“Well, don’t tell the world my business,” she sighed. “I’m just passing through. I gotta try to pick up her scent again. I never imagined she’d leave a bomb! I was almost to the Other World gateway by the time I heard the explosion.”
I left the others to attend to the dragoness who was not a threat and if she was, Barry and the others could fight her. I managed to get to my feet, taking Preston and the baby with me and led them both inside. I walked through the slightly scorched living room into the bedroom and tucked them both in. Only stopping to take off their shoes. It was too cold for them to endure all this nonsense. I closed the door and checked that the window was locked. Then I dragged the armchair in front of the door and sat down in it.
“What the hell just happened out there?” Preston asked me.
“I don’t know anything more than I told you. I did freeze the fire, but it was coming straight for us, and I didn’t know what else to do. Do you want to go to the mountain?”
“No!” Preston shook his head. “That crazy woman isn’t going to chase me out of my home! We’re just going to have to be more careful!”
“Preston! This is serious—this is---”
Someone knocked on the door and tried to push it forward before either of us even had a chance to ask who was there.
“Preston,” Barry’s voice came through the door. “Let me in. We need to check every nook and cranny of the house.”
I almost asked him to prove that he was who he said he was but the family link shook with his anger. He was in charge of it but he meant business.
“Give me a minute! There’s a chair in front of the door because of all this bullshit,” I said, standing up and pushing the chair out of the way. There wasn’t an enemy in the room. My senses told me that much but I’d let Barry do whatever he needed to do to feel better. Besides more eyes made for safer caves.
“Pa!” Baby Andy sniffled on the bed and Barry stopped long enough to smile at him. It was genuine despite the tension pulling his shoulders tight.
“You all can go to the house if you want to,” Barry offered, looking from his son to me. “I have Colton and the others searching the house high and low. Mori’s done bounded off to see that d-a-m-n dead wolf like he knows something the rest of us don’t.’
“He might,” Preston said, reaching out for my hand and pulling me down on the bed with him and out of Barry’s way. “Dern might’ve wanted to warn us but couldn’t because he has an amulet that stops people from summoning him.”
Barry rolled his eyes, but Preston didn’t seem to notice. He patted Baby Andy’s back, trying to keep the little guy calm.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Preston said again. “Not to your house, Dad. Not to your mountain,” he looked at me. “This is my home. I’m done running. If she wants a showdown, she can bring her fluffy psycho a-s-s here.”
It was sort of hot how wound up Preston was but made a mental note to never find myself on the receiving end of his wrath.
“I’m just sorry she’s trying to ruin everyone’s holiday,” Preston frowned.
“She probably thinks that Venal has shacked up with you,” Barry said. “Since he hasn’t come back to her yet it’s probably her best guess.”
“Well, f-u-c-k her with the whole tree,” Preston growled and Baby Andy laughed and growled back before biting his nose and shifting into his little bear cub form.
A few hours later, the house was declared a Sharon-free zone and Venal was carried into a hall closet by Barry and Colton. I would’ve helped but couldn’t imagine leaving Preston and our baby alone while I was running around like a headless chicken with the others. Mori still wasn’t back and Preston was starting to worry.
“I don’t know why he thinks the Other World has all the answers!” he grumbled after Baby Andy had fallen asleep.
I had gone into the kitchen and happily found that the leftovers had made their way into the fridge despite all the chaos. I brought back a tray of fudge and a couple cans of soda for us to snack on while the baby got some much-needed rest.
“I don’t know. I don’t really mess with the Other World,” I shrugged. “I don’t know Mori all that well either. I’m sure he has his reasons. Maybe he’s afraid. He did almost get blown up, mate.”
“I’m going to kill her. You know that, right? That I’m going to be the one to rip out her heart and I just might eat it,” he said, picking up a piece of fudge.
“If that dragoness doesn’t beat you to it?” I teased and he shot me a look that said now wasn’t the time for jokes. I almost offered to help him relax but knew better. He wasn’t letting the baby out of his sight any time soon. “Do you want me to see what I can salvage of the tree?”
“They fixed it all back. Somehow that tree survived fire and ice. It’s going to start walking around and singing Yuletide carols if we don’t stop tossing magic at it,” Preston said.
We fell quiet for a long moment, eating the fudge and both thinking about how we might handle the next few weeks. Preston was right. We couldn’t let her mess up Baby Andy’s first Yuletide. Sure, he probably wouldn’t remember it, but we would and that was enough for me. For a moment, I daydreamed about calling out to other snow demons to hunt her down and bring her to me frozen on a bed of snow. I’d carve out her icy heartand feed it to Preston while…. I stopped my thoughts before they went too far down the ‘adult’ path.
“Today when everything happened you protected my baby,” Preston said, pulling my attention back to the present.
“Yes,” I nodded. “As best as I could. Running may have been smarter but outrunning ice is hit or miss. If I were on my own, I probably would’ve but the more certain thing was just covering him.”
“I wasn’t insulting how you did it,” Preston flashed me a half-smile. “With all hell breaking loose you still protected him.”
