Miss Claus Under The Mistletoe (A Shifter Christmas Romance Book 2)

by J. L. Hendricks

  “Kat, you should take your sister and get back to the shop. It won’t be safe out tonight. The coven is searching for some humans who know too much. I don’t know all of the particulars, but someone discovered their lair. Or something to that effect.” Ivan wiped his hands on the shirt of the dead vampire.

  “That would be us,” Kat said.

  “What? Why would you go looking for the vampires? You know better than anyone how dangerous they are, and what they do to humans who discover them.” Ivan walked up to Kat and wrapped her in his arms.

  She told us they were just friends, but that isn’t the hug of someone who’s just a friend. There was a lot more going on than she admitted.

  “Why Kat? Why” Ivan whispered in her ear. Too bad I was close enough to hear and see as he kissed her cheek.

  Kat turned her head and kissed him back.

  I cleared my throat. “Little sister, standing right here, guys.” How awkward!

  Kat chuckled and backed away from Ivan. “Sorry, Indie. It’s just been a while since I’ve seen Ivan.”

  “Why, Kat? The pack can’t protect you from the entire coven.” Ivan put his hand on Kat’s cheek and rubbed his thumb across her lips.

  “Because they took Acadia, one of our closest friends. We’re going to get her back.” Kat took his hand off her face and took another step back.

  “When?” Ivan asked.

  “About a month ago. We have been looking for her for the past two weeks. When we discovered it was vampires who took her, I went looking for you. Where have you been?” Kat furrowed her brow and took my hand, pulling me to her side.

  “I left the city for a while. It’s too painful to…to be here alone.” Ivan looked down at his blood stained hands. He wiped them again on Vasily’s shirt, but he couldn’t get all of the blood off.

  “Oh. I’m sorry… I didn’t realize.” Kat looked to me and sighed. “I need to get Indie back to the shop and tell Rico and his pack what we learned tonight. Rico is heading up the investigation into the disappearance of Acadia. Is there anything you can do to help us?”

  “Vasily was right. I’m not welcome in town anymore. Although, I do still have a couple friends left. I’ll see what I can find. Is your number the same?” Ivan sighed and looked at Kat. He raised his eyebrows waiting for her to answer him.

  “Yes. I know I said I was going to change it after the last time I saw you, but I couldn’t.” Kat sighed and squeezed my hand.

  “Um, Ivan. Do you want to come back to our place and help explain things to Rico?” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do here. It was obvious that they were into each other. Neither of them wanted to leave, but both were fidgety.

  “Thank you, Indie. But, I need to clean up this body. It has to be set out somewhere no one will find before the sun comes up.” Ivan pursed his lips and bent over to pick it up.

  “Oh, I guess the rumors are true? Sunlight will disintegrate a vampire’s body?” I hadn’t had much interaction with vampires before.

  “Yes, and a stake through the heart will also kill us. You ladies should always carry a sharp stake with you. Or a silver dagger. A pure silver dagger through the heart will kill most paranormal creatures. Remember that.” He looked me in the eye and turned to leave.

  “Let’s go home, Indie.” Kat sighed and pulled me back toward our home.

  Up until a few weeks ago, I thought vampires didn’t exist. I also thought magic didn’t exist until someone tried to kill my adopted sister, Jenna, with a death spell. Then everything I thought was a myth, or urban legend, had proved to be true.

  Chapter 1

  Jenna

  Two weeks earlier

  “Welcome to The Voodoo Dolls House. How may I…Adalaide? Amaline? So good to see you two again. Where’s Acadia?” I stepped out from behind the counter and went over to two of my longtime friends.

  The three of them were identical triplets. They always dressed alike, but there were a few differences those who knew them could point out.

  “Hi, Jenna. Is Kat here?” Adalaide, who normally smiled, had a long face and hunched shoulders.

  “Yes, give me a second and I’ll call her down.” I went to the back room and picked up my cell.

  Kat answered on the second ring. “What’s up? Need some help down there?”

  “No, Adalaide and Amaline are here. Something doesn’t feel right. I’ve never seen Adalaide so sad. They want you to come down.” I rubbed the back of my neck.

  I could feel a headache coming on. Sometimes I would get stress headaches that started with tension in my neck. Today seemed like one of those days.

  “Tell them I’ll be right down.” Kat hung up the call.

  I went back out to the shop and noticed we had a customer. First, I walked over to Amaline. “Kat will be down shortly. I have to help this customer. Feel free to go sit in the back room if you want.”

  “No, it’s fine. We’ll hang out here and wait.” Amaline picked up a voodoo doll and then put it back down.

  I walked over to the customer and recognized her. “Hi, Lisa! What can I help you with today? Some more rose tea?”

  Lisa loved the tea. She came in regularly for it. A few weeks back she came in and purchased a love potion. We sell the rose tea re-packaged as a love potion. It worked for her. Her boyfriend, now fiancé, loved the tea so much she comes in and buys it on a regular basis. Of course, I mark it up nicely.

