Gift of the Beast: Holiday Starrs Read online

“Can I see him?” Lila tried to see past Falia into her apartment.

  “He’s always happy to see you, miberi. Come in.”

  Shea smiled at the affectionate term in Falia’s native language. Apparently, it meant a purple flower that bloomed on their planet, and Shea thought the name was appropriate.

  Pinto laid spread on the couch, half-asleep, but he perked up when he saw Lila. He meowed and came over, purring before he even got to her. Lila sat down and carefully pulled him onto her lap. Shea had made sure to teach her to be gentle with animals, and it was a lesson that Lila had learned well.

  “I wonder if I should get her a pet,” Shea murmured to Falia, quietly enough that Lila wouldn’t hear over the purrs of the cat, which she had now perched on her head like a hat.

  “I think you would be doing her a kindness. There isn’t really enough garden space here for a dog, but Pinto is perfectly happy. I’m sure he wouldn’t object to another cat friend to play with. Of all the unique things on Earth, cats are the best, I am sure of it.”

  “I’ll consider it.” Shea grinned as she watched Lila cradling Pinto like a baby. “We’re going to give some cookies to Garr next.”

  Falia smiled. “Some human contact will do him good. He shouldn’t be shut up alone all the time.”

  Shea glanced at Falia. “Do you know anything about him?”

  “Just what everyone knows about the Ezak-X, and that I think he works at a security company. He seems a decent young man, but so quiet! Maybe your little one will be able to open him up a little.”

  “Maybe…” Shea said, though she wasn’t quite sure about that.

  She thought that if Lila started down her road of a thousand questions with Garr, the poor man’s head might just explode. She made a mental note to get Lila out of there quickly after handing over the present.

  “Anyway, we should get going,” Shea said. “We’ve got to get on the road soon, or it’ll be midnight before we get to New York.”

  “Have a good holiday!” Falia waved at them. “I’ll see you both once you’re back.”

  Shea had to practically drag Lila away from Pinto. She nearly started pouting, but brightened when Shea reminded her that they were going to give Garr his gingerbread men and card next.

  Once they got to his door, Shea hesitated, her hand over the doorbell. She hoped Garr wouldn’t be too annoyed by the interruption. Shea had no idea what he spent his days doing.

  Before she could lose her nerve, she gathered her courage and pressed the bell.

  Chapter 4

  Garr

  Garr was in a foul mood. He’d been away from work for three days, and he was barely even starting his compulsory vacation. Compulsory vacation! Who had even heard of such a thing? He had been planning to work all the way through the human holiday known as Christmas, but his employer had expressed ‘concerns’ about ‘potential burnout.’

  The idiots didn’t seem to realize that he was a thousand more times likely to fall apart if he was left with nothing to do than if he did the one thing he was actually good at – work. He couldn’t believe that they had gone so far as to bar him from the premises when he tried to defy their ridiculous order by coming in to work anyway.

  Garr growled in frustration. He realized that he was about to break his chair when it started making an ominous creaking noise. He quickly lifted his hand off its back. He’d already broken his couch and bedframe. There was no reason to break anything else. He needed something else to occupy his time or he’d lose his mind.

  Pacing back and forth in his apartment, he tried to think of something to do. He was so busy feeling sorry for himself that he almost didn’t notice when the doorbell rang.

  That was odd. No one ever rang his bell. If someone from work needed to tell him something, they sent him a message on his tablet.

  Curious, Garr opened the door, and was surprised to find Shea and Lila standing outside.

  “Hi, Garr!” Shea sounded kind of breathless as she smiled at him, holding out a tin with a piece of folded paper on top of it. “Lila and I made you these – gingerbread men, and Lila made the card. I’m not sure if you celebrate Christmas, but we thought we’d give you these anyway. Christmas is a holiday all about giving, after all.”

