The Dragon's Christmas Wish Read online

  Then he hurled him twenty feet through the air, into a row of black-fur-covered bushes.

  “I am not your heart-mate, whatever that is, but thank you for getting rid of that jerk,” Liza said. She felt her body starting to do that pulsing, tingling thing again, and backed away several steps. It didn’t help. She stared up at him as he towered over her, his silky hair like an ebony waterfall. She yearned to run her fingers through it…tangle her fingers in his hair…

  “We will discuss your foolish denial later,” Jaspar said, his handsome mouth quirking into an amused grin. “Right now, I need you to sign this.”

  He held out a sheet of plastic, and she read what was printed on it. It was an offer that would allow him and his clan to book rooms at her family’s bed and breakfast for the next two weeks. Since she legally owned the B&B, she was the one who would have to sign it.

  She looked at the figure he was offering to pay for his entire family to stay there, and gulped aloud. He’d increased the prior offer ten-fold.

  Not only that, but he had added in the offer to let her and her family stay at the bed and breakfast, for free, for the next five years.

  The fee that he was offering would pay for off-world transport for at least one of them. And if the rest of them could stay at the bed and breakfast…well, it didn’t really solve anything long term, because when the rest of the colony migrated off-world and the tourists stopped coming, they’d have no way to make money. But at least it would buy them some time.

  “You still haven’t told me why you need to be here early,” she said suspiciously.

  La La began tugging on his leggings. “Sriii, sriii!”

  “La La, stop that! She just wants candy. Don’t give it to her – she’s not hungry at all and she needs to stop pestering people. Damn it,” she added, as Jaspar reached into a leather sack hanging from his belt, pulled out a piece of chocolate, and tossed it to La La. La La paused to thumb her nose at Liza and then ran off behind a hovercraft with her prize.

  “I will knock you out with a snowball!” Liza yelled. She heard a shrill, high-pitched sound which, she suspected, was the Srilaa version of laughter.

  “The Harbingers are also here,” Jaspar said. “They have booked rooms at Santa’s Chalet. They have filed a legal challenge to our purchase of this planet, and have hinted that they might declare war if they do not prevail. Therefore, the Galactic Federation has decreed that we will meet on this planet and hold a meeting with an Arbitrator, as per the Universal Concord.”

  The Universal Concord spelled out very specifically the steps that two warring parties must take before they declared all-out war on each other. The Concord had been agreed on by all members of the Galactic Federation after centuries of warfare had nuked entire planets and sometimes solar systems.

  First, the warring parties had to attempt to reach a peaceful agreement in a meeting that was mediated by a neutral party.

  If they failed to reach an agreement and war broke out, it had to take place in a location that would not affect any other parties who had not been involved from the beginning. There were lengthy lists of rules and exceptions and exclusions, which Liza had glazed right over in civics class because she had never thought it would affect her; who would ever go to war over Far North?

  But the bottom line was, nobody defied the Galactic Federation, because if they did, the Galactic Federation’s fleet would vaporize them.

  “When is this meeting?”

  “The day before your Terran Christmas. But we must be here early. The Harbingers are likely to attempt to sabotage the meeting somehow; it’s the only reason that they would be here so early. And also, of course, I need time to seduce you.”

  Liza made a choking sound. “Well, at least you don’t beat around the bush,” she spluttered.

  “Not around it, no,” Jaspar said, completely straight faced. She stared at him. Was he serious? Was he kidding? She couldn’t tell at all.

  She took several more steps back, cleared her throat, and tried to clear her head.

  “But you say that the Harbingers can’t lie, so how could they sabotage the meeting?”

  “Female Drakken can lie, and they have brought a sizeable female contingent. Also, just because they are genetically incapable of speaking an untruth does not mean they are honest. They have very treacherous natures. So. Do we have an agreement?” Jaspar prodded.

