A Very Alien Christmas

by Skye MacKinnon

  “You?” His surprised gaze flew to mine again.

  “Yes, me.”

  “How did it stay airborne? What do you use for propulsion?”

  I shook my head. “We can talk shop later. What are your intentions with me? Why did you beam me aboard your ship?”

  “What I’m doing here is none of your business.” He tightened the grip of his weapon in case I’d forgotten it was there. “Does this aircraft have any communication devices? Any weapons?”

  “Weapons?” My eyes widened. “There are no weapons. I don’t bring destruction to the world. I help bring joy.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, not looking convinced.

  Before he could add any dialogue to his skeptical expression, the floor trembled beneath me, rocking me from the sleigh. I lost my balance and tipped forward.

  He was there to catch me, preventing my fall. I landed hard against his solid chest, his strong arms surrounding my body as he held me upright while he enveloped me in his heated embrace.

  The man was hot!

  Not simply in appearance, but his skin was warm to the touch as if he’d been sunbathing for hours. It wasn’t uncomfortable or unpleasant. Instead, I wanted to curl myself around him to soak in his warmth. Even with the sleigh’s heater, it had been frigid outside. Having his arms around me instantly chased the chill away.

  His heat engulfed me. A warmth so profound I thought I might be trapped on one of those tropical islands at the equator.

  My skin tingled where I touched him. I felt his breath against my face. My head tilted up, startled. Our faces were close… close enough to kiss.

  I couldn’t speak as my gaze was captured by his captivating eyes. At first glance, I thought his eyes were brown, but upon closer inspection I realized they had more color. There were blues and greens and golds swirling in those depths creating a mesmerizing display of vivid color.

  I stared, amazed.

  My body tingled where he held me, a liquid heat traveling through my veins as my heart increased its tempo in my chest.

  “What was that?” I’m not sure if I referred to the ship quaking beneath our feet or the intense zinging sensation I experienced in my lower belly.

  Maybe both.

  My toes curled in response.

  “My ship is heading into orbit.”

  He set me gently on my feet, releasing me to stand on my own. I regretted the instant he let go as that tingly warmth evaporated.

  “Come with me,” he said, waving his ray gun at me. “You’re my prisoner until you can explain exactly what you were doing flying over Seattle.”

  Chapter 3

  I stared out of the window, amazed. Earth spun far, far below. The blues and whites swirling together in a mixture of ocean and atmosphere. I never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to see my home from this angle.

  Santa’s sleigh approached great heights in the sky, but it wasn’t a spaceship. It thrilled me to see my home planet from far above.

  It was also distressing because the alien didn’t believe that I belonged there.

  I glanced over my shoulder where he stood fiddling with a panel just outside the room. He’d locked me in here a few hours ago, then left. I presume he took his time inspecting my sleigh.

  “You better not have damaged it any more than you already have.”

  “What?” He didn’t pause whatever he was doing as his fingers flew over buttons. I could hear tiny beeps echoing from the panel.

  “My sleigh,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “You better not have damaged my sleigh.”

  “I did nothing to your vehicle.”

  “Like spicy gum drops, you didn’t.” I moved away from the small window where I’d been gazing at my planet to step closer to the door where I could see his face better. There was an electrified, invisible barrier between us. I’d discovered it after he had shoved me into this room, then hit some buttons on the panel and left. I had tried to follow him but got zapped as soon as I touched the barrier.

  It hadn’t been a pleasant sensation.

  “I was on a test flight with that sleigh,” I said, leaning against the wall to watch him as he concentrated on the panel. “It was going peachy until you and your bright as glistening snow light showed up. What did you do to it? How did you make it malfunction like that?”

  “I did nothing to your… sleigh.” His dark brows bunched together as he spoke the word like it was foreign to him. “I was salvaging when I caught sight of movement. I went to investigate. That’s when I found you.” He paused his business with the panel to tilt his gaze toward me. Heat flashed through me at the intense heat I saw there. “It appeared your vehicle was in distress. I believe I saved you.”

  A small, confident smile accompanied his words. While the zinging sensation stirred strangely in my nether regions, I tightened my fingers into fists beneath my crossed arms.

  “There was a slight malfunction,” I stated between clenched teeth. “If I’d had some time, I would have figured it out and fixed it.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded, the smile still in place as he went back to work on the panel. “Or you would have been squashed on the ground below. You and your sleigh.”

  I shook my head, refusing to believe it even as a tiny voice in my head admitted that he was probably right. I still don’t know what went wrong with the sleigh. The engines shouldn’t have stalled like they did. While waiting in this room, I’d gone over in my mind everything I had done with the engines. Failing like that… It shouldn’t have happened.

  I hated to admit it, but I was going to have to take it apart, maybe even start from scratch. Rebuild it from the ground up. It was the only way to be sure it didn’t happen again.

  What if it had been Santa in that sleigh on Christmas Eve?

  The thought sent chills through me.

  No, I had to be sure the engine was perfect before letting the big man take it for his annual journey. If something went wrong while he was in flight, he wouldn’t know how to fix it.

