Falling for Kindred Claus: A Kindred Tales Novel (Brides of the Kindred) Read online

  To the Kindred’s credit, he was at least trying to be helpful, Lisa thought. He patted his knees and tried to give the child a reassuring smile.

  “It’s all right, small one,” he rumbled. “You can come and sit with me—I don’t bite.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. At the mention of biting, the little boy’s face grew white with fear. He broke and ran, trying to get as far from Santa’s throne and its scary occupant as possible.

  But his mother was too quick. She swooped in and picked the child up. Then she marched in her high-heeled, leopard print boots right up to the big Kindred and plunked the kid on his knee.

  “There!” she declared, scowling at her son. “Now smile for Santa, Dougie! Freaking smile!”

  Lisa’s heart nearly broke for the little boy. He looked up at the huge Kindred and tried to smile. But when the warrior smiled back, his fangs became visible beneath the fake white mustache.

  The biting comment must have been uppermost in the little boy’s mind because his own trembling smile collapsed into a wail and tears started pouring down his cheeks.

  Abruptly the big Kindred stood up, holding the boy out at arm’s length.

  “What in the Seven Hells!” he growled, looking down at himself.

  Lisa bit her lip as she saw the dark stain on both the little boy’s jeans and the red trousers of the Santa suit. When the acrid scent of urine hit her, she knew what she had feared had happened…

  Dougie had peed all over Kindred Claus and the night was finally and completely ruined.

  Chapter Seven

  “Now, look what you did!” the mother rushed forward and snatched her son, “Dougie” from Asher’s hands. “You made him wet himself, you big freak! Who are you, anyway? You’re the worst Santa Claus I’ve ever seen in my life!”

  Asher was taken aback. He’d been trying his very best, despite the difficult situation. Yet it seemed he just couldn’t get this mission right. The children were frightened of him to the point of vomiting and urinating, no matter how “jolly” he tried to be—and Asher had the wet trousers to prove it.

  He looked down at himself in disgust. He needed to get back to his ship and take a shower. But he had no idea what Dru would say when he heard about tonight’s work—the mission certainly couldn’t be considered a success in any way. Unless the point of it had been to frighten children, that was.

  Now his contact was talking to the other humans waiting in line, explaining that there had been an “accident” and Santa would have to go back to the North Pole to get Mrs. Claus to clean his suit for him.

  “So I’m afraid we won’t be having any more visits with Santa tonight,” she said apologetically, raising her voice to be heard above the crowd.

  There were angry mutters and several raised voices at this.

  “Hey, we waited in line for three hours!” one man shouted, glaring at her. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”

  “Yeah!” a woman exclaimed. “We want a picture with Santa!”

  Asher felt the Rage rising in him again and a growl began in his throat when he saw the curvy little Earth girl threatened. He stepped up behind her and glared at the angry people. If any of them tried to hurt her, he would make them very, very sorry.

  His ominous glare seemed to have the desired effect. The shouting people turned pale and slunk away. Soon the entire crowd was dispersed and they were the only two people standing there.

  “Thanks.” The girl looked up at him gratefully, but not very happily, Asher thought.

  “I would not allow them to hurt you…” He paused, frowning. “I do not even know your name.”

  “Lisa.” She looked up at him. “And you are?”

  “Commander Asher of the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps. But you already know that, don’t you?” Asher asked, frowning.

  She shook her head.

  “How am I supposed to know your name? All I know is that a local charity sent you. Um, Kindred for Kids or something like that?”

  Asher shook his head as well.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know of any such charity. My handler told me I was to come to these coordinates and meet my contact to get the details of my next mission. He said my contact would be wearing holiday clothes—which you are—and would approach me directly—which you did,” he pointed out.

  “Well, yeah—because I was looking out for the Kindred who was supposed to play Santa Claus!” Lisa exclaimed. “But I just—”

  At that moment a small blonde Earth woman with gray eyes and a large Beast Kindred warrior let themselves into the Santa’s Village enclosure and came towards them.

  “Excuse us,” the woman said, looking at Lisa. “But I’m Liv and this is my husband, Baird. I think he was scheduled to play Santa for you today but we went to the wrong mall by mistake. I’m so sorry!”

  “What? You’re supposed to play Santa?” Lisa looked up at the Beast Kindred who shrugged apologetically.

  “Sorry,” he rumbled. “Hope we didn’t ruin everything.”

  Lisa looked like she didn’t know what to say but at that moment, Asher saw someone signaling him from the corner of his eye.

  Turning his head, he saw a Blood Kindred warrior wearing a pair of fake plush reindeer antlers on his head. He flashed Asher a covert hand signal and gave him a jerk of the head.

  Understanding suddenly flooded Asher—Lisa was not his contact and playing Santa had never been his mission! She had been waiting for a Kindred to play the roll and since she was dressed in holiday garb, he had mistaken her for his contact and she had mistaken him for the Kindred she was anticipating.

  It was all one big misunderstanding and now his real contact was gesturing at him.

  “Excuse me,” Asher said in a low voice to Lisa, who was still talking rapidly to the blonde Earth female who had introduced herself as “Liv.”

  He started to walk away, though he was strangely reluctant to leave her, when she saw what he was doing and broke off speaking to the other woman.

  “Wait a minute,” she exclaimed, catching him by the elbow. “Where do you think you’re going? You’ve still got the suit on and everything! And I don’t know who you really are or why you played Santa when you weren’t supposed to.”

  It was true—he did still have the urine-stained Santa outfit on, Asher noted with some disgust. But as for explanations, they would have to wait.

  “I’ll be back in a moment to change,” he promised. “Don’t worry,” he added when she started to protest again, “I have no wish to wear this suit any longer than I already have. I promise not to take it—I only need a moment.”

  Then he walked swiftly away, going to meet his real contact and find out what the true mission was.

  Chapter Eight

  “Well, we’re really sorry about the misunderstanding,” Liv said again, apologetically. “But I guess it was a good thing another Kindred happened to come along to fill in for Baird, here.” She patted her Beast Kindred husband’s muscular arm and smiled.

  “Yes, exactly,” Lisa murmured, not sure what else to say. She still didn’t know who “Kindred Claus” had been, though he had introduced himself as Commander Asher and said he was in “the Espionage Corps.” So did that mean he was some kind of spy? No wonder he had kept talking about his “mission” and asking if she was his contact—she had been misunderstanding him the whole time!

  Liv and Baird at last took their leave after apologizing one last time. Baird had offered to stay for the final hour the mall was open and try to get some of the Santa pictures done but there was no point, in Lisa’s opinion. For one thing, Commander Asher had wandered off still wearing the suit and for another, it needed to be dry cleaned before anyone else could wear it. Plus, Gary had left for the night, so there wasn’t any photographer to take the pictures, even if all the kids and parents were to magically reappear.

  The night was a near total loss and there was nothing she could do to salvage it now.

  Where was Comma