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Zee blinked too fast. “Did you say something? I zoned out from boredom. Besides, I knew it was you, that’s why the spork didn’t hit its target.” He examined his nails, pretending Victor’s arrival was meaningless when it hadn’t been long ago he’d been concerned about where he was. He reached down and adjusted his shorts, which were so tight they looked like they’d been painted on around his eager and generous dick. Zee’s grin was the icing on the incubus cake—that cake being the whole fluffy, candy-colored bedroom showroom. “Also, au contraire, ye olde fanged fossil. Now is the perfect time for sex. I get a power-up, and Adam gets to let off steam in this fabulous fucking bedroom nest I made for us. Win-win.”

“I don’t know what’s more disturbing. The creature stalking the store or your interior design.”

“Isn’t it great?” Zee’s grin grew.

“It’s an assault on the visual spectrum and entices me to gouge my own eyes out with that spork.” Eyes that shone like molten silver in the soft ambient lighting.

Zee narrowed his eyes. “Do you still have my spiky dick?”

“I left your phallic cactus with the rest of our shopping at the checkouts when it became clear you weren’t going to make the exit before the wards sealed you inside.”

“There are wards?” I asked, separating myself from Victor’s embrace and sitting near the end of the bed so I could see them both.

“Yes, keeping unsavory people out, and unfortunately us inside, until the store reopens. I was able to slip back inside prior to the store closing.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “It seems, however, we are not alone.”

That explained why we couldn’t find the exit, or a way out. The wards were a theft deterrent, and for those who did break in, it kept them inside, walking a maze, until the authorities could deal with them at opening time.

A warning sign about the wards would have been helpful. Although, we’d still have been lost in the store, even with a sign. But at least we’d have known what we were dealing with.

“We found a body. Was that you?” Zee asked, reclining on the many cushions.

“I haven’t murdered anyone, no.”

Zee peered at Victor through narrowed eyes. “A bit sus, though. Daddy Vampire gets trapped inside with us and the staff start dropping like flies.”

“C’mon, Zee . . .” I warned.

“I’m just sayin’ what we’re all thinkin’.”

He knew it wasn’t Victor. When Zee was nervous he deflected, and right now he was deflecting sass all over Victor.

“I heard something when we were running away from the Winter Wonderland section,” I said.

“The what?” Victor asked.

“We weren’t running,” Zee clarified, so there weren’t any misunderstandings about bravery in front of the thousand-year-old vampire. “Just walking real fast.”

“What did you hear, Adam?” Victor asked, shifting to face me.

“Someone laughing. A man, I think. He had a deep voice. Maybe?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” Zee dismissed with a flick of his hand.

“Maybe I didn’t hear it. I don’t know. It was mixed in with the music, so it could have been part of the song? I’m kinda doubting myself now.”

“What did the voice say?” Victor asked, his expression hardening, turning focused.

“It sort of laughed, in a weird way. It sounded strange, but went something like . . . ho, ho, ho.”

Zee snorted, then shivered all over as a darker thought occurred to him. “Maybe it was one of those freaky-ass gnomes?”

“Ah,” Victor said, drawing both our gazes back to him.

“Ah?” I asked.

“I fear we’re dealing with a bloodthirsty sociopath with no boundaries, who plays by few rules but their own. Infamous for animal cruelty, with a slew of unlawful-entry and criminal-damage charges. And it appears they’ve escalated to mass murder.”

Zee propped himself up on his elbows. “And this peach is?”

Victor paused for dramatic effect.

“Santa Claus.”