  I sighed, saddened that I let Santa down this year. Not only did the engine not work, but I went ahead and got abducted by an alien, too. I had to get back to the North Pole. I had to tell Santa that he’d have to take the magic reindeer on the journey again this year. I had to let him know the engine didn’t work.

  “How long are you going to keep me here?” I leaned my shoulder against the wall, careful not to get too close to the invisible barrier between us. “I have things to do and you’re wasting my time.”

  The alien chuckled. “I plan on keeping you until I know what planet you’re from, because you’re not from this one.” He raised one dark eyebrow as he glanced at me, his gaze taking me in from the red hat on my head to my little black boots. “I want to know what kind of competition I have.”

  “Competition?” I scowled, leaning closer. “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m from Earth.”

  “Right. And what exactly were you doing flying over Seattle?”

  “I told you. Testing the engines on the sleigh.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded. “And what are your intentions with that sleigh?”

  “We’re back to this again. I feel like we’re talking in circles.” I huffed my dismay, then shook my head. “Let’s start again, shall we? Hi! My name is Noelle and I’m an elf. What’s your name?”

  “An elf?” The alien’s brows lowered again as he looked at me. “I thought elves were extinct on this planet.”

  “Obviously not.” I waved one hand over my body indicating that I was very much not extinct.

  “Don’t elves live in trees? They’re little people. You’re too tall to be an elf.”

  “Elves come in all shapes and sizes just like humans. Just how do you know anything about elves anyway?” I scoffed, placing a hand on my hip. “You’re an alien.”

  “I’ve visited this planet a time or two. Or twenty. I�
�ve learned something about the culture.”

  “Well, you haven’t learned enough about elves because you’re looking at one.” With that, I lifted my white-trimmed red hat from my head, revealing my mess of blonde hair still tied in a wreck of a ponytail and the tips of my pointed ears for his view.

  Chapter 4

  I must admit. I think I startled him. His eyes widened as he stared at my ears. I felt his gaze as if he touched me there. The tips of my ears grew pink as I imagined him touching me in other places as well.

  Stop that, Noelle! Stop thinking thoughts like that. He’s an alien for goodness sake!

  But I couldn’t really help it. I’d never met an alien before, but he was the most gorgeous sight I’d ever seen. Tall, handsome and perfectly proportioned. He might be green, but I was attracted to him. There was no doubt about that.

  “You’re an elf?”

  He turned his wide-eyed gaze back to the panel and hit another button. Light flickered over his face and I realized there must be a screen on the wall.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he stared intensely at the screen. “I’ve been scanning alien species, trying to get a match on your bio-print. I never saw anything like it. I thought for certain you were scouting the planet, making plans to come into my territory. I never thought to match your bio-print with other Earth species.”

  He planted one hand on the wall, leaning against it as he stared at the screen. When he was finished with the read-out, he turned to face me again.

  “Huh,” he grunted. “You’re an elf.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, then waved at the barrier in place between us. “Are you gonna let me out now?”

  “What were you doing flying over Seattle in that sleigh?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Testing the engine. I’ve told you this already.”

  “So, you’re not salvaging for scrap?”

  “No.” I frowned as what he said sunk into my brain. “What do you mean, salvaging for scrap? Is that what you’re doing? Are you invading Earth?”

  He shook his head. “No invasion. Earth has a large debris field in its orbit, filled with scrap metal. Satellites that no longer function. Broken down telescopes. Pieces of rockets. You know, space trash.”

  “Space trash?” I repeated, realizing I had glimpsed some of it while I gazed out the window to stare down at my world. That’s also what I saw in the room he deposited my sleigh when his bright light beamed me onboard. “What do you do with it?”

  “Some of it I use. The system on my ship can burn it and convert it into fuel. Other, larger pieces, I sell back home. You have no idea what kind of money a dead satellite can bring back on my planet.”

  “So…” I nodded. “You’re a garbage collector?”

  He smirked. “I like to think of myself as a Space Waste Management Relocation Professional.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “Well, now that we have that sorted, how about you let me out of here. I have a deadline to keep. I’ve already wasted several hours. I need to get back home.”

  He tapped something on the wall. The barrier between us became visible, shimmered and then vanished.

  I cautiously set my toe through the doorway, testing to see if I’d get shocked again. Nothing happened, but he swung his arm through the doorway to prove I had nothing to worry about.

  “I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere in that sleigh. That engine is toast.”

  Not for the first time, his use of the English language surprised me.

  “Just how often do you visit Earth? You speak the language fluently.”

  He shrugged while he turned, walking in the opposite direction down a long tiled corridor. I fell into step beside him. Lights on the ceiling flickered on as we approached. Behind us, they dimmed.

  “Often enough.”

  “How do you get by without attracting any attention? I mean, you’re sort of noticeable.” I waved my hand indicating his skin color, but a blush suffused my cheeks as I wondered if he knew how sexy he looked.

  “Oh, this?” He stretched his left arm to display in front of him as we walked. He took a deep breath, focused for a few seconds and then the greenish hue of his skin faded to be replaced with a creamy paleness similar to my skin tone.

  “You change color?”

  “I’m a shifter.”

  “Like a werewolf?”

  He chuckled. “I could be, but I haven’t been in the company of any werewolves, yet.” Then he paused. He slanted a questioning glance at me, hesitating a step before continuing. “Are werewolves real, too?”

  I wobbled my head side to side, indecisively. “Hey, we have elves. There might be more than werewolves on my planet.”

  “I thought such things were myths and legends on your world. Movie magic. None of it real.”

  “You knew elves were real.”

  “Yes, but extinct. My people have been visiting your planet for a long, long time.”

  I quirked an eyebrow at him, my eyes widening in response.

  “Not so much these days. Mostly, my people keep to themselves. We don’t interfere.”

  “You’re taking our trash.”

  “Have you noticed?” He waved his hand, the color of his skin shifting back to green. “I figure I’m doing you a service. Cleaning up the space in your orbit. My people have use for the metals you use. Since none of your people seem to want or need any of the material you toss into space, I thought no harm would be done.”

  I stared at his skin, marveling at the look of it again.

  “Is this what you really look like? Or is this just another form?”

  “Oh, this? No, this is me. When I’m on my ship, I’m much more comfortable in my own skin. I only shift when I visit other planets.”

  “How many planets do you visit?”

  “About a dozen or so.”

  Again, my eyes widened. We came to a stop in front of a large door. He waved his hand over a panel to the side and the door slid open. Inside, I spotted Santa’s sleigh right where I had left it.

  He’d taken me back to the sleigh. He could have dumped me out of an airlock instead.

  Still could, I guess.

  I bit my lip but ignored my inner thoughts. Instead, I walked straight to the sleigh, running my fingers over the trim, happy to see it was still in one piece even after he inspected it.

  “You didn’t touch it, did you?” I glanced with a raised eyebrow as he came to stand beside me.

  “Only enough to see that the engine is fried.”

  I closed my eyes, hoping what he said wasn’t true. My reputation as an engineer was at stake. I’d pushed the other elves and Santa for a chance to make this sleigh work. If I failed, I’d never be able to face them again.

  “Do you have any tools? I need to take a look for myself.”

  “Sure.” He walked over to the wall closest to the sleigh, pushed a panel where a drawer opened revealing a case of tools. All sorts of shapes and sizes. Some of which I’d never seen, nor knew how to use.

  “Um, thanks,” I said. It would be rude not to thank him. He had saved my life, after all. And he was willing to let me fix my sleigh.

  He wasn’t such a bad guy.

  “Jaxar.” His voice was deep and echoed in the space around us. When I flicked a glance his way, he added, “My name. It’s Jaxar.”

  “Thank you, Jaxar. I appreciate your kindness.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t plan on dropping you off where I picked you up. I have a schedule to keep, too. If I don’t get out of here in a day’s time, my window to get back to my planet doesn’t open for another six months. I don’t have any plans on sticking around here that long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a wormhole just beyond Jupiter. It only appears every six months. That’s my way home.”

  “How much time can you give me?” I picked up a wrench and a screwdriver.

  “I’ll try to help you, but I can only offer twelve hours. After that, I drop you off on
Earth, or you’re coming with me.”

  Chapter 5

  Twelve hours didn’t give me a lot of time to rebuild an experimental engine, but Jaxar was true to his word. He had a lot of tools and materials from which to scavenge, and he was mechanically inclined. Together, we worked on the sleigh’s engine.

  Side by side, we opened it up, dove in and dismantled it. I tore out broken and burnt pieces and parts while Jaxar scoured the satellites and other space debris for anything we might be able to use as substitutes.

  His ingenuity astounded me, and I found myself growing more attracted to him. Not only was he sexy and green, a color I was beginning to grow increasingly fond of, but he was also smart and had a wicked sense of humor that made me chuckle and simultaneously roll my eyes.

  As we worked, we talked about ourselves. He told me about his planet and his life there. How the money he gained from his scavenge work went to help his three siblings and his mother back home. His father had been killed in a war which had ravaged their home world when he was young. He also mentioned being single, which perked my pointed ears, but I tried not to acknowledge it.

  In return, I told him about my life at the North Pole. I was born there, raised there, and planned to die there one day. There weren’t many places for an elf on Earth these days. My life was all about engines and making things work. Inventions were a passion. I made it my life’s goal to help Santa make his perilous journey safe.

  Oh, yeah. I told him about Santa. It’s really not that big a secret. I mean, everyone across the globe knows about the big guy in red. He has made it well known that he appears for one night a year. Even the media keeps track of him, although children’s parents like to eventually take credit for all the big man’s work. Totally unfair, but I suppose they need to feel some glory, too.

  Santa doesn’t seem to mind. We all know he’s the one delivering those presents.

  But, maybe not in a new rocking red sleigh with a high-class self-propulsion engine that can zoom him around the world in one night.