All I Want For Christmas Is My Mating Stone Read online

  All I Want For Christ­mas Is My Mat­ing Stone

  Dark War­rior Al­liance Novella

  Brenda Trim

  Tami Julka

  Con­tents

  Chap­ter 1

  Chap­ter 2

  Chap­ter 3

  Chap­ter 4

  Chap­ter 5

  Chap­ter 6

  Chap­ter 7

  Chap­ter 8

  Chap­ter 9

  EX­CERPT FROM Sen­tinel of Khoth BOOK #21

  Au­thors’ Note

  Other Works By Trim And Julka

  Copy­right © No­vem­ber 2019 by Brenda Trim and Tami Julka

  eISBN: 9781634525978

  Ed­i­tor: Chris Cain

  Cover Art by Car­rie (Cheeky Cov­ers)

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

  WARN­ING: The unau­tho­rized re­pro­duc­tion of this work is il­le­gal. Crim­i­nal copy­right in­fringe­ment is in­ves­ti­gated by the FBI and is pun­ish­able by up to 5 years in fed­eral prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All rights re­served. With the ex­cep­tion of quotes used in re­views, this book may not be re­pro­duced or used in whole or in part by any means ex­ist­ing with­out writ­ten per­mis­sion from the au­thors.

  Cre­ated with Vel­lum

  A man’s most pre­cious jewel is the woman who walks by his side. ~Au­thor un­known

  Merry Christ­mas from T&J! May your hol­i­day be filled with love and laugh­ter. xo

  1

  Kyran stood back, ad­mir­ing Mack’s firm back­side as she placed a glit­tery star atop the Christ­mas tree. Hon­estly, he had no use for the hu­man hol­i­day, but his mate turned into a giddy fe­male ev­ery De­cem­ber, and in­sisted they dec­o­rate their suite. The place looked like some­thing out of a Hall­mark movie (which she also forced him to watch with her) but it made Mack happy, so he in­dulged her in­cli­na­tion. Af­ter all, ev­ery­one had a weak­ness. He was ogling his right now.

  “Is it straight?” Mack queried from her perch on the lad­der as she fid­geted with the star.

  Kyran’s eyes were glued to her ass, not the fuck­ing plas­tic tree top­per. He could care less if it was straight. All he wanted was to strip her bare and fuck his mate where she stood.

  Af­ter all these years, he still couldn’t be­lieve the feisty fe­male was his. She con­tin­ued to amaze him at ev­ery turn. Mack was brave, coura­geous, loyal to her core, not to men­tion, the sex­i­est crea­ture alive.

  “Yo, blood­sucker!” Mack blurted and turned to meet his gaze, her hand on her hip. Her whiskey eyes blazed hot, and he smirked at her an­noy­ance. “I asked you if the star is straight. Why are you just stand­ing there like a buf­foon?”

  “Doona make me come over there and spank that arse,” he growled low and crossed his arms over his chest. “Bet­ter yet. Keep it up, Fire­cracker. I’ll en­joy ev­ery minute of your pun­ish­ment,” he quickly added as his de­viant mind wan­dered to the dark side.

  His hands itched to grab a whip and show her who was mas­ter. Kyran’s sor­did past was no se­cret, and it was a con­stant ef­fort to keep his twisted demons at bay.

  Mack’s mouth lifted at one cor­ner. “What did you have in mind?” she purred se­duc­tively.

  Luck­ily, his mate was agree­able to his per­verse­ness. To a de­gree. Mack­endra Calla­han didn’t have a sub­mis­sive bone in her body and would never agree to bow down to him. She did, how­ever, en­joy var­i­ous sex­ca­pades, which was good enough for Kyran.

  “Well, I was think­ing you could slip oot of those sweat­pants and we could cel­e­brate the hol­i­days early. Ho-ho-ho, or what­ever that fat fuck says,” he sug­gested as he tugged at his beard.

  Mack laughed, and climbed down from the lad­der. When she turned, Kyran’s gaze landed on her top and he smirked. Must be the lat­est de­sign from her ‘Made with Sass’ col­lec­tion be­cause he hadn’t seen this one un­til now. Her tight black t-shirt had a candy cane in red glit­ter and the cap­tion read ‘It’s Not Go­ing to Lick It­self’ in bold white let­ters. Oh, he was ready to lick many things, but not a pep­per­mint candy.

