Magic & Mistletoe: 15 Paranormal Stories for the Holidays Read online

  “No, it is perfect. These are tears of joy. Yes. Yes. Yes! I will marry you and become the next Mrs. Claus! I know I didn’t want this when we came here, but spending all of this time with you has shown me that there is more to it than just what the children of the world think about your wife. It is also about spending my life with you. Loving you and receiving your love. So yes, a million times yes!”

  They both stood up and kissed. The sensations they felt were in sync with each other as the Christmas Magic weaved itself through their hearts and bodies. They still needed to have a ceremony, but as far as the magic was concerned, they were mated now and would be for the rest of their lives.

  From the Author

  I hope you enjoyed my Shifter Christmas Romance, Santa Meets Mrs. Claus! Book 1, Miss Claus and the Secret Santa is available now! So grab your copy while you can. Miss Claus and the Secret Santa on Amazon. This story takes place about 23 years later. Chris and Isabella are married with four daughters, no sons! Who does the title of Santa Claus fall to now?

  I have more books on Amazon. Check out my Author’s page to see them all.

  J.L. Hendricks on Amazon in the US

  J.L. Hendricks on Amazon in the UK

  Do you enjoy a fun and clean Sci-fi adventure/romance? Then come and check out my fan favorite series, Alpha Alien Abduction Tale. Book 1, Worlds Away is currently available! Get your copy now! And then check out Book 2, Worlds Collide! Book 3, Worlds Entwined, will be out early 2017.

  Worlds Away on Amazon US

  Worlds Away on Amazon UK

  Worlds Away on Amazon AUS

  Worlds Away on Amazon CA

  Christian was a fun character to write. He didn’t want to be Santa, and yet he was chosen for the role. In the next book you will get a chance to see what kind of Santa he becomes. I think he is pretty cool. So be sure to keep in touch if you want to know more about what I am doing. I will keep up on my new release dates and latest news via Newsletter, Social Media, Blog, etc.

  If you want to read more of the worlds I have created, or see my #FreebieFriday on #Instafreebie blog, check out these other places:

  Blog/website: http://jlhendricksauthor.com/blog/ is where I will do new cover releases and even share snippets of my upcoming books! So be sure to subscribe. And as a special treat every Friday is a blog full of FREE books! You won’t want to miss out on those!

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/TinkFan25

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JLHendricksAuthor/

  But the best way to stay up to date on what I am doing, and the next book release, is to join my mailing list. http://jlhendricksauthor.com/newsletter/

  The Witch of Christmas Present

  Katerina Martinez

  The Witch of Christmas Present

  by Katerina Martinez

  Copyright: Lee Dignam & Katerina Martinez, Supernal Publishing, 2016.

  The Witch of Christmas Present

  Tonight was my night, but I didn’t feel like I was part of it. Waiters dressed in black and white and ferrying trays came and went around me. Soft piano notes floated up and spilled into the room, but I couldn’t identify the song. Someone had opened the doors leading to the veranda and a wintry New York breeze had skated in, but the alcohol in my system wouldn’t let me feel the cold.

  I stared into the bottom of the martini glass in front of me. Only a shallow pool of clear liquid and a bewitched olive remained, jumping and twitching to match the movements of my index finger. The waiter came over to where I was sitting at the bar. I wasn’t looking at him, but I registered his presence, his cologne. I pushed the glass, my third, toward him along the varnished counter and he took it away.

  My phone buzzed and my heart leapt. I picked it up from off the table and switched the display on. No message popped up. No missed call—probably just an email. On the screen was a picture of me and Dan, a selfie we had taken on the Empire State Building the day my publisher offered me a six-figure advance on my breakout novel. That had been four months ago.

  I set my phone on the table again and glanced at the doorway. Guests had stopped pouring in almost half an hour ago. Dan wasn’t coming. Looking across the open room, at all the ridiculous Christmas decorations, all the thought that had been put into this book-launch event, I could almost feel the angry heat rising into my chest.

  Dan wasn’t here. He said he would come, but he wasn’t here.

  “What you drinking there?”

  Beside me stood a tall, thin gentleman wearing a tailored charcoal gray Armani suit with a black shirt and red tie.

  “Martini but I’m done for toni—”

  “Two martinis and make them extra dirty,” he said to the barman, planting himself on the stool next to me. I glanced over at him to get a better look at the man attempting to get me another drink. His platinum blond hair was gelled back pulling his sharp features into perfect clarity. His face looked like it had been carved out by Michelangelo himself, smooth and pronounced, and his eyes were the color of what could only be described as mercury.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “I didn’t want another drink.”

  “You don’t have to have it if you don’t want to,” he said.

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  “You can relax, honey, I’m not into girls; but I can tell you’ve been stood up.”

  I looked at him now, slowly, and noticed his eyes were silver and reflective. “How do you know I’ve been stood up?” I asked.

  “Because you’re sitting at this bar wearing a dress that would slay even the heart of Eros, with a…three-hundred-dollar makeup and hair job, and you have spent the last 43 minutes checking your phone every 30 seconds with no man, or woman, by your side. My guess is you’ve been palming them off as you almost just did me.”

