Son of Krampus (Holidays of Love)

by Ellen Mint

  America was a strange land and he knew there were differing customs, but he never thought any land kept sandwiches hidden in armoires. Nadire chuckled again and grazed her hand back into the drawer to reveal a second sandwich that was a near duplicate of the first. She took a more tender bite, tearing less of the bread and meat off, but he could guess by the fluttering in her stomach she was just as hungry.

  After swallowing, she stared at him. “That’s my gift from the Divine. I can pull people’s wants from any pocket, bag, drawer.”

  “So that’s how…?” Emeric gasped, surprised to find he cared how Santa Claus carried enough toys to all the children of the world.

  Nadire laughed. “People love to make up theories that the bag is magical. As if we haven’t gone through a few hundred of them over the years. No one ever guesses the magic is in the hand and not the sack.”

  He took another chew of his sandwich, expecting to find an aftertaste of magic—as if such a thing existed. But there was nothing special save a spicy mayonnaise melded with a vinaigrette that dripped down his arm. “You can create things out of thin air?”

  “No,” she admitted, chewing more thoughtfully on her sandwich. A tiny dot of mustard landed on her cheek, Nadire not noticing as she wrapped an arm around her chest. “That wouldn’t work. You can’t say give a person a bag of money missing serial numbers or they’d be arrested.”

  “Unless you want them to be arrested, I suppose,” Emeric thought aloud.

  She winced a moment as if he reminded her of his cruel family history, but Nadire didn’t berate him over it. “Afraid we’re not like the fabled Djinn of old. That sandwich was already created somewhere, crafted before I pulled it to where it needed to be.”

  “So you’re a thief?” He laughed.

  “No!” Her eyes flared, her shoeless foot stomping the floor. That simmering anger that stirred him hard bubbled up, but Emeric wasn’t in the mood to begin their argument. Instead, he slid closer, Nadire’s eyes winnowing in on his thumb. He swiped the mustard stain off her cheek and plopped it into his mouth as a blush rose from the spot where he touched her.

  “Robbing from the rich to give to the poor,” he mused. “Rather a romantic thought.”

  “It doesn’t…we don’t. This is why the factories, the… We do create the gifts. Among other enterprises.”

  Charity. Klaus Holdings was good at hiding its philanthropic nature as if concerned anyone might wonder why this private company seemed to work primarily for two purposes. But Emeric sniffed it out, even without having to see their income statements from the fiscal year. They were the backbone of nearly two hundred different charities and assisted over a thousand across the world. It was admirable, but nothing more than a band-aid slapped across a gaping wound.

  Wafting his hot lips to her cheek, he pressed a kiss where the mustard had been. A whisper darted over her clean skin as he said, “Mind the occasional sandwich or two that goes missing from a kitchen counter.”

  It wasn’t a tongue-lashing he got, but a chuckle, Nadire twisting in his arms to laugh. “Fine. We’re minor thieves with a major in breaking and entering.”

  Her dazzling eyes and the flickering candles of the whiskey irises rolled up to him. A groan at his summation of her family drifted through there, but all Emeric could think of was the ache in his belly. How he wanted to carry her back to bed. To envelop her in his arms, his teeth pressed to the nape of her neck as he cupped her breasts in the palms of his hands.

  “Want?” he whispered, the cognitive section of his brain trying to overpower the wanton lust. “You said something about want.”

  “It…” Her head tipped down as if she couldn’t face him. “It isn’t something we, well I, can command at will. It comes from another person’s wants, usually a strong one in the moment.”

  “You know what other people want? All the time?”

  “No, not all the time. Usually in an emotional moment. I won’t pick up on a person wistfully wishing for a million dollars, but I can hear…feel a man that needs two quarters for the parking meter,” she patiently explained to him the way a bird would describe flight to a fish. Though, in this case, it was a fish who grew up staring into the heavens.

  Emeric finished up the last of the magic sandwich fast, allowing his hand to cup her elbow. His palm slid down her forearm, fingers delighting in the delicate bones and muscles below. “Must be incredibly useful, to know what a person wants without them having to say it.” He tried to rumble the words in his gut, to get her rich eyes to stare up at him, but Nadire glanced away.

