Christmas in Transylvania

  Yep, he’d missed her.

  He was kissing her ravenously then.

  And she was kissing him back.

  He turned so that she was against the padded wall. Only his erection pinned her in place because his hands were busy unbuttoning her blouse, undoing her bra, and cupping her breasts from underneath to strum the nipples with his callused thumbs. The whole time, he continued to deep-­kiss her, his moans and her groans the only sounds in the room.

  She reached between them and palmed his . . . What had he called it? . . . his “enthusiasm.”

  “Aaaaah!” he said, as his knees gave way. He took her with him to the padded floor. And there he showed her fifty ways to Sunday just how much he missed her.

  The air swirled with the scent of peppermint and cotton candy, which should have been sickeningly sweet but was instead erotically sweet. Faith didn’t think she would ever think of peppermint sticks or candy canes in the same way again. And as for cotton candy, Karl showed her with his mouth and teeth and tongue and sticky fingers just how he could eat the sweet confection . . . i.e. her.

  They rolled. Him on top. Then her on top. Over and over.

  He plunged.

  She rode him.

  He licked.

  She bit.

  They were on one side of the mattress floor, then the other.

  In the end, she was on all fours and Karl was taking her from behind when she came to a wild crescendo of climaxes, one after another. She howled like a banshee.

  Then Karl roared out his own climax.

  Good thing the room was soundproof.

  He collapsed on top of her, but she didn’t mind his weight. Maybe she was dead, she joked with herself. She sure felt like she’d passed to the other side, of something.

  “I love you,” he said against her ear.

  “I love you, too,” she said in a muffled voice.

  Laughing, he rolled over to his back, tucking her head on his chest. Her braid had come undone, and he stroked some of the loose strands off her face.

  “I assume you talked with Alex, and that’s what brought on this uproar,” he said.

  “You didn’t like my uproar?”

  “I loved your uproar. I’m hoping we can uproar again in a few minutes. For hours.”

  She smiled against his chest.

  “Alex explained a lot of things about vangels and humans. The thing that bothers me is that you didn’t discuss it with me. Shouldn’t I have a choice?”

  “In the end, Mike has the final choice, but, yes, I suppose I should have been the one to explain all the difficulties to you.”

  “Difficulties can be overcome. Stubborn, mulish silence can’t.’

  “Faith, you’ve been through so much. You deserve a normal life.”

  “What’s normal in today’s society?”

  “Well, it sure as hell isn’t eternal life glued to the side of a vampire angel who fights demons for a living.”

  “I kind of like being glued to you,” she said, and swung a leg over his, rubbing her calf against his furred thighs.

  “You’re making this really hard for me,” he said on a sharp inhale.

  “I can tell,” she said, and glanced down at his rising hardness.

  “Witch!” he said, and smacked her playfully on the rump.

  “Was this room a torture chamber at one time?” she asked then as she distractedly stroked the hair on his chest.

  “Something like that. The dungeon is here more to be authentic to the castle idea than for any gruesome activity. The original owner was an eccentric lumber baron who built this monstrosity for his young wife, who died before she gave him any children to fill the place. I suppose he could have used this as a prison for his competitors in the lumber business, but I doubt anyone even came down here until . . . oh, my God! I forgot.”

  He sat up abruptly and rose to his feet. “Hurry up and get dressed.”

  “Why? I thought we were going—­”

  He was throwing he clothes at her. “I told you that I came looking for you. I told you I had a confession to make. We have a visitor.”

  “A Christmas visitor? Alex really is going all out with this holiday celebration, isn’t she?”

  “This visitor has nothing to do with Alex. Oh, man, you are going to be either so happy, or so angry.”

  She was dressed by now and trying to comb her fingers through her unruly hair. “Me? I’m going to be angry about this Christmas visitor?” She frowned with confusion.

  “You might be angry with me for having something to do with this visitor’s being here,” he elaborated.

  “Will you stop speaking in riddles and spit it out?”

