Santa's Naughty List Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Santa’s Naughty List

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright 2014 Mina Carter

  Cover Art by Mina Carter

  Published by Blue Hedgehog Press: Dec 2014.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Author's note: All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

  Santa’s Naughty List

  Paranormal Protection Agency Book 8

  MINA CARTER

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Chapter One

  Cole was a Claus elf. An honest to goodness Claus elf. Which meant that one night a year—Christmas Eve—he heeded The Call, joining his brothers to assume the mantle of Santa himself and deliver presents to all the children in the world. It was a job way too big for one man, even with magic, so generations ago (and elves lived a long time) the job had been split over the Claus bloodline.

  Hundreds of Santa’s, just for one night.

  Including Cole.

  Mia, hidden behind the huge Christmas tree in the center of the Paranormal Protection Agency office, sighed and sipped at her drink. Cheap champagne in a plastic cup, they were rocking it tonight. She snuck another glance at the object of her affections over the rim. Not that he would ever notice a lowly part-elf like her. But, and her chest puffed out with pride, at least that elf part wasn’t common woodland elf. No, she had Christmas-elf blood.

  Sure, that was a step or hundred down from the Claus elves, but she and hers were just as much part of the magic of Christmas as his family. Without Christmas elves, there would be no one to make the toys for Santa to deliver. She loved it when her Grandpops told her about the workshops where they made the toys when he was young. His eyes, now dimmed with age, always sparkled with renewed vigor when he spoke. Toy soldiers, spinning tops, teddy bears and more… They’d made it all. But those were the golden days before electronics had taken over. These days it was all smartphones and tablets, and old elves like Grandpops couldn’t compete.

  She looked down at the small package in her hands and smiled. Her offering for the office Secret Santa, and well, once a Christmas elf, always a Christmas elf. Blood always came out. Inside the bright wrapping paper, with the big red bow, was a tiny knitted teddy bear. She’d made it herself. Never let it be said that a Christmas elf gave a shop-bought present.

  Dropping her empty cup in the trash, she skirted round the edge of the room. The office was decorated for Christmas. The desks had all been moved out of the way, and she had no idea how they’d gotten the tree in. Sparkling with hundreds of fairy lights that owed nothing to electricity, baubles glinted, and it even had its own snowstorm. Flakes settled on the branches, the top shrouded in mist. Magic, obviously. But then the PPA prided itself on using magic-users along with every other flavor of paranormal. Hell, she’d even heard tell that they’d hired a banshee just the other week.

  The sounds of merriment filled the air, getting louder as the evening progressed. Most of the agencies employees were here, the night before Christmas Eve, to celebrate another successful year. She’d been with the agency six months, but it felt like she’d finally found somewhere she could settle. Where she didn’t feel out of place. Even though she was just an administrator, rather than a field operative, she liked the fact she was making a difference, that she was helping people. It was almost as good as making toys.

  Heading for the corner of the room, and the table with all the presents, she pulled up short. A tall figure stood by the table, and a frisson rolled through her. Cole. But then he turned to the side, and she realized it wasn’t Cole, but rather his brother Rhod instead.

  She liked Rhod. Like Cole, he was a Claus, and the potential of Christmas wrapped around him like a cape, which eased something deep inside her. Even though she’d never been to the Pole, even though her family had left when her father was a child, she still felt the pull. Being around Claus elves helped with that deep yearning. A little.

  Rhod put something down on the table. A small, brightly wrapped present with a tag. Turning, he caught her looking at him and winked before walking away. Flushing to the roots of her hair, her cheeks burned but she resisted the urge to rush away and hide. A Claus had noticed her. At least it hadn’t been Cole, a little voice in the back of her mind said. If he’d winked at her like that, she’d have melted on the spot.

  Her path clear now, she scurried up to the table and hid her gift among the others. Like the rest, the tag on her gift was blank. Secret Santa at the agency worked differently to other workplaces. Each person put a gift on a spelled table, and at midnight, the enchantment sorted them and put names on all the tags.

  She bit her lip as she looked at her offering. Who would get her teddy bear, created with all the love and magic a Christmas elf could summon? A deep laugh caught her attention and she looked over her shoulder to see Cole chuckling at something his brother had said. When she’d made her teddy bear, she’d imagined it was Cole’s name she’d pulled from the hat…like in the secret Santa’s she’d had other workplaces. The regular ones, the mortal ones…the not enchanted ones.

  Checking her gift again, she reached down to straighten its bow, then turned in search of another drink, and perhaps some nibbles.

  *

  “You know she’s a Christmas elf, don’t you?”

  Cole turned at the sound of his brother, Rhod’s, voice and followed his gaze to the petite woman stood at the buffet table. Instantly, every cell in his body perked up to pay attention.

  Mia.

