Chapter 29
“Merry Christmas Eve!” I hear Sienna’s voice and sprint downstairs to find her holding a bunch of giant bags.
“What’s all this?” I ask, taking a few of them from her arms.
“Just some stuff to get us into the holiday spirit since we’re getting a late start.”
Kole comes waltzing over and grabs the other bags, leading us into the living room. Once we drop off the bags, Sienna turns to Kole and tells him to help her with something. The two of them go off, and I’m half tempted to look in the bags, but Sienna made me promise to wait for her.
“Go that way! No, the other way!” I hear Sienna barking orders and can’t help but laugh when Kole starts yelling back at her that she’s making no sense.
“Holy shit, Sienna!” I jump up from the couch as they round the corner, carrying a giant tree.
“What’s Christmas without a Christmas tree?” she shouts, holding up the trunk while Kole is left, having his face assaulted by pine needles.
“How about here?” Kole grunts, guiding her over to the corner of the room.
“Yeah, this works!” Sienna and Kole wrestle the enormous tree, positioning it as close to the wall as possible.
Thane walks into the living room, holding a glass of whiskey. “Seriously?” he deadpans.
“Oh, Alpha. Don’t be such a scrooge.”
“Yeah. Don’t be a scrooge,” I taunt, biting back a smile.
Thane groans irritably and stalks back out of the room.
“Such a grouch,” Sienna mutters, looking through one of the bags.
“What do you got in there?” I ask, standing over her.
“Decorations!” She begins pulling out strings of lights and sets of ornaments, creating a pile next to her.
“How are we going to reach the top?” I ask, craning my neck to look up at the nine-foot tree.
“I’ll do the top. You guys just worry about the bottom and middle.” Kole grabs a string of lights and quickly untangles them.
“You’re going to help us?” I assumed he’d want no part in this.
“Does that surprise you?” he asks, handing me a bundle of lights to untangle.
“Kind of,” I admit with a shrug. “I mean, I could get the Halloween thing, but Christmas?”
“Christmas is so fun, though!” Sienna chimes from her spot on the floor.
“Thane and I don’t usually celebrate it, but I’m not one to do things half-assed, so I guess I’m committed this year.” Kole takes off in a blur, and when he finally stops moving, all of the lights are wrapped around the tree in a perfect spiral.
“Whoa!” I look up at the tree draped in warm golden lights, and some kind of lost, childlike wonder sparks in me.
“Why do you look like you’ve never seen a Christmas tree before?” Kole taunts, looking down at me with a teasing grin.
“It’s just been a while, okay?” I jab him with my elbow and make my way over to Sienna to help her hang the red and gold ornaments she’s set out. “Some of my foster families lacked holiday cheer.”
“Well then, we must make up for lost time!” She reaches into one of the bags and pulls out matching reindeer pajamas, tossing us each a pair.
Kole holds his up, shaking his head. “These are ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously awesome!” Sienna counters, before grabbing my hand and dragging me to the bathroom to change.
When we get back, Kole is dressed in the reindeer pants, hanging an ornament. He turns around and immediately starts laughing at us, but I can’t focus on anything other than his insanely defined abs that seem to flex with his laughter.
“Laugh all you want,” Sienna says. “We look fabulous.” She does a spin and then grabs my hand, twirling me around.
“You two look adorable,” he admits, looking me over with a smile that highlights his dimples.
“If you had told me six months ago, I’d be wearing matching reindeer pajamas with a vampire and werewolf, I would’ve laughed in your face.” I glance back and forth between the two of them, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Trust me,” Kole says, handing us each an ornament. “I’m just as shocked as you are.”
The three of us work our way up the tree, decorating it in different shaped ornaments and bows, talking and laughing as if we’ve been friends for years. It feels like an out-of-body experience. Like I’m watching someone else’s life from the outside.
“Whoa! What are you doing?” I shout when Kole forces my legs apart and sticks his head through them.
He stands up, and I clamp my thighs around his head, flailing my arms around.
“Now you can hang the ones up top,” he says, tilting his head to look up at me.
“You could’ve warned me you were going to do that!” I scold, flicking his head.
“Ow!” He rubs his forehead, still looking up at me. “Okay, fine. Next time, I’ll tell you I’m putting my head between your legs.”
For that comment, I smack his head, and Sienna giggles, watching the whole interaction with amusement.
While she hands me ornaments to hang, Kole walks me around the tree.
His hands stay fixed on my thighs, and although I appreciate the added safety measure, there’s pulsing going on between my thighs that is impossible to ignore.
He finally puts me down, and I excuse myself to the bathroom to try and pull myself together.
Fuck. Why does he have to be so hot?
I splash some water on my face, hoping that’ll snap me out of all the inappropriate thoughts that seem to be plaguing my mind, but as soon as I walk back into the living room and take one look at his shirtless body, they all come rushing back.
“Alright, I’m going to go start working on dinner,” Kole says, handing Sienna the last ornament.
“Do you want help?” The words come out of my mouth before I even mean for them to.
“Sure. You can be my sous chef!” he says with a wink that has my knees wanting to give out.
What is going on with me? I haven’t even started drinking yet.
“I’m going to finish decorating in here, so just let me know if you guys need anything!” Sienna tells us, pulling out a stocking with her name on it.
“Do you think she has one of those for each of us?” Kole mutters, as we make our way to the kitchen.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point,” I say with a laugh.
“Yeah. Me either.”
When we get into the kitchen, Kole immediately starts darting around, grabbing all kinds of cookware.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask, hopping up to sit on the counter. I’ve never been one to cook much, other than having to do it in the woods to survive, so I’m not really sure why I offered my assistance.
“Thane hates ham, so I’m going with filet mignon and Béarnaise sauce. How do you like your potatoes?”
“Mashed is my favorite, hands down!”
Kole tosses me a smile over his shoulder. “Perfect, mine too.” He maneuvers around the kitchen with ease, seeming to do multiple things at once. “Here, you can wash these and snap off the ends.”
“Wait, you actually want my help?” I ask, taking the bag of asparagus from him.
He chuckles, pausing to look up at me. “What did you think you were going to do?”
“Um… supervise?”
“Oh, Grey,” he says with a sigh. “The only person in charge in my kitchen is me.” He plants a quick kiss on my cheek, and a current of heat ripples down my body. “Now get to work.”
“Yes, sir,” I snicker, hopping off the counter.
Kole tells me what to do, tasking me with the easy jobs while he does most of the work. As we cook, the two of us fall into effortless rhythm, joking and bantering with one another, and I can’t help but take notice of how unbelievably normal it all feels.
“How did you learn how to cook?” I ask, jumping back onto the counter while he finishes up.
“I mostly just taught myself. Unlike the werewolves, vampires couldn’t go to restaurants, so I watched videos, and eventually got good at it.”
“So all the vampires lived underground?”
“Not at first, but as the world changed, we were forced into hiding. Beneath the sewers, deeper underground, we created a world separate from the humans. It’s about as glamorous as it sounds,” he says with a hollow laugh.
“Sometimes we would go up top wearing sunglasses, but even then, our sickly skin made that difficult. It always felt like we had eyes on us. When colored contacts became a thing, we thought those would work, but our eyes would burn them away as soon as we tried to put them in.”
“Wow, I didn’t know any of this.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Kole says, leaning back against the island opposite me. “If there had been a way to live in peace with the humans, we would’ve… but there wasn’t.”
“Are you guys almost done in here? Sto morendo di fame!” Sienna bursts through the door, cutting our conversation short. “Ew, why do you guys look so serious?”
“I was telling her about the way we used to live,” Kole says, picking up several plates and balancing them on his arm.
“That’s terrible conversation for a day like today! We’re supposed to be jolly!”
“Well then, grab those dishes, and let’s go eat.” Kole heads for the door, and I rush over to hold it open for him. “Thanks, babe.”
Babe?
He said it so casually, and yet there’s an inferno consuming me, like him calling me babe actually means something to me.
My hair whips across my face, catching on my eyelashes as Kole comes flying back into the kitchen with his vampire speed.
“Alright, this should be everything,” he says, grabbing the last of the food.
I hold the door open again, and follow him to the dining room, where the food has all been set out near the end where Thane usually sits.
“This one is your seat,” Sienna tells me, pulling out the chair to the right of where Thane will be. “I already poured you a glass.”
“Thank you!” I take a seat and sip on the red wine while Kole takes off to go find Thane.
“This looks amazing!” Sienna praises, sniffing the air. I giggle, watching her, and she turns to me with pinched brows. “What?”
“Nothing. Sometimes I just forget that you’re a wolf.”
“Oh,” she says with a bashful shrug.
“Alright, let’s eat!” Kole shouts, as he and Thane bust through the double doors.
Thane takes his seat at the end while Kole sits opposite me.
“Really? You’re wearing that?” Thane mutters, eyeing my pajamas disapprovingly.
“They’re better than the nightgowns you put me in.”
His scowl deepens, but I turn my attention back to Sienna, deciding not to let his grump ass ruin Christmas Eve dinner.
“Mangia!” Sienna says, waving her hands for us to start eating.
I take a bite of steak first and can’t help but moan when it melts in my mouth.
Kole could be a damn Michelin star chef with how good his cooking is.
We all fall silent, devouring the food like animals, which if I think about it, is kind of funny.
Eventually, we come up for air and start talking, but Thane continues to be silent, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Once we finish dinner, Sienna insists we watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas, claiming it’s her favorite.
We move back to the living room and find that she has, in fact, hung stockings with each of our names stitched into them over the fireplace.
There’s also a bunch of garland and décor set out, making it look like Christmas threw up in here.
“You’ve outdone yourself!” I say, pulling her down onto the couch next to me.
“It’s our first Christmas together,” she says with a bright smile. “I wanted it to be one to remember!”
“It’s already the best Christmas I’ve ever had,” I tell her, going in for a quick hug that most definitely was influenced by the holiday cheer.
Or perhaps the wine.
Kole and Thane each take a seat in a chair while Sienna and I lay on the couch, sharing a blanket.
Halfway through the movie, I’m still amazed that they live so much like the humans used to.
Everything about today has been weirdly normal, and yet not at all.
Even in the human world, I didn’t live like this.
I hardly ever decorated Christmas trees or had nice family dinners.
This all feels so foreign to me, and yet at the same time, it feels so right. Like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and it doesn’t matter how it is I got here. All that matters is that I’m here with these people, in this place that’s starting to feel like home.