Mistletoe & Mischief

by Selena Page

  He chuckled lowly in her ear, nibbling at her neck, murmuring against her skin, “Beg, Carmina. Are you sure you want me?”

  She whined, wiggling against him, her fingers unzipping his jeans and drawing out his hardness. She stroked him slowly, sliding back and leaning down to tease his tip with her tongue. She glanced up at him, murmuring around his cock, pleading, “Please, Jax.”

  Jackson groaned as he lifted her, slipping her jeans down before settling her back over him. Carmina moaned loudly into the still winter air as she began to move her hips, setting frantic rhythm.

  Carmina could feel her climax building as she bent to kiss him, nails digging into his shoulders through his heavy winter coat. Jackson grabbed her hips, digging his fingers into her flesh as they came together, their voices echoing through the thick trees.

  Jackson tossed the small statue up and down in his hand, offering Cari a hand up to help her out of the snow, “So, what do we do with this little guy now?”

  She grinned, leaning up to kiss him tenderly, “Throw him back through the portal. When the statue shatters, he’ll be freed. So you might want to be careful with that.”

  Jackson grimaced, tucking the statue into his pocket. “Right then. Let’s get him home, and give Grandma the good news.”

  Carmina pulled her bag over her shoulder, turning to start the trek back toward the car. She paused, glancing back over her shoulder at him, “Hey, Jax?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh, you did remember to pack our suitcase, didn’t you?”

  Jackson stopped in his tracks, the smile falling off his face. He sighed, rolling his eyes up toward the sky, “Well, at least I didn’t forget the pies.”

  CHRISTMAS ELVES AND OTHER PROBLEMS

  Amber & Jack

  “Well.” Amber looked at the letter, then back at Jack, then back to the letter. Her grandmother’s tidy handwriting concealed any motive, explanation, or end goal and leaving nothing but a couple bare instructions and, of course, her admonition to bring a dish to pass. “Um. Welcome to the family?”

  They hadn’t been together for six months yet, but Jack had already been introduced to most of her sisters, a handful of cousins, one of her brothers and, of course, her parents. In turn, Amber had been threatened by Jack’s Father (The High Court King of New York City), his mother (who also ruled over Vermont and Rhode Island), his younger brother (Long Island and Jersey Shore) and a handful of aging dowagers, too-pretty elderly fae, dukes, baronesses, and the Queen of Goat Island, all of whom were absolutely certain that Jack marrying outside of the High Court (of somewhere, even if it was the High Court of Hoboken) was just the worst thing in the world.

  All in all, she thought she’d probably gotten the better end of the deal anyway. Jack’s relatives didn’t actually bite. Her father, on the other hand — the first time he’d met her sister Calyx’s boyfriend, he’d challenged the poor guy to a wrestling match and ended up with a dominance-bite grip on the boy’s neck. A little threatening was nothing compared to that.

  Jack took the letter from her and read it over her shoulder. “Okay, okay… a dish to pass, really? Wait… hobs? Your grandfather wants us to clean up a mess of hobs? Does he know…”

  “He’d ask you to clean up hobs if you were the King of England, you know.”

  “Not that.” Jack waved his hands. “I’m not exactly the one for standing on protocol, as you might have noticed.”

  “Not at all, Jacanamo Tyberius Henry Angoulême.” Amber smirked at her husband. “I’ve never noticed anything about you being a little informal. So what’s the problem?”

  “Hobs. Aren’t you the one with encyclopedic knowledge of all things supernatural?”

  “Most things. And hobs are nuisance creatures. Little things, they can be super helpful, especially at first, but if you don’t pay their price, they start to take it out on your house, your hide, and everything else. Sort of like a free trial that makes you put down a credit card.”

  Jack snorted. “Good analogy. The thing is, hobs used to serve the High Court. And they are, well, once they’ve served you, they just don’t go away.”

  Amber quirked an eyebrow. That wasn’t what was bothering her, but she could get to that later. “Shouldn’t you be an expert on fae things? Being, you know, a fae? And Prince of them, too?”