  Liza considered it. A thought occurred to her. The Drakken were highly technologically advanced – she was pretty sure that they always traveled with a mechanic. There were a lot of families who’d be stopping by their bed and breakfast hoping for a Santa ride, and she really hated to have to disappoint them.

  She looked up at him. “I will agree to this if you will agree to repair our Santabot by noon,” she said.

  “And I will agree to that additional condition if you will agree to three…” Jaspar appeared to think for a moment. “I believe that you humans would refer to them as dates, but for our kind, they are actually a part of the wooing.”

  “That is ridiculous,” she said. “You have absolutely no chance of winning me over.”

  “Then what do you have to be afraid of, little human?” He grinned fiercely.

  “Absolutely nothing,” she said.

  I’ve got plenty to be afraid of. I’m afraid that if I’m alone with you, I will take my clothes off and lick you from head to toe, and beg you to do the same to me, she thought to herself.

  Still, she couldn’t see any way around it. Her family desperately needed the money – and there were a lot of visitors who would be disappointed if they showed up at her bed and breakfast and found no Santabot. “Fine,” she said with annoyance. “Change the document and I will sign it.”

  He spoke to the piece of plastic, reciting their new agreement, and the new words appeared on the document.

  Then he held the plastic out to her. “State your name and your agreement to these final terms, and press your finger on this square while you are doing so. Although I prefer the signing-in-blood method, I will accede to your human ways.”

  She did what he said.

  He pressed his finger on the square next to it and recited his name and his agreement to the final terms.

  “Most excellent,” he said with satisfaction. “I will begin planning our dates, as you would call them.”

  She declined to dignify that with an answer. Instead, she gathered up La La, climbed into her hovercraft and flew back to the bed and breakfast. La La smirked at her through chocolate-covered lips the whole way back.

  She went inside to find Marjan in the kitchen, cooking.

  “I agreed to let all of those scaly bastards stay here for the next two weeks,” Liza grumbled. “And I said that I’d go on three dates with the boss jerk, because he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So I guess I just made a deal with the devil.”

  “For the last time,” Marjan said impatiently, “I don’t understand your human ways. Is the Dragon Regis Satan, or not?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder,” Liza said, and went to search for some aspirin to deal with her newly throbbing headache.

  Chapter Four

  “How will you woo the human female?” Loren asked Jaspar a little while later as they all gathered in the largest room in the bed and breakfast. It was what the humans called a “living room”, perhaps because there were so many plants living in it.

  “There will be no wooing,” his mother said firmly, giving him one of her most imperious looks. Unfortunately for her, that had not worked on Jaspar since his wing membranes first stiffened.

  “What is your objection to the human?” Jaspar snapped.

  She clutched at her chest dramatically. “My first clutchling to pair-bond? You will not do so with a human. There are many eligible Drakken females on our planet who would be honored to bear your dragonlings.”

  Jaspar shook his head. “But none of them are my heart-mate. Not all Drakken are fortunate enough to hear their heart’s call. I woul
d be foolish to ignore it.”

  His mother shook her head impatiently, reclining in the “arm chair”, which did not have arms as far as Jaspar could tell. “Perhaps your heart sings wrongly to you.”

  Jaspar didn’t think so. He’d only been near the small, feisty human a few times, but every time, he could feel the song deep inside, and his body pulsed with desire.

  He knew that she did not understand about the ways of the Drakken, but he would be patient. He would woo her, for as long as it took, so they could truly know each other’s hearts.

  “Ignore our matriarch,” Jaspar said to Loren. “As for wooing her, I have been researching their customs to ensure that I do not unintentionally offend or repulse her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, apparently our traditional presentation of a whole roast glaar-beast on the first night of knowing would not be appreciated by most human females.”

  His brother Korl looked baffled. “But that is how we demonstrate our ability to be good providers.”

  Jaspar nodded in agreement at the foolishness of the humans. “I know, I know, but for the sake of my heart-mate, I will follow the more human customs and take her to an establishment where someone else prepares burned meats and other delicacies for her.”

