by Kane Jewell Ruse McCall Anthony McKay Sax Slayer Michael Burke Logan
“In person?” What? She looked at Dave, then Russ.
“Bottomslut86.” Dave gave her a sheepish grin.
The name was familiar -- as in they’d played online. Quite a bit, actually, in the last few months.
“I checked the weather this morning, baby. It looked like we weren’t getting out of town, so I sent a text or two.” He kissed her shoulder. “If we were gonna be stranded, I wanted to make it special for you, baby.”
“You’re an ass.” A dear, sweet ass. “And you…” She swatted Dave playfully.
Dave yelped and then laughed. “I couldn’t believe my luck when my favorite Dom asked me to come and play. Merry Christmas to me.”
“Mmm. Merry Christmas to all of us. Do we get to stay all night?”
“I paid for two nights. We’ve got a champagne Christmas breakfast tomorrow, too.”
“Oh…” She leaned over, kissed Dave, slow and sweet before turning to Russ. “Thank you, baby.”
“Anything for you, baby. Anything. You know that.”
She looked at Russ, then at Dave with his eager, happy expression. “Can we keep him?”
Sean Michael
Writing under S. Michael for Het Ménage and Sean for signature M/M titles, Sean Michael leads a classic double life.
Often referred to as “Space Cowboy” and “Gangsta of Love” while still striving for the moniker of “Maurice,” Sean Michael spends days surfing, smutting, organizing an immense gourd collection and fantasizing about one day retiring on a small secluded island peopled entirely by horseshoe crabs.
While collecting vast amounts of vintage gay pulp novels and mood rings, Sean whiles away the hours between dropping the F-bomb and perusing the Kama Sutra by channeling the long lost spirit of John Wayne and singing along with the soundtrack to “Chicago.”
A long-time writer of complicated haiku, currently Sean is attempting to learn the advanced arts of plate spinning and soap carving sex toys.
Barring any of that? Sean’ll stick with writing stories, thanks, and rubbing pretty bodies together to see if they spark.
You can write to Sean at [email protected], or visit his websites. For Sean Michael’s M/M works, see www.seanmichaelwrites.com.
For Sean’s adventures into the HET world as S. Michael, see www.seanmichaelwrites.com/smichaelbooks.html. Find more titles at www.changelingpress.com/author.php?uid=146.
Santa’s Claws
Stephanie Burke
Santa’s making a list, checking it twice, and keeping all the other Holidays in check. But when an upstart Valentine’s Day out for revenge infects one of Santa’s precious think tank Elves with a true soul mate, the claws come out. Now he’s going to see to it that his Elf and the naughty human to whom he’s bound have a very Merry Khristmas… or else.
Chapter 1
“I’ve done it.” The man in the black, pinstriped suit snickered as he stood at the head of the large, rectangular table.
Behind him, monitors buzzed as their pale blue light cast shadows along the glass walls of the now-silent office. “With the fall of All Hallow’s Eve, I have achieved my main goal. Christmas now enjoys a world-wide popularity and a planetary net worth that is immeasurable.”
“Bastard,” hissed a tall, pale lady in black as she sat up in her chair.
“So sorry, Evey,” he crooned. “Did I touch on a sensitive subject?”
“You know damn well what you’ve done, Khris Kringle,” Halloween snarled as she rose to her feet.
“I have achieved greatness.”
“You’ve stuck your red and green claws where they don’t belong. None of us are going to stand for this.”
“Good.” Khris chuckled as an imposing figure dressed in solid black rose to stand at his side. His black sunglasses and suit sharply contrasted with the paleness of his skin and the silver of his hair. “Then you can sit down for this. Or do you want to go the way of Boxing Day?”
Everyone turned to stare at a wide monitor that showed a cowering man who looked almost like Khris, but who possessed a meek and fearful form.
“You can tell your goon to back off,” Halloween sniped, rolling her eyes at the perceived threat. “You may have controlling rights now, Khris, but I’m still the number two woman around here. It’ll take more than threats.”
