Prologue
Kendrick
August - Five and a half years ago…
I balanced the slightly overfull cereal bowl with both hands as I made my way slowly–very slowly–towards the couch. I only had two more weeks of freedom before “real life” started, and I intended to enjoy every last minute of them.
Which meant sleeping until past noon and binging a couple of bowls of way too sugary cereal, with way too much milk poured on top of the vibrantly colored cereal. It made hella good cereal milk when I was done with the cereal part of it, so it wasn’t like it was going to waste. I was gonna slurp it all down.
At twenty-two I’d landed my first teaching position after graduating college last May and would start molding little minds as of the beginning of September. First there was an entire week of in-service, teacher only days, and setting up my classroom. On top of that, my own classes, working towards my master’s in education would start too. It was going to be an exhausting couple of years, but I was looking forward to it.
Yeah, I was a little scared to begin teaching my first year, but both my parents were educators, so I knew I could come to them with any questions or concerns I might have. Add in the classes for my Masters and some days I felt completely overwhelmed and like I had lost my mind.
“Come with me now, human!” A deep voice shouted at me.
“Oof!” I screeched, as I ran into the broad chest of a body that hadn’t been there a second ago. Milk sloshed all over my hands, before I lost hold of the bowl and it crashed to the ground. The ceramic bowl broke into several pieces, while milk and my Fruity Pebbles went in every direction on the scratched, hardwood floor of our living room.
Mom was going to have a fit if I didn’t get the mess cleaned off her floors before she and Dad got home from shopping.
“The fuck, dude!” I yelled, staring up, and up, and up at the silver creature. Head to toe, he was just…shimmery silver. Long, long, straight silver hair hung across his shoulders, and I could just see the tips of pointy ears poking out from between the shiny strands.
Silver colored eyes glared at me in a frankly…startling pretty face that somehow still managed to be masculine. His red lips were set in a frown, his arms crossed over his silver shirt.
“Come with me now!” he repeated roughly. “I’ve already gathered your parents and taken them! We don’t have time for this–” he waved a hand at my cereal mess, “nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” Both my eyes were wide in my face; I could feel them. I was sure my dark red brows were practically touching my equally dark red hair. “You’re lucky my brother described the elves to me, or I’d be bashing you over the head with my baseball bat! You don’t just pop in and roll up on somebody like this. That’s how you get your brains bashed in.”
My younger brother, Keegan, had fallen in love and married…Santa Claus. No lie. Well, in Santa’s Village, where they lived, a.k.a. the north pole, he was referred to as The Santa. Caps on both words.
It had sounded all kinds of crazy to me and our parents when Keegan had shown up with Nik (The Santa), also known as Niklaus Kringle, but after convincing us that they were telling the truth and should not be carted off to a psych ward, we’d come to accept that this was our life now.
Silver, ridiculously tall elves included. Grumpy ones at that, based on this one’s scowling and growling.
Keegan had told us that none of the elves looked like they were depicted in any of the Christmas books or movies, much to his disappointment. Instead, they were overly tall creatures, almost fae looking in nature, with silver hair and eyes. And while some chose to dress in colorful clothing, many wore materials that matched their hair and eye colors.
Like this gigantic ass standing in my living room, looking anything but jolly.
“Your brother is having his spawn,” the elf growled, tapping his size…fifteens, maybe? Maybe larger. His feet were huge! Did his feet match his…nope, not going there.
Wait, Keegan was in labor? He wasn’t due for another three weeks.
“Maybe lead with that,” I instructed him dryly, shaking off some milk dripping down my fingers. “Instead of ‘Come with menow, human!’” I tried to make my voice as deep and gravelly as his but just ended up making my throat hurt instead.
He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring, his foot still tapping his annoyance. “Can we go, please? I have a schedule to keep and your brother going into labor early has thrown everything off. And he’s screaming for you and your parents. He’s been quite mean. Nearly broke my hand squeezing it. I think maybe a demon has possessed him. If you believe in such things.”
“Keegan?” My brother was small even for an omega, and about the happiest person you would ever meet on earth. Seriously, he always saw the bright side to any situation. “Keegan was mean?” I didn’t believe it, not for one second.
“Yes,” he scowled, looking even more annoyed. “Can we go? You’ll need to change first. Something warm.”
Rolling my eyes at him, I glanced down at the basketball shorts I was wearing, and nothing else. Yeah, probably not great for where we were going. Plus, it was my first time going to Santa’s Village, because of rules and regulations, and some magic that had to be put in place, about humans being there and what not. I should maybe look halfway decent for meeting my new brother-in-law’s parents for the first time. Especially since Nik’s dad had been The Santa before retiring, when Nik had taken over.
No sense getting myself put on the naughty list at my age.
“Give me a minute.” Pointing to the mess on the floor, I asked, “Can you do something about that?”
“Like what?” He seemed genuinely surprised by my question, perfect silver brows arched over his light eyes.
Turning back to stare at him from the doorway where I was headed upstairs to change, I shrugged. “I don’t know. Work some magic or something? Look, there’s no way we can leave without cleaning that up. My mom will have an absolute fit,and nobody wants that. Trust me, she looks all sweet but she’s got a dark side. And her floors are one of them. You are partly responsible for it, so…”
