Alphas for the Holidays

by Mandy M. Roth

  Gerda laughed, and when Alador glanced over his shoulder, even Kai had worked up a smile.

  Alador followed Luminesa. She was creating a wintery wonderland for the children with slides and swings of ice, even a winter garden that bobbed heavily with white flowers sparkling with frost. In moments, they were surrounded by such beauty that even he found himself itching to go exploring through the wondrous maze she’d crafted.

  Smiling, she turned once again toward the children. “Would you like a gift?” she asked.

  Both children nodded at once, and when Luminesa began to waggle her fingers, Alador knew she was crafting them an image in ice, one much like the centaur he had resting on his bedroom shelf.

  He couldn’t peel his eyes off her, memorizing each plane and groove of her face, from the small rosebud lips tinted a lovely shade of mauve to her cheeks, which were flooded a bright shade of pinkish-blue, to those brilliant eyes of hers that, whenever they looked upon him, cut him to his very core.

  “There,” she said finally and handed Gerda a fragile-looking rose that sparkled like freshly polished diamonds in the sunlight.

  “Ohhh, mistress,” Gerda cried, grabbing the flower from her before hugging it tightly to her chest. “I will treasure it always.”

  Smiling broadly, Luminesa nodded. “Good. And Kai, I do hope you’ll like your gift.”

  Then opening her hand, she giggled as an ice falcon that looked nearly identical to Baatha screeched loudly before swooping out of her hands to glide along the gentle breeze.

  “Down, down, down.” Gerda wiggled on her seat.

  “Yes, please.” Kai laughed, reaching his hands out for the ice bird.

  “Calm down, children,” Alador said, then took them off. Gerda grabbed hold of Kai’s hand, and immediately they skipped around the snowy garden, kicking up great big clouds full of snow, laughing and chortling along the way.

  Alador walked over toward Luminesa, who stood absolutely still, watching the children with wonder in her pretty blue eyes.

  “They’re having so much fun,” she whispered the second he’d neared.

  The place had been built as a curse, but right then, in that moment, Alador couldn’t make it so. No, that place had become a secret haven that existed only for their enjoyment.

  A sharp cry rent the air, and upon hearing it, the children jumped, pointed toward the sky, and called out to the real Baatha to come and join them.

  The large bird circled once, twice, and then landed beside Kai, dropping a floppy little brown bundle by his foot.

  Alador chuckled. “Your bird has brought them a dead mouse.”

  Luminesa’s laughter filled the air with effervescence. “It is a gift, though I’m not quite sure Gerda sees it that way.”

  “Ew, Baatha.” She cringed, shuddering as she toed the dead mouse away.

  But Kai bent, picked it up, and held it out to Baatha. “Come eat, bird.”

  “He has a warrior’s spirit,” Alador said.

  “Like recognizing like?” she asked him with a sly grin as she glanced over her shoulder at him, and again, his pulse stuttered in his chest.

  “Something like that,” he mumbled, but his mind had shifted yet again.

  “Baatha,” Luminesa said in a deep, commanding voice, “keep a sharp eye on the children while they play.”

  Her snowy falcon screeched his assent before thrusting himself into the air. The children squealed with delight, chasing him as he flew, waving their arms and demanding he “come down right this instant!”

  She and Alador chuckled at the sight.

  “Will they be safe?” he asked.

  She nodded. “They couldn’t be more safe if we walked with them. Baatha will allow no harm to come to the children.”

  “Then in that case…” he said softly and, taking a step toward her, brushed his knuckles across her pale, velvety cheek.

  Those frost-tipped lashes he loved so well fluttered when he did so.

  When he’d first met her, if someone had told him that in just a week’s time, he’d be taking such liberties, Alador would have likely laughed. But he didn’t feel like laughing then.

  “Luminesa,” he said in a heated whisper, ready to peel back the heavy burden of his heart and tell her everything.

  Twirling completely toward him, she grasped his wrist. “May I ride you, horse?”

