Such Violent Delights: A Holiday Paranormal Romance Anthology

by S. L. Jennings

  Scrooge fired, the bullet ripping through another toy. The body count was building a wall for them to hide behind.

  “Me too.” He wiped at his brow, sitting back on his heels.

  I glanced over at the twins. They were still shooting snowballs but had long ago run out of rocks. Penguin sat on the ground, playing in the snow, singing carols, while picking up pieces of peppermint used to attack us and crunching noisily down on them. He seemed oblivious to the fight raging around him.

  Dread sank down into my gut. We were doomed. Besides having no chance to begin with, we were all out of ammo…and in Penguin’s case, attention span.

  I had one bullet left.

  “No one has a lighter or anything with them, right?” I turned to Hare and Scrooge.

  “Fires are illegal,” Scrooge replied with a shrug. “The Queen’s orders. Think she’s afraid of her soldiers becoming timber for a massive bonfire.”

  Shit. I was running out of ideas and hope.

  “What happens if we surrender?”

  “We’ll be taken to the Queen, put on trial, then executed.” Hare sat back folding his arms, sulking.

  “Executed? What the point of the trial then?”

  “Now you’re getting it.” Hare chuckled, pointing at me with a wink. “Welcome to Winterland.”

  The table cracked as more bullets tore into its surface, a few going all the way through, cutting close to my hip. We didn’t have much time left.

  Masses of soldiers moved their dead comrades away, advancing on us. I peered up at the barely hanging chandelier on the groaning pergola, noticing the decoration on the top.

  “Screw those wooden peckers!” I growled, grabbing a candy cane sword with one hand, my gun in the other.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Scrooge grabbed for my arm, pulling me back down, his lids narrowing.

  “I’m not going to sit here like dessert on a tray, ready to be eaten by fucking toys!”

  “I like her.” Hare nudged Scrooge, nodding at me.

  The plan forming in my head was flimsy at best, but it didn’t seem to stop me. I was impulsive. Hopefully this time it would work out.

  “On my word, break that post.” I nodded at the gingerbread support beams, Scrooge following my gaze all the way up. At the top of the pergola was a rotting angel-shaped cookie the size of a golf cart. The face was melted off, and one of the wings already broken. It was grotesque and absolutely perfect.

  Scrooge’s dark eyebrow curved up as he settled his hat back on his head, a roguish smirk on his face. “Sounds divine, Ms. Liddell. Quite heavenly.”

  A small laugh broke from my lips. He had no idea I had more in mind than merely flattening the soldiers. I was going to make them kindling.

  “Quite.” I grinned. Our eyes caught, my insides fluttering.

  Bullets broke through the table right between Scrooge and me, widening my eyes.

  “Now!” I screamed, jumping up, crashing my blade into the post closest to me, Hare and Scrooge doing the same. A loud groan from the structure quaked the ground, crying out into the night sky, stopping the soldiers in their tracks. For a moment they stared up watching the angel wobble, and the stale cookie, which was probably the consistency of a brick, tipped forward.

  The screech whirred in my ears, filling the silent shock as we all stared at the trellis crumbling. I waited for my moment, the last bullet sitting in my gun.

  “Retreat!” the general screamed, but it was too late.

  The chandelier plunged to the ground, just as my finger hit the trigger.

  Boom!

  The bullet whizzed through the glass, hitting the electric outlet, the piece of coal sparking against the electricity running through the wires. Glass and fire exploded out toward our opponents, producing shrill screams as the flames found their targets. The pergola crashed down on top of the front line, burying them in debris and fire.

  “Holy shit!” Hare’s head jerked to me, his mouth parted. “Dammnnn... I think you and I need to hang out.”

  “Maybe after we get out of here.” I dropped the gun, turning to the back of the garden. “We need to go!”

  “Come on!” Scrooge grabbed my hand, pulling me with him. “We have to go through.” Scrooge pointed at the hedges framing the garden, holly reaching high into the sky. Hare, Penguin, and the twins were quick to shove through the hedge, their small bodies easily disappearing.

  “Yummy. That one looks delicious. Come closer, girl,” a voice came from the bush.

  I blinked, staring at the holly closer. It wasn’t your normal holly. The jagged leaves shined in the moonlight like a thousand razors, black dots in the red berries stared at me like eyeballs.

  Holy crap, the holly is alive. Not sure why this surprised me by now.

  “Are you kidding me?” I tugged out of Scrooge’s grip. “Don’t you even have normal bushes here?”

  “What do you consider normal, Ms. Liddell? Normal could be abnormal and abnormal could be quite ordinary.”

  Vampire holly was common here. Awesome.

  “We have no time!” Scrooge pointed behind me. The flames gobbling up the wooden soldiers worked its way to us, already gobbling up the table as the fire burned up the pieces of the trellis. “Hurry.”

  As I took a step, something made a clinking noise, forcing me to look down. The vial with “drink me” lay at my feet. Wood snapped and creaked behind me, the flames licking at my back. Swiftly, I bent down, swiping the vial into my hand and shoving it into my pocket.

  “Alice!” Scrooge screamed for me, reaching for my fingers. His large, warm hand wrapped around mine and I leaped.

  A cry belted from my throat as we moved deeper into the hedge, sharp jagged leaves slicing into my skin.

  “This one tastes unusual!”

  “Oh, I want more. Come back, girl!”

  “Juicy, red blood.”

  One limb leaped out, cutting me deeper.

  “Fuck! Ow!” I swiped my hand at the branch, but it was no use. They pressed into me on all sides, wrapping around my legs and arms.

  “Back off, you bloodsuckers,” Scrooge growled, pulling me faster through the shrubbery. How thick was this hedge anyway?

  “You know the rules, Mr. Scrooge. There’s a fee for coming through here,” they said in unison.

  For a place so nonsensical, it had a lot of rules.

  “Plus, she tastes like you used to.” The black eyes watched us from the red berries, blood dripping off their leaves. “But you have grown as unpleasant and cheap in your blood as the rest here.”

  “Shut up before I blowtorch you all to the ground,” Scrooge snarled.

  A collective gasp came from the bushes. “But it’s illegal.”

  “I know the laws here.”

  “Your body will lose a head if you do. You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Watch me.” He glared over my shoulder at the carnivorous holly. “Now you have taken enough from Ms. Liddell as payment. Wound her again, and I’m snapping you into tiny pieces and squashing your beady eyes under my boot.”

  “But she’s sooooo good! Come on. We’ve been starving. It’s been too long since we tasted sweetness like her. We might die before the next time someone comes through,” they whined together.

  “Then get to it. And decrease the surplus population of weeds like you.” Scrooge grabbed my elbow and yanked me to hurry up, pushing through the thick brush.

  “Weeds!” They hollered in indignation. “We are not weeds!”

  I could feel their anger growing. Literally. Branches and foliage sprouted, weaving and tightening the space around us. Scrooge yanked me roughly, picking up the pace.

  “Get them!” Aggravated, they sliced and nipped at us with a renewed vengeance. I yelped as their bites moved up and down my limbs, easily chomping through my thin tights. We continued to sprint through, my arms taking the brunt as I tried to guard my face and neck.

  At one point I began to hallucinate when I imagined seeing a clearing over Sc
rooge’s shoulder, but we remained in the labyrinth of shrubbery, curving and zigzagging for what felt like hours. My head spun as blood was drained from me, my legs stumbling over the roots underfoot. Scrooge had slowed down a lot, his feet staggering like mine. We had both lost so much blood.

  “Not this time,” I heard Scrooge mutter, his breath labored.

  I blinked, seeing moonlight shimmering off a patch of snow ahead of us.

  An exit. A way out.

  “Don’t let them pass,” the holly yelled forward.

  “Nooo!” Scrooge boomed. His shoulders bent forward, his muscles coiling under his jacket. Like a bull, he charged forward, the branches knitting together, blocking our exit.

  “Oh no.” I shook my head. The thought of being in here any longer caused my heart to thump in my throat, my essence leaking out faster. The exit narrowed to almost nothing. My legs trembled under me, my body sagging. I never thought of myself as a quitter as my family did, more like I lost interest in things, but I knew when it came down to really important things, I would fight.

  With a battle cry, I rushed forward, batting and shoving at the limbs as they came down around us. My fingers tore at the plaiting limbs, the snapping branches echoing loudly, like tiny bones.

  “Go!” Scrooge shoved me through the tight pocket we had created, deep incisions hacked into my flesh. I screamed, toppling forward, breaking through the thick brush. My knees crashed into the snow, my blood smearing harshly through the pure white substance.

  I made it. I was free. But not hearing Scrooge behind me had me jerking my head to look back. His face disappeared behind the foliage as it consumed him like a giant mouth.

  “No!” I leaped up. With energy I didn’t even know I had, I stomped my boot at the lower branches and with all my might I yanked up. The leaves scored into my palms, and their pained screams crowded my ear. With a deep grunt like an animal, Scrooge rammed through the evil shrubbery, slamming into me.

  We both toppled over, crashing into the ankle-deep snow, his body covering mine. We laid there for a moment, our lungs knocking against each other as we grappled for air.

  “Are you all right, Ms. Liddell?” His voice was low and rumbling, suddenly making me highly aware his body pressed into mine.

  “Y-ye-yes.” My head still whirled, like I wanted to close my eyes and sleep for the next month. “I think so.”

  Scrooge stared down at me intensely, but his emotion was unreadable.

  “What?” I whispered, trying to ignore how amazing he felt on me. The heat and hardness of his physique demanded mine to respond.

  “You saved me.”

  “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why would you?”

  “I couldn’t leave you like that.”

  “You should have, Ms. Liddell. As I told you, you should not trust anyone here.”

  A frown turned my mouth, drawing his attention, hitching my breath.

  “That is no way to live. You didn’t leave me behind with the soldiers. I don’t abandon people either.” I gulped, feeling like his face was inching closer to mine. “I don’t know why, but I trust you.”

  His gaze went from my lips to my eyes, his warm breath skating down my low-cut costume, between my breasts. “You really shouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” His deep voice lit my nerves like a match. He didn’t finish his sentence, as if it were reason enough. I stared up at him, my heart slamming into my chest. Hundreds of cuts sliced his face and hands, blood trickling down his cheeks. I suddenly longed to reach out and wipe the blood away, to lick it off my fingers and taste him myself.

  Uhhh. What the holy fuck?

  The thought startled me, jerking my frame under his weight. Like a needle popping a bubble, the hazy little world around us fell away. He blinked and lurched back off me like I had the plague, his mouth curling up in a snarl.

  I sat up, feeling dizzy, the tense silence sitting soberly in my gut.

  Scrooge took a deep breath, rubbing at his face and rising to his feet. “We need to get going. Get away from here.”

  “Where is here exactly?” I pushed up to stand, my body swaying. Scrooge grabbed my arm, keeping me from falling over, but this time he stood as far as he could from me.

  “If you don’t know where you are, what does it matter where here is? Here is merely relative to knowing where you are.”

  I groaned, pinching my nose. I kept forgetting Scrooge, like the rest, was mad. Sexy as hell, but looney as a cartoon.

  Speaking of the rest… “Where are the others? Shouldn’t they be around here?”

  Scrooge chuckled ruthlessly, annoyance seeping into his face. “When will you learn, Ms. Liddell? Nothing here is what it seems. The hedge is a vast maze, inside and out of it. All connecting to each other and can drop you out anywhere it wants to.”

  I peered back at the shrubberies, most still calling vulgar names at us. I swear one flipped us off.

  “The others could be anywhere in Winterland. But they know where to go.”

  “Where?” My stomach churned, feeling the answer wouldn’t be good.

  “Tulgey Woods.”

  “Why there?” I wiped trickling blood from my temple.

  “Because.” Scrooge tugged off his hat, yanking the green scarf off from around it and stepping up to me. He pressed the cloth to my face gently, his nearness stealing my breath. “Even the Queen won’t venture there.” He dabbed at my face gently, cleaning off the crimson liquid.

  Again, I felt like I was being laid across a firepit, my skin and insides bubbling with heat. For once, I longed for snow to be cold, needing to even out the heat crawling up my spine. I didn’t like how his nearness fluttered my heart. He was right. I needed to be more on guard. I had no idea who he was or where he was leading me. For all I knew, he was the real monster looming in the dark disguised by a rugged, sexy exterior. He could be the Ted Bundy of Winterland, ready to boil me up and eat me like the witch in the forest.

  Eat me. My mind went a totally different way, my thighs clenching.

  “I’m fine.” I stepped back. “Thank you.”

  “They drained a lot of essence out of you, and their poison is potent. We’ll need to get you food, medicine, and sleep soon or you’ll go into shock.”

  “Go into shock?” My lids burst open, and I suddenly felt heavier on my legs. “Will you go into shock too?”

  “No. I’m used to it now. But I’ll feel nauseous for a while. You don’t have a rare allergy to holly plants, do you?”

  “Uh-n-no.” I didn’t think so. Not something I had been faced with before being here.

  “Good. Then death is highly unlikely, but you will definitely wish you could die after puking your guts up for hours.”

  “Sounds like fun.” I shook my head. This place was no happy Christmas fantasy.

  “I know someone we can stay with. He will help us.”

  “You have a friend? Someone you trust?” I lifted my eyebrows.

  “I said someone. Not a friend. And by no means do I trust him, but the reindeer is the best we’ve got right now.” He placed his hat back on his head, set his scarf in my hand, and started to trudge through the snow.

  “Reindeer?” I sputtered after him, feeling the fluffy snow gluing to the bottom of my boots, my legs like weights. “Do you mean Rudolph?”

  “You know Rudolph?” Scrooge stopped, spinning back to look at me.

  “Sort of.” I stumbled back, not ready for his quick movement. “He is kind of the reason I’m here. I followed him. Fell down a hole and found myself in this fucked up world.”

  “Rudy was on earth, and you saw him?”

  “Yeah.” I scrunched up my nose. “Leave it to me to follow a man because he had a smokin’ hot body and fall down a hole because I’m not paying attention to anything but rock-hard abs.”

  “Smokin’ hot body?” Scrooge’s eyebrows crunched together. “You find him attractive?”

  “Minus the whole antler
thing…actually, forget it. Yeah. He’s hot.”

  A nerve in Scrooge’s jaw twitched. Gritting his teeth, he spun back around, tromping through the snow, almost reaching the tree line. “You shouldn’t have been able to see him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What he means, Ms. Alice,” a familiar voice traveled out from the woods in front of us. Scrooge came to an abrupt halt, his arms going out like he was trying to hide me behind him. His entire form went rigid as Frosty rolled out from the trees. “Is that only two before you were ever rare enough to see one of our kind. And since then, there has been a spell securing us from any human entering this realm again.”

  “What are you saying?” I looked between Scrooge and Frosty. Frosty’s coal mouth curled up in a huge smile, but this time he looked creepy, not like an innocent snowman. Scrooge’s expression went to stone, showing no emotion. “I’m not human?”

  “No, you are very much human, my dear.” Frosty glided nearer, and Scrooge countered, stepping closer to me. “But you have extra muchness.” Frosty’s grin arched up higher. “Just like you, Mr. Scrooge. Isn’t that right?”

  “What is he talking about?” I touched Scrooge’s arm.

  “He hasn’t told you?” Frosty chuckled. “But I guess once you start down that rabbit hole, the secrets he keeps are endless.”

  “How is being the Queen’s lap cat workin’ out for you?” Scrooge’s voice twisted with condemnation. “Curl into a ball at her feet in front of the fire—oh wait—you’d melt.” Scrooge sighed with false compassion. “Guess you have to stare through the window like a lost puppy as she takes another to her bed.”

  “You’d probably know what it’s like there, wouldn’t you?” The snowman sneered, all jubilance slipping from his smile. “You warmed it for a long time.”

  “What?” My mouth parted, stepping back from Scrooge. “You slept with her?”

  “No—” He reached for me, the snowman’s howl cutting off his words.

  “Oh, there’s another thing you didn’t know.” Frosty’s huge grin was back, his branch hands clapping in excitement. “Let me introduce you, my dear. Scrooge is his name now, but it wasn’t always.”