Sugar, Spice, and Shifters: A Touch of Holiday Magic

by Élianne Adams

  Acylias lifted her until her eyes were level with his. He smiled, knowing the expression would terrify her even more than she was.

  He liked the power and control being the god of retribution gave him. And it was there—the terror. But also a desperation he had not expected. Acylias would enjoy making this little one squirm before him. Possibly while on her knees and naked. But he didn’t care for desperation, at all.

  After he insisted she take a long, soapy shower. The female smelled like human sweat and dirt.

  And fear. “Tell me your name, or I shall kill you right here, and get the information I want from the nine spawn inside.” None were hers; of that he was certain. Witchlings shared a similar scent when they shared blood.

  “Teagan.”

  “And your family name?” She squirmed and kicked in his arms. He was feeling just perverse enough to let her. He could subdue her so damned easily.

  He could see playing with her in so many different ways. Playing, kissing…enjoying.

  That gave him pause. When was the last time he had been excited by a female in any way?

  It had been at least a thousand years since one of the Gaian goddesses had tempted him. Iastucia had stopped visiting him centuries ago, claiming his lack of interest in her charms bored her.

  Her practiced ways had sickened him.

  This Witch female was almost untouched; he could sense it so easily.

  “Speak, girl.”

  “I’m not a dog.”

  He grinned. So spirited. Weren’t most Witch females supposed to be retiring, reclusive, and very meek? The ones he had met—except for the Witch Goddess Nelciana—had all been incredibly boring. If so, this female hadn’t been taught that.

  He twisted, just in time to keep her knee from ramming full throttle into his dick. Ok, that wasn’t exactly tolerated. “Enough.”

  “Let me go. I’ve never done anything to you. Just fly away.”

  “But why would I do that? You are not supposed to be in this world any longer. Tell me, how was it that you are here instead of Levia?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  No lie this time. Interesting. Every other Kind, especially Witch and Lupoiux, were told that the relocation to Levia was to happen immediately. So how was it that this female hadn’t?

  “Who are your family? What branch of Nellano line do you come from?” Acylias paused. The air around them had changed. Grown sour; wrong. His hands loosened on her.

  “None. Let me go. And don’t hurt my kids.”

  “I will not harm innocent spawn, no matter what Kind they are.” He dropped her.

  Now was not the time to play. He sensed something dark growing around them.

  Dark and threatening; and not of his doing.

  “You have nine children inside. Are they capable of moving quickly? Do not tarry with me. I need answers now. Or I will simply take your children and leave you behind. To face whatever it is that comes.”

  No mother in the world—except his own—would take that threat easily.

  He sat the girl back on her feet. “Run. Inside now. Get your children ready.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “You shouldn’t. That is the only real warning I will give you. I will fuck you over more times than you can count. It is just the nature I have been given.” Especially with females.

  His brother was the nice god, after all.

  “Go. Now. It comes. Run.”

  SIX

  Teagan didn’t know what else to do. She ran.

  He wasn’t behind her, and she stopped at the door. She turned back and looked at the creature.

  He stared at the desert surrounding the ranch. Tension kept his shoulders taut; he was on alert for something. And he was far more menacing than he had been earlier.

  Teagan wasn’t naive enough to believe whatever was coming was rescue. She’d never been rescued by anyone in her life. No, whatever safety and security she’d ever had—and it had been very little—she had earned.

  Or created. She was the children’s safety.

  She slammed through the front door. If she had her way she’d be keeping him and whatever was coming—and she sensed it, too—out.

  Mason and Sayla met her at the door. Sayla’s twin, Sara waited in the hallway with two-year-old Jacob. Jacob had been dropped off at the edge of their campsite with a note and a warning. The note had pleaded with her to take the baby, that he was too different for his mother to care for properly.

  She had known right away that he was a halfling, just like she was. Even Mason, strong in the same kind of magical ways that she was, was not like she and Jacob were.

  Teagan had loved and protected Jacob ever since. Of all of the children, Jacob and Wyatt, Harper, and Fayden were more hers than the others. The others were all older, and all had their own pasts.

  But the youngest four had come to her as babies and toddlers—she was their mother, the only one they had ever known.

  But the older five were dependent on her, as well. And she loved them all so very much. “Sara, Sayla, get the others. Leave everything behind. Get to the van. Mason, get it hitched and fast.”

  She opened the weapons cabinet and grabbed the go-bag she had in the bottom. It had a variety of supplies. And in the travel trailer were bags for each of the children.

  The ranch may have been their home for a little while, but they had never planned on staying permanently. Her precognition, not to mention Fayden’s, had told them they would be running someday.

  They’d practiced this at least dozens of times. She had to hope their planning would pay off.

  There was a knife, given to her by the woman who’d raised her until she was around ten, in the bottom of the bag. She reached in and pulled it out. There was a broken purple stone embedded in the hilt, and the design in the metal was one she had never seen before. Every time she’d ever touched it, she’d felt stronger and more powerful. I was hers, and at times she drew strength and courage from it.

