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11
Gus, aka Dasher
I fiddlewith my lip ring while Joy decides whether or not she’s going to trust us. If she doesn’t, I swear I’m gonna punch Cal so hard, he blacks out. I crack my knuckles in anticipation, feeling the heat of anger travel up my spine.
Until Joy smiles.
Fuck. All that heat transforms into something else. Instead of zigzagging through me like lightning, it blooms like a fucking rose on my dick. I mean, my dick gets hot and hard as fuck. Not sure where that flowery bullshit came from.
Goddammit. Being a stupid deer has bashed in my masculinity-meter a bit. Maybe I need to punch something to get it back. Bryn is nearly asleep again. He’d make a good target.
Joy clears her throat, and once again, my power abandons me, just sluices away like an iceberg breaking off from a glacier.
What the hell did Santa’s spell do to me? Fuck. Maybe it’s all those years of listening to him read poetry aloud in the barn. I thought it was to torture us at the time…and now it seems like I’ve internalized that crap.
I don’t have more than a second to blast red-hot angry thoughts in Santa’s direction before Joy speaks with the voice of an angel.
That one’s not poetry. She’s literally a half-angel. Shut up.
“If you’re here for me, prove it,” she states, trying to keep the waver out of her voice, but I can tell the bravado camouflages her fear. After centuries with Cal, one can tell a lie from a truth with a bit more accuracy than before.
“Happy to prove it, pretty girl,” I tell her. “Want me to break their bones until they quake with regret? Want me hook my claws in their eyeballs and pop them out—”
Joy gags, so I stop.
“Too much?” I ask. My wrath knows no bounds.
“Too much,” she nods. “How about we just kick them out?” She bites her lip, uncertain. Of course, Santa’s daughter would be worried that even kicking out demons was too much. Surrounded by all this goody two shoes bullcrap twenty-four-seven, it’s a miracle that my little Center is as much of a rebel as she is.
“Yeah, we can totally do that,” Cal lies. “We’ll just kick them out. Nothing else.” Sometimes, Cal’s lies are pretty damn convenient. He slides his arm around our soulmate and says, “I’m sure we can call them over and have a nice discussion about it, work it all out…”
Joy shrugs out from beneath his arm, her lush green eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Talk it out?”
“Yeah, you know, wave the white flag, have a temporary ceasefire. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of all the details, cookie,” he says, tossing out the nickname nonchalantly.
“Cal, you’re lying.” Joy crosses her arms, frustration marring that beautiful face of hers.
Yeah, he’s lying. Demons don’t adhere to ceasefire bullshit. They’re like bombs, set to commence destruction within a certain time frame no matter where they land.
I look to Nico for help, since there’s no way I’ll be able to join this conversation without at least giving Cal a black eye for lying to our girl.
Luckily, the Scot steps up to the plate. He pats down his makeshift kilt as he says, “Excuse the bampot, lovie. He’s thick-headed sometimes. We can just annoy the shit out of that murder and convince them Christmas isn’t worth it. We can put ice in their sheets, so they climb into a wet, cold bed. We can reprogram the dolls to talk in the middle of the night. We can make sure reindeer shit gets in all their damned food. Remember the time we gave some to Cal and told him it was chocolate from Joy?” He can’t stop a chuckle from escaping. “Nothing tastes worse than reindeer shit.”
Joy puts her hands into her hair in frustration. I don’t think Nico’s plan is at all what our mate had in mind. She does like some juvenile pranks, but I’m pretty sure, given the number of tears she’s shed over this situation, that our Joy is on the edge of despair, and her despair is currently laced with frustration.
I don’t like the way her frustration erupts in her little snort of disapproval and then permeates the air around us, making me feel as if we’re failing her. I don’t want to fail her. I can’t. I won’t.
The memory of the time she fixed my broken leg, the year the sleigh smashed into it and I had to fly back home with pain and wrath mixing together inside my body, replays in my head. I’d nearly collapsed when we finally got to the Christmas realm. The other reindeer had to basically lug my unconscious ass through the sky to the stable, and only Santa’s magic had kept me from being dragged through the snow and run over by his sleigh.
Joy had run out to see her father, but as soon as she’d realized I was hurt, she’d beelined for me instead. I remember that distinctly, blinking snow out of my eyes and seeing her kneel down in front of me, distress etched across her face.
Joy slept with me in my stall that first night, until Santa agreed to let me move into her kitchen for my recovery. Even then, she’d brought down her big red and green quilt and curled up next to me, resting her soft head on my side.
I’d hardly gotten any sleep, just craned my neck so I could stare at her. I’d drug out that recovery for as long as I possibly could, faking a limp even, so that Joy would give me extra cookies and extra pets.
I think I was in love with her even then. Even before I really understood what love was.
I hadn’t known for certain she was my Center then, but I’d treasured her above all others. Now that I know what she is, her ire tinged with sadness is too potent for me to stand. I have to do something about it.
