by Anthology
He was too confused to even know how he should feel about that.
Before he could ask for a coke to drown his sorrows, long arms wrapped around him from behind.
He grunted, reached behind him, grabbed his attacker in a headlock, and noogied him.
His brother squawked—an embarrassing noise for a werewolf—and swatted at him to get free. “Dude, you’re messing up my hair gel.”
Blaze let him loose. “You look like a conceited lion shifter, bro,” Blaze said. “And that’s the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen.”
“Isn’t it awesome?” Easton stretched out the front to better show off the rabid-looking reindeer chomping off the heads of gingerbread men. Glittery threads spilled out of the scalloped wounds and spelled out the words Eat Me. “Mom made it for me.” He shook his head. “Hard to believe, right? She said she found the pattern online and added a few touches.”
Blaze wasn’t sure he wanted to know which touches belonged to his shifter-hating mother.
Easton snagged the beer bottle he’d left on the window ledge and pulled another stool up to the table. “So who is she?” When Blaze only gave him a long stare, he jerked his chin at Annie. “If she’s fair game—”
“She’s not,” Blaze snarled.
“Ah, shifter passion. The gift that keeps on giving.”
“I hope our parents aren’t paying too much for that college education, because it’s not making you any smarter.”
“I go because the only thing that keeps our mother sane and alive is believing that at least one of her sons will escape the hell that is Angels Rest.”
Blaze eyed him. “Seriously.”
Easton shrugged. “I just finished a medieval studies course. Finals always make me a little nuts.”
Blaze shook his head. “Medieval… I thought you were going for a master’s in chemistry.”
“That too.” Easton took a long draught off his beer then tilted the bottle meaningfully at Blaze. “Anyway, tell me I’m wrong.”
Blaze watched Annie slinging glasses, a crooked grin lighting her face.
What would the wolf spirit give her? Would it make her happy in the end?
He might not have his twin’s study skills, but he could eyeball a raggedy, understory ponderosa and calculate exactly where to make his cut to drop it without knocking a needle off the old-growth giants. What were the chances he could make his way through this twisting puzzle without getting hurt?
“I think she’s my mate,” he replied.
Easton stiffened, nostrils pinching as if he’d caught a scent he didn’t like. “Does she know?”
“I don’t know how I could know. It’s not the mating season.”
“Then maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you should let her go.”
Blaze snagged the beer from his brother’s hand. When Easton squawked again, he held up a silencing finger. “Maybe you should save your brain cells for that fancy damn graduate degree. Besides, I know you’re driving.” His twin couldn’t run home; he never shifted. “Do you want Gypsy to take your keys?”
Easton made a low sound of derision. “As if the beasts ever cared about rules.”
Sometimes it wasn’t rules but laws of nature.
“Annie isn’t going to stay in Angels Rest,” Blaze said quietly. “She has…things she wants to do.”
“Don’t we all?”
Not really. He just wanted to be what he was. He wasn’t trying to make amends for it, like his brother was. He wasn’t going to forge a new world for shifters at his alpha’s side. He was just a wolf.
But in this quiet, dark time of the year, he was running up against forces that were too much for him alone.
“What should I tell her?”
Easton dragged one empty hand over his mouth. “What did Dad tell Mom? Whatever you do, don’t tell her that.” When Blaze glared at him, he sighed. “Nothing. Tell her nothing. Because there’s nothing you can say or do until she decides.”
When Blaze didn’t respond, Easton shook his head and took his beer back. “Better you than me, bro.” And he ambled off to mingle with the friends he’d left behind in high school.
Blaze stared across the bar at Annie. As if she felt the weight of his gaze, she glanced up from the till and smiled.
“Okay?” she mouthed at him.
“Fine,” he whispered back. And she would be fine. For the first time, he understood why his mother had pushed so hard to get him to go to college, and why she’d given up and focused on Easton.
He wanted to give Annie everything too.