  Jack shrugged, not quite looking at her. “They’re, uh, they’re the help. I know a couple tidbits, but now how to get rid of them.

  Amber rolled her eyes. Sometimes he reminded her how much of a prince he really was. “You give them clothes. You give them a new jacket or a new set of shoes or, if they’re really difficult ones, you give them the whole outfit. But they have to be made clothes.” Amber wracked her brain. There was something else, but it was eluding her at the moment.

  “Maid clothes? Wouldn’t that defeat the point?” Jack smirked.

  “Clothing that’s been made, created by hand. You can’t just go around magicking up a nice necklace for them, that just annoys them.” There was a good chance he knew what she meant, but Amber couldn’t help but correct him anyway.

  “You tried, did you?”

  “Me? No. I can’t magic up a piece of string, much less a full outfit.” She plucked at her sweater. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have dragged us to the outlet mall on the way here.”

  “The mall wasn’t bad compared to the trolls.”

  “Ha, ha.” Amber rolled her eyes. "No, not me, I didn’t try. But it's in one of the books I read, a family member way back tried to charm up some clothes to get rid of the hobs and the hob population doubled. And then doubled again. It was a disaster."

  "So, we need to find clothes. Made clothes, not housemaid clothes, things that aren't magical and will make a hob happy."

  "Twenty hobs happy."

  "That won't put too big a dent in my wallet, I suppose. Although..." His eyes widened.

  "That means the mall at Christmastime," Amber allowed. "Or...Walmart."

  "...Oh may the fates and the stones save us," he muttered. "We're all going to die."

  "...and then we have to find the hobs."

  "Maybe they shop at Walmart too? Maybe it chased them all away?"

  "One can only hope. So, how big is a hob again?"

  A High Court Prince in the middle of Walmart, even a Prince who didn't stand on ceremony, was something to behold. Jack stayed pressed against Amber, as if hoping she'd protect him from the angry mothers and panicked fathers and terrifying bargain-shoppers.

  "Hobs are the size of a small child, you said." Amber gestured surreptitiously at a couple kids running through the aisles. "About like that?"

  "That's a bit tall, but within tolerances. People actually wear these things?" Jack picked something up between two fingers--a shirt with jewels and tassels on it.

  "Shh, if you insult someone, you're likely to start a brawl. And it's not like you can--well, I'm sure you can cheat if it comes to that," she corrected. Jack knew how to cheat at everything. It hadn't taken her long to learn not to play cards with him. "But it could get messy."

  "A store? A brawl?"

  "Seriously, where do you shop, normally?"

  "I don't, normally. I mean, once in a long while, but usually passing through towns like the one where I found you."

  "Ah." She couldn't help a knowing smile. "Okay, we'll move quickly. Come on." She picked twenty identical pairs of pants and twenty very similar shirts off the kids' racks, looking for the ones with the most glitter and gems. "Now we just have to survive the lines."

  "Lines?" Jack was looking a little bit pale "You mean... oh, you do. This is going to be like Yule shopping with my mother and my sisters in the city."

  Amber had been in the city at Christmastime before. "Worse. Possibly worse," she amended. "Depending on exactly where your mother and sisters like to shop." She took Jack's arm and pulled him toward a line.

  "You can't take all those shirts! What do you need them for?" The woman grabbed at her arm, nails cutting into Amb
er's skin even through her sweater. "You can't."

  "What do you need them for?" Jack countered.

  "I just want five. For my nieces."

  "Well, we want twenty. For our nieces." He was grinning; he was enjoying himself. They were doomed.

  "You have twenty nieces? Nobody's got twenty nieces!"

  "Well," Amber allowed. Jack had this way of pulling her into his mischief, whatever it happened to be. "I have five actual nieces; the rest are second-cousins, second-cousins’ kids, some cousins a couple times removed, you know. I come from a very large family."

  "And I get to marry all of them. Aren't you happy for me?" Jack deadpanned.

  The woman raised her eyebrows at him. "You're marrying all that?"

  "Well, I mean," Jack deflated as his joke failed, "I mean, that is, I'm marrying her, here, but I get all her family in the deal."

