Dice looked behind us, able to hear something, and we all followed suit. “Hugs! Here, boy!”
Tylen groaned while the sleigh driver made a pit stop to pick up Hugs, who’d caught up to us.
He jumped into the sleigh and gave kisses and licks to everyone before settling near his master’s legs. Then he sighed a gigantic sigh, as if all was right in his world.
Speaking of his master... “Thank you for allowing us into your home a few weeks ago.”
Tylen shrugged. “I knew you came with Reece’s father. I couldn’t turn him away.”Not even if I wanted to,his expression seemed to say.
“You don’t like visitors?”
He gave me a look. “No.”
“But you’re so kind!”
He glowered at me. “Take that back!”
Reece busted up laughing and huddled closer to me for warmth.
“I willnot.You’re just misunderstood.” I should know. I could feel what he felt. Even though to the world he acted like a big grump, inside he was very kind.
Tylen looked at me in something akin to horror and I rolled my eyes. “Empath, yeah?”
He muttered something under his breath about empaths before he held his hand out to Reece, who ditched us girls to go snuggle next to him.
“I see how it is. What about girl power?”
Reece shrugged. “I’m warmer with him.”
“I’ll have you know that I’m a very warm person!” I protested.
Dice laughed and slung an arm around my shoulder. “Yep, you’re warm all right.”
* * *
The Christmas partywas a smashing success. To keep things fun, we’d recreated several bridal and baby shower games for the holiday season. At the door, everyone got a pin that they clipped to their sweaters. On it, they were directed not to say Christmas or Holidays, and if someone did, you got their pin. Those with the most at the end won a prize that Draven and I had picked out together. It was hilarious to go around the different groups as they chatted and visited and hear how they tried to explain their plans for the holidays, or what they did for Christmas, without using those particular words.
Henri, who not only catered the party but got to attend as well as the rest of the staff, was a serial pin swiper. He seemed to have ears like a bat and could hear someone from across the room mention one of the forbidden words.
We also had a game where the participants had to name the Christmas song after only a few bars. And since some of those titles had the word Christmas in them, it became this hilarious thing where they tried to shout out the answer but had to pantomime Holiday or Christmas, which Draven refused to accept as a legal guess.
One of the werewolves who owned Diggity Dog Doughnuts looked like he was going to rip Draven’s throat out when Draven kicked him out of the game for refusing to say the full title of the song because the werewolf didn’t want to lose his pin.
Personally, I thought it was a little cruel to expect them to lose one game to win another, but Draven had loved the idea, and I laughed and let him have his fun. He had a very valid reason for it, even though I think he got a little too much enjoyment out of riling people.Allthe prizes were amazing getaways to various places, and he didn’t want a single person to wineveryprize. He wanted to spread them out amongst everyone. It was a good idea. But, whooee, it made some people mad. Especially werewolves.
Not every werewolf had a short temper. There were a few that did the dance off that were amazingly cool and levelheaded. It made me cheer them on because they were so tenacious...and talented dancers.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Eh.”
Draven laughed as he danced with me on our sparkling dance floor. He’d had a spell put on the ballroom to make it look like a winter wonderland. There were three arches into the room that had strings of white lights and real frost-tipped greenery grown over the arch. The light strings hung down on each side and created three magical doorways.
Real snow fell, but never touched the floor where it would melt and make the floor wet and slick, so we got the beauty of snow, but not the mess. Green garlands and red poinsettias decorated tables laden with food and drinks. We had a white and milk chocolate fountain, which was my favorite, with every available dipping goodie known to man, paranormal, or child. White lights were strung above us to create a magical canopy, and the dance floor was dark with little pin-pricks of light gleaming off of it like stars.
The room took my breath away.
So, it was safe to say I was having anamazingtime, which Draven well knew.