  “It’s your brother.”

  “What?” A chill passed over her body. “Zach? That’s impossible. Zach is in prison. I think.”

  “Not anymore. Honey, Zach is dead.”

  She gasped and put a hand to her heart. A tiny sob was her only vocal response.

  “And he’s here.”

  Chapter Nine

  Off to the Big Apple . . .

  IT HAD BEEN a week since Karl had engaged in wild-­monkey sex with Faith down in the dungeon, an exercise he had hoped to repeat a time or five, but he hardly saw the woman. Her every spare moment was spent with her brother Zach, a dazed, newly turned vangel.

  When Karl had asked Harek to use his Internet talents to discover the whereabouts of Zachary Larson, he had hoped to give Faith a Christmas surprise. Little did he know it would end up being this kind of surprise. Apparently her brother had a long rap sheet, in and out of prisons since he was a teen, most recently in Rockview for murder. His death had come last week at the hands of another inmate. Michael must have heard about Karl’s inquiries and turned the young man into a vangel. Zach was the “youngest,” meaning most recently turned, vangel they’d ever had though he had thirty-­three hard human years under his belt.

  Karl was preparing to go to New York City for the cathedral mission. The team would be gone for three days at most, staying in a whole floor of rooms rented in a small, nearby hotel for twenty-­five of the vangel operators. The seven brothers, Jogeir, Svein, Armod, himself, and a dozen or so others. The initial group would study the perimeter of the church and its grounds, make specific plans and assignments. By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, they would have a precise “battle” plan. The sulfurous scent of Lucies was supposedly already in the air.

  But Karl wanted to speak with Faith before he left. He found her in the basement, where she was watching while two vangel trainers were drilling Zach on basic vangel behavior. Zach looked stunned, as well he should, especially with his new fangs cutting into his bottom lip. Other than the fangs, Zach resembled his sister in leanness and blond hair.

  The trainers were teaching Zach how to retract his fangs, which was difficult at first. They repeated, over and over, the rules he must follow. Secrecy must be maintained, they emphasized. And then there was his new need for blood; his skin was almost translucent at the moment, despite their almost force-­feeding him Fake-­O. Soon they would show him how to feed on one of the blood ceorls here at the castle. Actual feeding in battle would be a long way off.

  Karl tapped Faith on the shoulder, and whispered in her ear, “Faith, come upstairs. I need to talk with you before I leave.”

  “Leave?” she asked, turning to face him. The poor woman looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping well. Not a good sign on top of her recent injuries.

  “I have to leave on a mission. I’ll be gone for a few days.” He took her hand and led her upstairs, then into Vikar’s office, the only room that appeared to be empty at the moment. “Promise you’ll be here when I get back.”

  “Of course I will. Zach is here.” She must have realized by the expression on his face how he felt because she added, “And you, too.”
>
  He sat down in one chair in front of the desk and motioned for her to sit in the other chair, facing him. He took her hands in his and kissed the knuckles. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, Karl! I’m so confused. I always dreamed . . . I always thought that someday I would find Zach and bring him home with me. That we would be a family. I knew he’d gotten in trouble. I even knew he’d been in prison, but I had no idea . . .” She let her words trail off, staring at him with hopelessness.

  “Faith, this is not a bad thing. If Zach had not been turned into a vangel, he would be in a far worse place now.”

  “I know that. Deep down, I know that. But it’s still hard to accept. I guess I don’t know where I fit in all this now.”

  “I’m hoping it will be here. With me. And Zach.”

  “I don’t know. I thought I did, but I don’t know.”

  His heart sank. “Do you love me?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s enough for now.” It wasn’t. Not nearly, but he would hold on to that.

  “Will this mission be dangerous? I mean, is there a chance you won’t come back?”

  “There’s always that chance.”

  She whimpered.

  “Don’t worry, honey. I have too much to live for.”

  “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  He had a proposal to make . . .