  “She is?” He asked in confusion, without taking his eyes off the tiny woman.

  She’d joined the agency in the summer, and he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Tiny and curvy, with masses of dark hair that reminded him of roast chestnuts and caramel eyes that sparkled with mystery, she was temptation personified. A temptation he’d have been quick to snap up, except for the fact that she went bright red and ran off every time he tried to talk to her.

  Shy was not the word.

  “Well,” he said with a shrug. “That explains some things.”

  Like the little tug just under his breastbone every time he saw her, and the need to make her smile…to see those sad eyes sparkle with laughter. A Christmas elf without Christmas, without the Pole, was a sad creature. Unlike the Claus elves, who carried Christmas within them, Christmas elves didn’t. They needed regular infusions of the Christmas spirit to make them the happy-go-lucky creatures that nature had intend
ed them to be. The Christmas in him felt her sadness, sensed the void within her, and needed to fill it.

  But it didn’t explain other things. Like the need to wrap his arms around her, or the need to find out if those plump, bee-stung lips tasted as good as they looked. It certainly didn’t explain the red mist that wanted to descend every time she smiled at another man. Those were down to good old primal instinct, and the fact he thought she was as sexy as hell.

  He tracked her with his eyes as she moved around the room. Small groups of people parted to welcome her, and Cole had to grit his teeth as Darrick, one of the pixie operatives, casually looped an arm around her shoulders. He could tell from the set of her body she wasn’t comfortable with the casual touching.

  “If you want her,” Rhod bumped Cole’s shoulder with his own. “You better make a move before Darrick does.”

  Cole growled at him, but Rhod just laughed and walked off in search of his wife, Candy. It was still a running joke at the Pole, that only a Claus elf, that only Rhod, could find and marry a woman called Candy Kane. Now she was Candy Claus, which didn’t have quite the same ring, but made no difference, over half his brothers still fancied themselves madly in love with her.

  Cole grinned into his drink, tipping his head back and finishing it in one gulp. There was one thing that those brothers forgot though. Rhod and Cole might be Santa’s for one night, and damn good Santa’s at that, but for the rest of the year they were protection operatives. Fucking good ones too boot, with all the skills and abilities required to guard VIPs, celebrities and sometimes, even royalty. Not just that, some jobs the agency took on were location and retrieval. It wasn’t unknown for them to drop into a war zone to retrieve a fairy Princess, or track a wyvern across the Antarctic.

  He glimpsed Mia through the crowd, slipping out of the door opposite onto the terrace and smiled to himself. And those skills would come in useful to track and capture a delightful armful of a Christmas elf. Because he was determined that tonight, she stopped running from him.

  Chapter Two

  Although Mia liked Christmas and parties, and all the revelry that came with it, she wasn’t a people person. Elves had a reputation of being cutesy and sweet. There was also that children’s book thing about them sitting on toadstools. So much so, that for the first three weeks working at the PPA, she’d had to endure the toadstool jokes. But elves were just like anybody else, they had their likes and dislikes. Some, like her cousin Roger, were assholes, and some wanted to party.

  Mia though was a little bit more of a homebody. She liked the parties, liked getting dressed up and looking pretty (not cute, pretty. There was a difference), but she didn’t like crowds of people. She didn’t like being closed in. So after a while, she grabbed a drink and slipped out to the sanctuary of the terrace.

  It was a lovely terrace, on the boardroom level and wrapped around the front of the building. Access to the back was restricted, but she knew that was just because the Dragons used it as a landing pad; people wandering around when creatures the size and weight of inner city buses hit the deck was a safety risk.

  The Christmas decorations extended outside. Wreaths of holly and ivy wrapped around the balustrade, and yet more fairy lights twinkled among the leaves and berries. Picking a spot along the railing, she rested her elbows on the wood, and looked out. She loved the city at night, all the twinkling lights and the sense of peace that came when most of the population settled down to sleep. It was even better this time of year, at Christmas, when magic hung in the air.

  The door open behind her, a blast of music and the sound of voices erupting into the silence for a few moments before it swung shut. She half turned, and smiled as Darrick, an operative whose cases she often dealt with, strode towards her.

  A pixie with a shaven head and a thing about leather, he was as handsome as all hell. The kind of sharp-edged, dark and brooding look she often saw on billboards and movie posters. Darrick wasn’t a movie star though. He was one of the best bodyguards the PPA had. For all his good looks though, and his non-too subtle flirting, there was no answering flutter of excitement in her chest.

  Not like when Cole looked at her.

  Honestly girl, like a Claus will be interested in you, she told herself as Darrick came to stand beside her.

  “Little lonely out here,” he slid her a sideways glance and a hot look. “Thought I’d come and stop you getting cold.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but didn’t get a chance. Before she could speak a rough male voice interrupted.