  Her sweet scent wafted over him, and Garr stiffened. He struggled to keep his body under control, but despite his attempts, he could feel his cock rising. He could only hope that his pants were loose enough that she didn’t notice. He swallowed hard as he looked at the tin and the paper. He had to get out of here quickly, before even his pants couldn’t hide his body’s reaction to her.

  Shea held out the tin to him. The only appropriate thing seemed to be to take it, which Garr did. He was careful not to let his skin brush hers. One touch had been enough to awaken these feelings inside him, what would another one do?

  He looked down at the card. It had a large gray blob on it.

  “That’s you!” Lila pointed eagerly at the card.

  Garr stared at the picture. He didn’t see the likeness at all, but he nodded politely. He opened the tin and found some strange, colorful cookies inside. They were odd, but he had liked the last cookies Shea had made for him. He closed the tin again and nodded. He smiled at the pair of them – careful not to show his sharp fangs, since he knew most people found it intimidating. Then, he closed the door, trying not to make the movement look too rushed.

  Leaning back on the closed door, Garr let out a sigh of relief. He glanced down at his traitor of a cock. The thing was standing to attention, making a tent in his pants. Had Shea noticed? His cheeks heated up in embarrassment. He hoped not. How could he ever face her if she had?

  Garr could hear Lila chattering to her mother as the two of them went downstairs. From what he could hear before their voices faded into the distance, Lila was excited because he’d smiled at her, something he’d never done before.

  Garr hadn’t been aware that the child noticed such things. He knew he smiled little, because life had little to smile about. His work was satisfying, but he never really got the urge to smile there. Some of his colleagues talked and joked with each other during lunch, but Garr preferred to take his lunch alone.

  He sat down at his table and opened the tin. He tried one of the cookies, which tasted good despite its strange look. As he munched on a second, he opened the card. It had a ‘Merry Christmas’ message on the inside, which must have been written by Shea. Garr was getting better at reading English, and he recognized the familiar letters.

  Garr knew about Christmas, of course. It was all that anyone at work had talked about recently. He was feeling resentful of the whole holiday at the moment, since it meant he couldn’t be at work. This wasn’t his first Christmas on Earth, but it was the first one he noticed so much, because it affected his work. Before, he had only seen the pretty lights and the people singing outside, and it hadn’t been all that bad.

  Garr looked at the front of the card again. The gray blob didn’t look like him, but he reminded himself that it had been drawn by a small human child whose skills were still developing.

  Besides, it’s not like he could have done any better. Garr had never drawn anything in his life. He knew what art was, but he had no idea how to create it.

  He chewed on another cookie, surprised by how pleasantly warm he felt inside when looking at the card. A child thought highly enough of him to try to draw a picture in his likeness. It was an odd feeling. He wished he had said ‘thank you’ to Lila and Shea, but it was too late now.

  Garr knew that famous people were often painted, but he liked the idea of drawing people he knew. Maybe he could draw a picture of Lila in turn someday, and give it to her to make her feel special.

  Of course, for that he’d need to get pencils and paper. He could possibly look up drawing tutorials online. The thought of doing something other than work was strangely appealing.

  Garr knew that most people did things other than work – or work out obsessively and strategize how to kill
a variety of imaginary hostile intruders, as he liked to do in their free time. Maybe he would be happier if he picked up another hobby too. Hobbies could be useful too, right?

  The sound of Shea’s car brought him out of his thoughts. Garr had learned to know the sound of her car’s engine, so he didn’t need to look out of his window to check that it was her. He didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow over the months, he had become attuned to Shea – even from a distance.

  A variety of little sounds told him when she arrived home every night and left every morning. He could pick up the sound of her voice from a crowd, and from much further away than he would be able to identify anyone else’s voice, even colleagues he worked closely with.

  Garr had given up trying to figure out how this had happened. He hadn’t asked for it, but it had come about anyway.

  He wasn’t overly concerned though. The strange knowledge of Shea’s minute habits wasn’t hurting him. He was more worried about what her scent did to him. He would like to be able to have an interaction with Shea that didn’t involve him running for cover when his body betrayed him.