  And for just a moment, he felt a wash of disappointment that he wouldn’t get to gaze upon her face to his heart’s content. But then he realized that her body would be pressed to his, as it’d not been before, all her lush curves rubbing against him. Once again, he remembered last night’s dream. Her gentle moans and groans as he’d brought her to climax.

  Swallowing, he notched one knee, kneeling upon the snow so that she could sit astride him.

  She hiked her gown up to mid-thigh, no doubt so that she was better able to get on him. But Alador couldn’t resist from drinking in the shapely curves of her delectably smooth legs. His kind could shift when they wanted to.

  But he’d never really found human legs all that attractive. The few times he’d seen Haxion wearing hers, he’d teased her mercilessly for it. A woman should have four legs, and they should be covered in fine, supple horsehair. Or so he’d always thought.

  But when Luminesa slipped her legs around him and squeezed, it was all he could do not to release the groan trapped on the back of his tongue.

  She wiggled a bit, and goddess, her scent drove him mad. She’d be embedded in his hair. Anytime he moved, he’d smell her on him.

  He released a shaky breath, thinking that he just had to get used to it and then he’d be all right, but then she leaned forward so that her breasts were pressed flush to his back. Soft, pillowy mounds that made his mouth water and his fingers tingle. He hardly dared to breathe, let alone move.

  “Alador?” she asked.

  And he heard the concern in her voice.

  He shook his head. “I am okay. Only give me a moment.”

  “Am I too heavy for you?”

  That question almost made him laugh. She weighed nothing. It was beneath a centaur’s dignity to give rides to others, because as he’d told her, they weren’t horses. They weren’t pack animals designed to serve humans.

  In fact, until recently, Alador had never let another ride upon him. It’d started first with the children. And while he hadn’t exactly been comfortable with the situation the first time around, he’d grown used to the feel of their negligible weight.

  But with Luminesa…it was so very different.

  He wanted her to rub her legs back and forth on his sides. Wanted her hands to brush down his mane and her lips to stroke and caress the naked planes of his back.

  She shifted on her seat, which caused her breasts to move and her nipples to pebble into tight little nubs that poked into his back. That time, he couldn’t help but groan as his flesh exploded with sensation that made him weak in the knees.

  “Alador?” She moved, as though to get down, and he tossed his arm back, holding her in place.

  He’d be damned if he let her off his back then.

  “Stay,” he commanded.

  “But I’m—”

  Turning so that he could look her in the eyes, he confessed, “You are not hurting me, Luminesa. Not at all.”

  He saw the spark of recognition light through her eyes, and he waited with his heart in his throat for her reaction to his honesty.

  And then, “What am I doing to you, then?”

  He inhaled deeply, gathering up his courage. And before he could think better of it, he blurted out, “Your touch arouses me. It is all I can do to focus on walking instead of—”

  Gods, what was he saying? They weren’t alone. The children were there, though they’d moved on a ways and were lingering several yards back, completely engrossed in their own games. He knew he needed to remain aware.

  “Instead of?” she prodded.

  But instead of answering her, he remembered the story she’d t
old him of what’d happened to her by that detestable male, and Alador was ashamed of himself.

  “I am sorry, Luminesa. I do not know what’s overcome me—”

  Her small hand cupped his right cheek. “I want to know what it is you were about to say.”

  He grunted. “But after all that’s happened to you, how could I possibly—”

  “Alador,” she interrupted him again, “I dreamt of you last night.”

  Her softly spoken words made his soul cry out. “What?”

  She nodded. “You kissed me.”

  She pressed her finger to the corner of her lip. “Here.”

  Blood rushed through his veins, creating a strange buzzing sound in his ears. There’d been many mares in his tribe he’d felt emotions for, what he’d even thought at the time had been strong emotions of affection.

  But what he’d felt then compared to the madness he was feeling at that moment was nothing at all the same.

  “Did you like it?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  She said nothing for the longest time. And with each second that ticked past, his heart beat harder and harder, almost painfully so.

