GIVE THEM STORM

Marquis Silivasi tossed his head back and laughed.

One just couldn’t make this shit up.

He took a long, hard gander at the gun-wielding Santa and his dorky, bumbling sidekick, a skinny elf, and assessed the situation in a millisecond for any real sign of danger: The two most vulnerable occupants in the refinished basement were the human caregivers, Alejándra and Maria, but they were safely concealed toward the back of the room, clustered in the makeshift kiddie-corner with Lucien, Sebastian, and Ryder. Santa and his pal would have to go through the entire assembly of vampires to get to those humans…

Or those kids.

On the other hand, Storm and Nikolai were a bit more exposed.

Still standing in front of the sofa, they were a lot closer to the window. Just the same, they were flanked on either side by Nathaniel and Nachari, and Kagen was right behind them, sitting on the couch. May the gods bless the human fools if they so much as winked at Nikolai or Storm.

The warrior, wizard, and healer would tear them limb from limb.

As for Marquis, he was closest to the bar, just outside the kitchenette, and that placed the Ancient Master Warrior smack-dab between his destiny, Ciopori, and all his brothers’ wives, as well as Vanya and Kristina. The females had yet to exit the tiny, chaotic space, and if Santa and his minion wanted to go after Marquis’s mate—or one of his sisters—then they were welcome to try. In fact, the battle-hardened warrior nearly trembled with anticipation at the thought. Nachari had been known to say, “If its and buts were candy and nuts, what a Merry Christmas it’d be.” Yeah well, if Santa and his sprite wanted to light up the night, heading toward that bar would do the trick.

And that was to say nothing of Keitaro Silivasi.

The patriarch of the Silivasi family—the millennia-old, cutthroat Master Warrior who had become famous fighting lycans in a savage arena—was less than five feet away from the broken window. In other words, Keitaro was the first vampire the robbers would encounter.

Which essentially meant game over.

Resting an elbow against the granite bar, Marquis surveyed each assailant’s eyes: first, the scraggly blond Santa, and then, the dark-haired elf. They were clearly as high as kites. He delved into their minds—their names were Grady and Mitch—and then he took a long, discerning sniff of their life-giving blood, listening, and scenting as it snaked through their veins, sifting through the various chemicals and toxins.

Yep, THC…

So they were high on marijuana.

That was a hell of a lot better than cocaine or crack, something that might make the humans atypically violent or impulsive.

He breathed an audible sigh of relief and sent a telepathic request to his father. Warrior, I don’t think we should act too hastily. As much as I would enjoy dispatching these fools, I don’t sense anything intrinsically evil in their souls—I think they’re just a couple of confused, misguided idiots. Perhaps we need not end them too abruptly.

Keitaro’s top lip twitched before curling into a snarl, but he slowly nodded his head. Live or die; it’s the humans’ call. Depends entirely on what they do next.

As if Kagen Silivasi had assessed the same information and come to a parallel conclusion, the wily—and occasionally sadistic—vampire smiled. “Nachari, perhaps these overwrought humans would calm down with a little…pet therapy. What say you, Master Wizard? Would you like to play with our guests?” He was obviously referring to Nachari’s inner panther, the fact that the wizard could shift into the feline.

“I don’t know,” Nachari drawled, “think they like cats?”

Kagen’s dark brown eyes softened, and the silver lights in the centers of his pupils twinkled as he chuckled softly. “I say give them a chance to get acquainted.”

“Shit,” Marquis harrumphed, imagining the scenario. “I say give them Storm!”

The wild toddler, who had matured much faster than a human counterpart, snapped his head to the side, sniffed the air, and snarled, finally sensing the danger. The entire basement erupted in laughter, with the exception of Grady and Mitch.

The blond, Grady, turned to his partner, the elf, and exchanged a wary, disbelieving glance: like why the heck were these rich idiots laughing at the receiving end of a gun? He thrust the single-action revolver forward and pointed it squarely between Marquis’s eyes. “Shut up, Mister! We make the rules around here, not you!” Apparently, the false sense of power “got good to him” because he clearly felt his oats. “Don’t make me tell you again, any of you!” He waved the gun wildly around the room, which ticked the Ancient Master Warrior off—vampires could move much faster than bullets, but the females were still learning. “Empty your freakin’ wallets and hand over your watches! And you women—remove your jewelry! Now!”