And instead, he was going to let her go.
* * *
Annie tied off the trash and hauled the heavy bag out of the bin, wiping sweat from her brow. The night was still in full swing—literally, by the jukebox—and the coming holiday had brought out the party animals. All the animals, really. While she was collecting wet napkins and gnawed swizzle sticks, she got to meet Easton.
She would’ve known he was Blaze’s twin even if he hadn’t introduced himself that way. He had the same looks and—despite the flush of alcohol on his unmarked cheeks—some of the same shadows in his eyes.
She whisked away his empties and made a mental note to be sure he made it to the trailer later. “Why aren’t you sitting with your brother?”
“He’s brooding. Sexily, I might add.”
“Really?” Annie resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder. “About what?”
“You.”
She also resisted the urge to say “really” again. “Let him know he can brood sexily around me anytime.”
“You should tell him that.”
“I think I will, at the end of my shift.”
“Eww.”
She grinned. “You started it.”
“So I did.”
She warned Gypsy she was taking the trash out back and would be gone a minute. Maybe she’d take a quick little break to talk to Blaze. Or maybe they wouldn’t talk…
Distracted by those delicious thoughts, she bumped her ass into the release bar on the back door and stepped out toward the trash cans and recycle bins.
The snowfall had thickened while she worked, and half an inch coated the frozen ground underneath. Her sneakers on the gravel were fine, but when she stepped up onto the concrete pad, her foot skidded a little.
Unbalanced by the heavy trash, she ducked to set the two bags on the ground.
A crowbar smashed into the edge of the bin with a resounding clang.
She flinched away with a cry of alarm, and the bar just missed her head before it sliced downward to split open the trash bag.
A cruel grip on her upper arm swung her around and sent her reeling against the unyielding side of the bin.
She stared into Tomas’ leering face.
How had she ever believed he was the one for her? No, she’d never believed that. She’d just not believed there could be anyone else.
Like her werewolf.
She took a breath to scream for Blaze.
From the small of his back, Tomas pulled a gun, and the shout withered in her throat to a dry whimper.
He looked worse than she remembered, puffy and pale under the unflinching security light. She hadn’t seen him since the trial and had barely glanced at him even then. She had focused on the Christmas stickers from her sisters decorating her cast; the DA had told her the stickers were a nice touch. She had told him she didn’t want her little sisters growing up to think men like Tomas were all they could expect.
And now she had proof. And she wouldn’t risk losing Blaze to this true monster who had risen from her past.
She put her hand on her hip. “You get lazy in prison, Tommy? Crowbar? Gun? You always used your fists.”
“Didn’t seem to convince you,” he drawled.
A couple of his boys lurked on the other side of the bins. She wrinkled her nose at them. “Yeah, you had to send one of them to do your dirty work.”
He kicked at the spilled trash, spreading it farther. “Looks like you’r
e doing the dirty work now.” He shot her an almost wounded glare. “After I gave you everything.”
“When you gave me that concussion I must’ve forgot it all.”
One of the goons snickered, and Tomas slammed the butt of the gun against the can. “Shut the fuck up!”
She and the goon glanced at each other, not quite sure which of them he was talking to. Probably both. Yeah, he’d always been a rager. Good thing, or he might’ve shot her in the back and left with no one the wiser. If she could just get him to make a little more noise and a little more stink…
She wrapped her arms around her middle, cramming her tits up into the place where she’d left the top snap of the shirt undone. Snowflakes settled on her bare skin. “Look, Tommy”—and he did, his gaze fastening on her breasts—“it’s fuckin’ freezing out here. Come inside and I’ll get you a beer.”
The goon she’d eyeballed took a step forward as if that sounded good to him.
Tomas spat at her sneakers. “Forget it, Annie. Too late for that. You sent me away.”
The chill from the snow sank too deep. She remembered the terror of sitting in the air-conditioned courtroom in Albuquerque in August, colder than the high desert in winter, reciting from her halting memory the list of her injuries, Tomas’ glare trying to ice her into silence.