  “Sure, in passing. Being beholden to the wants of a random stranger who vanishes in a few minutes of a heartfelt gift. But…” Nadire looked anywhere save him. Her magic meal was forgotten, half the eaten sandwich drooping as her arms fell.

  He saw no downside, the lawyer wishing he had access to everyone’s deepest desires. To be able to exploit that would be advantageous. Though… “You can’t turn it off,” he whispered, sighing as he realized the problem.

  “Not in any highly emotional moment, no,” she said without saying what she meant. “It…” Her shrouded eyes drifted to the bed, the blankets long torn free from their bodies melding. “It can be isolating at times, to always gift of yourself and not the other way around.”

  Emeric felt her tugging away, his heart wanting to tell her that he understood, but his lips pressed tight together. The part of his brain not tripping on endorphins knew who she was and how big a problem his admittance would be. Instead, Nadire rescued him, by asking haphazardly, “What about you? What’s your gift?”

  He snorted, stepping back and pushing away his fallen hair. “So you presuppose the Krampus is of the Divine.”

  A hand landed on her hip, no doubt Nadire in a pose to chastise, but all it did was draw his eyes down her curves. “Given the fact he’s over a thousand years old, it’s not a hard guess to make.”

  Fair enough. And that aspect wasn’t really in question. No, he was once again being an ass to keep from having to speak his mind. “I can smell sin,” he said, his eyes closed to take in a deep breath. Even with the owner of the room gone, and a sharp note of Febreze in the air, he could still pick up on the piquant notes of a liar and charlatan.

  “You can…?” Nadire was confused, her lip wobbling.

  “Yes, smell sin. It is as strange and off-putting as it sounds. Different sins have different odors, ones that do not correlate well to normal smells. The closest to adultery for example is a moldy sack of potatoes microwaved in rancid milk. The rest are impossible to explain.”

  He’d tried to cover the scents at times, relying upon heavy perfumes and oils, but not even burning incense could erase some of the cruelest cuts in the world. Nadire was eyeing him up, her arms crossed in thought, a dribble of mustard landing upon the side of her right breast. He tried to focus on that to shake away the lingering anger in his heart.

  “So that’s why…?” she began, but Emeric interrupted her.

  “As I put to you, it can be useful, allowing me to know when a person is lying or attempting to harm me or others. To know the bad from the good by smell alone, but…” He shouldn’t continue. He should silence his tongue and resume either bedding her or his quest to upend her family’s holdings. Speaking from his soul was not a help to either endeavor.

  “It is lonely,” he whispered, his eyes shut tight to keep from either watching her nod her head in agreement or snort in derision. “No one is pure, no one is without a white lie, or a curt look, or a moment of cruelty. To always know is…”

  The sound of Nadire’s lips popping caused Emeric to open his eyes. She’d inched a hand up his arm, her palm worrying his bicep as if she had to warm him. “In our first encounter, you said I didn’t smell of sin.”

  “Gave myself away without thinking,” he admitted, wincing at the foolish move.

  “I can’t hear your wants,” she tapped her head. “It bothered me at first, as if I was deaf and I thought you didn’t�
�you wouldn’t…”

  “Ah.” A blush churned up his cheeks as he remembered her confused and concerned looks from their first time. “I can assure you, for what little the word of a lawyer and child of Krampus can mean,” Emeric raised his eyes so they blazed in hers, “I am incapable of not wanting you.”

  He meant physically, surely she knew that. Their touch practically sparked the air, but as his honest words washed over her gawping, blushing form, Emeric felt a thud land in his stomach. Rather than dwell upon it, he chalked it up to the sandwich. “I was concerned, smelling nothing on you but your perfume, that you were a nun and I’d just ransacked you without thought.”

  “Well, for what the word of the child of Saint Nicholas means,” Nadire repeated his words back to him, “I can assure you that I am not perfect. Nor always pure.”

  His soul ached for that answer. While his mind knew who she was, his instincts kept insisting that he was not worthy to touch her, to kiss her pure lips, to breathe in her clean scent. Having that assurance shattered away the last vestiges of the gentle guardian inside.