Before Marquis could act in haste, Nathaniel clucked his tongue: tsk-tsk. “Now that was just rude,” the dark, devious vampire hissed, sounding more like a snake than a man. “Tiger-eyes?” He glanced at his mate, Jocelyn, and flashed a lascivious smile. “Perhaps this has the makings of a teaching moment—what do you think?” Nathaniel was obviously referring to the house of Jadon’s self-defense class, a course created to provide new destinies with greater independence in a world filled with treacherous enemies. Nathaniel and a warrior named Mateo took turns co-teaching the class with Jocelyn, depending upon who was available, and Nathaniel was always looking for organic opportunities to hone his mate’s skills.

Marquis kept his steely gaze trained on Grady’s trigger finger, even as he decided to see where Nathaniel was going with this—if Grady’s finger flexed, if a muscle in his hand even twitched, Marquis would intercept the bullet and put the human down like a rabid dog, before anyone even came close to getting injured. And he imagined that all of his brothers—as well as his father—were equally prepared to do the same thing.

Jocelyn placed a well-manicured hand on the bartop, fingertips only, and catapulted over the granite, rotating in a perfect aerial wheel and landing beside Nathaniel, almost noiselessly. “Yes, iubitule”—baby—“I believe that it does.”

“Mm,” Nathaniel purred, splaying his fingers on the small of her back, “then by all means: proceed.”

Jocelyn turned to regard Keitaro—the male’s paternal instincts were pulsing like virulent waves throughout the room, sending out spirals of protective energy. “Father? Are you okay with this?”

Keitaro Silivasi drew back his shoulders and surveyed the basement with a keen, discerning eye. Just as Marquis had done earlier, he scanned the location of every human and vampire; the placement of every piece of furniture; the potential trajectory of an unlikely, stray bullet, in the event one escaped his sons’ interception. Coming to an instant conclusion, he narrowed his gaze on the barrel of the six-shot revolver, his eyes flashed molten red, and a thin beam of focused red light shot forth from his pupils. Heating the tip of the cylinder—while cooling the rest of the gun—he cauterized the tip of the barrel, essentially welding it shut.

And the humans were none the wiser.

Nodding his head, he stepped to the side, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m good.”

Jocelyn chuckled, then smiled. She stepped forward toward Santa and locked her eyes with his. “Grady Wells,” she said aloud, easily retrieving his name from his mind. She repeated the process with the elf. “Mitch…Dunkin.”

The women in the kitchenette watched with great interest.

“Now then, Grady: What did you order us to do?” Jocelyn asked.

Grady’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and his palm began to sweat against the grip of the gun. “How the hell did you know my name?” he snarled, as best as a human could.

Jocelyn slapped him so hard and fast, he reacted to the sound before the pain. He jolted in surprise, his head snapped back, and he staggered where he stood, his dilated pupils growing even wider in surprise. “You…you…witch!” he bellowed. He drew back the hand, holding the revolver, and whipped it forward in an effort to strike her with the gun.

The basement filled with a sudden spike of testosterone as five angry male vampires primed their pumps at once—they didn’t like Grady’s choice of words, or his actions.

Not one little bit.

But Jocelyn was nobody’s damsel in distress.

She pivoted on one stationary foot, rotated out of his reach, and maneuvered to his side. Then she drew back her forearm in a vertical lift and slammed him in the jaw with her fist. Before he could catch his balance, or regroup, she pivoted again; caught his trachea between her thumb and curled fingers; and raised him off the ground, squeezing his throat as he dangled. Her thin, dainty fangs descended from her gums at the sight of his bare, exposed throat, and Nathaniel growled an implicit territorial warning.

Not gonna happen.

At least not today.

In fact… probably never.

While male vampires were conditioned to hunt—and feed—on various human prey, choosing blood types, energy patterns, and gradations of souls based on their imminent needs, they were possessive to their primordial bones, and they preferred their mates to feed from them. If and when males bit their mates, the motivation was likely seduction—not the desire for sustenance.

“Draga mea,” Nathaniel warned. “No.” His voice brooked no argument.

Jocelyn’s fangs receded, and she set Grady down, watching as the terrified human backpedaled until he struck the wall, raised the modified gun, and pulled the trigger: While Mitch, the elf, began to suck his thumb like a toddler—he was either too high, too stupid, or too paralyzed with fear to do anything other than watch…and regress—the idiot, Santa, actually fired the weapon!

Unfortunately for him, the frame cracked and bent; the barrel recoiled, failed, and split down the middle; and his fingers swelled to gnarly proportions, sustaining several nasty bruises and abrasions. He screamed like a teenage girl in a horror film, one who was about to be hacked with an axe. “What the hell are you!” he shouted, staring at his bloody hand. “And what the hell did you do to my gun?”

Marquis couldn’t help but notice—the human no longer looked high.

He had sobered up, real quick.