But now… Just like her, in their time apart, he’d changed. He wasn’t the same monster he’d been.
He was worse.
And despite that, she knew she was never again going to let his kind rule her heart with fear and hopelessness. Slowly, she let her hands fall to her sides and shook her hair back from her face. The snow on her face felt soft and fresh, carrying the scent of a faraway ocean.
She breathed deep. “Last chance, Tommy.” The words rumbled low in her chest.
“Tommy,” the goon whispered. “Her eyes…”
Aah-eee!
The cry echoed around her, not in her ears, but deep inside her.
Blaze!
From the dark side of the roadhouse raced a lean, powerful shadow. Under the security light, the brindled fur touched with snow glimmered like the desert itself come alive.
A second, matching shadow was right behind.
“Fuckin’ dogs, man!” cried the goon. He swiveled toward the parking lot, slipping in the snow.
Tomas’ second heavy pulled a gun from his pocket and fired.
The blast shattered the silent night, and Annie echoed it with a cry of fury and fear when a second shot ended in a pained yelp.
But neither wolf paused in their charge.
Tomas darted toward her, reaching for her arm as he always did. But she spun away.
Reaching into the recycle bin in the same motion, she continued her circle and smashed the heavy, homemade huckleberry wine bottle into the side of his head.
The glass splintered. Droplets of dark wine and bright blood spattered across the snow.
Tommy staggered, took one step away, and then the first wolf hurtled onto his back, plunging him into the spilled trash.
The second goon screamed as the other wolf tore into his gun hand. The third goon was nowhere to be seen, though the sound of tires spinning over snow, desperate to escape, made his path clear enough. Annie remembered what Dare had said about the taste of blood.
It wasn’t nasty. It was justice.
She threw back her head and howled.
And the wolves sang back.
9
As Christmas Eves went, at least it was better than some.
Gypsy had called her brother, the sheriff’s deputy, as soon as she saw the altercation on her camera.
“What the fuck,” she growled. “Those city fuckwads think we don’t do security?”
“I think they didn’t know it was fanged,” Annie said.
Tommy was lugged unconscious from the trash pile. His mangled goon was fished, half frozen, from Angel Creek where he’d tried to cross the water to throw “the guard dogs” off his scent.
“He saw that in a movie, I bet,” Easton said. The flesh-colored bandage on his neck was unobtrusive enough that no one gossiping in Gypsy’s the next day felt the need to comment.
Except Blaze, who said, “Duck next time.”
“Duck duck goose,” Easton countered. “It’s all fair game.”
The third goon had driven half the night then slid off the road in the snowstorm and was picked up by local police who had the make, model, license plate, suspect description, and a lot to say about dumb criminals who swore they were attacked by wolves.
“DA says I probably won’t have to testify again,” Annie told Blaze as they drove to his mother’s house for Christmas Day brunch.
“Good,” he said.
“But I would.”
“Yeah, you would.”
Though flecks of rust stained the snow around the hinges, the gate was open. A dark-haired woman waited at the front door, and she held Blaze for a long moment in silence.
Then she turned to Annie. “I hear you are waiting for your wolf.”
Annie glanced at Blaze then nodded a little warily. It was one thing to bash murderous ex-boyfriends over the head, but facing a werewolf mother…
“This was a good place for my boys to run,” the Domingo matriarch said. “Come here anytime.”
After dinner, Easton had to do dishes, though he complained about his flesh wound.
“Keeps you humble, college boy,” his mother told him. “So you remember where you came from.” Then she sent Blaze and Annie to walk in the walled garden behind the house.
Sheltered from the wind, Christmas roses and witch hazel blossomed between the stark stands of palm and agave.
“I wonder if there’s hope…” Blaze murmured. Then he shook his head.
