“A Christmas miracle!” Pawpaw beamed. Everything good that happened, any time of year, was a Christmas miracle according to her grandfather. “Apparently, that woman went to a Christmas party and complained about the Santabot that insulted her and her whole family, and everyone thought that sounded hilarious. They all came to check it out.”
“Huh,” Liza said. “Who could have seen that coming?” Apparently an Insult Santa was a pretty good gimmick. She never would have thought of that one on her own. Too bad they wouldn’t be able to use it again next year.
Whatever. At least it looked like their final Christmas wasn’t going to be a bust after all. The customers were happy, and the money was pouring in.
She hurried behind the counter.
“Next customer! Ho, ho, ho!” she yelled, and there was actually some genuine holiday cheer in her voice.
* * * * *
During the day, while Liza and her family were greeting wave after wave of customers, Jaspar was checking up on the Harbinger Clan.
He and Sterran and several of his other clan members did some long-distance surveillance of the Harbingers at their hotel, observing their comings and goings. Nothing stood out as suspicious.
He sent Korl and half a dozen members of their clan to the spot where their negotiations would be held. It was in a conference center located five human miles from Liza’s family property. They checked for booby-traps, they checked for any bugs that might have been planted there. They found nothing but a chilly, empty building.
It was not a question of whether the Harbinger clan would cheat. They always cheated. It was a question of finding out what their game was.
Jaspar and his clan always kept an eye on what the Harbingers were up to, because their two clans had been at odds for hundreds of years. Their spies had discovered that the Harbingers wanted to buy the Christmas Colony, but they hadn’t been able to find out why. All Jaspar knew was that when the Balthazar clan had swooped in and put in a higher bid on the colony, the Harbingers had been enraged.
But why?
There were no valuable minerals on the planetoid. It was only profitable for a couple of months a year, leading up to the human Christmas holiday – and certainly not profitable enough to interest the Harbingers, who, like the Balthazar clan, were vastly wealthy. There was no logical reason why the Harbingers would want it.
Jaspar and his clan hadn’t even decided what they were going to do with this world when they took possession of it.
By mid-afternoon, Jaspar had returned to the Hawthorne family residence. He was most pleased to see that Liza was happy again; apparently the humans liked it when their robots insulted them. How very strange.
Liza even insisted that he allow his mother to return from their ship. She claimed it was not acceptable to banish his female parental unit during the holidays.
When his mother strode in with Loren, she bore a smirk of triumph. “Do not test my patience again,” Jaspar warned her. “Or I will banish you to a very distant island when we return home.”
“But I see that our changes were welcomed after all. We have in fact saved this strange holiday for the human family,” she said, with a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“Do you now accept that I will indeed claim Liza as mine?”
“I do not. I still forbid it,” she said, and swept off majestically from the room, head held high.
Korl and the others returned shortly afterwards, and Korl looked glum and angry.
“What happened?” Jaspar demanded. “What did you find?”
“Terrible news,” Korl sighed.
Jaspar felt anger rush through his body. He’d known it. He’d known the Harbingers were going to cheat somehow. They had never held a fair negotiation yet. Although the males could not openly lie, they found ways to dance around the truth, and cheated behind the scenes.
“Sabotage?” he said.
“No, much worse,” his brother said.
“What is worse?”
“No sabotage at all. There were no traps. I have no excuse at all to storm their encampment and burn it to the ground.” Korl’s lip curled in disgust. “There is merriment and happiness everywhere I cast my gaze. It is as if nobody even wants a war. This colony is a nightmare.”
Jaspar stared at his brother in exasperation. “My clutchling brother? May I speak the truth to you?”
“Always.” Korl nodded with an expression of grave respect.
“You’re an idiot.” And Jaspar stalked out of the room.
As he was leaving, Marjan hurried in.
“I understand that Jaspar is going to take my best friend Liza out on a so-called date this evening,” she said. She glared at Korl. “I just want you to know that my race is fiercely loyal to our friends. I would kill anyone who threatened my friend or caused her harm. That includes Jaspar.”
“Well, obviously,” Stephan said scornfully. “I am sure that I am far more loyal to my clutchling brother and leader than you are to your friend.”
“I would bathe in the warm blood of those who merely offended Liza.” Marjan fixed Korl with a ferocious glare.
“I would rip the liver from the body of he who cast a disrespectful glance at my Regis, and eat it as he took his dying breaths.” Stephan looked at her triumphantly, as if he had scored some sort of point.
Marjan laughed. “That’s what you consider a threat? Because around here, that’s what we call Tuesday.”
She walked out of the room, and Korl glared after her as Sterran choked with laughter.
Chapter Seven
Jaspar suggested to Liza that she fly on his back to the Suisse Chalet, a luxury restaurant on a mountain peak overlooking town.
Liza probably could have insisted that they take his hovercraft, but she didn’t. She loved the feeling of pressing against his enormous warm body, his muscles sliding underneath her fingers and his mighty wings slicing through the air.
The weather plan predicted clear skies until one a.m., and then a light snowfall overnight, with temperatures in the mid-thirties. They’d be home well before then.
