Hot for the Holidays

by Lora Leigh

  ater as Naomi snuggled down on Jamison’s bare shoulder, she murmured, “We have so many homes now. This one, my folks’ place in Tucson, and your family in Chinle. Kind of nice for an only child.”

  “Julie’s an only child,” Jamison said in a speculative voice.

  Naomi laughed and kissed the tip of his nose. “If we keep this up, she won’t be for long.”

  Jamison’s eyes warmed, his kiss when he pulled her down to him both loving and heat-stirring. “Then as the years go by, we’ll have even more homes to go to on Christmas.”

  “Fine with me.” Naomi opened her arms as he slid on top of her. “My Changer mate. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Allyson James writes nationally bestselling, award-winning romances, mysteries, and mainstream fiction under several pseudonyms. She lives in the desert Southwest with her husband and cats and spends most of her time in the world of her stories. A list of Allyson’s current books and upcoming releases can be found on her website, www.allysonjames.com, or contact Allyson via e-mail at allysonjames@cox.net. And keep an eye out for Stormwalker by Allyson James, coming in Spring 2010!

  Sweet Enchantment

  Anya Bast

  ONE

  Bella had vowed to never bind her life to this man’s. Now here she was, about to do it. Worse, she’d made the decision only two seconds after learning of his predicament.

  Ronan still didn’t know she’d entered his cell. He knelt before her, his arms extended to either side, his wrists wrapped in heavy charmed iron chain, and his gaze fastened on the cracked cement floor of the cell.

  How low the great mage of the Seelie Court had sunk. The only charmed iron chain in the whole of the Seelie Rose Tower resided within the walls of Her Majesty’s Prison, and he was wrapped in every inch of it. His dark hair hung over his face, and his biceps and muscular bare back flexed as he moved uncomfortably against his bonds.

  Bella liked the fact that the mage, Ronan Achaius Quinn, was in such a subservient position to her. He wasn’t a man who was subservient to anyone unless forced by charmed iron to be so.

  For a moment she allowed her gaze to trace over him. She’d never seen a more beautifully made man in her life. Not before the day she’d clapped eyes on him and not afterward. The sight of him made a woman want the iron silk of his body rubbing up against hers, made carnal thoughts crowd the most prudish of female minds.

  His long black hair shadowed his square jaw, the sensual pout of his mouth, and the icy blue eyes that were known for being able to draw the truth from the worst of liars. He wore only a pair of loose black trousers, leaving his feet and upper half bare. Ronan always wore black, even here in prison. His sculpted, powerful body moved a little as he tried to find the comfort his captors were so set on not giving him. He was strong not only in body and mind, but in magick too. However, the charmed iron neutralized the abilities he possessed. It was his sorcerer’s skills that normally kept him very high in the Summer Queen’s graces.

  Not so tonight.

  The Seelie wanted to kill him and she could hardly blame them. However, she couldn’t allow it. She couldn’t let Ronan come to harm, no matter what lay between them or what he’d done to land himself here. It didn’t matter that once he’d shredded her heart. It didn’t matter that she’d vowed never to offer any part of herself to him ever again. She’d been a fool to think she could ever keep a promise like that.

  “I can smell your perfume, Bella,” Ronan said in a broken, gravelly voice, without looking up. “I’ve never forgotten your scent. I know it’s you.”

  She shivered at his words and then shook it off. It was silly to think it was romantic. He was a mage, after all, even when stripped of his magick by charmed iron. He had a nose for different scents because of his work. His power was innate, allowing him to twist leaf, flower, and herb into powerful spells.

  Not only was he a mage, he was only just on the barest side of Seelie. Ronan possessed Unseelie blood, enough to allow him to cast dark spells. The Summer Queen, the Seelie Royal, allowed him to remain in the Rose Tower because of the strength of his magick and, undoubtedly, his physical beauty. And perhaps there was a part of her that enjoyed thumbing her nose at the Shadow King, the Unseelie Royal, by denying him one of his strongest court members.

  Ronan was one of the few members of the Seelie Court who possessed Unseelie blood, but he wasn’t the only one who had it.

  She cleared her throat. “Ronan, it’s been a long time.”

  “The last time we spoke in more than just passing, it wasn’t a happy occasion.”

