Christmas After Dark: A Holiday Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Abigail Owen

  “Jane and Bingley? Somebody is a Pride and Prejudice fan.” She smiled and then inhaled sharply when she felt a velvety nose nudge at her hands. “Quick! Give me another apple.”

  A moment later, Dare put an apple in her hand and she held it out to Jane, palm flat the way he’d shown her in the stables. The unicorn gently took the fruit and chomped it down in a couple of bites, then nudged at Lyric again.

  Lyric slowly and carefully lifted her hand, pausing partway. “Is it okay to touch her?”

  “I’m guessing yes, since she’d the one who initiated the contact,” Dare said. “Slow and gentle, okay?”

  “Okay.” Slowly she lifted her hand to right about the nostrils snorting warm breath on her face, and then she touched the soft nose. To her surprise, Jane pushed her nose into her hand, as if asking for more.

  “She likes you, too,” Dare said, amusement rich in his voice. “You may as well give it up, Bingley. It’s hopeless. We’re all under her spell.”

  “Oh, hush,” Lyric told him, stroking Jane’s nose. “You’re—oh!”

  She’d leaned forward, and a hard, pointed end poked her in the forehead. “Is that—"

  “Yep. Unicorn,” Dare said. “Didn’t you believe me?”

  She gently ran her hand up the creature’s nose to the horn and then traced its length with her fingertips. “I walked through a magical portal with a pirate to the mythical lost continent of Atlantis, so I guess you could say I kind of took ‘Siberian unicorn’ on faith.”

  “We’re not lost any longer,” Dare pointed out, reasonably enough, and it made her laugh.

  A low, grumbling noise alerted her to Bingley’s presence, and she turned her face toward Dare. “Is he dangerous? Should I stop touching Jane?”

  “Actually, I think he might be wanting to say hi, himself.”

  For a few magical seconds, Lyric found herself petting two unicorns at the same time, and then the animals apparently decided they had something else to do and trotted off.

  Lyric’s heart was filled with butterflies, fluttering in her chest with an overwhelming sense of joy and wonder. “I can’t . . . I can’t even tell you how I feel right now. That was incredible. This whole day has been incredible. Thank you.”

  She held out her hand, and Dare took it in his, raised it to his mouth, and kissed her fingers.

  “Especially this morning. Incredible,” he said, his voice husky.

  She couldn’t help it. She had to kiss him. She pulled his face down to hers and spent several lovely moments holding her pirate in the bright sunshine of an Atlantis day, next to the Siberian unicorns.

  Bubbles of happiness---and astonishment—floated through her like champagne in a crystal flute. Christmas and miracles and joy and love. It didn’t seem possible that all of this could be happening to her.

  “It is happening, though,” she whispered. “You’re here, and you love me.”

  “Well,” he pointed out, “you love me, too.”

  “Always. Tell me about them. Jane and Bingley.”

  Dare tightened his arm around her and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

  “It’s just that I needed to know they were okay.” She felt his shoulder rise in a shrug. “I used my share of what was left of the cargo to buy them, and we found them this place near Mt. Atlantis to be their home. They seem to love it here, and their new caretaker is delighted.”

  “Dare! The wicked pirate has a heart, after all,” she teased him.

  “You are my heart,” he said roughly. “You can never leave me, or I will be without a heart and a danger to all around me.”

  “I won’t leave you, but—"

  “But?”

  “Maybe we could go back to the palace now and ‘go see the unicorns’ in an entirely different way,” she said, blushing but not caring. She wanted him, and she was fiercely glad to be able to show him how much.

  Little more than an hour later, they were tearing at each other’s clothes even before they made it inside her door.

  13

  Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

  "Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

  White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

  For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window.

  Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

  But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  “Dare.” She let out a breathless laugh and pulled the heavy amethyst out of her pocket and placed it on a side table. “I think unicorn sightings are an aphrodisiac or something—"

  But his fingers had stilled on her waist. "What in the nine hells is happening?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "That." His hand moved and she had a sneaking suspicion that he was pointing something out to her.

  She sighed. "Really? That? After all these years? Maybe point less, talk more."

  Dare drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. This just caught me off guard. There's suddenly a very strong beam of light shooting up from your amethyst."

  "A beam of light," Lyric repeated, feeling stupid. "I don't—what could that be?"

  He pulled her toward him and gave her a quick but enthusiastic kiss. "I don't know, but no time like the present to find out."

  Then he kissed her again, but this time he took his time. “Maybe we forget the gemstone and weird lights and I just take you to bed,” he said in a husky growl.

  “I—should we—" A delicious sensation shivered up her spine. She didn't know whether she was aroused, dazed, or both. She pulled her now-completely unbuttoned shirt closed and moved his hand off her butt. "Strong beams of light are not normal, even for Atlantis, I think. I mean, I had that in my pocket all afternoon. Any idea what it means?"

  Dare whistled, long and low. "Not a clue. I’ve had it for years and years and years, and the amethyst has never done anything like this."

  "What is it doing?" She was consumed by curiosity crossed with a hefty dose of impatience. "Tell me already!"

  "I'm picking it up now. It's, ouch. Damn. The—"

  “Dare. The rock? What ouch?”

  “Right. It's pulsing with light, directing a pretty strong beam—oh, Poseidon's balls."

  Lyric heard him mutter a string of what sounded like English mixed with Atlantean cursing.

  "What happened?"

  “It burned my fingers again, but before that, it told me what it is."

  She heard him cross to the bathroom and then the sound of running water, so she followed him. "Are you badly burned?"

  "No, it's nothing. I just wanted to run a little cold water on my fingers. It's a Wish."

  Lyric was confused. “What do you mean it's a wish? Whose wish?"

  "I don't know much about it or how it works. I just now that it's old. Not even old as much as ancient. Older than Atlantis. Older maybe than the gods. We have stories of Wishes— that’s wish with a capital W—in our histories, but no one alive today has ever seen one. According to the old stories, they lie around disguised as other things,--apparently like gemstones—until they want to reveal themselves."

  Lyric reached out for his arm. "What does
it do, already?"

  She felt him shrug. "It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a Wish. According to the stories, it presents itself to a person whom it considers to be worthy. That person then gets to make one wish. Any wish. There's a legend that a stable boy was once king of Atlantis for a year and a day after he found a Wish." Dare laughed. "Hell of a story. No idea if it's true."

  "That's true of all the best stories," Lyric said, smiling. "What are you going to wish for?"

  He turned and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "Oh no, mi amara. The Wish isn’t here for me. It told me. It's here for you."

  Her mouth fell open. “It’s what? And what do you mean, it told you?”

  “It’s here for you,” he repeated, excitement in his voice. “Lyric, you can wish for your sight!”

  Ice coated her skin with cold fingers.

  So fast.

  He’d come to that conclusion so very fast.

  She pulled away from him. “So what you’re telling me is that I’m not enough for you the way I am now. You want to fix me, too.”

  It wasn’t a question. More of a statement, really. A realization. She’d been deceiving herself—she’d been a fool. “Look, Dare. If you—"

  His arms came around her like steel bands, and he swung her up into them and carried her across the room and tossed her on the bed. Before she could think, or breathe, or protest, he was on top of her, holding her face in his hands.

  “If you really think that, you haven’t been paying attention,” he said roughly, just before he took her mouth with his. “You’re not enough for me. You’re everything to me. You are the star that guides me and I will never, ever let you go. I love you. Exactly. The. Way. You. Are.”

  And then he proceeded to prove it to her, slowly and very, very thoroughly, for the next few hours, until a knock at the door called him to a meeting with the king.

  “I’ll be right back,” he promised, kissing her again. “We’ll figure out the Wish later.”

  “I’ll be here,” she promised, snuggling deeper into the blankets. “Bring food.”

  He laughed. “As you wish.”

  She opened one eye. “Hey. Did you just Princess Bride me?”

  His footsteps stopped. “Inconceivable!”

  And then he was gone, and she sank back down in the pillows and thought that this might be the most hedonistic way anybody had ever spent Christmas Eve in the history of time.

  Then she sat bolt upright in the bed.

  It was Christmas Eve!

  And the painting—her gift to Dare—wasn’t finished.

  Time to get to work.

  Lyric painted and painted with every ounce of emotion she'd felt during the time since she’d first come to Atlantis, and everything she’d felt for Dare for so long –the six long years that had led up to this moment.

  She was possessed. The Muse was riding her. Driving her. This would probably be the best painting she'd ever done, and yet she suddenly knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  He loved her.

  He loved her.

  He’d offered to give up the sea for her. How could she give him only a painting, even the best painting of her life? No. She needed to give him something else. Something more.

  This was Dare. This was the man she loved more than life itself and would love for eternity. He deserved the best gift that anyone had ever given, and she knew exactly how to get it.

  She put down her paintbrush, walked carefully to the table, and felt for the amethyst. The Wish. Warmth surged into her skin, emanating from the large round stone. He’d said it ‘told’ him, but how did a rock tell anybody anything?

  When it spoke to her, its voice sounding inside her mind, she was startled so badly she nearly dropped it.

  Yes, I'm yours. I'm your Wish. Use me as you will.

  The voice was tantalizing, and she spared a moment to wonder about the stories of all those who’d come before her in the thousands and thousands of years since the Wish had first come to be.