There was still a crowd of customers in the parking lot, and Jaspar walked out into the road to shift.
She watched again as black-shaded scales rippled over his body like falling dominoes. Claws sliced wickedly from his fingers and toes, and wisps of smoke curled from his nostrils as his face pushed forward into an elegant, lizardlike muzzle. Delicate scales flashed from his temples over the skin of his face as his body grew and shifted. In humanoid form, the silver cast to his skin was a subtle shimmer. Now his scales glowed like moonlight. He stretched his wings wide and his tail lashed the road’s surface.
She slid onto his back, clutching his bundle of clothes to her chest, and pressed against him. His body heat kept her warm as they soared through the sky.
The Suisse Chalet was quaint and pretty, like a remote alpine cabin, and mossy pathways winding into the trees around it added to its rustic charm. It looked like something from a picture postcard or the lid of a chocolate box.
As Jaspar spiraled lower, the beating of his wings sent ripples shuddering through the needles on the trees, and they were greeted by the pungent scent of pine resin and the tempting smells of the best cooking anywhere on Far North.
Not that Liza would dream of sharing that opinion with Mawmaw. Not if she ever wanted to see another batch of sugar cookies.
The snow had apparently started early. There was a light sprinkling as they walked up to the chalet’s front door, dusting them like powdered sugar. The Weather Control Station controlled the weather patterns extremely well, but there was generally some slight variation. Snow might start a few minutes earlier or later than predicted; temperature might be off by a couple of degrees.
Liza didn’t really mind, though. She loved snow.
The restaurant was only a quarter full that night. She’d been there twice before in her entire life, as a treat for her sixteenth and then her twenty-first birthday, and she remembe
red having to make reservations a month beforehand.
The food was delicious, however. Liza ordered lobster. Jaspar ordered five racks of rib; apparently the Drakken ate a lot to fuel their flame.
As they ate, Jaspar described his home world to her.
“There’s a portal relatively near us, only a few hundred thousand miles from our planet, so it’s not too far to travel,” he explained. “The FTL ships exit through the portal and make it to our planet in no time flat. And it’s beautiful there. The sky is a deep, deep blue, and we have five moons that are strung like pearls in the sky. Our buildings are hand-carved stone; they look somewhat like your ancient medieval cities, but with much broader roadways to accommodate us landing and taking off. The skies are always filled with flying Drakken.”
“That sounds amazing,” Liza said. “I bet my sister Geneva would love to see that someday. She’s never even made it to Terra 2. She’s in business school on a nearby mechanical moon, hoping to find a career that will let her travel.”
“She is welcome to visit you,” Jaspar said.
Liza quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Or we could always split our time between Far North and my world,” he added, with a roguish twinkle in his eye.
“You just don’t give up, do you?”
“Not where you’re concerned,” Jaspar said, and he reached out and stroked her hand with his thumb. “Did you know that the Drakken have an amazing sense of smell? You are aroused by me. The scent of your arousal is like sweet nectar.”
Liza jerked her hand away, her cheeks flaming red with embarrassment. “Is not!” she muttered, and quickly downed half her glass of red wine, then spent the next couple of minutes staring down at her plate as she ate.
“We have not talked about children yet,” Jaspar said. “When a human woman marries a Drakken, the babies must be raised in a special incubator. Her eggs are combined with her mate’s sperm and then gestated in the incubator for ten months. Do you think that you would feel any less attached to children who were conceived in that manner?” He looked slightly worried as he asked that
She shook her head in exasperation. “Just playing along with this fantasy scenario, I would love my children no matter how they were conceived. And I want lots of kids. I’ve always wanted a big family. My parents died when they were going off-world in a second-hand spaceship to buy more supplies for our business. Geneva was only one year old. They never had a chance to have more children.”
Jaspar folded his hand over hers, and she sat there drawing strength and comfort from it for several moments before she pulled her hand away again. She could not let herself get used to this. Must not. Dared not.
Jaspar glanced at the enormous picture window and frowned. She followed his gaze and felt a jolt of alarm shoot through her. She’d been so distracted by Jaspar that she hadn’t noticed, but the light snow had turned into a driving blizzard.
“How often does your Weather Control Station malfunction?” Jaspar asked, looking puzzled.
“To that level?” She shook her head. “Never.”
Jaspar frowned. “Hmm. I cannot fly in a blizzard. We may be stuck here.”
“Did you arrange this somehow?” she said suspiciously.
“Certainly not. I am handsome, charming, incredibly talented in the sexual arts, wealthy beyond compare, and a fearless warrior. I do not need to stoop to subterfuge to seduce you. You will fall for my natural charms.”
Liza couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing. A haughty-looking couple sitting at a nearby table, wearing matching gold-threaded suits and dripping with jewels, looked at them with distaste.
That made Liza laugh harder.
“Also, I am hilarious, and you appreciate how amusing I am. How could I possibly lose?” Jaspar said.
When Liza finally stopped laughing, she said, “Okay, what is it that you hope to win?”
“Your heart.” He said it so seriously that it took her aback.