“No.” He chuckled again. “It just took a freak snowstorm in October to do that.”
She sat down.
“Good.” Khris motioned for his man to step back as he reclaimed his own seat. “I’m so glad I made my point.” His smile was charming yet aloof as he examined the other Holidays at the table. “And it seems that the big three is merely the big one and the two that precede it.”
“People will remember me,” Thanksgiving added, sniffing in disdain. His portly figure quivered in indignation. “They will never forget.”
“Of course not.” Khris smiled. “Which is why we have Black Friday. So during their meals and times of family togetherness --” he shuddered “-- they have something interesting to talk about. Mainly getting up early in the morning to increase my own personal net worth.”
Thanksgiving lapsed into silence.
“This is getting us nowhere,” an outraged voice cut in.
“You have something to say to me, Valentine?” Khris steepled his fingers under his chin, the look in his eyes glacial.
“Maybe you’re not as in control as you’d like to believe.” Valentine snapped his fingers, and a screen appeared to his right.
“Something you’d like to show all the kids in class?” Khris asked. Not one hair on his elegantly coifed gray head ruffled as he stared at the upstart Holiday.
“Just this.” As Valentine spoke, the screen came to life and there, in full color and perfect HD clarity, was a group of Elves.
Unlike their childish cartoon counterparts, these Elves were tall and imposing. Their muscular forms were dressed in the latest Nicolas St. Nicolas lab coats and lederhosen designed for the intelligent Elf in mind. The severe cut of the pinstriped shorts and suspenders saved the outfits from looking cute, and the deep burgundy of their lab coats showed that these Elves meant serious business.
“My elvish think tank,” Khris acknowledged. “They’re bred for intelligence, not dissension.”
“Or so you say.” Valentine smirked as one of the Elves lurched to his feet and shouted something that sounded suspiciously like, “It’s raining revolution in this bitch!”
As the Holidays watched in various degrees of shock and amusement, the tall, dark-haired Elf did his best Norma Rae impression.
“For too long, we have been oppressed, my brothers!” he shouted, leaping on top of a metal table, kicking off piles of electronics and papers. “They use us for our minds, yet they refuse to let us see the world to expand those minds. How can we flourish when we’re trapped here at North Pole Industries until our minds are no longer viable? This is our reward for our services? There’s more for us out there, brothers. I say we tear down the walls that hold us and seek a new way!”
The scene went blank, as did most of the faces of the Holidays who sat awaiting Khris Kringle’s reaction.
His laughter shocked them.
“You mean this Elf?” Khris nodded to Jack Frost, the sinister, ice silver man at his shoulder, who tapped the wall behind him twice.
The doors burst open, and two Elves with platinum hair, dressed in black suits and with serious demeanors that screamed security, dragged a bound and struggling Elf into the room. They shoved the dark-haired Elf unceremoniously into a chair. He looked around, more angry than scared, at the collection of Holidays.
“So.” Khris rose to his feet. “You want to tell me what you did, Valentine?”
“I-I-” the Holiday in red stammered. He ran his hands through his wild, blond hair and shoved back from the table. “I have no idea --”
“You know what happened to the last Holiday that openly defied me.” Khris slammed both hands on the table and leaned forward, his e
yes intent on the shrinking Holiday of Love. “You’d better come clean, Valentine, or I will end you faster than you can say gunpowder, treason, and plot.”
Guy Fawkes yipped and slid under the table, though no one noticed. All eyes were riveted on Khris and Valentine.
“I would never --”
“I’ve got two words for you, Valentine. Snow day.”
“All right.” Valentine broke. “All right. I-I gave him a soul mate.”
“Elves don’t have soul mates,” Khris argued. “They’re created to come up with ideas that generate profit for me and the companies I represent.”
Valentine held firm. “I found him a soul mate and struck him with an arrow of true love.”
“True love for a creature who has never felt sexual desire? Right.”