  She wrapped her hand around the hilt until the stone rested in the center of her palm. Whenever she’d been in distress she would touch the purple stone in the center of the blade, and would know which decision was the right one. It had never guided her wrong.

  And now it was telling her to run from this place, as fast as she could.

  Teagan would defend her children with her hands and the four-inch blade if she had to. She had before.

  Mason was working fast. The smaller children were buckled in. They had two vehicles, one the van they’d arrived in and the second was a truck they’d found abandoned on the property. They always kept the van hitched to the travel trailer and ready to go. To flee.

  Where they would go was a big question, and how they would outrun a creature that could fly, but staying meant they would be sitting targets. “Everyone in?”

  Mason nodded. “Almost.” He whistled. Within seconds the dog hopped into the van, barking his head off. “Go.”

  Teagan started the van and floored.

  “Mason, keep watch out the window. For an eagle or a hawk looking creature.”

  “Uhh, we’re running from a bird?” One of the twins asked.

  “He’s not a bird. He’s a shifter. Says he’s a god of something.”

  “I think he is,” Fayden said. The little boy was almost eleven and very quiet. Very serious. Sometimes his gift made him see things no child should. “And the thing chasing us isn’t him. His name is Acylias. We will call him Aki, I think. The bird will help us. All of us. Forever. But the bad thing isn’t him. It’s something else. It wants Mommy. And Sayla and Sara and Harper for bad things.”

  Acylias. Teagan’s heart stuttered. “It won’t get any of us, I promise.”

  “And so do I,” Mason spoke with the voice of a man. It always surprised to know that the kid who had first found her when they had both been homeless on the streets of Albuquerque when he had been nine was almost a man now.

  A stron
g, kind, compassionate one capable of great things.

  Teagan pressed the gas.

  — — —

  She gave him two choices—stand and fight the threat or follow her and the spawn. Acylias wanted to fight. Needed the challenge it would present.

  But he found the female too intriguing to let her escape him completely. And he couldn’t in good conscience leave a female and spawn to face whatever demonic threat was coming in from the east.

  He easily sensed the greed and lust that permeated its mind. Its desire to steal the power and souls of the females, at least. Of his Witchling.

  But what it was, he couldn’t quite identify.

  And that just pissed him off.

  He had no difficulty seeing the white van and the big ugly contraption she was pulling behind it. Pitiful. A frail Witchling female and children would never be able to outrun him—or the thing behind them.

  She had to know that.

  SEVEN

  Acylias forced his skin to stretch, his bones to crack and reform. Feathers—that one essential feature that made a bird a bird—covered him within half a millisecond. He flew and circled over the female and her children. He could feel their terror including hers.

  For the first time in millennia excitement and anticipation coursed through him. Acylias laughed, loud enough that all creatures within a mile of him could hear. A flock of small birds burst into flight behind him. He enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the hunt for a moment. Until the air turned rancid and evil and lust wafted around him.

  Tracked the Witch and the older three girls.

  He searched the road behind her and that’s when he saw it, attempting to blend in with the pavement around them.

  It wasn’t as great a flyer as he—there were few beasts who were—but it moved quickly enough that she would not be able to escape it—not without him to save her.

  The Zar demon—and he was almost certain that’s what it was—would be relentless in its pursuit. He would have to kill it to stop its destruction. It was not meant for the Gaian world. Humans would just be fodder for the beast. And it would not start with the Witch and her young. He wasn’t about to let it.

  The Zar seized the white trailer and nearly sheered it in two. It started after the van. Acylias swooped down from the sky.

  It landed on the top just as Acylias reached the vehicle. The force of Acylias landing on its scaly back shoved its razor talons straight through the roof of the van.

  He knocked the Zar demon clear of the van and the road.

  Acylias had no time to dally with the beast. Not with the female still fleeing him. It screamed in agony when he sliced off its head. Then that was done.

  And it was time to deal with that damned female.

  — — —

  Her children were screaming and crying. Mason’ face was bleeding, but they were all alive. She kept her foot on the gas, hoping to put as much distance between her children and the monsters. The raptor, the god Acylias, flew overhead still. She’d seen him kill the other beast in her side mirrors. He hadn’t flinched.

  And was coming for her. The children were incidental to him. She knew it. Teagan pressed the pedal to the floorboard. Prayed to gods she wasn’t sure existed for the nine live far more precious than her own.

  — — —

  He landed on the road in front of the van. Acylias held out a hand. The van froze in place. He saw her terror. And for a moment wanted to scoop her close and reassure her the beast was gone forever. That she was safe with him and always would be.

  A ridiculous urge; and one he quickly discounted. But he had never gotten enjoyment from a female’s terror and he wasn’t about to start with the Witch.

  Nor did he have the time to dawdle on this task. Acylias shifted back to a humanistic form.

  With a hand he parted the barrier between this Gaian world and his Levia. Purple smoke rolled around him. With barely a thought, he compelled the nine children and the female out of the van. The female was fighting his compulsion, but he would deal with her personally.