  “His name is Santa, and you kinda re­mind me of the jolly fella with that beard of yours,” she con­fessed as she swayed to­ward him, her hips mov­ing to and fro like a pen­du­lum try­ing to hyp­no­tize him with temp­ta­tion. And, fuck if it wasn’t work­ing.

  Kyran hissed as his fangs shot from his gums painfully, re­mind­ing him that he needed to feed. He craved her blood as much as he craved her body. Mack’s eyes widened in ap­pre­ci­a­tion, and a smile spread across her face. She thor­oughly en­joyed the plea­sure she re­ceived from his bite, and he was ready to sat­isfy his need, and hers.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist when she reached his side. “Do you like it?” he asked as he leaned down and nuz­zled her neck.

  “I love it. Much softer than I ex­pected,” she mur­mured as she reached up and played with the long whiskers. “It tick­les, too,” she added with a smirk, and Kyran re­called his beard nes­tled be­tween her legs.

  His arousal in­ten­si­fied, caus­ing his eyes to glow. “You know? If you’re verra good, Santa will tickle you all night long,” he husked then leaned down to claim her lips.

  The kiss quickly heated when he delved in­side her mouth. Her tongue swiped across his fangs and her or­ange-vanilla fra­grance at­tacked his senses. Kyran palmed Mack’s ass, and tugged her against his strain­ing erec­tion. Fuck, he needed to get in­side her.

  “Mmm,” she moaned. “Blood­sucker, I’m so good, Santa will come twice,” she whis­pered and Kyran felt her hand slide be­tween his legs. His cock jerked when she pressed against his groin.

  With that, Kyran lifted her off her feet and stalked to­ward the sofa. He tossed her to the over­stuffed cush­ions then reached for the draw­string at her waist.

  “Hold your horses, leech,” she panted and sat up. “I need to put in my di­aphragm be­fore we get car­ried away.”

  “Screw that thing. Let’s make a bairn,” he coun­tered and tugged the cord of her sweat­pants.

  “Se­ri­ously, Kyran. I’ll be right back. My luck, I’d get preg­nant the first time we didn’t use it,” she ad­mit­ted as she stopped him from yank­ing down her pants.

  “Would that be so ter­ri­ble? Doona you want a bairn?” he coun­tered with a deep sigh. It was a ques­tion he’d asked too many times lately, and he was tired of hear­ing the same an­swer.

  Mack let out a huff and curled her legs un­der her bot­tom. So much for get­ting laid, he thought as ten­sion in­stantly filled the air. “You know how I feel about this, Kyran. Why do you con­tinue to push the is­sue?”

  “Be­cause I’m sick and fuck­ing tired of see­ing all the preg­nant fe­males in this house. We’ve been mated for years. One of the first cou­ples, to be ex­act. I’ve watched bairn af­ter bairn be­ing born, yet no’ one of them is mine. I want a fam­ily, Mack. Canna you un­der­stand that?” he yelled as he hov­ered above her.

  “Of course, I un­der­stand. But can you un­der­stand my po­si­tion?” she shouted back.

  He knew her next words be­fore they left her mouth. He was tempted to re­cite them along with her, but bit his tongue in­stead. “I’m a Dark War­rior, and my place is on the bat­tle­fi
eld. By your side.” Okay, the by your side was new, he amended. He’d give her points for that added touch.

  “I’m no’ ask­ing you to quit. Why canna you do both? Bet­ter yet, fo­cus on your cloth­ing line. You said your­self you can barely keep up with the or­ders com­ing in.”

  “I’m busy meet­ing the de­mand for the hol­i­day sea­son, but it will slow down af­ter that. I can han­dle the busi­ness,” she coun­tered de­fen­sively.

  “Then I’m sure we can also man­age the re­spon­si­bil­ity a bairn brings,” Kyran sug­gested.

  “Re­ally? We? And, who is go­ing to stay home with our baby when it’s time to pa­trol, or go to war? You?” Mack scoffed and stood up, tak­ing a stance in front of him. Her spiky, black hair stood high, like a por­cu­pine un­der duress, and anger flashed in her beau­ti­ful eyes.

  “Nay. ‘Tis far more im­por­tant for me to bat­tle our en­e­mies,” he barked.

  “Ha!” she im­me­di­ately replied. “Who’s at the top of the kill board, Vamp? Not you,” she quipped with­out hes­i­ta­tion.