Valentine frowned. “I assure you my arrows are that powerful.”
“My Elves never leave North Pole Industries --”
Valentine’s confidence seemed to waver. “I got a name, and I -- uh --”
“You got a name.” Khris sneered as he settled back into his seat. “Go on.”
“I got a name, and I had my minions pay her a visit,” Valentine finished.
“You connected my Elf with a Holiday?”
“No,” he mumbled.
“Speak up!” Khris roared. “I don’t have all day.” He looked over at the dark-haired Elf, who glared back.
“It wasn’t a Holiday or a Holiday minion. It was…”
“Go on!” Khris roared, making the other Holidays jump in shock and fear.
“It was the technician.”
“Excuse me?”
“The technician who came up with the screen design,” Valentine all but squealed. “Her name was on the design specs. And when I investigated her, I realized some humans can hate you as much as we do.”
“A human who hates me?”
“And he will continue to self-destruct until he gets his woman,” Valentine pointed out, looking quite fearful now.
“So he doesn’t know why he’s acting out, just that he’s missing something inside.”
“Yes.” Valentine shuddered, his face almost as pale as Khris’s hair.
“And she has no idea her grumpy mood is because her soul is seeking its other half?”
“N-no,” Valentine almost whispered.
The smile that spread across Khris’s lips made more than one Holiday shudder. “Marvelous. Let’s get these two together.”
“What?” Valentine screeched. “You can’t be serious!”
“I cannot kill a viable Elf. And if I keep him here, he’ll infect others with his madness, or at least slow down production. So I’ll just have to bring them together.”
“What?” Valentine looked as if he would faint.
“Are you deaf?” As he spoke, Khris flexed his fingers, and long, black claws grew out from underneath his fingernails, claws he raked over the table, sending curls of wood flying.
“I’m going to do your job for you, Valentine, and do it more efficiently. I’m going to create a true love match.”
Chapter 2
Noel looked around at the wreck of her apartment and added another tick to her mental column, Why I hate Christmas.
In addition to having family drop by, expecting her to cook all kinds of holiday treats, there was the added bonus of having them suck down all her booze in moments, making her house drier than a schoolteacher during Prohibition.
And for what? For them to tell her things would get better? That she was lucky to have her shitty job as a code monkey? That all she needed was the love of a good man, woman, pet, plant, inanimate battery operated device -- insert the one that works for you, hon -- in her life?
She slammed another empty container of potato salad -- the potato salad she’d made herself to supplement her lunch of holiday ham sandwiches -- into the trash and tried not to scream. The spiral cut ham North Pole Industries had given its employees in lieu of a Christmas bonus this year -- cheap bastards -- was gone too. Now she’d have to go shopping for sandwich fodder.
Last time she’d been forced to shop on the twenty-fourth, she’d gotten elbowed in the eye by a new wife frantic for candied yams. The final straw had been getting elbowed by a granny with a fierce walking stick over a bag of marshmallows. “I need this for hot cocoa after fireplace sex!” she’d ranted, brandishing the cane. Noel conceded on that point, but she did make off with a pizza and felt no guilt for it.
And now she was going to be forced to go back into the cold night to hunt down food. No one would be open on Christmas Day, and she had to be at work on time on the twenty-sixth or she’d risk losing her holiday pay.
“Ho-fucking-ho,” she muttered, reaching for her coat. She checked her pocket for mace and her brass knuckles along with her wallet. This year, she was going in prepared.
She opened her door and flinched at the sound of annoyingly cheerful jingle bells.
“Someone needs to turn that stupid music down,” she muttered, picking up her garbage bag and stepping out of her apartment. They’d been forcing her to listen to holiday cheer since before Halloween. By now she was right tired of all Christmas music, from “The Christmas Song” to “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”
Hell, all she wanted for Christmas was for it to go away.
She had just turned to lock her door when a blast of cold made her spin around. Noel’s mouth dropped open when she got a gander at what was going on in her hallway. It was snowing.
