All I Want For Christmas Is My Mating Stone Read online

  “Of course, I’m cer­tain,” Elsie screeched as her arms flailed wildly.

  Mack had no idea where the ice cream went, but it was no longer in Elsie’s hand. At least they un­der­stood Mack’s ur­gency. Not that she wanted Elsie to join her panic-in­duced state. The woman was preg­nant and didn’t need the added stress.

  “Och, let’s take a deep breath and think aboot this,” Zan­der in­structed. “Per­haps, Izzy played with it be­fore she left for Khoth.”

  Izzy was Zan­der and Elsie’s first­born. She was a very spe­cial princess and was the phys­i­cal em­bod­i­ment of the Triskele Amulet. At first, Zan­der pos­sessed an ac­tual amulet that al­lowed com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the God­dess Mor­ri­gan, but af­ter an archde­mon stole the amulet, the power shifted to his daugh­ter. It was a huge bur­den for such a young girl, and ul­ti­mately, she was sent to Khoth to keep her safe from the demons’ end­less pur­suit of her. Too many times, Izzy’s life was threat­ened. As dif­fi­cult as it was for her par­ents to be away from their daugh­ter, it was the best de­ci­sion in the end. She was healthy and happy, and most im­por­tantly, safe.

  “No, Zan­der. Izzy knows how pre­cious my stone is to me. She’d never take it out of my room. What could this pos­si­bly mean?” Elsie voiced aloud as she cra­dled her dis­tended belly. Mack was won­der­ing the same thing. Two mat­ing stones had dis­ap­peared, but why?

  “I doona know. Let’s check with the other fe­males in the house and see if theirs are miss­ing, too,” he sug­gested. Dred filled Mack’s gut as their small group hur­ried from the room.

  They rushed from suite to suite. Each fe­male that was home checked for their mat­ing stone. And, each said the same thing. Theirs was gone.

  Mack had no idea what was go­ing on, or what to do next. No one had ever heard of mat­ing stones dis­ap­pear­ing. What did this mean for the cou­ples at Zeum? And, what con­se­quence would they suf­fer be­cause of it?

  Hours later, men­tally and phys­i­cally ex­hausted, Mack and Kyran re­turned to their suite. Ev­ery­one at Zeum agreed to meet in the war room the fol­low­ing day to de­vise plans for their next course of ac­tion.

  Mack stepped in­side their liv­ing room, and her gaze landed on the Christ­mas tree. She stared at the glow­ing star nes­tled on the high­est branch. As a lit­tle girl, she would sit be­neath the tree and wish for Santa to bring her presents. A new bike, a puppy, or the lat­est Bar­bie doll for her col­lec­tion. Her child­hood de­sires seemed so unim­por­tant in the grand scheme of life.

  Now, all Mack wanted for Christ­mas was her mat­ing stone.

  2

  Mack and Kyran en­tered the war room at Zeum, and she was sur­prised to see ev­ery­one gath­ered around the large wooden ta­ble. Some were sit­ting while oth­ers stood against the wall. It was a packed house, and with good rea­son.

  Typ­i­cally, she was the first to ar­rive at meet­ings, but not to­day. Even Rhys, who was no­to­ri­ously late, was seated next to his beau­ti­ful mate. Mack gazed at Il­lianna and could’ve swore she was peer­ing into a mir­ror. The dark cir­cles and puffi­ness un­der the an­gel’s eyes told Mack she hadn’t slept a wink, ei­ther. In fact, as Mack scanned the room, she ac­knowl­edged all the fe­males looked like shit. Clearly, they were as wor­ried about the miss­ing mat­ing stones as she was.

  “Come in, and have a seat,” Zan­der in­structed, prompt­ing Mack to grab the first empty seat she spot­ted. Kyran pulled out the chair next to hers and sat down. He reached for her hand and squeezed, of­fer­ing com­fort and sup­port.

  He’d been in­cred­i­ble since she dis­cov­ered her mat­ing stone was gone. His un­con­di­tional love over­shad­owed her doubts and in­se­cu­ri­ties re­gard­ing their mat­ing stone and its power over their re­la­tion­ship. Kyran as­sured her his feel­ings could never be al­tered by a stone, or, any­thing else.

  “Ev­ery­one is here, so let’s talk aboot what might’ve hap­pened to the stones. I as­sume most of you were up half the night like Elsie and me. We searched ev­ery blu­idy inch of our quar­ters but came up emp­ty­handed. Does any­one have any thoughts on where they might be?” Zan­der asked. He was at the op­po­site end of the ta­ble, and Elsie was in the chair be­side his, wring­ing her hands on the ta­ble.