  But Faith was not there when Karl returned two days before Christmas.

  The mission had gone off with hardly a hitch. Twenty sinners saved, ten of the fifty Lucies annihilated, including two high haakai, and several vangels with serious injuries, but no vangel deaths. A success!

  The twenty-­five vangels returned the castle in high spirits, all looking healthily suntanned, the usual effect of feeding on sinners and trouncing Lucies. They were all looking for showers, beers, and pizza, which was supposedly on the menu tonight, and their lifemates where applicable, not necessarily in that order.

  Karl now put himself in that latter category. Faith was his lifemate. He was convinced of that. He had an important question to ask her. But she was nowhere to be found. What was it about this confounded maze of a castle that he was always hunting for her?

  When he discovered that her VW bug was missing, he became frantic with worry. What if she’d left for good? She’d threatened to find her own safe house. What if she’d departed to someplace where he could never find her.

  But her brother Zach was still here. (Where else would he go?) Faith would never leave him. At least not so soon. He hoped. He found Zach watching television in the family room. He told Karl that Faith was probably shopping. She had been going out every day and returning about dinnertime.

  Okay, so she had been coming back every day, but Faith didn’t strike him as the shopping type, or at least not the type to spend hours at the activity. Besides, she didn’t have much money, as Karl recalled. He would have to do something about that.

  Alex and the other ladies were just coming in from their own shopping by the looks of them, not to mention numerous boxes of pizza. As they put the delicious-­smelling pies on the counter, Karl approached. “Do you know where Faith is?”

  “Working,” Alex answered.

  “What?”

  “She’s been working at the diner to earn some money for Christmas. She should be back any minute.”

  “Alex!” he chastised. “You let her go out on her own like that?”

  “Is there a problem? I thought the nasty boyfriend was gone.”

  “He is, but . . .” Karl hated any reference to Leroy as Faith’s boyfriend, even in the past tense. “She’s not well enough to be working.”

  Alex laughed. “The way I hear it, she’s well enough for a lot of activities.”

  He felt himself blush.

  When Faith pulled into the back courtyard an hour later, he was outside in the blistering cold waiting for her. The minute she stepped out of her vehicle, wearing that pink jacket and ridiculous, fluffy pink hat, he said, “I should paddle your ass.” And yanked her into his arms to hug her tightly.

  “Is that a sexual suggestion?”

  He pinched said ass, and drawled, “It could be if you want.”

  She laughed. “Your face and hands are freezing cold.”

  To punish her, he ran his cold hands under her jacket and shirt and up her bare back.

  She shivered. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his cold hands or his hotly talented hands. He preferred the latter.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” he growled against her neck.

  “Why?”

  “I thought you left.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “I told you I would be here.”

  “I know, but you weren’t here, and I thought . . . oh, Faith, my world crashed when I thought you were gone.”

  “Silly man! I love you.”

  He smiled, weak with relief, even though she would pay later for that “silly man” remark. “I went shopping when I was in the city,” he blurted out.

  She had to be wondering what that had to do with his wickedly wandering hands. “Oh? I thought you hated shopping.”

  “Not this kind,” he said, and went down on one knee. “I hadn’t planned to do it like this, but damn, I’m so nervous, I can’t wait. Faith Larson, will you marry me?” He pulled a small pale blue Tiffany box from his jacket pocket.

  She clapped both pink-­mittened hands to her heart. “Are you allowed to do that?”

  “No, but I’m doing it anyway. I’ll ask Mike for permission. Later. If he says no, I’ll keep asking. I’m determined to have you.”

  She smiled. “Then yes. Yes, yes, yes.”

  As he slipped the diamond solitaire on her finger and stood to kiss her, they heard clapping. Turning, they saw about forty vangels, and a few humans, including two little jumping rascals, waving at them. And he could swear some of them were singing, “Another one bites the dust.”

  A Very Merry Vangel Christmas . . .