  "Oh, come on." Amber grinned. "I mean, your father threatened to kill me. I think the extra cousins will be fine."

  "You know what? Take the shirts. I can find something else." The woman hurried off, leaving Amber giggling and Jack looking a little stunned.

  "She didn't get the..."

  "Well, you did say you were marrying my whole family. You can't blame her for taking you literally."

  "I am, though, in a sense? Royal marriages and all, your family marrying mine...."

  "And our fathers are so happy about that. My mother actually asked me why I couldn't have married an accountant. Or a boggle. Or something."

  "I'm so flattered." He looked mournfully at the line. "I don't suppose we could just... hand wave our way through the line?"

  "Could count as magicking the clothes. No, I don’t want to risk that; the clothes have to be non-magical in every way." Besides, she was enjoying watching him squirm. "This shouldn't take too long...oh."

  "What's she doing?" The cashier was conferring with her boss.

  "Someone has a check." Amber grinned. "Now you see why Grandpa wanted us to take care of this problem. By this point he'd be muttering imprecations and hexing people's socks off."

  "Your grandfather sounds like a lovely man."

  "He is...generally." She leaned into Jack until he wrapped an arm around her. "Although, one year he sent me everywhere looking for Swedish cornichons."

  "I've never heard of those."

  "Neither has anyone else. I ended up finding a Swedish woman and bribing her to buy some and say some Swedish words over them. Not my best moment. At least this one might have some reason."

  "Are you sure your family isn't fae?"

  "Yes. Of all the things I have questions about, that's not one of them. We are what we are. Curse and all." It felt nice to lean into his arms, even if they were sandwiched between someone buying three laptops and someone with seventeen jars of peanut butter.

  "I like you being what you are." He kissed the top of her head. "I might even like your family, given enough motivation."

  The woman buying peanut butter smiled beatifically at them. "You two make a lovely couple. Merry Christmas."

  "Merry Christmas to you, too." Amber felt a little giddy. "I feel like I should put on a Santa hat and wander around bestowing Christmas blessings on everyone."

  "Without..." Jack cleared his throat. The peanut-butter woman was still watching them. "With the power of good wishes and your beautiful smile?"

  "Hey, it works for some people. It might work for me." She grinned at him. "Or the power of love. That worked for us before."

  "That wasn't the power of love; it was the power of... well. All right. There was something like love in there," he allowed.

  "Something like love," she harrumphed cheerfully. "If that's what you want to call it. Oh, look, Laptop Guy is almost done. Ready to save Saratoga Springs?"

  "If this is what it takes to save Saratoga... absolutely. Certainly. "

  “I knew there was something I loved about you.” Amber grinned playfully.

  “I thought it was my charming smile and enticing smell.”

  “No, that’s just what got you in my car in the first place. All in one bag’s fine, thank you,” she told the cashier. “...we have a big family,” she added, at the cashier’s raised eyebrow. “Lots and lots of cousins and all of their children.”

  “They’re gonna look like Madeline,” the woman opined, “or Harry Potter, all in their cute little uniforms.”

  “Well, it’ll make fun Christmas photos, and then they’ll disperse over the globe again,” Amber rationalized. “This way, they can play twins and pretend to confuse everyone. They like games like that.”

  She shared a look with Jack. Maybe hobs were fashionistas? Maybe they wouldn't like all wearing the same outfit, like the girls in Madeline?

  He shrugged helplessly and she stuck her tongue out at him. He might be fae, but it looked like she was still the expert on all things magical.

  In the parking lot, he defended his honor - poorly. "What, you think the Hobs are going to be picky? Did you have anything in your books about them being the sort that can’t wear the same dress to the same party?”

  “I’ve never run into anyone who’s had to deal with twenty hobs at once,” she admitted. “Usually there’s one or two.”

  “So where are these hobs, anyway? Camping out at your grandfather’s place?

  “In the old Mallory house next door. It’s technically our land, so Grandpa and Grandma decorate it every year. Their tenants are on vacation for a couple days, hence the hurry.”