  “You knew all that just by looking at me?”

  “Observing. It’s a fine art.”

  The drinks arrived. The barman set them down on a napkin and I took mine, pulled it close, and held the stem in one hand. “Okay, shoot,” I said.

  He smiled. He had big lips and pearly white teeth, a gap between his incisors. “That woman over there,” he said, “The redhead with the tight blue number; she’s your agent. Recently single and uses her career as an excuse for her breakup. She’s thinking of adopting a cat because dogs require too much attention. Her hair is up because she likes the shape of her own neck and thinks guys like it too, but the only guy whose attention she’s attracted is that older man in the corner—who I’m guessing is the guy who edited your book.”

  I nodded. “Pretty accurate,” I said.

  “Well,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, “This party is for you, but you looked like you were about to call it a night and go home. You could do that and waste that makeup of yours, or you could come with me. Join me on a little adventure.”

  I cocked my eyebrow. “Adventure?” I asked. “I don’t know who’s more drunk, you or me.”

  “You, trust me, but I can work with that.”

  I laughed and took another sip of the martini in front of me. “I’m waiting for someone,” I said.

  “You and I both know he’s not coming.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “Take it from a guy who’s had plenty of experience in this department. He isn’t coming, and if you ask me he’s missing out.”

  I stared at the drink again, watching my wavy image in the reflection. Maybe it was the alcohol in my system, or the growing feeling that this stranger was right, and that Dan wasn’t coming to my book launch event. The thing we had been talking about for weeks. The defining moment of my adult career.

  “He’s an asshole,” I said to my own reflection.

  “I know, honey,” the stranger said.

  I looked up at him. “How do I know your intentions aren’t sinister?”

  “Because I know you could kick my ass into oblivion with a wave of your hand and a whisper of a couple of magick words. And seeing what I just said hasn’t triggered even the sl
ightest reaction, it means we have mutual interests.”

  “Do we?”

  “I think you’ll find we do, but you’ll only find out if you come with me.”

  He extended his long, bony-fingered hand. I looked at it, then back at my drink. I finished the martini in a couple of gulps, then took his hand, and walked with him toward the front door, skirting past my agent who shot me a quizzical look. I waved at her and briskly walked through with a stranger by the hand.

  “I don’t even know your name,” I said as we walked through the corridor toward the coat-check.

  “It’s Frank,” he said.

  “I’m Madison,” I said.

  He pushed the door open to the cold, snow-covered streets of New York and let me through first. I didn’t know where we were about to go, but leaving replaced anger with excitement.

  We walked about a block or two, watching the city unfold around us. The snow had been cleared from the street, but collected in little mountains on the sidewalks. People hustled by in big coats, hats, and gloves. Cars hissed along, tires kicking up a fine mist as they passed. When I spoke, my breath steamed in front of my nose.

  “So, where are we going?” I asked.

  “You know the story of the genie in the lamp?” Frank said.

  “The one that grants three wishes?”

  “Yup. That’s what I’m going to do for you.”

  “You’re gonna grant me three wishes?”

  “That’s right. Anything you want to do, we’re gonna do.”

  “Okay… but why?”

  “Because you came out with me, and that’s a good first step.”

  “I don’t know if I want to ask a first step toward what?”

  “So don’t.” He stepped in front of me and turned to face me. “If you could do one thing right now—anything at all—what would it be?”

  I gave the question some real thought. At first I was indulging him, but as the moment passed I found myself truly considering it. What did I want? Frank obviously wasn’t a genie, but it wasn’t his potential power which had me thinking—it was the fact that I hadn’t asked myself what I wanted in a while. I had never planned for success. No one ever does. And now that I had it, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it.

  “I want a milkshake,” I said.

  “A milkshake?” he asked, looking around. “I don’t blame you. The food in there was a little…”

  “Too upper class? Yeah, I know. It wasn’t my style.”

  “Any milkshake?” Frank asked.

  “Chocolate,” I said, “I don’t care that it’s snowing.”

  Frank nodded, grabbed my hand, and pulled me across the street and into a rowdy bar. The temperature change was instantaneous, as was the volume level. The TV was loud, people were drinking Christmas Eve away with their friends, and all around us were the clinking of glasses and cheers.

  “This place does milkshakes?” I asked.

  “No,” Frank said, and he ushered me through a door at the back of the bar.

  It wasn’t until I saw the guy standing at the urinal that I realized this was a men’s room. The man turned and looked at us, his stare lingering.

  “That’s a girl,” he said, slurring. “A girl in the men’s room.”

  “Frank?” I asked, “I can’t be in here.”

  “Relax, witch,” Frank said, and he headed for the closed door on the other end of the room. “Well?” he asked, and I followed, skirting around the man still standing at the urinal.

  I joined him by the closed door. “Is there someone in there?” I asked.

  “No,” Frank said. “But there are milkshakes in there.”

  “What? No way.”

  “I swear, there are, but you have to wish for it.”

  “Wish for it?”