Yes, there was a light dry snow falling, coating the carpet, killing the inside ficus, and just being so wrong that it shocked her into silence. Her keys dropped to the snowdrift building in front of her door.
It was snowing in her hallway, and that just wasn’t supposed to happen.
“What the --” Her words were cut off as a gust of wind knocked her off her feet, and something hard landed on top of her.
By the time she blinked the snow out of her eyes, she was more than ready to call it a night, with or without food. But the thing on her chest shifted, and she looked up to see the most intense pair of black eyes she had ever seen. They blinked at her, looking as confused as she felt, and she looked down to take the whole of him in.
God, he was gorgeous. His hair was a tousled mass of dark curls. His face was narrow with a strong jaw line and a stubborn chin over which sat the most enticing set of full, red lips. They made her think of oral sex and hours of kissing fun. He wore a velvet jacket that did nothing to hide his muscular body.
He rose up enough to rake the hair back from his face, exposing a set of ears that would have made most Star Trek fans green with envy. Noel felt her eyes go wide as the damn ears wiggled. And not in a mechanical, costumed way either. She knew what robotic motions looked like. These ears moved naturally. No costumer in the world could perfectly duplicate that reflex motion or the flush of red that flowed from his face to the tips of his ears.
“Hello.” His voice was deep and mellow, curiously gentle and soothing to her wound-tight nerves.
“Uh, hello?” she responded in a squeak. Certain body parts grew swollen and moist.
“Yes, hello,” he repeated, his voice oddly accented. “How are you?”
The word wanton rolled through her mind, but she repressed the urge to be that honest. “Fine,” she replied, noting the oddity of having a conversation with a man practically sitting on your crotch, but carrying on anyway. “And yourself?”
“I am wonderful.” He smiled fully, and Noel no longer felt the cold of the snow she was lying on. Lust had set up camp and wasn’t going anywhere soon.
“So…” She fought back a giggle. A giggle! She hadn’t giggled since mullets were cool. And mullets had never been cool in her book. But here she was, acting like a schoolgirl speaking to her crush for the first time. Never mind the fact that the man was a perfect stranger with ear disabilities, she wasn’t knocking him off her lap and running for the hills. Something was not quite right.
“S
o…” He let the word trail off. “Ever have sex with an Elf?”
* * *
Noel took one last spin around the apartment, looking for something that contained alcohol. She looked consideringly at a lone bottle of vanilla extract before she shook her head. That stuff cost too damn much to swill it. And this time of year, she’d never be able to replace it.
She looked over at the self-proclaimed Elf sitting in her living room and groaned when he smiled at her again. Maybe…
“I can’t believe that they spoke true.” He bounced in his chair as he spoke to her. “I feel like the yawning, gaping hole in my soul has been filled.”
“Filled, right.” Maybe now was a time for chocolate.
“It will be filled to overflowing when we have sex.”
“Now, you need to stop saying that,” Noel grumbled. She had no idea why she’d let this nutjob into her home, but something refused to let her kick him out.
“Why? It is the truth. The Holiday known as Valentine made sure your soul was bound to mine. It is a heady experience.”
“Valentine?” Noel ran her hands through her braids, resisting the urge to grip and pull. She had already pulled his ears, and they didn’t come off. And he kept looking at her with that lovelorn expression in his eyes.
So she’d let him in and listened as he told her some convoluted tale about the North Pole Mafia and the iron fist of Khris Kringle himself. According to him, North Pole Industries, her employer, was a front for some shady holiday dealings. And all the other Holidays, no matter how big or small, quivered under the might of Christmas. And now the Holidays had set up a revolt that led to him becoming her --
“Soul mate,” Tingles told her.
That’s right. He claimed his name was Tingles, and that he was the perfect match for her divided soul.
That vanilla extract was suddenly looking real good.
“Okay,” she allowed. “Prove it.”
“Prove that you are my soul mate?”
“Prove that you’re an Elf.”