  Wiggling forward, she leaned in and, closing her eyes, placed a sweet and oh so tender kiss against the corner of his jaw. But she didn’t stop there. Her lips moved slowly up, next to his cheek, and then finally…finally, to the corner of his mouth.

  With a moan that sounded full of pain, he gently cupped the back of her head and moved his mouth just a few inches south so he could take her lips completely.

  Their kissing position was awkward, though he was much more flexible as a centaur than if he’d shifted shape into a human. He was basically kissing her over his shoulder. Still, nothing in that world could have enticed him away, even if he did develop a horrible ache in his back from holding that position so long.

  Wrapping her arms around his shoulder, she melted into his embrace. She was so pliant and yielding and lusciously curved, the first human he’d ever kissed, and he knew in his heart that would not be their only kiss. There would be others. Many more kisses.

  His muscles spasmed, trembled, and she yelped, pulling away immediately.

  Her eyes were wide disks in her face. “What was that?” she asked.

  And a grin curved his lips. She’d yelped when his muscle had twitched between her thighs.

  “Have you ever been with a man, Luminesa?”

  Pulling bee-stung lips between her teeth, she shook her head. “At least, not a centaur male. The only male I ever knew was when I was still very human, and I’d been hopelessly young and naive, and all I remember was that everything was very sweaty and painful and rather disgusting, to be honest.”

  No mention of Josiah, and he was glad. Because what Josiah had done hadn’t at all been consensual, or even sexual for that matter. It’d been power-driven and motivated by a thirst to possess and had nothing at all to do with the purity that happened when two bodies melded for a moment into one.

  “Have you been with a centauress before?” she asked, sounding nervous.

  The convention of mating with only one partner wasn’t the ideal centaur way. Herds grew stronger by spreading their seed wide. But a few of his brethren had chosen to remain loyal to one partner.

  Chester had, and to a human, no less.

  Alador had never understood why his cousin had willingly forgone the freedom of the centaurs, until that moment…until the thought of another male touching Luminesa as he’d just done made him half mad with jealousy.

  Just the thought of it made him want to strike an arrow through another male’s heart. The powerful emotion astonished him; possessiveness was beneath the sensibilities of the average centaur.

  Till then, Alador had always been staid, placid, able to separate feelings from facts. Facts were that spreading seed kept the centaur populations strong. A mare didn’t require fealty so long as her stallion provided for what needs she had. The raising of offspring was a herd effort…that was simply the way things were.

  And before he’d met Luminesa, that was exactly how Alador had pictured his path, but right then…then things had changed.

  “Yes.” He answered honestly. “I have. Does it bother you?”

  She shook her head, feathering her fingers along the ridge of his brow with a tentative, almost shy touch. His flesh quivered wherever she stroked him, every inch of his body becoming sensitive to her touch, craving her nearness with a breath-stealing intensity that sometimes left him unable to stand properly.

  The Queen of Ice had cast a spell over Alador. He wasn’t sure when, or how, all he knew was that from the moment he’d met her until then, he’d wanted nothing so much as her.

  Goddess, she was perfection.

  He framed her elfin, heart-shaped face, tracing his thumb gently back and forth across her velvety flesh, wishing he could strip her bare, lay her down on a pile of warm furs, and languidly take his time caressing and teasing her until she was nothing but a quivering mass of want and need beneath him.

  He pressed his thumb into her lower lip, fascinated by the slight blue tinting of it when he did so. How much more of her was blue? he wondered. He smiled at the sensual thought.

  She grinned back. “Why do you smile?”

  Probably best not to tell her that he was imagining their limbs tangled up as he undulated himself deep inside her and her breathy, whimpery moans spilled off her tongue into his ears.

  Instead, he said, “You’re so warm now, my queen.”

  Her features glowed as she said, “Your touch makes me so.”

  She licked her lips, poking the tip of her little pink tongue out of the corner of her mouth, and a groan rumbled through his chest.