  “Yup. Need more tea and was thinking about getting some of your aphrodisiac fudge for a friend of mine.” Lisa smiled and walked up to the counter.

  “None for yourself?” I winked at her.

  “Nope, all good in that department. In fact, I can hardly keep my fiancé away from me now.” Lisa laughed and shook her head.

  “When is the wedding?” She had invited me two weeks ago when she came by to tell me about it.

  “We’re still looking at venues. Once we decide on the location, we’ll get their first available date. I don’t want to wait any longer before I’m married to the man of my dreams.” She giggled and looked at the fudge display case.

  “So, who in your very wide circle needs help in the love department?” I loved to talk about Lisa’s friends. When something worked for them, they came in and started buying their own stock of whatever they needed. Lisa was turning into my best marketing tool.

  “Today is all about Samantha. We discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her. She’s such a sweet girl too. Poor thing. She wanted to wait for marriage before sharing her bed. Tom agreed too! The rat! Oh! Can we turn him into a rat?” Lisa giggled and looked around the store. There wasn’t anyone else but my friends.

  “Um, that would be a no. We can’t do anything to seriously hurt someone. I do have a potion which will make it very difficult for him to, um, ‘work’ for someone else. If you know what I mean?” I elbowed her and wiggled my brows.

  “Ohhh, do tell.” Lisa gave me her undivided attention.

  “Does Tom have a favorite drink? Maybe he keeps a bottle of scotch or something similar at his place?” I asked.

  “Yes, he drinks scotch almost every night when he gets home from work.” Lisa nodded her head.

  “Okay, follow me.” I walked us over to the potions aisle. “This here,” I pulled down a small, iridescent blue bottle. “Will make it so that your intended target won’t feel up to being with anyone, at all.”

  “Hmm, how long will the effects last?” Lisa had crossed an arm over her chest to support her right elbow. She tapped her lips with her right index finger as she eyed the pretty bottle.

  “If you put it in his drink, he won’t feel up for anything all night long. Maybe even the next day, depending on how much he drinks. Don’t put too much in his drink, or he’ll notice the taste.” I held the bottle out for Lisa to see.

  Lisa took it in her hands. “How much does it cost?”

  “It’s fifty dollars an ounce but worth every penny. Remember Emily? She used this and said it worked. Her ex even stopped sleepin
g with his secretary. Apparently, she found someone else while he was sick.” I raised my brows.

  “Oh, that sounds perfect! Tom doesn’t know Samantha found out. The stupid guy made a sex tape! He had it at his apartment, of all places! I really can’t believe how stupid he is. He asked Samantha to come over and take care of his plants while he was out of town on business.” Lisa shook her head and chuckled.

  “Samantha saw a videotape sitting on the top of his TV. She was curious, who still uses VHS? So, she put it in and watched part of it. He comes back tomorrow. I hoped to have a plan for her before he arrives. This will be perfect!” Lisa smiled and pulled the stopper off the top of the bottle and smelled the contents. She scrunched her face up at the putrid smell.

  “This should work just fine. Have Samantha pour the contents of this bottle into a mostly full bottle of liquor. Colored liquor, like brandy, will work best. She should shake the bottle a bit and then pour his drink. It’s pretty fast acting, so whatever else she has planned, she might want to do it quickly.” I walked back to the cash register.

  “Anything else?” This wasn’t going to be a one hundred dollar sale, but it would still be a nice one.

  Lately, I seemed to have all of my sales over one hundred dollars. Business has been very good. Most of it had to do with couples and their issues. Lots of money to be made in the romance department.

  “Yes, I want a voodoo doll of him. He deserves more pain. Can we cause him to throw-up? What about a migraine?” Lisa narrowed her eyes and made her way to the voodoo doll aisle.

  “Be careful. You may want to hurt him, but I know you don’t want to cause anything serious to happen. Right?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

  She was starting to worry me. So far, all she wanted was positive things for her friends. Now she seemed hell-bent on revenge. This was not the Lisa I had been getting to know.

  “Sorry, you’re right. I just got carried away with it all. The potion should be good. If he doesn’t learn his lesson, let the next girl try the voodoo dolls.” Lisa put the doll back on the shelf.

  “Come on. Think positive thoughts. The impotence potion will work. Samantha is lucky to find out now what he’s like. Just remember that. If he cheats now, he would do it later on after they’re married. Once a cheater, always a cheater.” Working in this shop, I had seen it too many times.

  I rang up her sale and noticed that Kat was already chatting with two of the triplets. “That will be sixty dollars and sixty cents.”

  Lisa handed me her credit card, and I ran it. Once the machine spit out the receipt I handed her the card, the receipt, and her bag. “Have a nice day! Let me know how Tom likes the potion.” I giggled and waved as she walked out the door.

  I turned to Kat and the sisters. “So, what’s going on? I heard you whispering over there. What happened?”

