Naughty Elf: Mistletoe (Santa’s Naughty Elf Mates)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

RYAN

Christmas used to be my favorite morning of the year. Lounging in the living room until noon in our pajama pants with steaming mugs of hot chocolate, a fire crackling in the stove, and our darling little girl rushing around the room, handing out presents and playing with her gifts.

I missed those days. I missed my husband.

The trouble with human omegas was they didn't live as long as shifters. It was even worse when they also succumbed to human disease. My poor John wasted away before our very eyes. He made me promise to go on, to raise Ellie as best I could, and to keep looking for my fated mate.

He clutched my hand with desperation in his gaze and whispered, "I know he's out there for you."

I didn't care about fated mates. I wanted John back. We'd been college sweethearts, and he was the first omega I'd ever knotted. We'd worried our differences meant we couldn't have children, but then Ellie came along, making our world complete.

And then it all fell apart.

I kept up appearances for Ellie, but it was so hard. She was seven now. We lost John when she was five. I tried to keep his memory alive for her, but it wouldn't be long before she forgot his face, his voice, his everything.

Life was so fucking unfair.

But today was Christmas. I had to plaster a big smile on my face for my little girl. I was now in charge of stoking the fire and making the sub-par hot chocolate.

This year, Ellie recognized the cursive writing her grandparents used. If the package had a big E on it, it was for her, and if it had an R for Ryan or D for Daddy, it was mine. By the time I made it to the living room, she'd already divided our presents into two piles. Hers was a mountain with my small foothill off to the side.

John's parents, the Halls, lived across the country, but they'd sent a giant box full of wrapped presents. Not to be outdone, my parents had also sent a huge box from Canada, along with a care package of cookies and candy.

I exposed the red embers while Ellie flopped gracelessly onto the couch. Her papa had taught her to stay away from the hot coals, but she did not want to wait to open her presents. It was still dark outside. A glance at the clock told me it was just before six.

Satisfied with the coal bed, I tossed in a couple of logs and shut the door, dropping the damper all the way open. I stayed in my squatting position and penguin-walked over to her on the couch, making her laugh.

"I'll start the milk for hot chocolate. In the meantime, do you want to open a present?"

"Yes!" Her high-pitched scream was too much for my sensitive moose hearing, but I tried to hide my wince as I hurried to the kitchen.

After only enough time to pour two cups of milk into the saucepan, Ellie came running into the kitchen at full speed, knocking the swinging door into the refrigerator. "Daddy! It won't open!"

"The door, Ellie."

"Right." She stopped in her tracks and turned back to the door, stopping its mad swinging before turning her pleading gaze to me.

I'd noticed the heavy tape on the pre-wrapped presents. I didn't have sharp claws at the ready like my predator shifter friends. Scissors would have to do.

I placed the milk on the back burner on low. "Please watch this for me? It'll only be a minute."

She nodded, hopping up onto an island stool so she could see into the pot. "I'll yell if it starts to steam."

"Thank you."

I used to say things like, "That's my girl," but it got too sad when she asked, "Am I still Papa's girl, too?"

I would be back before the milk was too warm, I was certain, but the task would keep her from spilling hot milk on herself. It also gave me the opportunity to praise her for doing good work when I returned.

I marched to the door, careful to grab it on the swing so it wouldn't go far, and then I jogged the short distance to the stairs and almost tripped on the carpet in my socks.

I hated the carpeted stairs, but John had insisted the padding was necessary to prevent Ellie from skinning her knees or breaking her teeth. One of these days, I worried I would fall down them and break more than that.

My office sat at the top of the stairs, between Ellie's room and the guest bedroom. It was tiny, a closet, really, a strange corner space to accommodate the second-floor bathroom behind it. The two bedrooms opened into the bathroom, which meant I needed to walk through one of them to get there myself.

Still, I liked my office. It had room enough for my desk in the corner and enough wall space to display my diplomas, certificates, and the pictures of John and Ellie that made her too sad to display in the living room. There was another box in my bedroom closet with the big portraits that made us both too sad. I tried not to think about that as I turned to my desk.

I spent long hours here managing projects for a software developer. For two days a month, I tried to hide my frustration in all-day meetings that could have been emails. It was part of my job to wrangle the developers. I often felt like a kindergarten teacher telling folks to stay on task, move to the next talking point when time ran out, and park the side quests, as we liked to call tangent topics, in what my predecessor had called the parking lot. I called it the whiteboard where ideas went to die. We never had enough time to circle back, and the light dimmed in the developers' eyes when I moved their ideas for safekeeping.

The board was blank now, erased for Christmas break. I had two weeks off while Ellie was out of school. I didn't want work stuff looming over us while we played the educational computer games too big for her tablet on my laptop.

I flipped the switch for the overhead light and dug through my desk drawers. No scissors in the side drawer where they should be.

I found them in the center drawer on top of my calculator, Ellie's favorite place to return something she borrowed. I would need to remind her how sharp the scissors were. She could have cut herself with them.

Worse, they were sticky, like she'd been eating a popsicle and smeared the sugary juice all over the handles. She'd smeared some of the same stuff on my calculator.

I bent over to open the large bottom drawer, the one where I kept my wet wipes. My head bounced off the side of the desk so hard I nearly passed out.

I knew where I'd been in relation to my desk. I hadn't leaned forward too far. Something had hit me and pushed me into the polished wood.

That seemed absurd. I looked up at the ceiling to confirm the light fixture was still in place, along with the popcorn-textured plaster. Nothing to see there except a cobweb better suited for Halloween than Christmas.

I turned my attention downward as I prodded the sore spot on the back of my head. I felt a little nauseated from the sudden movement, but I swore I'd heard something hit the carpeted floor.

Just out of sight under my desk, my hand brushed against something solid and warm. I shuddered and pulled my hand back. The only animal in this house was me, and believe me, if I came across an animal lying on my office floor, I would probably run screaming for Ellie to protect me.

I steeled myself for whatever I would find before pushing my chair away and getting down on my hands and knees. Beneath the left-hand drawers, I saw the strangest thing: an elf figurine.

I picked it up and dropped it again. It was still warm. Too warm. Weird warm, the way horror movies depicted cursed objects. No, thank you. I tapped the figurine over to the far corner and beyond, into the light.

I crawled out from beneath the desk, careful not to hit my head again. The bruised spot was about the size of the figurine's base, so there was no doubt in my mind the thing had hit me. But where had it come from? And why now?

I felt a little nauseated again when I bent over to pick it up. I held onto it only long enough to deposit it on the corner of my desk.

The figurine was kinda cute. An elf with overlarge pointed ears beneath a pointed green hat sat on a stool, staring at his phone, or where his phone should be between his two empty hands. Maybe I'd broken it with my hard head.

"Daddy!" Ellie called. "It's steaming!"

"Thanks, sweetie!" I had to go, or our hot chocolate would be ruined. I wasn't touching that statue again. Nope. I did what any self-respecting single parent would have done. I marched out of my office, closed the door in the hopes that no weird figurines made their way downstairs, and ran back to the stove and my daughter as fast as I could without being overwhelmed by dizziness.