  Everyone agreed it was the best Christmas holiday, ever, and the first of many traditions were set that year in a Transylvania castle high on a Pennsylvania hill.

  The live Nativity Scene outside St. Vladamir’s Church was so successful that the townfolks who were holding their own vampire holiday events complained that so many tourists were hanging out over at the church instead of at their paying enterprises. Faith played the Virgin Mary, Ivak was Joseph, and baby Michael was the infant Jesus. Gabrielle and Nicole and Miranda were angels. Lizzie Borden held a shepherd’s crook instead of an axe. The twins, Gunnar and Gunnora, were shepherds, as well. The eight-­year-­old twins, Ben and Sam, and five-­year-­old Larry, three of Mordr’s adopted children, were adorable as the Three Wise Men. Mordr’s other adopted children, ten-­year-­old Maggie and five-­year-­old Linda, sang in the choir. There was much laughter from the participants, as well as the spectators.

  And the Christmas Eve concert at Midnight Mass was spectacular. Truly, the voices were angelic. Everyone said so.

  All the children basked in numerous gifts on Christmas morning, including a new Alvin and the Chipmunks DVD some fool had given to Gunnar and Gunnora. Everyone else enjoyed their gifts, too. Karl gave Faith a car; she gave him a black negligee with peekaboo lace, which should have seemed odd, but Karl knew exactly who would be wearing the garment and who would be enjoying the gift. He didn’t complain.

  The best part of the holiday, some said, was the New Year’s Eve wedding of Faith Larson and Karl Mortenssen. The ceremony was officiated by none other than St. Michael the Archangel in St. Vladamir’s Church. The bride wore white, the groom wore his old Army dress uniform. The wedding march was, “Angels We Have Heard On High.”

  Later, when someone asked Michael why he had agreed to yet another wedding amongst the vangels,
he replied, “God wants all his creatures to be happy. Even Vikings.”

  Read on for a sneak peek at

  VAMPIRE IN PARADISE

  the next Deadly Angels Book

  by New York Times best-­selling author

  SANDRA HILL

  Available November 2014 in print and ebook from Avon Books.

  Prologue

  The Norselands, A.D. 850 . . .

  Only the strongest survived in that harsh land . . .

  SIGURD SIGURDSSON SAT near the high table of King Haakon’s yule feast, sipping at the fine ale from his own jewel-­encrusted silver horn. (Many of those “above the salt” held gold vessels, he noted.) Tuns of ale and rare Frisian wine flowed. (His mead tasted rather weak, but mayhap that was his imagination.)

  Favored guests at the royal feast (he was mildly favored) had their choice among spit-­roasted wild boar, venison and mushroom stew, game birds stuffed with chestnuts, a swordfish the size of a small longboat, eels swimming in spiced cream sauce, and all the vegetable side dishes one could imagine, including the hated neeps. (Hated by Sigurd, leastways. He had a particular antipathy to turnips due to some youthling insanity to determine which lackwit could eat the most of the root vegetables without vomiting or falling over dead as a stump. He lost.) Honey oat cakes and dried fruit trifles finished off the meal for those not filled to overflowing. (Peaches, on the other hand, were fruit of the gods, in Sigurd’s opinion.) Entertainment was provided by a quartet of lute players who could scarce be heard over the animated conversation and laughter. (Which was just as well; they harmonized like a herd of screech owls. Again, in Sigurd’s opinion.) Good cheer abounded. (Except for . . .)

  In the midst of the loud, joyous celebration, Sigurd’s demeanor was quiet and sad.

  But that was nothing new. Sigurd had been known as a dark, brooding Viking for many of his twenty and seven years. Darker and more brooding as the years marched on. And he wasn’t even drukkinn.

  Some said the reason for Sigurd’s discontent was the conflict betwixt two warring sides of his nature. A fierce warrior in battle and, at the same time, a noted physician with innate healing skills inherited from and honed by his grandmother afore her passing to the Other World when he’d been a boyling.