  Hungry, Emeric gripped her waist. The sandwich scattered from her fingers, Nadire swooping her hands around his neck as he hauled her into the air. His lips plucked kisses freely, not caring where, as she slid her naked body against his. Each touch ignited the flames, Emeric spinning on his heels and tossing her back to the bed he couldn’t let her leave.

  Giggling, Nadire sunk into the mattress, her hair spiraling off the bottom of the pillows he just managed to get her to. She drew the edge of her thumb across her teeth, her red-stained lips sucking upon the tip. Once she knew he was staring, her eyes darted to his, daring him to come once more into her trap.

  Not even pausing to blink, Emeric dug a knee into the mattress, his legs climbing over her, when a sound deadened the air in his lungs. The stairs creaked, a baritone voice singing, “Schnaps, das war sein letztes Wort,” inching closer.

  The curse rose in Emeric’s throat, his arms frozen while he gazed at the naked woman in his room, just as a knock came upon the door. “Emery, don’t pretend you’re not up. You never could sleep in the light.”

  “Fuck,” he mouthed at Nadire, leaping off of her to find anything to cover his nakedness. “What do you want?” he shouted to his father while trying to yank a pair of pants up his legs. It wasn’t going so well as his foot kept snagging. Emeric was pleased with the progress until he glanced down to find his jeans were inside out.

  “It’s about that ol’ rat. I had a recollection. Thought it might be useful to get down,” his dad continued then hummed the next bars of the drinking song under his breath.

  Wincing, Emeric tried to not glance at the said daughter of the rat trying to blend in with the walls as she struggled to get into a dress skin tight. She had to hear that, but she was keeping her head low to avoid him.

  “Can’t it wait 'til morning?” he tried, praying that his father was too pissed to care.

  “You said—”

  “I know, I…” Emeric glanced to the woman now in her black corset and nothing else. Even with the sword of Damocles dangling over his head, he couldn’t blot away the ache to part her legs and plunge his lips to her neck. “Give me a second,” he said, finally yanking up an old robe.

  It wasn’t a perfect solution, but the ends were long enough they’d help hide away how he was seemingly eternally erect around Nadire. Giving another look back at her to make certain she was hidden from the line of sight, Emeric cracked open the door. His father made a move to step in, but Emeric shoved him back into the darkened hall.

  “What is this?” the old man muttered, a hand not holding a stein or bottle sliding out. Curious.

  “Vati,” Emeric finished cinching up the robe, his hands quivering as he tried to shake off both the fear of his father learning the truth and the loss of the cozy love nest. “Now is not a good time.”

  “But you said—”

  “Yes, I am aware what I said. It’s only that…”

  His father clicked his fingers, fire sparking from the fake claws. It began to burn upon the tip of one an inch above his real finger. Emeric’s eyes opened wide as Mirek pulled the flames close to her face.

  “Ah.” Mirek chuckled, waving off the flame without a second thought. Smoke puffed from his hand, which he dug into a pocket to fish something out. “I understand now. You brought back company.”

  Christ. How did he know?

  His father swiped a finger over his cheeks, smiling. “She left her mark all over you. Strong too. Explains this.” From that curious coat pocket came Nadire’s abandoned panties.

  Emeric’s eyes opened wide, his fingers snatching them away as he tried to stash the incriminating evidence. His father only watched, laughing at the sight. “Having a bit of fun before we head home?”

  “That isn’t…” Emeric gulped, well aware his father was bellowing. It wasn’t just the drink that killed his indoor voice, the Krampus never thought he needed one.

  “Don’t need to explain to me, son.” Mirek patted him on the shoulders. “But do be careful, and if not, name it after your grandmother.”

  “Father!” Emeric hissed, wanting to melt into a puddle of shame.

  His dad laughed once more, unable to stop finding it all so hilarious. “I’ll leave you to your extracurricular activities, but we do need to talk in the morning. I remembered something that’ll cook that fat goose in his own gravy.”

  “That’s…” Emeric swallowed, his turncoat eyes darting to the door, “that’s good.”