  His head dizzy and swimming with an intensity of lust and desire, Alador stopped trying to be so noble and gave himself over to the raging emotions of need he’d never before felt in his life.

  Still palming her face, he guided her to him. Luminesa never protested, she simply tossed her arms around his neck and dove into the kiss with the unrequited passion of a repressed virgin.

  Her tongue thrust like a fiery dart between his lips. Helpless to resist her siren’s lure, he opened his mouth fully and used his tongue in pantomime of what he wished he could to her with his body.

  Taking her tongue with his, he twined it deeply against his own. She tasted of fresh snow and sugared plums. Each friction-inducing caress of hers made him exhale a small jet of frost that she inhaled deeply inside of herself.

  Her ice was becoming a part of him. The icy burn ran rampant through his veins, and blood. But it didn’t freeze him, didn’t make him want to die from the cold or sink into shock from the numbing iciness. No…instead, he craved more and more.

  He devoured her with his mouth, and she did the same to him. Their kiss was so elemental and primal—the very essence of desire. Their teeth knocked a couple of times, but neither of them stopped what they were doing.

  Alador had believed himself well-versed in the art of lovemaking, that he’d known all there was to know about the female species.

  Goddess, he could not have been more wrong. With just one kiss, she unmanned him.

  His knees grew weak, and unable to bear his own weight, he had no choice but to sink into the snow. Somehow, though, they managed to keep their lips connected.

  Luminesa’s little fingers dug into the back of his scalp, scraping forcefully, causing little trails of sizzling pain to flare beneath her touch. Both icy and blisteringly hot, and gods, it was amazing. His skin felt full; it tingled and raged with spasms of electrical sparks.

  A part of him worried that he might combust from that level of incendiary passion, but it was a death he’d most willingly tumble headlong into.

  Luminesa was pressed as tightly to him as a rider could be. His fingers dug into thick mounds of packed snow, wishing that it was not ice he held but her soft breasts that even then were plastered tightly to the side of his chest.

  She wrapped
her legs around him, exposing several inches of smooth, creamy thigh for his inspection. Her pale, luminescent flesh glimmered with a faint blue glow. Crossing her bare feet together at the ankles, she began a slow, smooth rocking motion.

  Grunting, he fought for some form of control as he felt the first roll of her heated flesh against the base of his spine.

  “Luminesa,” he croaked, not knowing what he was asking. Nothing made much sense at the moment other than the madness of wanting her. There was something he needed to remember, but every time the fleeting thought came to him, it fluttered away on feathery wings the instant she moved, that time moaning long and loud with ecstasy.

  His own body burned with desire, his belly filled with fire. His heart raged in his chest. His pulse raced.

  She broke their kiss first, leaning her head against his neck as she continued to swivel her hips with increasing speed and tempo. Her grunts became more and more animalistic, and tiny shudders had begun to grip her.

  “Alador,” she whimpered after a moment.

  He was fixated, unable to rip his eyes off her, watching as the blood rushed to her smooth cheeks, turning them a beautiful pearlescent pinkish-blue. Her rosebud lips had parted, and tiny little murmurs of desire dropped like a prayer off her tongue.

  The air between them had begun to rage with fat snowflakes and pure white snow bees that buzzed around the Queen’s head with a melodic tune.

  “Alador,” she moaned again.

  That time, he answered, even as his fingers clenched the snow tighter. Rolling waves of energy had begun to flow through his own veins just from watching her, rushing south to his ever-thickening member.

  “Luminesa, what do you need?”

  She groaned, tilting her head back with her next forceful rub.

  “Oh, gods.” The words spilled from his lips without thought.

  For the most part, centaurs stayed within their kind, but a few of his brethren enjoyed the occasional exotic fare. For them, there were well-known and underground establishments that catered to the more “outlandish” needs.

  Alador had always scorned those who’d used those services, never understanding the appeal of a human woman or a mermaid’s tail…but he did then. Goddess, did he ever.