Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Nolan narrowed his eyes at Sky, sending him a warning look. His very smart and patient boyfriend also knew when he was being placated. “Can you send it back?”
Sky’s warm expression fell away, and he stared down at the tree again. That didn’t seem like a good idea. The magic emanating from the tree didn’t have the same tingle as Redstone’s or Maddox’s magic. This wasn’t from an earth witch. And it went without saying that it couldn’t possibly have been sent by Moon. The former blood witch turned vampire with the occasional toe dipped into necromancy had a grumpy vampire boyfriend who didn’t want him casting spells at all.
If anything, the magic felt vaguely familiar, which meant the tree could have come from only one place—the Underworld.
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure this is from Zalramon.”
“Sky! It’s creepy!”
“Nolan! The king of the underworld sent me a gift. I don’t want to piss him off by rejecting it.”
Nolan’s pale face twisted up as if he were in pain. “But it can stay outside, right?”
“I don’t think so. It seems like it really wants to come inside.” Sky made the mistake of looking over his shoulder at his boyfriend. The Yule tree darted forward, brushing past Sky to squeeze into the house. Nolan screeched, and Sky jumped aside in surprise.
“Fast little bugger,” he mumbled, watching it thump and scuttle through the house. It moved from room to room on the first floor as if it were searching for something. The thing was stunningly nimble, lurching here and there without knocking into anything or breaking a single knickknack.
“What’s it doing?” Nolan whispered. He’d edged closer to Sky to watch the tree from a distance.
“I think it’s searching for a place to settle.”
“And then what?”
Sky shrugged. “Nothing.”
“What? That’s it? The thing just lives in the house now?” Panic was creeping into his voice again.
“No, think of it as a live Christmas tree. We’ll put out a pan of water for it, decorate it with ornaments and tiny white lights, and on January first, it’ll scuttle off to where it lives.” Sky paused and cocked his head to the side. “However, I wouldn’t mind if it decided to live in my backyard.”
“Sky!” Nolan gasped.
“What? It would be damned convenient. It would scamper into the house on December first and scamper out to the yard on January first. Think of all the time and money we’d save on cutting down trees or putting up a fake one.”
“You’re insane.”
Sky laughed and gave his boyfriend a shove toward the kitchen. “Go fill the big blue roasting pan with distilled water from the fridge. I’m going to the basement to find a box of Christmas decorations.”
“I’m not going near it without you in the room!” Nolan shouted as he walked to the kitchen.
Sky snickered. “It’s a tree. They don’t have teeth.”
“Sky…don’t!”
Naturally, the necromancer completely ignored Nolan’s warning tone. “Come on! You know it’s all bark, no bite!”
“There’s a special place in Hell for people like you,” Nolan muttered.
“Yes, yes, and we’ll all be sipping mai tais and having a wonderful time, I’m sure,” Sky replied.
While Nolan was preparing the water for the Yule tree, Sky dug out a box of lights and another box of ornaments. It was too late in the evening to decorate the entire house—that job took at least six hours to do properly—but they could at least get the tree decorated. Maybe if it were twinkling with white fairy lights and shining with pretty red and gold ornaments, Nolan wouldn’t be so scared of it.
When he returned, Sky coaxed Nolan into helping him move some of the furniture so they could set up a nice open area for the Yule tree by the front window. As soon as the spot was open, the tree scrambled over and put several of its roots into the pan of water. The tree shuddered once, as if shaking out its weary limbs, and sank a few inches, settling in.
Since it wasn’t a typical pine tree, it wasn’t easy to cover in lights or hang ornaments from its limbs, but after nearly an hour of steady work, Sky got it decorated and glowing nicely. Nolan refused to touch the tree, but he was willing to at least hold the lights and hand Sky decorations.
Exhaustion sank into their bones as they finally finished getting the tree decorated and settled in its corner of the living room. The BL show they’d been attempting to watch was forgotten, and the only thing that sounded good was bed.
“I’m heading up. You coming?” Nolan said as he retreated from the tree, refusing to turn his back on it.
“Yes!” Sky bounced to Nolan and wrapped his arms around his waist. “We can pick up where we left off.”
“If you think you’re getting lucky with that thing in the house, you’ve lost your damn mind.”