  “We need to close the shop, now.” Kat walked to the door and locked it before turning the sign to ‘Closed’.

  “This must be bad if you’re closing the shop early. Tell me, where’s Acadia.” I started to bite my nails. It was a bad habit I thought I had stopped, but I guess not.

  Amaline took a deep breath. “Acadia is missing.”

  “What?” I cried and leaned against the counter for support. “When?”

  “Almost two weeks ago,” Amaline said before I interrupted her again.

  “Two weeks? You’re just telling us now? What did the cops say? Do they have any leads?” I was speaking a mile a minute and not giving them a chance to answer any of my questions.

  Kat walked over and put her hand on my shoulder. “Jenna, take a deep breath. Let them tell you what happened. Better yet, wait until I can get Sam and Indie down here too. I think we are going to have to help the triplets.”

  Kat took her phone out and called Indie. “Hey, I’m downstairs with Jenna, and we need your help. Grab Sam and come down.”

  “Alright, they’ll be right down. Jenna, maybe you can start some tea? We should probably go to the back room.” Kat led us to our makeshift storeroom/breakroom.

  We had a small set up in the corner to make tea and sit. There were only enough chairs in here for the four of us, normally. Lately, our new friends from the local wolf pack have spent a lot of time here, so we brought in a few extra chairs.

  We had six fold-up chairs lined up against the wall. I pulled two of them over to our little sitting area. We had one small loveseat that could fit two people. Across from it were two wingback chairs we picked up from the local Goodwill.

  Kat started the tea while I situated the chairs next to our sitting area. “Amaline, I’m sorry. I freaked out a little and didn’t even tell you how awful I feel. This must be horrible for you. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose someone who was a part of me.”

  She looked like she had aged ten years since I saw her less than a month ago. She had bags under her eyes. Wrinkles which weren’t there a few weeks ago, now surrounded her mouth and eyes. We had to help them find their sister.

  Amaline, Acadia, and Adalaide were triplets. They were closer than anyone I have ever known, which is saying a lot. My adopted sisters and I were super close. Growing up here in New Orleans, or NOLA as the locals called it, we were inseparable. Kat’s the oldest. She’s three years older than me. Sam and Indie are the same age as me, but Sam is the youngest by a few months.

  In school, we always looked out for each other and tried to get the same lunch period. We had other friends, but no one understood what it was like to be abandoned by your birth parents. The four of us had this bond no one understood. I imagined it was something similar for the triplets. They had to be closer than the four of us.

  “Thanks, Jenna. We haven’t lost her yet. I’m not giving up hope of finding my sister. Right Amaline?” Adalaide looked to her sister sitting in the fold-up chair.

  “Right.” Amaline stood up and turned to the sound of feet pounding down the stairs from our apartment above.

  Our adopted parents owned the block, and all of the stores. When they died a few years back, we inherited everything. We grew up living above our shop. Technically, we are the landlords to everyone on this block, but we use an agency to take care of rents and keeping everything fixed. It would be too much for us to take care of it all, plus our band.

  “Amaline and Adalaide! Good to see you two. Where’s Acadia?” Sam came over and hugged the two girls.

  “Ladies, so good to see you two! It’s been way too long. We need to all get together and go clubbing this weekend.” Indie hugged the two sisters.

  “Hi, Sam and Indie. It’s going to be a while before we go out clubbing again. Acadia is missing.” Amaline twisted her mouth and ran a hand through her long, black hair.

  “NO!” Sam yelled out.

  “What?” Indie cried. She put her hands over her mouth to stifle a sob. Indie was the most sensitive of our group. It didn’t take much to make her cry. While this news had me on the verge of tears, Indie was in full-fledged blubbering mode.

  Kat went to Indie and wrapped her in her arms. “Shh, Acadia will be fine. We’re going to help find her.” Kat ran her hands down Indie’s long, blonde hair, trying to calm her down.

  After sniffling a few times, Indie wiped her eyes. “Sorry, I know crying isn’t going to help matters. What happened? How can we help?”

  “I think we should all grab a cup of tea and take a seat. Then we can hear the whole story and figure out a way to help our friends.” I walked over to the whistling tea kettle and turned it off.

  We used an electric tea kettle down here since we didn’t have a real kitchen. After pouring everyone tea, we all sat on the chairs and looked to Adalaide and Amaline. I took a sip of my hot rose tea and looked into Amaline’s eyes, trying to be patient.

  Amaline took a sip of her tea and set the cup on the saucer in her lap. Then she took a deep breath. “It’s a strange story, actually. Like so many of the disappearances here in NOLA.”

  I looked to Kat with wide eyes, and she gave
me a very small nod. It sounded like this was going to be paranormal related. After our last encounter with vampires and an evil death curse that almost killed me, I wasn’t looking forward to this.

  Want to know what happens next? Where did Acadia go, and was she actually kidnapped? Or did she voluntarily leave with a paranormal creature? Pick up a copy of New Orleans Magic today! Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited!