Nice and Naughty (4 page)

He sighed in relief. “Yes, please, Ru. I had forgotten how exhausting it was travelling on my own.”

She stood, stretched, rubbed her neck and shifted into her reindeer form. Santa was on her back in a moment, and they returned home in the bright light of day.

When they arrived back at the workshop, she waited for him to spring the collar on her, but it never came. She shifted into her human form and smiled at him, her neck free of the collar.

“If you still want to have dinner with me, I will join you in an hour or so.” Santa smiled.

Ru was standing in full view of a dozen elves, but they were all staring at the collar in Santa’s hands. She chuckled and inclined her head. “Roast chicken dinner it is.”

He smiled and she left, walking naked across the landing zone before she shifted into her wolf form and ran up the steps to her tower. It felt so good to be whole.

Ru finished assembling the meal just as Santa came through her door. This was his realm; he could enter and exit anywhere. He just couldn’t manipulate things. The rules of magic were funny.

“I brought a bottle of wine.”

She chuckled. “Just like the old days.”

“Yes, when you were four hundred and looked twelve.”

She snickered. “Yes, I never had the heart to correct any of the elves either. As far as they knew, I was an enchanted human.”

He sat and poured the wine.

She served the chicken dinner, and they sat as they had in the old days.

When they finished with the meal, they were sitting back and he cleared his throat. “I have something for you.”

She perked up. “Yes?”

“The dwarves put this together last minute, but I think that it will satisfy a conundrum.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small pouch. He handed it to her.

She opened the drawstrings and dumped the pouch contents into her hand. The ruby from the collar gleamed in her palm.

“The chain fits over your head, and it will shift with you. You can take the ruby off or put it on. It is your choice completely.”

She smiled at the compromise. “Well, the humans do expect a red glowing reindeer at the front of the team, thanks to that song.”

“They do. It also keeps us from showing up on radar and other tracking mechanisms.” He smiled.

She placed it over her head, and it glowed brightly as if happy to be back with her.

It settled between her breasts, and she sighed in contentment. “I was feeling a little naked.”

“So, you like it?”

“In this format? Yes. Thank you.” She trailed her fingers over the stone.

“It looks content only when it is with you.” Santa smiled. “Just like me.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You were content with Kresida.”

“I was in love, but I knew she was mortal. We were happy, but I was never content. I could never relax because each moment with her was going to be one I could never recapture.”

Ru walked to him and sat in his lap. “I am sorry for the worry.”

“Don’t be. There was joy, there was laughter, but it was different. You are my equal in a way that is not possible with someone else.”

Ru blushed. “I am powerful, but I wouldn’t say equal.”

“Your power is different from mine, but it is no less strong. The reindeer have taken on the status of demigods. You have your own immortality beyond this realm. I would say that makes us even.”

Ru wrinkled her nose. “You make it sound so romantic. The humans are fickle. In a matter of decades, we could be forgotten.”

“And at that point, you will be free to live here and spend your time visiting your forest.” He cleared his throat. “Or you would be free to travel with me.”

“Travel?”

“In the old times, I would travel as an old man and assess the villages and villagers that I came across. Those who offered me hospitality, though they had little, were rewarded. I don’t think it is a bad idea.” He wrapped a hand around her waist.

The firm curve of his hand sent a number of reactions through her body. Ru smiled and placed her hand on his chest. His heart was thudding under her touch.

She leaned up to kiss him, and he met her halfway. Their subject matter may not have been romantic, but she was no longer trapped at his side. She could choose him and that was the headiest aphrodisiac ever.

He moved his hands over her body, and she twisted against him. When his erection was thick against her thigh through the leather of his leggings, she pulled her head away.

“You aren’t just humouring me because of the girls’ letters?”

Santa grinned. “No, they have just reminded me of a few things that I was in danger of forgetting.”

He stood and carried her to her bed, placing her on the covers and arranging her limbs. “I love that you wear your horns at all times here. It suits you.”

She chuckled and waited for him to strip his clothing off. “And wearing your normal seeming suits you, but I am used to your old, fat, human seeming. I wouldn’t want to wake up to it, but even that has a certain charm.”

He paused while pulling off his boots. “You know that I only wear that because I let the humans control the glamour.”

His hair was sliding around his pointed ears, the scarred gleam of his chest was visible through the strands, and the muscles of his stomach were bunched as he balanced on one foot.

She reached out with her leg and pushed him over.

He shouted and thudded as he hit the ground.

Ru giggled madly and turned to her side to watch him struggle to pry his boots off from his sitting position.

“Why did you do that?”

She shrugged. “I owed you. When we are even, I will let you know.” She grinned. “Plus, it was funny and I am what I am.”

He yanked off his second boot with a pop, and he got to his feet. “You haven’t been this mischievous in a while.”

When he was naked, she welcomed him into her embrace. “Says the man missing eight reindeer the week before Christmas.”

“Oh, shut up.”

He kissed her giggles quiet, and they rolled together on the snowflake-printed quilt, alternately wrestling and caressing each other until she was astride him and easing him into her.

Santa grinned. “Is this your Christmas wish?”

She laughed. “Christmas I will be sleeping, but it is my Boxing Day desire.”

Ru eased onto him and closed her eyes at the sensation of heat and fullness. She may not feel the cold, but this was a kind of heat she wanted to get used to.

His beautiful blue eyes closed as she started to move on him. The fall of his hair surrounded his head like a halo of silken snowflakes.

His body was bronze and marked with battles of centuries past. Every inch of him was beloved to her. The man who had sought her out and freed her before she had to do something drastic.

She rode him slowly, loving the feel of him sliding inside her, and he seemed to enjoy it so much that he rolled with her, thrust into her again and set his own rhythm.

He grabbed her arms and pinned them above her head, weaving his fingers with hers as he lowered his chest onto hers. The full contact was wonderful, the pressure against her breasts made her skin come alive and the ruby around her neck glowed and pulsed as they rocked, thrust and retreated together.

The light outside shifted from daylight into darkness while they rocked together, no rush on their time. Pleasure rose and fell, swelled and ebbed, and still, they moved as one.

When she couldn’t hold back anymore, she shoved and twisted until she was on top once again. She furiously circled her hips while holding his hands above his head. Her breath came in sharp gasps, and she finally moaned, throwing her head back so that her hair cascaded down her back.

The light under her skin swelled, and as Santa gripped her hips and thrust upward with a growl of his own, she felt the energy inside her complete.

Pleasure pulsed through her limbs, but power glowed around them before coalescing and flying through the closed window.

Ru slowly collapsed on Santa’s chest and smiled. “So, what was that?”

He chuckled and stroked her hair. “I think we just made a new earth spirit.”

She rested against him, calm and content. A new spirit. Yeah, that summed up their union. There was going to be a new spirit this Christmas, and it was going to start with them and expand out to her eight reindeer and their mates.

* * * *

Perfect. Rudolph was perfect. The heat from her body enveloping his cock had taken all of his concentration to work with, and it wasn’t until she was astride him again with those glowing breasts and gleaming body his for the taking that his control cracked.

Her stamina was incredible. He had felt small, rhythmic pulses around him throughout their coupling, but it wasn’t until she had worked for her own orgasm that she really let go.

For so many years, he had thought of her as the child he had first seen in the forest. Their time apart had done nothing to change his opinion, but now that she had proved that the years had, indeed, passed for her as well as for him, he was delighted by the transformation.

When he had first sought a forest spirit to imprison, he could not have imagined this result.

Santa lay back with Ru in his arms and closed his eyes. He hoped she was right about the reindeer being willing to return under the right circumstances. Otherwise, he was screwed.

* * * *

Santa had shifted them so that they were under the covers. He smiled and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Hello, Ru.”

She grinned. “Hello, Santa. We will need to change the archive. The girls will need some privacy.”

He blinked. “Do we have time?”

She shrugged and tapped her fingers on his chest. “I have started the archive on the changes. It is going to be a snowflake pattern. I think it will be quite nice.”

“You are making changes to my workshop without telling me?”

“I am making changes to the team’s quarters. They are my concern, and now, their mates fall under my responsibilities. Even though they are from the nice-and-naughty list.”

He brought his hand down lightly on her hip. “It is the Naughty-or-Nice list, as I have been telling you for centuries.”

She smirked. “Whatever.”

“So, you expect the elves from the list to stay here at the workshop? They were only available because I called for them.”

“No, I expect them to live wherever they lived before this. I just expect them to take their reindeer with them.”

“You want to let them leave again?” He raised his brows in surprise.

“I want to encourage them to leave again. They were born human; they need humans to be around them so that their hearts don’t grow cold and lost in duty.”

“Are you in danger of that?”

She smiled as he stroked her cheek. “No. But I am not human. I wear this body for communication and now for intimacy. I still prefer my animal forms.”

He sighed. “I will have to work at keeping you in this shape. I am guessing you will need enticement.”

She grinned. “It sounds like an excellent idea to me.”

Sadly, Santa had had to spend the next day on logistics, so Ru spent her time expanding the archive with points and chambers on each side of the eight-sided building. The girls could come and go in any form they wished, with complete privacy. Or, they could gather in the central common space and trade stories.

This would always be their base of operations, but it was not their only option, not anymore. That was the purpose of her efforts on their behalf. She wanted to get them excited about the world. It wasn’t as easy as she thought, but she was pretty sure that it had been managed.

Lying in Santa’s arms that night, she felt the moment that Dasher took flight. The others launched moments later from wherever they had been during their sabbatical.

Her team was headed home.

Ru smiled and tucked herself against her ancient elf and held tight. Tomorrow was going to be one helluva party.

Ru got up and dressed, wearing a loose cloak and nothing else. She gathered eight other cloaks from the archive and went to stand in the central landing area before Santa was even awake.

From different points in the sky, light appeared, and the reindeer ran through sky toward her.

They were all there, and each one had a panicked and exhausted elf on her back.

The ladies landed on four hooves, and the moment their partners dismounted, Ru stepped forward. She handed a cloak to each one of them.

The girls grinned and covered up. When Ru had finished her rounds, she was swamped with hugs.

After the hugs came the questions, and Ru answered what she could while their amused partners introduced themselves. Several of the men were long-term placements, and the locals did not know them.

The men caught up, and Ru looked at Dancer. “Yes, things did get resolved here. There has been alteration in the status quo, and I think that the changes will be to your liking.”

Dancer grinned, and they all gathered in a group, walking to the archive, and she heard them exclaiming as they saw the changes that had been made in their absence.

“Everybody now has a separate wing, each designed so that you can have privacy when you want it. The common areas are the same, and there is a snack ready for you.”

The girls laughed, and their bemused men followed. The conversation pit was filled with presents covered with gleaming wrapping.

Cupid smiled. “We brought along our own gifts.”

“Do we want to get dressed first?” Vixen called out.

The rest of the girls laughed, and they all gathered in the huge conversational pit and each unwrapped a segment of the new, circular couch large enough for two. The bemused elves followed, and their reindeer pulled them into the gathering.

Ru closed her eyes and called Santa. She settled in the pit with the other ladies, and when he arrived, she pulled him down next to her.

Once those gathered were used to the idea, conversation began to flow.

The adventures of the reindeer were amazing and far more than Ru could have imagined. She sat holding Santa’s hand, and she opened the presents that the girls brought her. She got chocolate, jewellery, some very nice lingerie that Santa took possession of, but it was having her family back where she could see and touch them that mattered to her.