  “Yes, witch, wish for a milkshake; and do it fast.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The man had finished and was washing his hands. “Fine,” I said to Frank, “I wish I had a milkshake.”

  Frank knocked on the door three times, pressed one palm against it, and opened the door with his other hand. A blast of cold air came rushing out from the other side of the door. My skin tingled and prickled all over at the sudden, almost dizzying, burst of magick that had slammed into me. I held onto the door frame for balance and shut my eyes to stop my head from spinning. When I opened them again, Frank had stepped through the door—but not into a cubicle.

  The space beyond the door looked like a dark kitchen.

  He stopped. Turned. “You coming?” he asked.

  Again, I glanced over my shoulder. The man was gone. I followed Frank through the door and looked around. The kitchen was dark. Light gleamed off metal surfaces, glinting like frost in the moonlight. Behind me, the door to the men’s bathroom remained open, and as much as it was totally plausible—if not terribly hygienic—that a door in a bathroom should lead to a kitchen, I knew I wasn’t in the same building anymore.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Never opened a portal before?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you’re missing out. Anyway, keep an eye out for the milkshake machine.”

  As I walked through the kitchen I noticed one of the machines on the left, a deep fryer, had a logo on it I recognized—two golden arches forming an M. Then it hit me. The kitchen was dark and empty. I couldn’t hear anyone through any of the other doors, and we had definitely not just come from a McDonalds. My heart started to race.

  “Wait a second,” I said, “Did we just break into a McDonalds?”

  Frank turned around and looked at me, his profile half-obscured in the darkness. “Yeah,” he said.

  “Couldn’t we have gone to one of the open ones?”

  “That wouldn’t have been as fun.”

  I glanced back at the open door. Beyond it was the men’s room of the bar we had just been in. “We can’t be in here,” I said, “What if we get caught?”

  “We aren’t going to get caught.”

  “I think we should just go to a normal one, an open one. Isn’t that the sane thing to do?”

  “Maybe, but there’s a milkshake machine in here somewhere, and you can have as much as you want. Doesn’t that sound better than having to queue up? I mean, when was the last time you did something a little dangerous?”

  I turned around and headed back to the door to the bar, our portal here.

  “Oh c’mon,” Frank said, “Don’t quit now. I’m your genie, remember?”

  I grabbed the door handle and stared at the men’s room. No one had come in yet, but someone could at any second. Someone less drunk and more curious than the first guy had been.

  I shut the door and turned to look at Frank. Even in the dark I could tell he was grinning. “You’re a bad influence, you know that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you aren’t the first girl to say that to me.”

  McDonalds didn’t look the same without people in it. It was the kind of place you associated with the smell of grease and oil, the bleeping of machines, and the chatter of customers. When it was quiet like this, it had an almost unnerving, tomblike quality. Despite that, I sipped the delicious, sweet milkshake and felt the cold slip down my throat.

  “Do you like it here?” Frank asked.

  I thought about the question. “Random question to ask, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I just got a vibe.”

  “Is that what you do? You get vibes?”

  “I get vibes, I talk smack, and I tend to look fabulous. But if you’re talking about magick, there’s plenty I can do.”

  “Like what?”

  A cop car raced past, sirens blaring, stealing our attention. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to deflect,” he said.

  “I wasn’t deflecting.”

  “Sure you weren’t.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Then answer the question.”

  “Of course I like it here. New York is beautiful.”


  “Just because a place is beautiful doesn’t mean it’s right for you.”

  “I have my life here. My agent is here, my publisher, my friends…”

  “I notice you haven’t yet mentioned your boyfriend.”

  I shrugged. “He ditched me tonight. I think that puts our relationship up in the air a little bit.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t take that from someone.”

  I looked over at Frank and studied his features in the darkness. “Do you have a significant other?”

  “Hate that phrase. Significant other. Why can’t it just be other?”

  “Because the implication is this is someone you like more than other people. Someone you care about more deeply.”

  Frank drank a sip of his milkshake—simple vanilla—and licked his lips. “I’m not exactly boyfriend material. Got a lot of baggage people don’t wanna carry around.”

  My heart wrenched for him a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I live a pretty great life. I travel a lot, I’ve got great friends, and I do whatever I want.”

  “That does sound pretty good.” A smile crossed my face. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to become a writer. I wanted to be able to go wherever I wanted, to do whatever I wanted; not be tied down to that desk I used to have to sit at every day of my life.”

  “You’re a writer now,” Frank said, “But I get the feeling that goal has changed.”

  I sighed. “It’s not that.”

  “You’re young, beautiful, you’re a witch, and you’ve got all this money from a really successful writing career, but even I could sense the pain and I’m a total stranger.”

  “A stranger with magick powers.”

  “Maybe, but we don’t always use our magick, do we? This was just good old’ fashioned observation. Though I think I—”

  My phone was buzzing. Besides our voices, the only sound here was the hiss of passing tires. The phone vibrating against my house keys broke that silence with no subtlety whatsoever. I set the milkshake down on the table and grabbed my bag, fumbling for my phone. It was Dan. Slide right to answer.