  “A tavern?” Korl brightened. “Where you will slay all males who dare look in her direction?”

  “Something like that. A restaurant. Where we will eat meats and vegetables and desserts and not kill anybody. Apparently the slaying causes distress to the humans.”

  Korl looked at him askance. “I do not understand the humans’ ways. And this date sounds like it will, to use a human phrase, siphon.”

  “Siphon?”

  Korl tapped on his wrist translator bracelet and spoke to it, then looked up. “Siphon. Yes. Draw into the mouth via the use of the cheek muscles.”

  “Oh, the first date with the human female will suck, is what you are trying to say,” Jaspar corrected him.

  “Excuse you?” Liza’s voice rang across the room

  Jaspar started and turned to look at her. She was standing in the doorway, wearing her red coat, red velvet leggings, black boots trimmed with white fur, and a pair of gloves.

  “Oh, ah…hello,” he said to her. He glanced at his mother, who was smirking with triumph. “You saw her come in and you didn’t warn me,” he said accusingly.

  “Yes.” She nodded, and then fluttered her beautiful dark eyes, fringed with thick, dark lashes, and flashed him a sweet, helpless smile.

  Jaspar snorted in contempt. He’d seen her flash that same smile on the field of battle…right before consuming the heart of her foe.

  Liza raised an eyebrow. “So we no longer have to date, I take it?”

  “No, no, my heart-mate, you misunderstand. I am not the one who said that our date will—” he glared at his brothers, who snickered at him most disrespectfully, “—suck!”

  “Sounded like you were,” Liza said coolly. “My sense of hearing is pretty good.”

  Marjan came up behind her and fixed him with a ferocious scowl.

  “I’m telling you, all of my senses are on full alert. I come from a warrior race; I can tell when danger is afoot,” she said to Liza. “They are not to be trusted.”

  “It is all merely a hilarious misunderstanding.” Jaspar smiled to show how funny this all was. Liza returned a look of skepticism. “I was attempting to correct my brother’s poor English. He was the one who suggested that our first date would be sub-optimal. He was wrong, of course.”

  Korl shrugged. “No roast glaar-beast and no slaying of the rivals? I did not lie. Your date will both siphon and suck.”

  “You lost me several miles back,” Liza said. “Which is fine with me. I only came here to let you know that since you’ve got this place booked, I’m helping my grandparents move some of their stuff into our extra guest cottage next door. I’ll be sleeping there as well.”

  Jaspar felt a stab of dismay. The human female belonged under the same roof as him.

  He shook his head. “That is unacceptable,” he said to her. “We agreed that you would be staying here to provide for us for the next two weeks. It’s in the contract. Read it. And your grandparents must stay somewhere else.” He didn’t want her family getting underfoot and interfering with his seduction. His own clan was bad enough.

  “The agreement only covered you staying in this building,” she said. “There’s a guest cottage right there in the back. That’s where we will all be staying. And we need to keep our business running up until Christmas day. Nothing in the contract prohibits that.”

  Jaspar spluttered for a moment, but the female had temporarily outwitted him. She was wily, this one. She made a worthy opponent.

  “You, however, must sleep in this building,” he said to her. When she started to protest, he added, “It is in the contract. Read it.” And he tried not to smirk too broadly.

  She glared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Fine. I will sleep in my bedroom at night. Right now I need to help my grandparents, and also time’s a-wasting. Get your mechanic moving. That Santabot isn’t going to fix itself.”

  She flounced off.

  Jaspar turned to Loren, chief mechanic for the Balthazar clan, who nodded. “I shall attend to it immediately,” he said.

  “Let me help you,” Jaspar’s mother said. “I’m bored.”

  Jaspar glanced at her askance as she followed Loren out. His mother had a suspiciously happy gleam in her eye, and although he loved his dear matriarch, she whose scaly bottom had occasionally warmed his egg as it matured, he did not trust her any further than he could throw a meteor.