  But it was Christmas Eve, and she had no time for wondering or stories or imaginings. She needed to make a wish—and for that, she needed to call Poseidon.

  Lyric clutched the Wish in one hand and cautiously felt her way to the balcony that ran the length of the bedroom and adjoining room Riley had given her. She hadn’t spent much time on it because she'd been at her easel so much. But it faced the sunset, Dare had told her, and she knew that if the sea god would be anywhere, he would be presiding over the sun setting across the waves of his ocean. She grasped the railing with one hand and held the Wish out on her palm with the other.

  "Poseidon, I'm calling you. I don't exactly know how this goes, and I have the highest respect for you and your warriors. In fact, I'm choosing one of them—one of yours—for my own. He's why I'm calling you. Please hear my call.”

  She felt a little silly, but the Wish was whispering in her ear, so she repeated its words: "Poseidon, I invoke the power of the Wish. Please come to me now."

  WHAT DO YOU ASK OF ME, HUMAN? aND WHATEVER IT IS, DO YOU REALLY THINK DARE IS WORTH IT?

  She raised her chin in defiance, sparing a brief thought for how much she would have liked to actually see Poseidon’s face. That would've been some story to tell Meredith when she went back to Florida to pack up her studio and retrieve her cat.

  Oh, well. Dare could describe it to both of them.

  "Poseidon, by the power of this token, I ask to exchange my Wish for Dare’s sea spirit bond with Seranth to be whole again.”

  YOU ARE A VERY FOOLISH WOMAN. YOU COULD HAVE ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. ANYTHING FOR YOURSELF. VAST RICHES. POWER. YOUR SIGHT. AND YOU ASK FOR THIS? FOR THAT SCOUNDREL?

  “He’s my scoundrel.” She smiled fiercely, even though she felt a few tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't want riches, or power, or anything else but this. I only want Dare. And I exchange this Wish freely, because Dare is my Christmas miracle. He gave me his whole heart, and I want to give my whole heart back to him."

  I HOPE HE CAN DESERVE YOU, WOMAN. VERY WELL. I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO AGREE. THE MAGIC OF THE WISH IS FAR OLDER THAN MINE.

  A cool wind circled her body, twirling up from her feet and then around and around her until it rose past her head and vanished. When the wind was gone, she realized that the heavy weight of the Wish was gone, too. When she wrapped her fingers around the object that had taken its place on her palm, she could tell by the size and shape that it must be the copper band that symbolized Dare's spirit bond with Seranth.

  Poseidon had fulfilled his part of their bargain.

  Joy filled her soul until she almost worried that she might float right off the balcony. She'd seen inside Dare’s soul; she’d seen his love for her and his longing for the sea. There could be no better gift for this man—her man.

  And it was Christmas Eve—a time for miracles. Now all she had to do was wait. And perhaps she'd finish that painting after all and give it to the queen. Because a little Christmas magic had come her way from Riley, too. She walked back into her room, absolutely incandescent with happiness, and wrapped the armband in a scarf and put it under her pillow.

  Her only tiny regret was that she wouldn't be able to see the joy on Dare’s face when she gave it to him. She’d feel it, though, in his arms. Oh, how she’d feel it.

  And that, after all, was the most important gift of all.

  14

  And then Della leapt up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

  Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

  "Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

  Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

  "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presen
ts away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  It was nearly midnight by the time Dare made it back to the palace. His mission had been more successful than he could have dreamed. He raced up the stairs to Lyric, wanting nothing more than to share her joy at finally regaining her sight. She must have used the Wish by now.

  Or perhaps she was waiting for him, so he could be there when she did. He hoped that she had. And when she saw…

  Almost before he knocked, she threw open the door and launched herself into his arms. He barely had time to put the long, thin package down on the floor before he caught her.

  He whirled her around, kissing and kissing her, and kicked the door shut behind them. When he finally managed to let her go, she was laughing and breathless.

  “Lyric. Tell me. Did you use it? The Wish? Can you see?”

  She took a deep breath. “I did use the Wish, but not for my sight. Let me show you.”

  She moved as quickly as caution allowed to the bed and drew a small wrapped object from beneath her pillow. “This is it, my darling. Isn’t it wonderful? I think you’ll be the happiest captain on the high seas now, my love.”

  She put the package in his hand and waited, beaming, as he slowly unwrapped it. Even before the wrapping fell away, though, he knew. He could feel it; could sense his bond with Seranth returning.

  “Oh, Lyric. Oh, my love. Mi amara.” He didn’t understand why his eyes were burning. Why he couldn’t swallow past the lump that was suddenly in his throat. “ I could never, ever deserve you, not if I worked at it for a thousand years, but you can believe that I will spend every minute of that time trying.”