  Shea’s engine rumbled oddly. The sound was wrong. It wasn’t turning over. It rumbled and rumbled, struggling valiantly before giving up. Garr went over to the window and peered covertly through the curtains.

  He could see Shea peering into the hood of the car.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered. “What am I supposed to do about this?” She glanced at Lila, who was sitting inside the car. Garr was fairly certain she couldn’t hear her mother’s words, but thanks to his strong senses, Garr could.

  Shea picked out her phone from her pocket. “Who do I call? I have no idea how to fix cars. Mom and Dad will be brokenhearted if we can’t spend the holidays with them. And Lila was so looking forward to seeing her dad…”

  Shea continued to talk to herself as she stared hopelessly at her phone. Garr’s chest panged at the sight of her in such distress. She wanted to see her family for the holidays. Why shouldn’t she have that? There was no reason for a practicality like this to stop her.

  Hadn’t Shea said Christmas was all about giving? Well, he would give her a gift.

  Garr was moving before he even realized he’d made his decision. It went against everything he was used to in his closed off, private life, but he wouldn’t let Shea miss the holidays with her family if he had anything to say about it. He didn’t know how to fix cars, but he knew how to drive, and he had a car of his own.

  First, Garr went into his room and put on the tightest pair of underpants he could find. Then he put on his loosest pants and longest shirt. The shirt hung down to the middle of his thighs. Hopefully, the triple preparation would hide the inevitable erection from Shea.

  Then, he hurried downstairs. Shea looked like she was on the verge of tears, once more looking inside the hood of her car. Garr hoped that she didn’t cry. He didn’t know what to do with crying humans.

  “Shea!” He hurried toward her.

  She stared at him in amazement. Even Garr himself was a bit surprised. She’d never heard him talk before, had she?

  “Garr?” Shea asked. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”

  “I will drive you. In my car.” He pointed at his SUV on the parking lot.

  Shea blinked. Garr couldn’t blame her. It was the longest sentence he’d ever said to her. The only sentence.

  Then, she sighed in defeat. “That’s really sweet of you, Garr, but I’m driving all the way to New York.”

  Garr nodded.

  Shea cocked her brow at him. “You still want to drive us?”

  Garr nodded again.

  “But it’s almost a day’s journey!” Her eyes rounded in disbelief.

  Garr didn’t understand why it was so difficult to believe, so he just shrugged. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do with his time. In fact, he needed something to do.

  Shea still hesitated, but Garr could see her determination crumbling. Garr remembered how difficult it had been for Shea to let people help her when she had been moving in, so he decided to help her with the decision. He walked up to his car and opened the back door for her.

  “We go,” he said. “For Christ-mas.”

  The tears that had been forming in her eyes now looked ready to burst. Garr wasn’t sure if he’d done something wrong until Shea exclaimed, “Oh, Garr, that would be so wonderful! Thank you so much! I’d best get Lila out of the car.”

  She went to open the door by Lila.

  “Mommy, what’s going on?” The little girl’s confused voice emerged from the car.

  “Honey, we’re going with Garr instead. He’s going to drive us to New York.”

  Garr went to stand at her car’s trunk in the ready position. He looked intently at the trunk, hoping Shea would understand his intentions. She did, and after she had unbuckled her daughter, she came and opened the trunk for him.

  “Are you sure you can carry all that?” Shea asked. “It took me two trips…”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Garr lifted both suitcases easily and started carrying them to his car. His cock was straining against his underwear, but he ignored it, satisfied that he had taken the necessary measures to hide it from Shea.

  “Why are we going with the silent man?” Lila asked as her mother walked her to Garr’s car.

  “Because our car is broken down, honey. Garr has been kind enough to offer to drive us there.” She turned to Garr. “You will, of course, be welcome to stay with us for the entire holiday.”