  “Ger­rick is,” he chuck­led sar­cas­ti­cally. The male was ruth­less when it came to slaugh­ter­ing their en­e­mies, and Kyran imag­ined Ger­rick would al­ways be at the top of the kill board.

  “Okay, I’ll give you that, but I’m a close sec­ond. I’m needed, Kyran, and you know it,” Mack pro­fessed then stalked to­ward their bed­room.

  He waited for a hard slam, and when that didn’t hap­pen, he fol­lowed her into the bed­room. She was open­ing the dresser drawer. Maybe he still had a shot at get­ting laid, af­ter all.

  “Is that where you keep your di­aphragm?”

  “No, dum­b­ass,” Mack snapped and shook her head. Men, she thought to her­self. Did he re­ally think they were go­ing to have sex in the mid­dle of an ar­gu­ment?

  She needed to re­mind Kyran of her worth to the Dark War­riors. She re­called their mat­ing cer­e­mony, and when the God­dess Mor­ri­gan’s pres­ence en­tered her mind. The pow­er­ful de­ity didn’t say much, but one as­pect was en­graved into Mack’s brain. Your mat­ing stone pro­tects your sword arm. Your aim will al­ways be true, my war­rior.

  And, the god­dess was right. She was a war­rior to her core. In the prime of her life, in Mack’s opin­ion. She’d be damned if she was go­ing to ruin it with a preg­nancy. Gain thirty pounds and be out of com­mis­sion for nine months? Hell no. Not when she was so close to top­ping Ger­rick on the kill board. Kyran could say all he wanted, but Mack was ir­re­place­able to the war­riors.

  How­ever, the last thing Mack wanted was to hurt her mate. She could see how much Kyran wanted a child, and part of her wanted to give that to him. But, to do that, she had to sac­ri­fice her pur­pose in life. She wasn’t ready to do that. At least, not right now.

  She ran­sacked the drawer un­til she found her most prized pos­ses­sion. Her mat­ing stone. She wanted Kyran to hold it and re­mem­ber her call­ing, ac­cord­ing to the God­dess Mor­ri­gan. Mack grabbed the gray vel­vet bag, and gasped when she re­al­ized the small satchel was empty.

  Surely, she was mis­taken. Hastily, she un­tied the string, and peered in­side the vel­vet case. Her heart stopped beat­ing as she stared into the empty bag.

  Her mat­ing stone was gone.

  Mack clutched her chest as her breath caught in her throat. Dizzi­ness as­sailed her and she thought she might pass out.

  “Babe, what’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet,” Kyran’s deep voice in­truded.

  “It-it-it’s gone,” she man­aged to re­ply as she stared blankly into the empty bag.

  “What’s gone?”

  Mack quickly re­turned to the drawer and yanked it out of the dresser in her haste. She emp­tied the con­tents onto the floor and crouched on the car­pet. Her mat­ing stone must’ve slipped from the bag. It had to be hid­den some­where amongst the gar­ments. There was no other ex­pla­na­tion.

  She tossed aside socks and panties as she dug through the var­i­ous items of cloth­ing. When she didn’t see the trea­sured gem, Mack’s mind scat­tered as she tried to think of an­other pos­si­bil­ity. Where the hell could it be?

  A large palm cupped her face and forced her to look up. Kyran’s warm, gray eyes were filled with con­fu­sion. “What’s go­ing on?”

  Un­able to fight the build­ing emo­tion, tears sprang forth in a rush and trailed down her cheeks. “My mat­ing stone is gone!” she ex­claimed then fell against Kyran’s chest.

  She was not a weeper and hated women that were. But right now, Mack was on the verge of a break­down. She wanted to lay on the car­pet and pound her fists like a tod­dler hav­ing a tantrum un­til her mommy gave her what she wanted.

  She buried her face in the crook of his neck, try­ing to com­pose her­self. Kyran rubbed cir­cles on her back and held her tight. “‘Tis okay. I’m sure we’ll find it.”

  “How?” she asked and met his gaze. “Kyran, I’ve never taken my stone out of this room. Ever! Oc­ca­sion­ally, I’ll take it out and look at it be­cause it re­minds me of our spe­cial day, but I al­ways put it back in its pouch. Where could it pos­si­bly be?”

  She pan­icked when a thought crossed her mind. “You don’t think the God­dess took it back, do you? I mean, why would she? Is it be­cause I don’t want a baby? Is she pun­ish­ing me?” Mack ram­bled with­out thought.

