Monsters Under Mistletoe

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

C urtain rises.

Dragons only fall in love once.

It is not a matter of soulmates. If only. For them, the world is a hoard, and so is love. Once dazzled by that precious gem, it becomes their dearest treasure, and they cannot be parted from it without being slain. To the gwibers of Cymru, this is Taniad - the ignition. Passionate creatures of rainbows and fire, their instinct to hoard is a burning obsession. Treasure possesses you far more than you do it, after all. A gwiber in unrequited love is a possessed thing lost in labyrinthine tunnels.

Or, in Eryri’s case, in England.

A cavalry of that accent clip-clopped around him as he stood Stage Left, examining his work and twirling his paintbrush in long fingers. His latest set design at The Luckey Chance Theatre was for their special Christmas Eve performance tomorrow. Their director, the legendary Hortense Kemble, had the whole company running ragged, her cool gaze indistinguishable from that of the onlooking plaster statues. Eryri shrunk from the commotion. He turned the paintbrush to check the glamour sigil painted on his inner wrist. Intact. Good. To everyone here, he was an ordinary human. People might know dragons exist, but it was nice to be ordinary.

He dropped his hand and scanned the familiar scene, the air fuzzy with musty warmth and decaying wiring. The theatre was a wide, domed space, dressed with marzipan curls of plaster and hung with holly garlands, like a tiered Christmas cake.

Overhead, the glimmer of chandeliers splashed over a ceiling painted as the night sky in azure clouds and silver constellations, with a woman floating in the centre, a golden mask resting in her dainty hand. Carolina. Her berry red lips smiled down at the stage, long, black hair curling lustrous against her emerald dress, glistening with silver detail so she streamed into the stars. Carolina was The Luckey Chance's patron spirit and the basis for the Christmas Eve play’s main character, the Mistletoe Princess, a faerie who brought love and fortune in the dark winter. The spirit was said to be the ghost of a romances actress who never knew true love before dying from fever one Christmas Day. Now she waited for a romantic performance so heartfelt it would set her spirit free.

All Eryri knew was with Renée playing her this year, the ghostly Carolina had never been more beautiful.

“Renée! Hop to!”

His attention snapped like a bowstring as she hurried on stage to join the rehearsal with her chorus dancers. Eryri gripped his paintbrush.

When Taniad took his siblings, their fiery radiance flared, luring their beloved into their hoard. This was not Eryri’s fate. In a freak occurrence, his egg hatched in a flurry of snow. He was an ice gwiber. His unheated heart couldn’t bear to make Renée his property. The world was too beautiful with her free. For him, Taniad was an icicle growing slowly through his chest, driving the cold truth into him. There could never be a love story between them. He was a dragon, and she was a princess.

Well, at least for tomorrow.

“Sorry, Mum! Dress fitting!” Renée hurried to the dancers, graceful as a lily and light on her toes. Her eyes were holly green and her dark hair tumbled from a high ponytail like a miner's pick had struck black gold. She slipped seamlessly into motion, and snow flurries danced within Eryri, his deepest soul in a delighted, doomed spiral.

With effort, he pulled back to finish painting the set. But still, she haunted every inch of his perception.

It had been that way since meeting her last December, when he was new to the theatre. Renée was in town to spend the holidays with Hortense, her mother. Upon seeing his designs, she’d sought him out to compliment him. One smile and he was ignited. One week later, she was gone. For the entire year.

As a professional actor, she travelled constantly, and her absence carved into him like his heart was a roast turkey. Just when he'd learned to live with the pain, she was home for another Christmas. The moment her mother cast her in the play, she found Eryri to tell him how excited she was to see the set design. He felt like a knight honoured with her quest, and so, he built his princess a plywood palace. Real white roses climbed lilac turrets. A dozen arched windows hung with mistletoe, each illuminated with a silhouette of a couple kissing. It was his best work yet, but it needed something.

He glanced to make sure no one was looking. He sneaked a white claw from behind his glamour and tapped the scenery. Otherworldly shimmer poured over it, glistening like moonlight on fresh snow. He could never offer Renée fire or rainbows, but he could make her sparkle like only winter did.

“Take five,” Renée’s mother instructed flatly, looking down her strong nose, pencil-line eyebrow arched.

Renée sighed as she and the dancers dropped like marionettes into a jumble of groans and dragging limbs. It’s the holidays, Mum, lighten up.

“You’re looking amazing!” Renée said brightly as the girls flexed their ankles and grimaced. “Everyone’s going to lose it tomorrow.” A candle-warm sensation flickered in her belly as they smiled back, reassured. They started towards the stalls for a break.

“Renée, can I keep you?”

The candle in her snuffed out as her mother called her over. She exchanged a grimace with the others and went to her. “Hey! I was thinking, why don’t we bake some gingerbread after the play? Treat for a great show.”

Hortense smiled her dignified smile. “You're a sweetie. You'll make us fat.”

“It's good to be fat in winter.”

Hortense tutted and tilted her head, like a doctor peering over an operating table. “Dear, you’re losing your make-up.”

Renée’s back broke into a clammy sweat.

“Here.” Hortense brought a foundation compact out of her pocket and dabbed over Renée’s face, fixing the imperfections. She smoothed a neat layer over her prickling skin in hard, sore rubs as she delivered feedback on the dance. A little too slack here, late there. Renée held herself like a stick insect and glared up at the ceiling. Carolina sailed through the stars, serene as a swan and soft as thistledown. Renée's heart twinged. It shouldn't be this hard to model her. Surely, if you were beautiful, then beauty was effortless.

Hortense kept talking but freed her. Turning, a quiet gasp caught in Renée's chest. Eryri was looking at her.

He blinked away.

Her heart dropped. She kept watching him - tall, his broad torso padded with a teddy-bear-cuddly flannel shirt, his hair a thick scribble of red flame, his face speckled with freckles like ash. Paint smeared his jeans. She smiled. The palace he’d made was a wonder, grand but delicate, heart-warmingly pretty, fascinating in its hundred details. It was like something out of her dreams. Eryri didn’t file and prod things into being beautiful, he saw beauty and he made it appear to everyone else. What eyes he must have. What hands…

“Renée, are you listening to me?”

She shook herself and looked at her mother. “Um, yes. I’ll keep practising.”

She scurried away and toward the shy set designer, tension unravelling with each step closer to him.

“Oh! You put glitter on it?” Her voice came out too squeaky.

“No. YES.” He whipped to her, bolt upright. “What? It's nothing. Yes.”

“Silly question, what else would it be?”

“Yeah, right.”

She winced.

He jumped again. “I mean! No, it's not a silly question. But yeah, I put… there’s glitter.” He rubbed his nose, leaving a lilac paint smudge behind.

She sucked her lip. Getting Eryri to talk made her feel like a snow plough, but somehow, she couldn’t stop pushing forward. “So, did you bring an orange?”

“Would you like one?”

She blushed and chuckled. “For Carolina. Mum says everyone leaves an orange on stage the night before a show opens, as a gift so she'll bring us luck.”

“Oh.” He fiddled with his brush. “Yeah. But, no, I left it at home.”

“She'll be cross.”

“Well, my thing is kind of over for tomorrow.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Um, no, I have to dance around under your thing tomorrow. I'm not having it fall apart.”

He frowned softly. “I wouldn't put you at risk.”

Blood rushed to Renée’s face. “I know. I'm just kidding around.”

“Yeah. No. Sorry.”

“I didn't mean to offend you.”

“You didn't!” He stepped back concertedly, chest crumpling. “Uh, I just meant I don't want you to worry.” He looked into her eyes. “I'll make sure you're safe. I promise.”

Comfort filled her body, like mulled wine on a frosty night. This is why she couldn’t stop seeking him out, even if it was painfully obvious that he didn’t like her the way she liked him. It was truffle hunting. If she tripped over enough bumps, she’d unearth a moment that lingered on her tongue for hours. “OK. But I'm still a superstitious actor, so to be safe you should lay my orange on the stage with me.”

“What if that dilutes your good luck?”

“You're building my palace. Your good luck is my good luck.” She held out her hand to shake.

Eryri stared at it. His mouth was motionless. He slowly took her hand. Their palms padded together, enclosing a tiny spark of heat, while the rest of his grip was… “Goodness, your hand is so cold.”

He snatched it away, her breath hiccupping. He rubbed it on his shirt front self-consciously. “Sorry.”

She smiled gently, dipping to catch his eye like a ladybird looking up at a toadstool. “You know what they say about cold hands?”

“Bad circulation,” he answered quickly.

She giggled and shook her head. “Warm heart.”

He stopped rubbing his shirt. The corner of his mouth slid up. She gazed at his lips, the colour and softness of gingerbread dough. She took a shaking breath. “Um, Eryri, would you maybe like to…”

“FROM THE TOP!”

They jolted as Hortense’s call boomed around the theatre, thoroughly testing its acoustics. Renée stumbled reluctantly back from his sweet gaze, throwing him a helpless shrug. As she turned, she scooped her tingling hand up. It was spotted with lilac paint. She tucked it to her middle and suppressed a giddy smile.