“No, really,” she said.
“When you finally agree to do the research, stubborn human, you will see that male Drakken cannot lie.”
She frowned at the tablecloth, drumming her fingers.
She had done the research that afternoon during her very brief lunch break. She didn’t know why she hadn’t done it earlier; probably because she’d been afraid that she would find out he was telling the truth, and then she’d have to take his romantic pursuit seriously.
Apparently, a particularly vicious war had taken place hundreds of years ago in defiance of the Galactic Federation. The Concord hadn’t been in existence at that point.
The war had been caused by the Harbingers promising a peace treaty and luring the Balthazar clan into a trap. The resulting conflagration had nearly destroyed both Drakken clans’ planets.
As punishment, all males of the Drakken species had been forcibly genetically altered so that they could not lie.
The Galactic Federation had made a couple of mistakes, however. First of all, they had only altered the males, out of a foolish assumption that only the males would wage war. And secondly, they hadn’t done anything about the Drakken race’s natural aggression and lust for violence. The Harbingers and Balthazars still clashed just as much as ever, and had formally declared war on each other dozens of times over the past few hundred years.
“Well, actually, I did do the research,” she murmured. “And it looks like it’s true – you can’t lie. So I suppose that means you were also telling me the truth when you said you didn’t sabotage our trees.”
He broke out in a huge smile. “I was.” He took her hand in his. “So now will you accept that I am going to court you, sweep you off your feet, and make you my bride?”
“Honestly, I really hadn’t thought about actually…you know…marrying you. It was just today that I realized you couldn’t possibly be the ones who sabotaged us. The thing is, though…I mean…we just met. And you’re talking about marriage.”
Jaspar’s ice-blue eyes bored into hers. “Just answer me one question. When we first met, did you have an immediate physical and emotional reaction, such as you had never experienced before?”
He was staring at her intensely. It was clear that the answer was very, very important to him.
Part of her wanted desperately to lie. She was afraid of the powerful emotions that swept through her like a storm every time he came close.
But she couldn’t.
“Yes, I did,” she said.
He nodded triumphantly. “It means that I was right, without a doubt. We are indeed heart-mates,” he said. “When a Drakken meets their mate, they both know it instantly.”
“My family is very important to me, and I don’t know what our future holds,” she said. “I honestly could not begin to think of starting a relationship with you until we figure out where we’re going to live and what we’re going to do. I know that you’ve agreed that we could stay at the bed and breakfast, but there will be no business left on this planet, and for that matter, if the Harbinger clan ends up claiming this colony, then I assume that any contract you signed would be null and void.”
“I’m afraid that’s true,” he said. “But I would provide a place for you and your family, because you would be my queen.” He stroked his thumb across her hand.
“I can’t give you an answer just yet,” she said. “My family would never take charity from anybody. We need to find a way to make a living. For my grandparents to let someone else pay their way…it would be a kind of death for them.”
He glanced out the window again. “We will discuss this later. Let me go reserve a room for us.”
He went to the front desk of the chalet and returned a few minutes later. He’d reserved a bungalow that was only a few hundred feet from the chalet. They walked outside, and Jaspar seized her hand.
“Glar harf majming raran,” he said, smiling gently.
She looked at him, puzzled.
“What did you just say?” she asked.
Now it was his turn to look confused. “Ming rang novar flin jabjab?” he said, or something like that.
She tapped her ear. She couldn’t understand a word that he was saying.
He looked at her in confusion.
She frowned at him. “Seriously, is this a trick?”
He answered with gibberish.
She threw up her hands in exasperation. She’d never seen so many machines glitch at the same time.
Jaspar shrugged and smiled at her. He made a heart shape with his hands and then pointed at her.
Liza tried not to smile back. This was serious, damn it.
But the snow was falling so fast that they could barely see, and Jaspar grabbed her hand, yelled out alien gibberish, and tugged her towards the bungalow.
She followed along behind him, blinking hard and trying to see. Then she tripped and almost fell to her knees, and Jaspar caught her.
He scooped her up in his arms, and she squirmed in protest. “I can walk!” she yelled into the howling wind.
“Glar jib jab! Ragnar mignar!” he yelled back, his arms tightening around her, and walked through the blinding snow.
She could feel his muscles bunching, and his broad chest was warm and solid. She stopped struggling and buried her face in his shoulder as he walked.
When they stopped at the front door, he set her down, paused and pointed up at the sky. She could barely make out the stars in the swirling snow. He gestured at the sky, seemingly trying to tell her something.
“Mar glarvab larvar,” he informed her solemnly, and bent and kissed her.
This time, she rose on her tiptoes to meet him, linking her hands at the nape of his neck and moaning at the ache between her thighs as he wrapped his muscular arm around her waist and crushed her to him, almost pulling her off her feet again.
As she parted her lips, he growled with satisfaction and slid his tongue against hers, flicking and tasting. She realized her breathing was fast and shallow, and she followed his lips breathlessly as he withdrew and regarded her through eyes made heavy-lidded with lust.
The Dragon's Christmas Wish Page 5