But Annie threaded her fingers through his and gave him an admonishing shoulder bump. “Anyone can change,” she reminded him. “Except you. You’re perfect exactly the way you are.”
“That’s me. Avoided college. Clearing brush. Just perfect. When I’m not gnawing on people.”
She peered up at him with a grin. “I like when you gnaw on me.”
His eyes glinted, but the shifting hues of the twinkle lights hung from the garden wall made him hard to read. “You like the wolf.”
Something about his tone seemed off to her. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Being a werewolf was going to solve all my troubles. But I guess I brought my troubles with me.” She hugged him closer. “And then when you ran toward me…” She lifted their joined hands to her lips and kissed his knuckles. Then nipped him. “I was so scared and thrilled, and I just wanted…I don’t even know what.”
He took a short step away from her, though their hands were still coupled. The cold wind off the hills ruffled the dark hair over his eyes. “Remind me what you want.”
Even this close, she couldn’t quite figure out what was lurking in his gaze, but the heat of his body and breath ghosted around her, triggering an answering flicker deep within her.
“I want the wolf,” she whispered.
He froze in his tracks, and as if the words were coming from somewhere far away—or echoing in someone else’s ears—she heard what she’d said. I want the wolf. As if the only reason she was there was to get bitten. Well, that had been the reason at first. Now…
She closed the remaining distance between them, cutting off the wind so the restless lock of his hair stilled. She centered her hand over his heart. “I want you. You are my wolf.”
One furious thud of his pulse slammed into her hand, and then he was pulling her up against his chest. His mouth crashed down on hers.
She moaned at the hard thrust of his tongue and the even harder press of his heavy erection into her belly. She might not be able to tell what he was thinking, but she knew what he wanted.
“I want you to stay,” he growled. “I swore I wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t make you choose, but I want you to stay with me.”
She reached up to frame his face with her hands, staring at h
im incredulously. “Of course I want to stay. You are my wolf, my Christmas wish. You are my mate. But the only gift I have for you is…me. Is that enough?”
He matched her gesture and tipped their foreheads together. “That is everything to me.”
She thrust her cold hand down the front of his jeans.
His head jerked up. “Aah! Eee!”
“I’d use my teeth, but we don’t have time for games.”
“What are you—”
Once his fly was wide open, she grabbed her own collar points and yanked them aside. The pearl snaps parted with a clatter like reindeer hooves, and she gasped at the winter wind swirling over her bare breasts. Her nipples hardened into peppermint candy points of pearly red against her white skin.
Blaze grinned. “This is a good gift.”
Then the fever swirled around her, the warmth of her pale brindled fur and the heat in his eyes bringing high summer to the coldest night.
Blaze jumped to the top of the wall, his tail arched over his back in challenge. She hesitated only long enough to admire him before she set all four feet against the stones and launched herself after him.
They paused to stare out at the stillness of the winter desert. Her throat tightened at the beauty as tiny silver snowflakes—or maybe they were stars—fell from the sky. Then Blaze nipped at her ear and bolted away, and she was just a breath behind.
His laughing howl left a trail of shimmering crystals in the velvet darkness that she would joyfully follow forever.
The End
About Elsa Jade
Elsa Jade, author of the Wolves of Angels Rest series, is the werewolf-wranglin’ pen name of Jessa Slade, who writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy romance—basically anything with explosions AND kisses! Try her award-winning science fiction romance QUEEN OF STARLIGHT free at most retailers. http://elsajade.com
A Christmas Caroline by Allison Gatta
He needs to change his ways to win her heart…
Eric Spade hasn’t always been a total Scrooge, but with the biggest deal of the century on the line and an office preoccupied by holiday fever, someone has to be the voice of reason. Add on his desire to stay as far away from his best friend’s far-too-tempting sister and he has a whole host of reasons to skip Christmas this year. But when he gets visits from the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future, he’s forced to question himself—both when it comes to business and his feelings for the stunningly gorgeous Caroline…