Instead of freaking over the fact that I’d literally justkilleda man, with his brutalized corpse smeared over his garage door, all I could think about was fixing my precious wreath.
Untwisting the ties that held it to the grill, I tugged the wreath loose and went inside to fix it.
Chapter Five
Bastion
Hogan Humphries needed to be punished, and I was just the monster for the job.
I wasn’t exactly the most experienced at the role I was born into. But just like my father, and his father before him, it was in my blood.
I’d inherited a lot of things with my father’s passing, like his struggling Christmas tree farm… Which maybe wouldn’t have been under such financial strain if he’d spent as much timemanaging his business as he did running around being what was basically Christmas Bigfoot with a penchant for justice.
While I didn’t inherit my dad’s obsession for being the Krampus, there was no escaping the dark magic that granted me the power to transform into a great horned beast with a serpent-like tongue, a horse-sized cock, and a wicked taste for retribution.
Unlike lycanthropy or vampirism, the monster disease was hereditary and only one being at a time could carry it. So four years ago, when my father passed away, I’d inherited the family business—held together by duct tape and holiday spirit—as well as the curse.
Lucky me.
My family was the reason our little town was known for Krampus sightings. It started when my great-grandfather migrated from Germany to these mountains around the turn of the century.
While it was Saint Nick’s job to reward the good, it was our job to punish the naughty by shoving them into a sack, taking them into the mountains and beating them senseless. Then their memories would be wiped of the details and they’d be set loose.
“You have the bloodline, Bastion.”I remember my grandfather telling me when I was small. Too small to understand at the time that he was dying.“One day you will be the next Krampus. You will protect these mountains. Always remember, we don’t kill. We’re not that kind of monster.”
I was never interested in taking over my family’s legacy, even though I carried the monster inside me. It wasn’t like what had lived inside my grandfather. It was something dark and terrible, swirling beneath the surface.
I kept it locked inside me and never indulged those urges to punish and harm… Until I’d gotten the sense that the girl I’dbeen in love with since grade school was being abused by her piece of shit fiancé.
For the first time since my father’s death, I’d release the monster, if that’s what it took to protect her.
I didn’t have proof that the hog farmer was beating her. But as the Krampus, even when I wasn’t shifted, I got feelings about this sort of thing. It didn’t help that Clara was an expert at keeping her problems to herself. She didn’t want anyone to help her. Ever since we were little she’d always been insistent on figuring her own shit out.
If Hogan really was hurting her, she needed to get help or, in the very least, get herself to safety. Maybe she wasn’t in a position where she could. So I watched her like a hawk.
I didn’t always follow her home, but tonight, something felt horribly off. My gut proved right yet again when she exploded from the front door in a blood-splattered apron. Moments later, after she got into her car, her fiancé stumbled after her with a shotgun clutched in his bloody hands.
Ancient, unholy rage filtered through my system.
For the first time, I felt my desire to indulge in my monstrous urges to their full extent. I wanted to take Hogan to the hidden mountain cave my family had used for years—stocked with chains and torture equipment. By the time I was done with him, he’d be a new man. Well, a dead one. But still new.
However, my evil plans disintegrated instantly once I registered Hogan’s wounds.
“Verdammter Scheiß,”the German curse dropped from my lips with my next frozen breath. It looked like Clara had enough of his shit, and was taking matters in her own hands…
What a good fucking girl. Naughty, of course. But damn, I was proud of her. What was more, seeing Hogan bleeding and frothing at the mouth—she must have poisoned him andprobably took a knife to his face once the rotund fuck didn’t go down—had my cock swelling in my pants.
That was the fiery Clara I knew and loved, the one she’d kept locked up tight for two miserable years.
I tensed from where I hid behind a giant blow-up snowman lawn ornament. I never shifted. Yet, I was ready to release the monster caged inside me at any moment to help Clara.
It seemed she’d taken the note I left in her Christmas present to heart. She was saving herself.
Clara jumped in her car, started up the engine. Hogan probably couldn’t aim worth a shit, so he needed to get up and close to take his shot… so he did, right in front of the car.
A deranged smile split my lips as I dug out a candy cane from my pocket and began to suck it into a point.
I had a feeling I was in for a show.