  "Okay, that's do-able. When hobs don't want to be found, they're a devil to find. Let's go, then. The sooner we get them all dressed up in their Christmas finery, the sooner we can go back to, well, other things."

  Amber smirked at him, even though she was just as interested in "other things" as her sort-of-somewhat-almost-husband. "You know, I think it took the first time. The first twenty times..."

  "The first hundred times," Jack agreed. "But haven't you read, oh archivist, that the five hundred and seventy-fifth time is very significant to the spirits and to the bond?"

  "You know, I haven't read it. But you know what that means?" She was already grinning, even as they tossed bags of hob-sized clothing into her car.

  "You're not as well read as you claim?"

  "Ha. No, it means that if nobody's written it, I'll have to try it. For science and history. And then I'll have to take notes. And then, since we can't quite replicate, I'll have to convince some of my sisters to end up mated with Fae High Court ne'er-do-wells as well..."

  "There are no other High Court ne'er-do-wells," Jack mock-huffed.

  "I don't believe you. Not in all the land? In all the kingdoms?"

  "Oh, well, if you want to go for some other kingdom, I'm sure you might be able to find some cut-rate ne'er-do-well somewhere. But they wouldn't be me, Jack."

  "Jack, prince of New York?"

  "The one and only!" He struck a cartoony heroic-looking pose, which he just as quickly abandoned. "Anyway, let's go save the day from tiny annoyed housekeepers... just like at home, I swear."

  "Onward to a slightly untidy glory!" Amber was already giggling, and once she got started, it took her several minutes of tedious, ten-miles-an-hour, just-before-Christmas-travel driving to stop. "You do weird things to my brain," she complained to Jack.

  "It's the hormones. We haven't had sex in at least an hour, and they're all building up. Add that to being in this close of proximity to me since we started this road trip..."

  "This one or the one that started it all?"

  "Well, much to my dismay, you have been going to work, remember? It's been cutting down on our sex time distressingly. But, as I was saying, now that you're next to me all the time, the hormones have to be doing some fun things to your brain." He was grinning. She was sure he was kidding. Pretty sure, at least.

  "You know, I didn't think you were the sort of fae that did that, made people kiss."

  "Not people, just you. Mostly just you."

  "It'd better be just m
e, mister... unless you can get by my sister and this guy I want her to connect with and..."

  "Do I look like a cupid to you?"

  "I was just saying you didn't, wasn't I?" She tapped his arm lightly, hardly anywhere near a punch. He flinched and mock-cowered as if she'd slugged him. "Come on. Clothing for Hobs. Maybe after this, we can do something with an actual charity."

  "How do you know they're in the Mallory house?"

  “Oh, my grandfather said he was setting things up around the house when the hobs showed up, and if they were in my grandparents’ house, he’d be a lot more urgent about the whole thing. Also, see how the lights are flickering in four of the rooms? The current tenants don’t have children. And they’re not heavy drinkers.” It was probably the hobs. If it wasn’t… well, not every story about the Caprice family could be true, could it?

  “Why’s it called the Mallory house, anyway?” Jack pulled the bags of clothing out of the car. “Old neighbors?”

  “Actually my grandfather’s mother’s sister.” Amber stared at the cupola on the house. “There’s a long story there about how she didn’t want to live in the Caprice house and for a long time she didn’t want to get married.” Amber had heard it more than a few times. “It’s long and full of family gossip and the end of it is, she married a — oh, I don’t remember, a warlock, I think, or maybe a vampire — and wandered off to live in the deep forests in Maine, I think. Or maybe Vermont.”

  “So it’s not a very memorable family story.”

  “Nobody agrees on the ending. Some people say her father cursed her to stay here until she married properly. Some people say she cursed him, instead.” Amber rubbed her arms. “It’s why, when I wanted to hide from the family, I rented my own apartment.”

  “It’s a nice apartment, too,” he offered gallantly, if clearly dishonestly.

  “It’s mine,” she countered. “All right, let’s go in.” The key was where it always was — under the charmed rock in the peony garden, the one that only a Caprice or a legal tenant could lift. She let herself into the house with the same little shiver she always had here.