  A slight tremor shook her body. No, it hadn’t been a happy occasion at all. Ronan had broken her heart into so many pieces it had taken decades to put back together. Maybe it still wasn’t healed.

  “Yes, and look at you now.” Her voice held the bitter edge of memory.

  She walked around his body, her expensive gold and white heels clicking on the gritty cell floor and the trailing edge of her pure white stole brushing through dirt. She’d been at a Seelie Court ball sharing conversation with her dearest friend, Aislinn, when she’d received the news of Ronan’s arrest. It was cold outside—almost Yule. The Seelie often held balls, but they were especially frequent during this time of the year. Despite all that lay between them, not the foulest Unseelie goblin could have stopped her from racing to the prison.

  She came to a halt in front of him.

  Pulling against his chains, biceps flexing, he finally looked up at her. His hair slipped over his forehead, and he gave his head a sharp shake to move it to the side. The man was handsome enough to break any woman’s heart, and he’d broken more than just hers, Bella was certain. He was much older than she was—though they appeared the same age. That was the way it worked with nearly immortal Tuatha Dé Danann. Once they reached the age of thirty, their aging slowed to a crawl. However that didn’t hold for experience. At nearly a century her senior, he had far more life experience than she did, and that meant he’d broken far more hearts. He had kept his affairs quiet since their breakup, however. She had to give him that much. At least she hadn’t had to endure watching other women on his arm.

  His gaze roved over her body—clad in a filmy white and gold gown. She knew what he saw. The dress was low-cut, delving deeply at her cleavage, and it was tight, appearing to be painted onto her waist and hips and dipping down to the small of her back. He looked at her like he wasn’t in chains, like she didn’t hold his fate in her hands. He looked at her like he had a right. It piqued her that he thought he could stare at her like that. It did other things too. Things it shouldn’t.

  “It’s been a long time, Bella.” He paused, swallowed. “You’re still the most beautiful woman ever to walk the streets of Piefferburg.” His voice was rich and deep, full of the sincerity she’d fallen for once.

  Her cheeks heated. Anger welled, and she forced herself not to pull the stole around her body.

  She slipped a hand to her hip. “What were you thinking, taking a job from the Phaendir? Are you insane? You had to know that if you were caught the Summer Queen would want to kill you.”

  He slanted her the cocky grin she knew so well. “Insane? Well, you know me, Bella. What do you think?”

  She turned her face away and bit her lower lip. “They plan to take your head for this. Your status as the Summer Queen’s pet mage won’t protect you. No one allies with the Phaendir and escapes the consequences.”

  “I’ve lived almost two hundred years, Bella. It won’t be a tragedy for the world to give me up, or for me to give the world up.”

  “Sweet Danu, Ronan! “Do you have some kind of death wish? Is that why you did this?”

  He only bowed his head in response, arms pulling at his bonds.

  She paced away from him, toward the cell door, folding her arms over her chest and wrapping her stole more closely around her against the chill. The cold permeating her bones had less to do with the damp prison than with what she was about to do. She halted and cl
osed her eyes, gathering her courage.

  How could she just rip her heart out of her chest and lay it on a slab to be sacrificed—again—this way? But the alternative . . . She couldn’t bear to think about it.

  “Ronan,” she started, turning toward him. “I’ve told the Summer Queen I’m taking you as my husband and she agreed to it.” She paused. “We’re getting married, you and I. It will protect you. It’s the only thing that will save you from the Wild Hunt.”

  The Wild Hunt went out every night and gathered the souls of those fae who’d died. After the Summer Queen took Ronan’s head, the Hunt would be coming for him.

  Ronan raised his head, but said nothing. For the first time in the thirty years she’d known him, apparently her words had struck him speechless. Finally, “Bella—”

  “I can’t watch them kill you, no matter how stupid you are.” She lifted her chin. “I will marry you, but it will be in name only. You’ll get no . . . privileges from me. No money, because I’ll want you to sign a prenuptial agreement. You’ll have to live with me, of course, but my apartment is large and there’s only Lolly, my housekeeper, and I there now. We’ll be able to stay somewhat separated.” She pressed her lips together. “You’ll get to keep your life. It’s a good deal.”

  “So the great Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr of a pure Tuatha Dé Danann bloodline has finally selected a suitor and he’s a prisoner slated for death. A man who pulled a job for the Phaendir, no less. Marked forever for scorn in the Rose Tower. A thief with Unseelie blood. The Seelie are laughing at you right now. Back at the ball you rushed from, they’re snickering behind their gloved hands and into snifters of cognac at this whole situation.”

  All true, but it didn’t matter. “You’re not a suitor.” Her voice came out in a harsh snap. “Once you were, maybe, thirty years ago. Briefly. Right now you’re just an old friend whose ass needs saving.” She turned away from him. “I can’t tell you how much I’m sacrificing to do this.” Emotionally. Psychologically. “Aren’t you even going to say thank you?”

  “I’m going to say no.”

  “No?” She whirled. “What? You can’t say no. You—”

  He gave his head a shake and looked up at her. His normally icy blue pupils were wide and dark, his hands clenched. “I want you, Bella, but when we come together, we do it my way. On my terms. I’ll make you mine, not the other way around.”

  Danu, the arrogance. Nothing about him had changed. “The only thing you’ll ever lay claim to is the worms that will nibble your flesh when your headless body is buried.”

  She whirled and went for the door, then halted, laying her hand against the cool steel frame and closing her eyes for a moment. It figured this was happening at Yuletide, the time of greatest darkness throughout the year. Even as stupid and stubborn as he was, she wouldn’t let him die. She’d go to the Summer Queen and figure out a way to force him to marry her.

  She’d save his life today and he could hate her for it tomorrow.

  onan bowed his head and made fists, working the blood through his arms and trying to ignore the slight sting of the iron. It was an effective torture for the fae. Normally charmed iron not only nulled a fae’s magick, it made him sick. Eventually, if the iron was left on the skin for too long, it would kill. However as a mage who was particularly susceptible to the metal, he’d worked for years on developing a resistance to it. He murmured under his breath and blue green magick sparked in his palms. His magick wasn’t as strong as when he didn’t have charmed iron touching his skin, but it was strong enough.

  Bloody hell, could it be? Did Bella still have a flicker of feeling for him? He thought he’d killed that off along with everything else good in his life a long time ago. For the first time in decades, hope flared to life inside him.

  Maybe he had something to live for after all.

  He needed to find out for certain. That meant there was no way he was going to rot in here any longer. Not with Bella out there still caring for him.

  And, bloody hell, she’d looked so good. His hands curled involuntarily remembering how satiny smooth her skin looked. He couldn’t wait to run his fingers over it, his tongue. That dress she’d been wearing was like sin woven into fabric the way it showcased her full, delectable breasts and how it tapered down her long, slender, kissable back. He wanted to plunge his hands into her thick fall of dark hair, wanted her legs around his waist while he fucked her until she couldn’t see straight. He wanted to put his claim on her, make her his in every way he could. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.

  None but Bella would do.

  Bella was his. He’d given her up once, but he’d learned his lesson. No way was he ever doing it again.

  Ronan began to plot his escape.

  TWO

  Bella crossed the stone floor of her living room, feeling the chill of the night even through her slippers. Not even the thickly woven rugs her people were so famous for could keep out the cold. Wrapping her silk bathrobe more firmly around her, she sank onto a settee in front of the well-insulated floor-to-ceiling sheet of glass that served as her apartment’s outside wall. She had a wonderful view of Piefferburg from the third-to-top floor of the Seelie Court residence. Only the Summer Queen above her had a better view, and perhaps Aislinn Christiana Guinevere Finvarra, her even more highly placed friend.

  The building was organized by social rank. Bella’s blood was very pure, her parentage nearly pristine Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann—no Unseelie, trooping fae, or wilding blood at all. As far as was public knowledge, anyway. Bella had suspected for a long time that she carried Unseelie in her gene pool. But as far as the Summer Court was concerned, she was descended from the original Tuatha Dé Danann bloodlines of Ireland. They themselves had been immigrants from Scandinavia, and before that . . . Well, no one knew for certain, but there was much speculation about their origin.

  When she’d gone to the Summer Queen to demand Ronan’s hand even though he’d told her no, she’d expected the queen to agree because of Bella’s high placement at court. The Summer Queen had denied her petition, however, wanting to see blood flow. Not even her rank and Ronan’s previously high status would sway the Seelie Royal. The queen wanted Ronan’s head and now she had every reason to take it.

  Ronan would die in the morning. The Wild Hunt would collect his soul the next night. Bella had to resign herself to the reality of the situation.

  Her stomach leaden, she glanced down at the large square that separated the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. The Seelie Court was called the Rose Tower because it was constructed of rose quartz. The Unseelie Court was referred to as the Black Tower because—never to be outdone—it was made from black quartz. The delivery of large quantities of each had been allowed by human society and the Phaendir, and magick had been employed to make them useable as construction material.

  Below her she could barely make out two figures—brownies, she thought—cavorting and playing in the softly falling snow. The whole city was awash in Yule parties at this time of the season. Elderberry wine, the traditionally favored drink of the fae, flowed fast and furiously. Mortals even risked passage beyond the city limits to partake of the festivities, though not all would make it back. That was the rule of Piefferburg, a prison sometimes called Purgatory, borrowing from human Christian tradition, by those who lived here. No fae could leave the city, but humans could enter, so long as they understood they became prey to anything that lived here once they passed the boundaries.

  They still came. The fools.

  The Phaendir, a powerful guild of druids, had created and still controlled the borders of Piefferburg with warding. They called it a “resettlement area.”

  If one wanted to be philosophical about it, the fate of the fae was poetic punishment for the horrible fae race wars of the early 1600s that had decimated their population and left them easy prey to their common enemy, the Phaendir. The wars had forced the fae from the underground, and the humans had panicked in the face of the truth�
��the fae were real.

  On top of the wars, a mysterious sickness called Watt Syndrome had also befallen them. Some thought the illness had been created by the Phaendir. However it had come about, the result was the same—it had further weakened them.

  That’s when the Phaendir had allied with the humans to imprison them in an area of what had then been the New World, founded by a human named Jules Piefferburg.

  These days the sects of fae who’d warred in the 1600s had reached an uneasy peace. Trapped together in Piefferburg, they were united against the Phaendir because that old human saying was true—the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Most fae felt a surprising lack of animosity toward humans who’d been so frightened of the fae and so manipulated by the Phaendir.

  But not all of the fae felt that way.

  These days the humans weren’t just frightened of the fae, they were also highly fascinated by them. They passed the borders of Piefferburg knowing they took their lives in their hands, yet unable to resist the draw. It had always been that way, since the dawn of human evolution. Humans were like moths drawn to the seductive and magickal faery flame. It was one of the reasons the fae had chosen to go underground so many thousands of years ago.

  The Summer Queen had even allowed a human film crew to stay in residence at the Seelie Court. They produced a television show for the mortals called Faemous, which followed the social frolicking of the Rose Tower. Apparently it was the most popular program on human television. Humans were so enthralled with them that they would sit on a couch and watch fae lives played out rather than live their own lives. It was ridiculous, in Bella’s opinion.

  Never to be outdone, the Shadow King, who ruled the Unseelie Court, had allowed a film crew in too, but they’d quickly become someone’s appetizers, or so Bella had heard.

  She gazed across the great square to the hulking black quartz high-rise of the Unseelie Court, a place forever locked in a cold war with the shining Rose Tower. The Summer Queen only allowed in those with the untainted blood of the Seelie Tuatha Dé Danann, and even they were subject to a strict hierarchy. Although the occasional Unseelie nobles, if they possessed certain qualities, were permitted residence.

  The Shadow King of the Unseelie Court took all kinds, any monster with fae blood, any creature bred between two immortals. The only prerequisite for being a member of the Black Tower was a willingness to spill blood, either into your mouth or onto the floor, it didn’t matter.

  Ronan would be welcome. So, maybe, would she, since she wielded the dark arts. But the thought of living in such violence and chaos, among such monsters, made her shudder.

  As she watched the soft white flakes of snow fall into the velvety darkness, movement caught her eye across the square. Lifting off into the black was the Lord of the Wild Hunt and his entourage. That mysterious figure and his Host made her blood ice more than Jack Frost’s Yuletide decoration of her windows. No one knew the man’s identity. All anyone knew was that he was a member of the Unseelie Court, and that he and his Host sometimes meted out brutal punishment to those fae who broke the law. They also reaped the souls of the Fae after they died and escorted them to the afterlife. Every night they collected them.

  They’d be coming for Ronan soon.

  She turned her face away from the sight of the Lord of the Hunt’s Host rising into the dark, snowy skies on massive stallion hooves and the soft padded feet of netherworld hounds. To distract herself from her thoughts, she grabbed the remote and flipped the TV on across the room. Faemous exploded onto the screen. She should have known; her housekeeper loved the twenty-four-hour-a-day coverage of the court as much as the humans.

  As she went to turn it off, Ronan’s face filled the huge dimension of the screen. Bella paused.

  In other news, Ronan Achaius Quinn, once celebrated Seelie Court mage, is scheduled for a morning beheading after working for the Phaendir without the Summer Queen’s leave. It’s unknown what sort of job he performed for the Phaendir, but it was enough to incur Her Majesty’s wrath.

  A photo of herself popped onto the screen and Bella rolled her eyes.

  One must wonder how Bella Rhiannon Caliste Mac Lyr is feeling tonight. After a scorching romance all thought long extinguished some thirty years ago, today she attempted to save the mage’s life by marrying him. As we know, she has resisted all suitors and has done so for the last three decades, ever since they parted ways. Apparently our suspicions about her still holding a torch for Ronan were correct. The announcer’s voice lowered a bit, and you could practically hear the arch of the human male’s brow. Word is, he said no. We wonder—

  Bella flipped the TV off. She threw the remote to the settee and looked around her spacious, luxurious . . . empty apartment. There had been a moment or two when she’d been looking forward to sharing this space with someone . . . with Ronan. The announcer on Faemous had been right—she’d never stopped carrying a torch for him. For decades she’d tried very hard to hide that from the rest of the court, but now it would be apparent to all and she would be a laughingstock.

  She didn’t regret it. She’d done all she could to save his mangy hide. His death would not weigh on her conscience.

  It would only weigh on her heart.

  Making a noise of disgust that echoed through her living room and into her darkened kitchen, and made her feel even lonelier than she had a moment ago, she turned and walked into her bedroom. This place was huge, yet she felt strangled most of the time. The Seelie Court was the most luxurious place in Piefferburg, yet to Bella it felt like a morgue. Stifling, too close. She longed just once to go beyond the bounds of the court and see the rest of Piefferburg, like the Ceantar Láir, fae suburbs as they were called, where the trooping fae that weren’t a part of the courts or the wild places lived. Or even the Boundary Lands, where vine and tree grew within and intertwined with the shambles of old buildings, and where the wild and solitary fae had made their homes.

  She also dreamt of seeing the human world. Like many fae, she wondered what it would be like to be free. Rumor had it Ronan had seen it. Ronan had been everywhere, seen everything. He was allowed so much more freedom as a partial-blood Seelie mage than she was as a pureblood Seelie Tuatha Dé.

  The irony was that she wasn’t pureblood Seelie at all.

  It was a secret she’d only ever shared with her best friend, Aislinn. Bella could twist curses with her thoughts. She’d first noticed it around the time she’d turned seven, the same time a fae’s magick normally began to awaken.

  Her mother and father had lived in the Rose Tower’s courtyard, next to a great Seelie lady who didn’t like children. The neighbor’s pride and joy had been an elaborate flower garden in her yard which she kept nourished with her magick even through the dead of winter. One day Aislinn accidently left her favorite doll at the edge of the garden and the lady had incinerated it on the spot, making Bella’s best friend cry. Bella had been so angry that she’d stood in her parents’ yard and stared hard at her neighbor’s labor, those roses, lilies, and orchids she kept so perfectly tended, and had wished them to wilt and die.

  By the morning Bella’s will had been done. All that was left of the woman’s beautiful garden was rows of drooping gray flower heads and scorched grass.

  That was Unseelie magick, dark magick. B ella had begun to wonder about her bloodline. Began to suspect. And then she’d noticed some of her other stray dark thoughts begin to manifest: her wish that her mother’s piano would be destroyed so she wouldn’t have to take lessons anymore; her hope that the water main in the school would break so they would have a free day.

  And then she’d known for certain she was strong Unseelie.

  She’d wonde