  If the god­dess was dis­ap­pointed in her, what did that mean? Would it af­fect her and Kyran? Would the mat­ing com­pul­sion go away? Would he not love her the same? There was no way the god­dess could take back Mack’s im­mor­tal­ity, was there? Shit, this couldn’t be hap­pen­ing.

  Kyran grabbed her face and held it be­tween his hands. “You need to calm doon. I doona think this has any­thing to do with the God­dess. There is prob­a­bly a sim­ple ex­pla­na­tion. Doona panic,” he in­formed her.

  “What then? What pos­si­ble ex­pla­na­tion could there be?” she croaked as her heart beat un­con­trol­lably. Her body trem­bled with fear as she imag­ined the worst-case sce­nario. Her world would crum­ble if Kyran’s feel­ings changed to­ward her. She couldn’t imag­ine life with­out her Fated Mate.

  “I doona know. Let’s go and talk to Zan­der,” he of­fered and helped her to her feet.

  Mack nod­ded, and prayed Kyran’s brother would have an an­swer. Af­ter all, he was the Vam­pire King. If he couldn’t of­fer an ex­pla­na­tion, she didn’t know who could.

  They left their suite of rooms and walked down the hall­way to Zan­der and Elsie’s liv­ing quar­ters. Zeum was a grand es­tate in­hab­ited by the Dark War­riors and their mates. Out­siders might find their liv­ing ar­range­ment odd, but it worked for them. Their group was a mix­ture of hu­mans, vam­pires, shifters, sor­cer­ers, and ev­ery­thing in be­tween. There was even a mated cou­ple com­prised of an an­gel and a cam­bion.

  Mack ac­knowl­edged she found it weird at first, but she couldn’t imag­ine be­ing any­where else. They were one big happy fam­ily, most days, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Kyran knocked on his brother’s door and mo­ments later, Elsie an­swered. She was eat­ing an ice cream cone, and her preg­nant belly stretched her sweater to its break­ing point. Her due date was ap­proach­ing, and the Vam­pire Queen’s stom­ach looked like it would burst if it got any big­ger.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Elsie asked as she held the door open for them to en­ter.

  “Is my brathair here?” Kyran asked as they walked to­ward the liv­ing room.

  “Aye,” an­swered a deep voice, and Mack turned to see Zan­der exit their bed­room. He walked to a black leather re­cliner and took a seat, while Elsie sat on the ad­ja­cent leather sofa as she munched on her frozen treat.

  “We need to talk to you,” Mack blurted be­fore Kyran could say any­thing.

  “Okay, talk.” Zan­der an­swered with a tilt of his head. His Sap­phire-blue eyes nar­rowed a
s he war­ily glanced from Mack to Kyran.

  “I don’t know how, when, or why, but my mat­ing stone is gone,” Mack re­layed and hated the way her voice cracked. It made her feel weak, and she didn’t do weak.

  “What?” Elsie in­ter­jected, and froze. “When did this hap­pen?”

  “I’m not sure. I went to show it to Kyran just now, and it’s not where I nor­mally keep it. I have no idea where it could be,” she in­formed them. Elsie rushed from the room in the next blink, and Mack had no doubt she was check­ing for her mat­ing stone.

  The sig­nif­i­cance of the stones was mon­u­men­tal. Each mat­ing stone started as a sim­ple gran­ite rock that was given to a su­per­nat­u­ral early in life. When they were even­tu­ally blessed with their Fated Mate, a cer­e­mony fol­lowed, unit­ing the cou­ple for eter­nity. Dur­ing the cer­e­mony, not only did the stone trans­form to re­flect their never-end­ing bond, but the God­dess’s pres­ence en­tered the mind of the fe­male and ex­plained what her mat­ing stone rep­re­sented.

  Mack re­called her mat­ing cer­e­mony. They were trapped in the dragon realm, Khoth, and Kyran’s stone wasn’t avail­able to them, so a black­smith cre­ated one for them. It was a large di­a­mond, and a gray flame burned within. It re­minded her of the beau­ti­ful realm where they fell in love, as well as, the color of Kyran’s eyes. It was mag­i­cal, and some­thing to be cher­ished and pro­tected al­ways.

  Mo­ments later, a scream echoed from the room Elsie had run into. In the next breath, the Vam­pire Queen was stand­ing in the door­way of their bed­room. “Mine’s gone, too!”

  Zan­der popped up from the re­cliner and rushed to Elsie’s side. “What? Are you cer­tain, a ghra?”