  He completely failed to hide his sudden trepidation as his father focused on him. “What’s the matter? This was your idea, after all. I know Nick’s great at convincing you he’s lord all mighty and perfect as a plum, but don’t buy it, boy. Keep your eyes clear and your heart focused. We’ll win, I know it. The heartless Myras have this coming.”

  Flames hotter than the ones his father could call at will licked against Emeric’s soul. The guilt churned through his stomach, his heart thundering at how he was hiding one of those heartless Myras in his room. And, he’d stupidly broken his rule—her rule, giving him a glimpse of the woman behind the Saint. God help him, but it was an enchanting face as well.

  “Right.” Emeric forced on a smile, trying to not wince. “We’ll win. I am certain of it.”

  “That’s my boy. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” His father yanked a bottle of cinnamon schnapps out of his coat pocket. “I feel like celebrating. Schnaps das war sein letztes Wort, dann trugen ihn die Englein fort.” His father’s drunken singing echoed down the hall towards his bedroom, leaving Emeric alone with a woman he had to hide from the man that could smell sin at thirty paces.

  “Oh.” Mirek paused before his door and waved the sloshing bottle around. “And the broken lamp…” God’s garters. Emeric melted at his father recognizing the sex-induced damage. “I’m glad you’re saving all this energy for the states instead of breaking things at home. Gute nacht.”

  Cursing under his breath, no doubt his father’s excellent hearing picking it up regardless, Emeric tried to steady himself. Still, he took another glance down the dark hall to make certain his father was truly behind closed doors before he cracked his open. The image Emeric dreaded danced about the room.

  Nadire was already in her dress, her wild eyes struggling to hunt up the shoes she’d kicked off. Curling his fingers tight into fists, Emeric said, “There is no need to…”

  “This was a mistake,” she sputtered, darting around to hunt out the lost heels. After dropping to her knees and finding the left under the ransacked bed, she glared at him. “I never should have—”

  “It was one…” Okay, more than one time. “Night. Forgotten. Poof. Dust on the wind.” His tongue was trapped in fragments, the words struggling to escape as he warred within himself. There was a battle to fight, one that required him at his best, but God’s truth he didn’t want her to leave. Not until he could finally drink his fill and satiate that persistent itch.
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  “No.” Nadire slipped her right shoe on, once again rising to her assisted height to stare into his eyes. “It was not one night. It’s never one night with you.”

  “Me? It is my doing? You frilled yourself up in that…” Emeric jabbed a finger at the dress he’d removed with his teeth and gulped. He hated how badly he wanted it off her once again. That want wouldn’t solve anything. “You invited me to dinner.”

  She swiped a hand through her hair, yanking up the magical purse dangling off her arm. “Yes, and it was a mistake. I thought, hoped…Fuck! This, whatever we keep doing, whatever we keep pretending, is over.”

  No.

  “Fine,” his wounded ego spoke for him, knowing that she couldn’t hear the true hunger in his soul. “I return home soon enough. You’re an annoying distraction, anyway.” Emeric rolled his eyes as the truth of the night struck him. “Which is what you were attempting to do in the first place. Keep me so buried in your cleavage I’d fail to look up and the lawsuit faded away? Clever.”

  Nadire stomped hard onto the wooden floors, no doubt his father picking up on the sound. But Emeric didn’t have time to worry as her makeup-smeared face drew close to his. The same anger that infected her in the restaurant was on display, leaving the man digging his claws into his flesh to keep from kissing her.

  “What I wanted was for you to God damn listen just one time, but no. In what twisted reality would a man of the Krampus ever listen to reason?”

  Emeric snarled. “You spit my family name.”

  “And you spit on mine,” she said back, her body keeping out of range. “This is done. Dead. You’ll not see me again.” With that pronouncement, instead of to the door, Nadire walked deeper into his bedroom.

  Folding his arms under his chest, Emeric asked, “What of the lawsuit? Giving in to our demands already?”

  “Oh, we will fight you, and we will win. Because we are the fucking Klauses. Sixteen hundred years hasn’t stopped us from owning Christmas. You and your goat-father are barely a blip.”