Nathaniel’s eyes flashed red. His long, jagged fangs shot forth from his mouth. And he glided forward like an angry lion. The human had fired his weapon at Nathaniel’s mate!

Only this time, it was Jocelyn who spun around, held up her palm, and met her mate’s feral glare with a soft entreaty of her own. “Dragul meu,” she parroted, “no.”

Nathaniel halted, even as he trembled with the need to annihilate the human. “We are vampires, one and all,” he purred, answering Grady’s question. Then staring at the human’s injured hand, he added, “And you, my friend, are bleeding.” He licked his lips for effect.

Okay, Marquis thought, so Nathaniel could not pass up the opportunity to make the man wet his pants—which he’d just done—but to Nathaniel’s credit, he didn’t strike.

Jocelyn took three measured steps back, creating some space between herself and Grady, and then she held out her hands, palms up. “Nathaniel…”

Her warrior-mate sidled up behind her, placed both hands on her hips, and breathed into her ear. “Close your eyes, draga mea, and picture the night. See the storm waging outside. While the snow is calm and enchanting, the clouds are constantly moving…churning…feel the warm wet air as it rises, become the cooling condensation…now channel the crystals of ice as they flow back to the ground.”

Marquis knew what his brother was doing.

An ancient vampire—hell, even a fledgling—could harness the elements around him, both intentionally and unintentionally, using nothing more than the kinetic energy from his emotions, but Jocelyn was still fairly new to their race. Nathaniel was helping her harness the energy of the snowstorm.

Her hands began to vibrate, and the tips of her fingers glowed a reddish-gold.

“Good, draga mea,” Nathaniel crooned. “Now turn your hands over…slowly…and focus all the energy into the tips of your fingers. Faster. Stronger. Faster, still.” He watched her hands carefully, and then he placed the tips of his fingers beneath her elbows and channeled a bit more energy for her. When the conflagration was streaming in a steady, throbbing pulse, he whispered, “Now.”

Jocelyn flexed her hands, and ten sizzling bolts of energy, much like lightning, only not quite as strong, shot from the tips of her fingers and struck Grady in the center of his chest.

Nathaniel beamed with pride, even as Grady jerked, convulsed, and collapsed to the floor.

And that’s when Mitch, the wayward elf, completely panicked. Withdrawing his thumb from his mouth, he reached into his lumpy green knapsack and retrieved a sawed-off shotgun. “Go to hell, you nasty blood-sucker!” he shouted, leveling the gun at Jocelyn.

Okay, so the shit just got serious.

Nathaniel lunged forward, as did Marquis, but Keitaro was already there: snatching the shotgun out of Mitch’s hands, bending it into a pretzel, and wrapping it around the human’s wrists like a pair of ordnance-steel handcuffs. He snatched Mitch by the throat and squeezed. “I should end you, human. Right here and right now.” He glanced around the basement, eyeing his beloved family. “But it’s Christmas Eve, and you aren’t worth the energy.” He turned to his youngest living son, Nachari. “Wizard, erase these humans’ memories, replace them with something else, and alter their motor-functioning…just enough…so they are no longer capable of random violence. Then toss them into the night, on the side of a road. We have had enough interruptions for one evening.”

Nachari lowered his head in a respectful nod. “As you wish, Father.”

And that’s when Nathaniel held up one finger. “Wait just one moment, Master Wizard. There is yet one more lesson to teach. He glanced over his shoulder, regarded his wild son, and smirked. “Storm.”

The child drew to immediate attention, and Marquis knew at once what Nathaniel intended to do. Smiling, he turned toward the far end of the basement and crooked his finger as well. “Nikolai.”

The two eager toddlers came forward at their fathers’ commands, waiting for further instructions.

Gesturing toward the human interlopers—one on the floor, still writhing in pain; the other staring at his trussed wrists like a dolt—Nathaniel and Marquis gave the imperious order in unison. “La-i sangele!”

Loosely translated, it meant to seize or claim—to take their blood—a command that would trigger the children’s feral instincts.

What would it hurt? Marquis thought, watching as the tiny nosferatu released their fangs, extended their wings, and flew toward the horrified humans.

While there might be hell to pay with their mothers for using their children as weapons, their fathers wouldn’t let it go too far.

They would simply allow their boys to wet their whistles, practice a little feeding, if only to try out their canines. Besides, Storm could avenge the insult to Jocelyn, and after all, they were Vampyr, not human—they had their own code of loyalty, honor, and punishment.

It was never too soon for the children to learn.

And as for the humans’ mores and customs?

Marquis Silivasi shrugged.

Craciun Fericit la toti, si la toti o noapte buna—

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…

The asshats had chosen to rob the wrong house.