  “She’s a Christmas elf. We don’t get cold.”

  Both she and Darrick spun around in surprise to find Cole stood behind them. Her heart lurched, then stuttered, and she put her hand up to her hair to smooth it. Almost instantly she realized what she was doing, primping and preening in front of him, and dropped her hand like it had been burned. Shit, now she looked like an idiot.

  “Christmas elf?” Darrick’s brow puckered in surprise. “No, no, no…she said she was a winter elf.”

  Both men looked at her, and she shrugged. “Christmas elf… Winter elf, same thing.”

  It wasn’t, and a little light in Cole’s eyes said so but he didn’t correct her. She blushed again, dropping her gaze as heat shivered through her veins. He only had to look at her, and her senses went haywire.

  “Well, thank you for that nugget of information,” Darrick said waspishly, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Don’t let us keep you.”

  “Get your hands off her,” Cole growled, stepping forward with murder in his eyes. His gaze dropped to where Darrick had his hands on her. But the pixie didn’t let go, forcing her to pinch his arm. Hard. Startled, he looked down at her.

  “Let go,” she ordered, her voice firm. She knew most people saw her as the shy one, but she wasn’t, not really. She just didn’t like to interact with people she didn’t know well. But she could be firm, and confident. Like now. “I’m okay. Cole and I are practically family.”

  “Yeah?” Darrick didn’t sound convinced but did as she asked and released her from his embrace. “I’m not seeing much of a family resemblance.”

  Neither did she, and she didn’t want to be related to Cole, not with the fantasies she’d had about him in the last few months. Fantasies that left her hot and needy alone in her bed. Fantasies that had meant she’d needed a regular supply of batteries.

  Stepping to the side, out of Darrick’s range, she smiled at them both. Well, she smiled at Darrick, but by the time she turned to Cole, her expression was probably somewhere between overexcited fangirl and teenager looking at her first crush. He looked back, and magic sparkled in the air between them. Not the stuff of movies, but seriously as the fairy lights from the wreaths flew up around them. She stifled a gasp, she’d never seen them do that before.

  “What the—”

  “Leave,” Cole suggested, his voice hard but he didn’t look away from her. “Now.”

  She didn’t watch as Darrick left, her gaze held captive by Cole’s. His eyes were blue, but a blue she’d never seen before. It was somewhere between midnight and periwinkle, shot through with gold. The magic of Christmas, she realized as he took a step nearer.

  Gone was the easy, indolent grace she’d admired from afar. Now his movements were stalking, predatory… Lethal. She backed up a step. He followed her, step after step, until the railing pressed against her back and she had nowhere left to go. He didn’t stop there, taking another step, and then another until he almost pressed against her. The heat of his body blazed against hers, evident even through the layers of their clothing.

  Neither of them was dressed for the outdoors, not by mortal standards anyway. For any other creature, her shift dress, with its sequins and thin straps, coming out here would have been a one-way trip to hypothermia. Cole, likewise, wore a thin shirt and dress pants. They were creatures of the winter though, and the cold never bothered them.

  She looked up at him, eyes wide. He reached out a big hand to capture a loo
se curl of her hair. His lips quirked as he wound it around his finger. “Christmas is coming, little elf. Can you feel it?”

  His voice was low, mesmerizing, and despite herself she opened her senses as he ordered. She could feel it, the magic of Christmas waiting just around the corner. But mostly, she could feel Cole, Christmas personified, mere inches from her.

  “You do,” he whispered, and slid an arm around her waist to pull her up hard against him. She gasped, the sound lost under a soft ringing of sleigh bells she knew only the two of them could hear. “I know you do. I can feel you do.”

  She nodded, unable to speak, dumbstruck by the perfection of his lips so close to hers. Her hands curled around his upper arms, trusting to his strength to hold her up. He was going to kiss her, surely he was? Men didn’t just grab women in a tight embrace like this for a comfy chat, did they?

  He didn’t disappoint. His gaze roved over her face for a moment, as though fascinated by what he saw. She didn’t know what he found so fascinating. Short, prettily plump, she had brown eyes, brown hair and a nose that was best described as ‘button’ over lips that were far too wide. She was no siren, yet he was looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Then he dropped his head, brushed his lips against hers, and any sense she had left exited the building at high-speed.

  *

  He’d meant to kiss her once. Just once, to get a taste of those soft lips that had teased him for so many months. As soon as his lips touched hers though, he knew that one kiss would never be enough. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough.

  Soft and plump, her lips clung to his. Clung, caressed and tempted all in one go. With a groan, he pulled her closer until they were plastered together from thigh to chest. Slanting his head, he stroked his tongue against the closed seam of her lips in a silent demand for access. She gave it, her soft gasp lost as he surged forward in triumph.