  Nate, the ma­jor­domo for Zeum, walked into the war room, car­ry­ing a tray of cof­fee cups. Two ad­di­tional staff mem­bers fol­lowed him in­side the room, hold­ing large sil­ver plat­ters. There was cof­fee, juice, wa­ter, and var­i­ous pas­tries on the serv­ing trays. Bagels, donuts, muffins, along with, cream cheese and but­ter. Mack found her­self eye­ing the staff as if they were sus­pects. They could be, but she had no in­for­ma­tion to sug­gest that was the case.

  She had no fuck­ing in­for­ma­tion, and it frus­trated and scared her.

  “Well, I think the first thing is to pin­point when they might’ve gone miss­ing,” Bres­lin sug­gested, and Mack nod­ded in agree­ment with Kyran’s sis­ter. She wracked her brain, try­ing to re­mem­ber the last time she’d seen her mat­ing stone. “If we de­ter­mine a time frame, it could trig­ger a clue,” the Vam­pire Princess added as she reached for the pot of cof­fee and poured two cups, one for her and one for her mate, Rhett, who stood be­hind Bres­lin’s chair.

  The last thing Mack needed was caf­feine. She was a ner­vous wreck, and cof­fee would have her bounc­ing off the walls. In­stead, she grabbed a wa­ter bot­tle and a blue­berry muf­fin. Her stom­ach was in knots, but she needed to try and eat a lit­tle some­thing.

  “I’m pretty sure the last time I saw mine was a few months ago,” Mack ex­plained as she broke off a piece of muf­fin and stuffed it into her mouth.

  “Mine was right af­ter I re­turned from Khoth, which was at the be­gin­ning of my preg­nancy,” Elsie shared with the group. The queen looked ex­hausted, and Mack noted the pal­lor of her com­plex­ion. Was she com­ing down with some­thing, or just wor­ried like the rest of them? Re­gard­less, Mack won­dered how the added stress might af­fect her baby. One more rea­son she wasn’t ready for preg­nancy, she mused. The Dark War­riors’ lives re­volved around stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, and that would never change.

  “I took my mat­ing stone with me when Rhett and I trav­eled to Koine four months ago. I had it when we re­turned home be­cause I put in back where I usu­ally keep it,” Bres­lin of­fered and Mack watched as Rhett mas­saged her shoul­ders.

  Koine was Rhett’s home realm, and he and Bres­lin vis­ited there of­ten. Mack re­called the first time she met the fire de­mon. It was when she and Kyran were trapped on Khoth and try­ing to find a por­tal back to Seat­tle. Rhett’s translu­cent skin and or­ange eyes were an odd com­bi­na­tion, but the guy was sweet, funny, and kind. They be­came in­stant friends and had saved each other’s ass a time or two on the bat­tle­field.

  It was a re­lief to see the cou­ples bond­ing over the sit­u­a­tion. Per­haps the mat­ing stones were more sym­bolic than any­thing. Just an­other as­pect to the mat­ing cer­e­mony, not some­thing that de­fined the strength of the cou­ple. At least, Mack hoped that was the case.

  Il­lianna, Cai­lyn, Tori, Shae, Alex, and Em­ber re­layed their sto­ries as to when they’d last seen their mat­ing stone. Mack and Alex were the most re­cent, roughly three months ago. Alex ex­plained how she’d taken hers out and showed it to Nate when he said he col­lected pieces of am­ber.

  Mack looked to Nate as he and the two staff mem­bers tended to the large group in the room. She didn’t miss when the guy turned ten shades of red af­ter Alex spoke, and she re­called dragon shifters ob­ses­sion for jew­els.

  “Hey, Dragon-breath,” Mack blurted, mak­ing Nate look over his shoul­der. “You wouldn’t hap­pen to know any­thing about our mat­ing stones, now would you?” she spat in ac­cu­sa­tion, jump­ing on the first bit on in­for­ma­tion they had.

  Nate set down the stack of
plates he was hold­ing and turned to glare at Mack. “What are you say­ing, ex­actly?”

  “Do I need to spell it out for you?” she coun­tered. Ev­ery­one in the room knew drag­ons kept a hid­den horde of trea­sure. They loved gems, or any­thing that sparkled.

  “Oh, so now I’m a fuck­ing thief? Is that the con­sen­sus?” Nate barked and his red eyes blazed hot­ter than the flames of his in­ner dragon.

  “Nay, we are no’ ac­cus­ing you of any­thing,” Zan­der in­ter­jected as he stood from his chair.

  His power ric­o­cheted around the room, and Mack knew it was in­tense be­cause a grunt slipped past Kyran’s lips be­fore he sti­fled his re­ac­tion. Zan­der had the abil­ity to com­mand com­plete sur­ren­der from his vam­pire sub­jects. Painfully, if needed. She wasn’t a vam­pire, but cer­tainly didn’t want to be the rea­son Zan­der un­leashed his dom­i­na­tion on her mate and the other vam­pires in the room.

  “I apol­o­gize, Nate. I’m freak­ing out about this whole thing. I just don’t un­der­stand where they could be,” Mack ad­mit­ted as she set her muf­fin on a nap­kin. Her ap­petite was shot, and the thought of eat­ing made her nau­seous.

  “It’s okay. I’d have done the same thing, Mack. I wish I had taken them be­cause then you’d know where they were,” Nate con­fessed. She sensed how con­cerned he was and crossed him off the sus­pect list.

  “You don’t think Lu­cifer man­aged to take them, do you?” Rhys asked, re­fer­ring to the Dark Lord of the Un­der­world. Rhys was part de­mon and knew how much Lu­cifer wanted to es­cape Hell and rule on Earth. It was the rea­son the Dark War­riors ex­isted. Their job was to pro­tect in­no­cents from the evil demons Lu­cifer sent from Hell.

  Zan­der raked a hand through his jet-black hair. “God­dess, I hope no’. You would think we would’ve felt a de­mon’s pres­ence right un­der our noses,” he replied as his hand ran across his stub­bled jaw. “But, if one of his min­ions slipped past our pro­tec­tions and took the mat­ing stones, it would be the per­fect am­mu­ni­tion.”

  “No kid­ding,” Rhys said with a shake of his head. His long blond hair was twisted at the back of his head, and Mack ac­knowl­edged no one rocked the man­bun like Rhys. “If there was one way Lu­cifer could per­suade you to turn over the Triskele Amulet, that would be it,” the war­rior in­formed Zan­der.

  “Aye, but I doona have the amulet. And, I’ll never give him Izzy,” the Vam­pire King grit­ted through clenched teeth. The room nod­ded in uni­son. Not one per­son would even think of risk­ing Izzy’s life. Not even for their mat­ing stone.

  “So, where does that leave us?” Mack won­dered aloud as she looked around the room. “Do we sit back and do noth­ing?” she asked in­cred­u­lously.

  “We start by in­ter­ro­gat­ing any demons we en­counter. Who has pa­trol duty tonight?” Zan­der asked.

  Mack, Kyran, Bhric and Bres­lin raised their hands. She and Kyran hadn’t pa­trolled with the twins in quite some time. Bres­lin and Rhett trav­eled a lot, so Bhric usu­ally paired with Rhys and Ger­rick when his sis­ter was un­avail­able. It would be good to be out there with them again. Mack was anx­ious to hit the streets and find a lead on the where­abouts of the miss­ing stones.

  “Fo­cus on the ar­eas where skirm typ­i­cally con­gre­gate. Doona kill them un­til you find oot what they know. Mean­while, the rest of us will con­tinue to search for the stones. Jace, did you find any­thing in the Mys­tik Gri­moire aboot miss­ing stones?”

  Jace laid the large tome on the ta­ble. The leather-bound book con­tained all spells of sor­cery and the prophe­cies of the Tehrex Realm. “I found two en­tries that men­tioned mat­ing stones. One ex­plains what a mat­ing stone is, which ev­ery­one here knows, but the other one I found quite in­ter­est­ing,” Jace re­vealed as he thumbed through the pages. “Yes, here it is,” he said then re­cited di­rectly from the book.

  “I am awed by the God­dess’s power at ev­ery turn, and to­day was an­other ex­am­ple of her di­vin­ity. The sig­nif­i­cance of a mat­ing stone was re­vealed when a male vam­pire was be­headed dur­ing bat­tle. Upon dis­cov­er­ing her Fated Mate was killed, a fe­male wrapped sil­ver wire around her throat and ran into the scorch­ing mid­day sun. Her pur­pose was clear. She wanted to die along­side her Fated. But her mat­ing stone pro­tected her im­mor­tal­ity. She lived through count­less at­tempts to take her own life. Sui­cide wasn’t an op­tion. I imag­ine she will live un­til the end of time, pos­si­bly longer.”

  Jace looked up when he fin­ished the pas­sage. The crowded room was com­pletely silent. All Mack heard was her heart pound­ing against her chest. Jace’s words set­tled in her gut like ran­cid meat.

  Fi­nally, she blurted, “That’s it,” and pounded her fist on the ta­ble. “We have to find those fuck­ing stones.”

  3

  Kyran’s boots pounded the side­walk of Pi­o­neer Square. The cold rain beat against his leather jacket, and his breath puffed from his mouth in plumes of white. It was a cold De­cem­ber night, and he felt it all the way to his bones. To make mat­ters worse, he and Mack had been on pa­trol for a cou­ple of hours and had yet to see a sin­gle de­mon.

  He glanced over at his mate. Mack’s short hair was stuffed un­der a black beanie, and a black scarf cov­ered her neck. All that was vis­i­ble were her light brown eyes and red­dened nose and cheeks from the freez­ing tem­per­a­tures.

  “Want to check the Un­der­ground?” he asked as they neared the en­trance to the lower level of Pi­o­neer Square.

  “No. Bhric and Bres­lin said they would pa­trol there. Let’s hit the side streets. If skirm are out tonight, they’ll be look­ing to feed,” Mack replied. With a nod of agree­ment, they turned down a dark al­ley.

  Skirm were mind­less be­ings cre­ated by an archde­mon. The archde­mon typ­i­cally sought hu­man males be­tween the ages of eigh­teen and twenty-two. The evil cre­ations’ sole fo­cus was to fol­low di­rec­tions from their mas­ter, and feed on hu­mans. Places like Pi­o­neer Square were ideal for skirm be­cause of the home­less pop­u­la­tion. No one cared when de­gen­er­ates went miss­ing, and rarely re­ported it. That made the area prime feed­ing ground for skirm.

  Kyran slowed his pace so that he re­mained close to Mack. If they ran into trou­ble, he needed to be near his mate. Her mind was all over the place, think­ing about her mat­ing stone, and not on the dan­ger around them. It made him antsy as fuck. He wasn’t sure she should be out on pa­trol. Lack of fo­cus could re­sult in in­jury, or worse when it came to hunt­ing their en­emy.

  “If those ar­se­holes are smart, they’re in­doors tonight. It’s too fuck­ing cold to be oot here,” he growled as he pulled up his col­lar to keep the back of his neck dry. In fact, the main rea­son he grew a beard was to keep his face warm dur­ing Seat­tle’s win­ter months.

  “Kyran, do you think we’ll find the stones?” Mack asked, quickly chang­ing top­ics. She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him.

  He met her gaze, and Kyran’s heart dropped to his stom­ach. He’d never seen her so fraught. Mack wasn’t afraid of any­thing, yet he saw fear in her eyes over the miss­ing stones.

  “Aye, I do. I prom­ise I won’t stop search­ing un­til they’re back where they be­long,” he de­clared and reached out to stroke her cheek.

  “Thank you,” she replied, and laid her palm over his. Damn, her fin­gers felt like ice cubes, he thought and grabbed both her hands, rub­bing them be­tween his to warm them.

  They rarely wore gloves be­cause it made fight­ing dif­fi­cult, but his mate was freez­ing. “We need to get you in­side be­fore you get frost­bite,” he con­fessed.

  “I’ll be al­right,” she replied through chat­ter­ing teeth. “Let’s keep mov­ing. That’ll cir­cu­late my blood,” Mack added as she bounced on her heels.

  Kyran grabbed Mack around the waist and tugged her against his body.
His mouth crashed against hers and claimed her lips in a sear­ing kiss. If there was one sure way to el­e­vate body tem­per­a­ture, this was it. He kissed her hard and long un­til he felt her body heat with ex­cite­ment.

  When her breaths turned to pants, he pulled away. A smile broke when he gazed into lust-filled orbs that begged for more. “Feel­ing warmer?” he teased play­fully.

  Kyran gen­tly ran his thumb across her kiss-swollen lip then his hand trav­eled lower to ca­ress the flesh of her slen­der neck. His gums ached to take her vein, and he re­mem­bered that he still hadn’t fed.

  “Damn, blood­sucker. If I’d known you were go­ing to kiss me like that, I’d have brought my di­aphragm along,” she teased. He watched her chest heave as she tried to catch her breath.

  “To be con­tin­ued when we get home, Fire­cracker,” he whis­pered then palmed her ass with both hands. “I want to bury my face be­tween your thighs un­til you beg for my bite,” he mur­mured into her ear.

  Her arousal per­me­ated the air, and it took ev­ery ounce of strength not to fuck her against the dirty brick wall. He would save that for later though. What he needed was Mack naked and spread across their bed so he could ex­plore all of her.

  “Can’t wait,” she purred then stood on tip­toe, ten­derly kiss­ing him. “I want to lick and su––”

  Kyran placed a hand over Mack’s mouth, sti­fling her voice. The sen­sa­tion of pins and nee­dles pricked his skin, and Kyran went on in­stant alert. Skirm were nearby. He lifted a fin­ger to his lips, telling her to re­main silent. She nod­ded her un­der­stand­ing, and Kyran pointed in the di­rec­tion of the dan­ger.

  On soft feet, they made their way down the al­ley and turned onto an­other. At the end of the nar­row street, they spot­ted three skirm who’d cor­nered a hu­man cou­ple against a dump­ster.

  The hu­mans were crouched on the ground, and the male’s hands were above his head in sur­ren­der. “Look, I don’t know what you want. Take my wal­let, my cell phone, what­ever. Just don’t hurt us,” he pleaded.