  He glanced at Sterran.

  “Opinion. Would our mother attempt to sabotage a mechanical being whose only purpose is to bring happiness to small children, if it suited her own selfish ends?”

  “Question,” his brother retorted. “Is it necessary for you to query me on this matter, having known the matriarch your entire life?”

  Sterran was right. Also, Loren, her youngest clutchling, was a little bit afraid of his matriarch and was overly eager to please her.

  “Go watch her,” he ordered Sterran. “Do not let her do too much damage.”

  She’d fry that Santabot’s circuits in a hot nanosecond if it meant getting her way.

  * * * * *

  It took a little longer than Jaspar had hoped, because some of the equipment necessary for repair was on their spaceship, which was in orbit around Far North. He had to send his hovercraft for the components they needed. However, by the end of the day, the Santabot seemed to be working, and Sterran and Loren were flying overhead doing some final testing.

  Jaspar stood on the front porch, watching. He knew this was important to his mate, the future mother of his clutchlings, and therefore it was important to him.

  As far as he could tell, the Santabot had been repaired properly and was functioning in an optimal fashion.

  Liza walked up to him, wearing her red velvet outfit and black boots. She looked disgruntled. Her grandfather and grandmother were with her, looking much more cheerful, and the little female Srilaa was following along behind her.

  “Pawpaw and Mawmaw insisted on being formally introduced to you,” she said with a scowl. “Jaspar, these are my grandparents. Grandparents, this is Jaspar, the jerk who’s buying our colony.”

  Her grandmother’s soft, round face wrinkled in a frown. “That’s hardly in the Christmas spirit, dear. He’s a guest.”

  “I am trying very hard to stay in the Christmas spirit, but the best I’m coming up with is not punching anybody,” Liza said. “Yet. The day isn’t over.” She scowled at Jaspar. “And I still don’t believe you had nothing to do with the fungus.”

  “Now, now, Liza. We’re getting ready to go look for a new Christmas tree, and we would like to invite you,” her grandmother said cheerfully to Jaspar. “You can even pick out the tree and chop it down.”

  “But it appears as if you alr
eady have a Christmas tree in your lobby,” he said, looking puzzled.

  “You can never have too many Christmas trees,” her grandfather informed him. “We like to share the traditions of Christmas with all our guests.”

  “He’s also not a guest,” Liza said. “He’s a traitor and a criminal.”

  “Dear, don’t make me call you the G-word,” her grandmother said, smacking her lightly on the arm.

  “G-word?” Jaspar echoed.

  “Grinch,” Liza whispered to him, earning a shocked “Liza! Please!” from her grandmother.

  “It’s a person who does not have the Christmas spirit, basically, and chooses to ruin the season for everyone else as well,” Liza said. “It’s a very bad word on this planetoid.”

  “Well, invite him, dear. Be a Hawthorne,” Mawmaw said.

  Liza gave her grandmother a resigned look, and then flashed him a pained smile. “Do please come with us,” she said politely but through gritted teeth. “Unless you’re busy. You look busy.”

  Jaspar glanced back at Korl and his other clan mates, who were standing just inside the hallway. “Please remain here and guard our quarters,” he said.

  They went out into the parking lot and climbed into the family hovercraft. “We’re taking you to an annex down the road a ways, where we have our best trees,” her grandfather informed him.

  They landed a few miles down the road. This lot was manned by mechanical elves, who wandered around holding axes for customers who had selected their perfect tree. Unfortunately, there were only half a dozen families there.

  There were rows and rows of fragrant, conical green trees. Most of them, Jaspar saw, had the black fur fungus on their branch-tips.

  “Nobody is allowed to take the trees off Far North anymore, because of the fungus, but some people are buying them and decorating them here just for the experience,” Liza said somberly. “There are a few small areas in this lot where the fungus hasn’t spread.”

  As they walked, Jaspar noticed that Liza’s grandparents were holding hands and smiling at each other.