  The children walked straight into the opening and into his own world. Acylias wrapped her in his arms and carried her from one world to the next.

  EIGHT

  He turned the children over to the first Solestru female in his household that he saw. It happened to be the one who ran his castle with beautiful efficiency.

  The Witchling female he took to his own suite. Acylias had so many questions for her—when the compulsion wore off. It sometimes took quite a while. Hours, maybe days. Hard to tell.

  In the meantime, there were those he needed to speak with about a Zar demon set loose among the humans, specifically his brother and cousin—who were supposed to be watching over the humans. When he was finished with what remained of his family, he would deal with the female. With the puzzle she presented.

  — — —

  When Teagan opened her eyes she was sitting at the god’s feet. He was watching her with obvious impatience. “It’s about time you returned to your senses. I have a war to be fought in this world, you know.”

  “You brought my children to a world at war?” Teagan looked at the thing in front of her and wanted to rip his damned head off.

  Nothing had ever made her angrier. She reached for the blade she always carried in her pocket but it was gone. Had he taken it? She refused to let panic set in over a knife. Not when there were more important things to worry about.

  “All of the worlds are at war. I just brought your foundlings to a world where I could better protect them.” He stepped closer, all muscled and intimidating.

  “But why? We didn’t ask you to. We were doing just fine in Arizona.” They hadn’t been doing just fine. Not at all. There had never been enough food—or water, for that matter—to go around. The house had been falling down nearly on top of them. But they had been together. Where were they?

  He raised a hand and she almost flinched away.

  Teagan didn’t like to be touched.

  Especially by male creatures that she couldn’t quite identify. She knew he wasn’t human. He didn’t seem to be a demon, either—she’d killed a few of those in the past ten years.

  What he looked like was a desert sheik or something. His skin was darker than hers but it seemed to glow gold. She’d never seen a human that color before. His eyes were blue and intense. His hair was dark, but the tips were white blond. Like he’d spent a great deal of time in the sun.

  He wore cuffs of some sort on his arms—they weren’t gold, but dark purple. There was a medallion in the center of that chest that freaked her out so much—the hot male chest, and the strange medallion.

  “Fine? You were filthy, and your children half-starved. In the past four hours they have done nothing but eat my food. I’m surprised we didn’t have to delouse them.” His hand settled on her throat. She refused to pull away. To show him how much he did terrify her. “And here you are now—in the home of a god. And you dare to complain. What you should be doing is…thanking me. However, I wish you to.”

  Her skin flamed where his hand rested. It took her a moment to realize his body was actually that hot. Burning. And that it wasn’t just her imagination.

  And the look in his eyes was telling her exactly how he expected her to pay him for this damned favor he’d supposedly done her and the children.

  Not that it surprised her—there was always a price to pay, wasn’t there?

  “I’m not giving you sex because you kidnapped my family and brought us to another world. Why would I be grateful?” Him and sex had her insides heating with barely the thought. What was he doing to her?

  “Because instead of punishing you for this little hole in my side courtesy of your arrow, I have let you live. I have given you and your whelps my protection. No one will harm you here. And all who serve me will protect you. And your foundlings.”

  “You threatened to harm my children and me. Why shouldn’t I have protected my family?” She tried to step away from him. H
e followed.

  He had to be huge, didn’t he? Seven feet tall or more. And muscled. Did he weigh over three hundred pounds? She wouldn’t doubt it for a moment. “Where are my children?”

  What would she do if she found them? Teagan knew he’d taken them somewhere, somewhere otherworldly. Teagan would have to find them first, then decide how—and where—they would escape.

  “Where are we, anyway?”

  “The city of Av. It’s in Levia—if that means anything to you.”

  “It doesn’t.” None of this made any sense to her at all.

  NINE

  Acylias knew the Witchling was confused and frightened. He smiled. Small price for her to pay for the way she had refused to cooperate with him earlier. “How old are you, little witch?”

  “Are you supposed to ask a woman that?”

  “Answer.” He had never seen a Nellana-human cross before. Though he had seen Nellana and other crosses. Those didn’t bother him nearly as much as the idea that humans, parasites to the worlds, had crossed with the greater Kinds. When had that started happening? Why? He could pretty much figure out the how.

  “Who are your people? Where did you come from?” He leaned closer. He could smell her—Nellana Witchlings tended to smell like the most alluring of flowers. This one was no exception.

  She still wore the battered blue trousers and short sleeve top that she’d had on when he’d first found her. But now it was covered in dirt and a small amount blood.

  Her blood.

  How? “Where are you injured?”

  For a moment—just a moment—a small bit of panic and concern hit him. For her.

  She looked down for a moment. “I…I…don’t remember.”

  “For a Nellana, you are rather lacking in intelligence, aren’t you? It must be your human side slipping through.” She didn’t react to his teasing of her, nor did she pull away. He lifted her hand up where he could see what she had done to herself. A small scrape, but he healed it quickly with a light touch. He let his hand linger. “It will have to be cleaned.” With a wave of his hand the bathing pool opened, and steam filled the air.