”
Darren shakes his head. “They look completely human now.”
Shocked, I reach up and touch both of my points. They are still there, but for some reason, Darren can no longer see them.
“Maybe I was imagining things before,” he whispers as he stares at me with so much fear in his eyes. “I was caught up in the completion of our mating.”
I feel weak and sick to my stomach. “What are you saying, Darren?”
He swallows hard before shaking his head. “You are not a Christmas elf,” he says again, and this time, he really sounds like he means it.
I stare at Darren, stunned. Why is he denying the truth, what we both know? I try to puzzle out what’s wrong and hit upon the last thing he said before he denied my existence.
“You can’t see my pointed ears anymore?” My voice is low, sadness dripping from it.
When he shakes his head, I feel like sobbing. “It’s because you don’t believe me. You don’t believe in me.”
“Of course, I believe in you, sweetheart. I just think you are confused. You definitely have magic. You might even be an elf. But the points aren’t there. Probably I imagined them before.”
“The points aren’t there anymore because you refuse to believe in me, your mate. How can you not believe your mate, Darren?”
“You hit your head so hard, Tuck. I’m trained in emergency response. I know what that kind of injury does to a brain.”
“I am not brain-damaged, Darren.” My voice is cold, and I feel a deeper chill sweep through our mate bond. “You see what I can do.” I snap my fingers, and the lights flick off and then back on in the entire house. Again, I snap them, and brightly wrapped Christmas presents pop into existence beneath the Christmas tree in the living room behind us. A third snap, and a freshly baked pie materializes on the kitchen island, steam rising from it. The scent is thick, and I can see the moment it hits Darren as his eyes widen in surprise.
“Mincemeat pie. Your favorite. No, I didn’t find that out because of the mate bond, and we haven’t talked about favorite Christmas dishes. I know because I am a goddamn wish fulfillment elf. I am one of Santa’s elves.” I pause. “Whether you want to believe it or not.”
“I’ve dealt with this before,” he says as he grabs my hands and holds them.
“What?” I ask as a few tears slip from the corners of my eyes.
“Head injuries. They can cause delusions. They can kill you.” He swallows hard before continuing. “We lost a firefighter to a head injury like that. His name was Henry. A beam fell on him during a fire. We pulled him out, but he was babbling incoherently. He died before the ambulance could reach the hospital.”
My heart clenches in sadness. “I’m sorry you lost your friend, but the situations are not the same at all. I didn’t die. I’m not going to die. I am completely healed. The doctor said so, and I know you can feel it through our bond.”
Darren stares at me pleadingly. “No, Tuck. It’s not real.”
I yank my hands away from my mate and jump up. I yell the first thing at him that crosses my mind as my heart breaks inside my chest. “You are a-a-a-a Dunder-head!”
“Dunder-head? Did you just call me the wrong reindeer name?”
I stare at him, hurt, confusion, and fear warring in my heart for dominance.
“You’re the one with the wrong reindeer name, you dumb wolf,” I spit at him as I back away. “I should know. I knew that damn reindeer. Flew like an eagle, dumb as a rock. That’s you. Dumb as the dumbest reindeer.”
Darren stands too and tries to reach for me again, but I step away into the living room. No, he can’t touch me now, not when he believes I am not who I know in my heart that I am.
“You don’t believe your mate when the evidence is literally appearing right before your eyes. I don’t get it, Darren. W
hy won’t you believe me?”
When he just shakes his head, my anger supersedes my sadness. “You can accept I am an elf and have magic, but your doubt is bleeding into our mating bond. Right now, I can tell you think I dreamed it all up. That my concussion caused lasting damage.”
“I’m sorry, Tuck.”
“Don’t apologize until you mean it, Darren. Not until you believe me.” But the look he gives me says it all. My mate believes I am deluded, my mind damaged by an injury. The feeling of betrayal that rocks me has me feeling sick to my stomach and more lost than I have felt in my entire life.
14
Darren
“But Santa’s not real,” I whine, no longer so sure I’m correct.
Tuck cocks his towhead and puts his hands on his diminutive hips. “Really, Darren? You are a wolf shifter living in a magical town protected by a coven of almost immortal witches. Our neighbors down the road are elves, for heaven’s sake! Why is it so hard to believe I am one, too?”
His voice and eyes turn pleading. “Why is it so hard for you to believe me, your mate?”
His voice cracks on the last word. I step toward him, but Tuck stops me with an outstretched hand, his palm up.
“No, Darren. You have to decide. Do you believe me or not?” He pauses. “Don’t answer that.”
Anguish rolls into me through our mate bond. I want to do nothing more than take him into my arms and comfort him, but Tuck doesn’t allow it as he turns his back on me and runs out the front door. The sound of it banging shut behind him reverberates in my ears as I stand there, stunned by Tuck, but mostly by my own stupidity.
“What the hell are you doing here on Christmas Eve?” Eddie asks me when I find him and Colt kicked back, watching It’s a Wonderful Life on the station breakroom television.