  Garr was about to shake his head, but he realized that Shea would need a drive home. Still, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be with humans he didn’t know for a prolonged period of time. He was sure that Shea’s parents were nice, but they would probably want talk to him and expect answers.

  Since he wasn’t decided yet, he didn’t react.

  Lila scrambled into the back seat of his car, but Shea hesitated again. “Are you really sure about this, Garr?”

  Garr nodded.

  “Come on, Mom! Let’s go!”

  “I–Alright. Thank you again, Garr. You don’t know what this means to me.”

  Garr expected Shea to get into the back with her daughter, but instead, she got into the front seat next to him. She dug in her bag and handed some little metal squares to Lila.

  “Alright, Lila, you’ve got your puzzles. If you finish them before we get to New York, I’ll take you shopping to choose an extra Christmas present for yourself, as promised. If you finish the first one before the first stop, I’ll buy you some eggnog.”

  Garr stared at Shea in amazement. It was an ingenious way to keep the child occupied through the long trip. Lila started working on the puzzles at once. The moving light from the screens made a glow on the car ceiling, but Garr didn’t mind. Shea told him the address to her parents’ house, and he inserted it to the car’s navigator.

  This wasn’t what he had imagined himself doing over the holidays, but he was glad he could be of use to Shea and Lila.

  As they started driving though, he started to realize that perhaps this hadn’t been a good idea after all. The longer Garr was in an enclosed area with Shea, the more uncomfortable his pants were becoming. Garr’s cock was aching, and they were only just starting their trip. Shea’s scent was concentrated in here, and it was doing things to his brain.

  He imagined pulling over and kissing her. He’d never kissed anyone before, but he’d seen it done, and he wondered what it felt like. He’d never wondered about it before, but for some reason, he wanted to do it with Shea. He wanted to hold her close and kiss her deeply.

  What was wrong with him? He tried to shake his head to clear it. He knew he should have seen a doctor about the strange effects Shea’s scent had on him, but he had been worried about being sent to the psych ward and losing his job. But maybe the psych ward was here he belonged. Now, he was fighting mounting insanity, with no end in sight.

  Garr gritted his teeth. He would just have to deal with it.<
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  He knew that he could probably help the situation by opening the windows to wash some of the scent out, but it was winter. It was freezing outside and based on the thick coats he saw around town, humans were more sensitive to cold than the Ezak-X. He didn’t want Lila and Shea getting cold. He didn’t want to cause them discomfort just to ease his own.

  Lila soon became bored with her puzzle. Shea wasn’t bothered by this, and started Lila on a game to count as many red cars as she could on the road. Shea answered a long stream of questions from the child, spanning everything from why cars were red to the rules of the road in different states.

  It was quite amazing. Garr had never realized a child would talk so much. He was impressed, and he listened to Shea’s answers with just as much curiosity as Lila did.

  “Garr!” Lila directed her attention to him. “Why do people need to stop at lights?”

  Apparently, her mother’s answer hadn’t been satisfactory.

  “It’s okay,” Shea told him quietly. “You don’t need to answer. I’ll handle it.”

  Garr looked at her in amazement. She clearly knew he didn’t like to talk, and she was giving him an out. He had never expected Shea to understand him, and it made his chest feel strangely warm.

  He could also see that despite her patience, Shea was starting to be exasperated by Lila’s constant questions though, and he wanted to help. Surely, it was safe to speak to a human child. There was no way a human child could hurt him for making a noise.

  “Safety,” he replied Lila’s question, even if a bit belatedly.

  “Why?” Lila inquired.

  “People get hurt if it’s not safe, Lila,” Shea said. “We want everyone to be well and not hurt. That’s why you can’t go too fast and have to stop every once in a while.”

  Lila nodded at her mother’s answer. Then, she started chattering about Christmas music. Shea nodded and murmured her agreement in the pauses, though she seemed to be growing tired and didn’t seem to be paying much attention.

  Perhaps Lila noticed this, because she turned her attention back to him. “Garr! Can we play Christmas music?”