Cole in His Stocking

By Ellen Cross

The coming of age for any vampire is cause for celebration, a time when they first taste blood. For Cole, however, his twenty-fifth birthday brings a terrible choice from his father—either he takes the life of another to prove his worth, or he forfeits his own life. Cole chooses the only way his heart will allow, and pays the price with both his fangs and the rapidly mounting blood starvation that will slowly end his life, now that his body needs to feed, but cannot. He escapes, bleeding, barefoot, and wearing nothing more than a simple cotton sleep-shirt. With his father's sentinels in pursuit, Cole soon finds himself half-frozen and unable to run anymore. The last thing he expects when he crawls into a dumpster to hide away for the last few hours of his life is to be rescued by a temperamental black cat and...aww hell...his cherished one, Adam. How is Cole meant to blood-bond to the wolf hybrid when his time is fast running out, and he has no fangs to even try? He quickly learns his cherished is far more than he appears, though, and Adam's friends at the Delta Rehabilitation Centre have even higher friends, with a score to settle with his father, of their own. It's just a shame he won't be around long enough to witness their payback.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Feb 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781771117678

Book preview

It doesn't matter if he's been naughty or nice all year. Adam's stocking is still getting stuffed full of Cole, this Christmas.

The coming of age for any vampire is cause for celebration, a time when they first taste blood. For Cole, however, his twenty-fifth birthday brings a terrible choice from his father—either he takes the life of another to prove his worth, or he forfeits his own life. Cole chooses the only way his heart will allow, and pays the price with both his fangs and the rapidly mounting blood starvation that will slowly end his life, now that his body needs to feed, but cannot. He escapes, bleeding, barefoot, and wearing nothing more than a simple cotton sleep-shirt. With his father's sentinels in pursuit, Cole soon finds himself half-frozen and unable to run anymore. The last thing he expects when he crawls into a dumpster to hide away for the last few hours of his life is to be rescued by a temperamental black cat and…aww hell…his cherished one, Adam. How is Cole meant to blood-bond to the wolf hybrid when his time is fast running out, and he has no fangs to even try? He quickly learns his cherished is far more than he appears, though, and Adam's friends at the Delta Rehabilitation Centre have even higher friends, with a score to settle with his father, of their own. It's just a shame he won't be around long enough to witness their payback.

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cole in his Stocking

Copyright © 2013 Ellen Cross

ISBN: 978-1-77111-767-8

Cover art by Latrisha Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books

Look for us online at:

www.eXtasybooks.com

Smashwords Edition

Cole in his Stocking

Preternatural Rescue Centre Book 2

By

Ellen Cross

Dedication

For my husband—the light, love, and inspiration of my life.

Chapter One

Adam stared at the stacked pile of boxed decorations. Dust coated their tops and the packing tape used to seal them was lifting at ends, curling and rolling up from age.

He did this every year, climbed the stairs to the attic and stared at the boxes, trying to muster a small amount of courage and emotional strength to pull them out of storage and hang them up, but it just never happened.

The tinsel, baubles and tree trimmings hadn't seen the light of day for five years—well almost five years. Christmas Eve would mark the fifth anniversary since Declan's death, and it also marked the last time he had celebrated Christmas, or Easter. Hell, it was the last time he celebrated anything. Even though they hadn't been true mates, he just couldn't stand the thought of putting the decorations up. That had been Declan’s thing, and the memories of watching the older wolf thread the popcorn strings, untangle the lights, and hang the angel tree-topper had all been too raw to visit. Every year except this year, that was.

This year Adam had avoided the boxes for a whole new reason…guilt. It ate away at him, a deep seated well of shame because he no longer felt the devastating sadness anymore. He didn't feel the pain that remembering his first and only lover's smile usually brought. Somewhere along the way, Adam had accepted his lover's passing, and had moved on. And now that he was free of the emotional baggage, it was time to be free of the physical, too, before he let that emotional trap take hold and drag him back down again.

As Adam bent to pick up the first of the boxes, he couldn't hold back the sneeze that erupted from the stirring dust. His face itched and his nose burned before he had even tossed the first of the boxes into the industrial dumpster, behind his building—folding the cardboard and stacking it with the other recyclables to one side. This cleanout was more than long overdue.

It didn't take long to empty all six boxes into the dumpster, and with each pass up and down the back stairs, he felt a little more emotional weight lift from his shoulders, as if he was also clearing his heart and mind in the process. The exercise helped, too, as if reinforcing his choice with his actions.

As he added the two boxes of Declan's clothes that had sat in the far corner of the attic, he couldn't help but be thankful for living in the upstairs apartment of his small natural apothecary shop. There was no way he could have fit all of that into a normal trash bin, and with nowhere to dispose of it, the boxes would have just continued to sit in the dusty attic, tormenting him with memories best laid to rest.

He had a split second passing thought of keeping the clothes and donating them to charity, but with the attic so choked with dust and a heavy scent of mildew in the air, he was positive moths and silverfish had long since made their homes in the boxes of material. There was no way the clothing would have been in a fit condition to donate. And to be honest, he just preferred to make a clean sweep of it all, anyway.

It felt freeing, therapeutic, to be rid of the weight off his mind. He had mourned for long enough, and now it was time to start looking toward a future once more, to push aside the guilt. There was no place in his life for it, and Declan certainly wouldn't have wanted Adam to feel a single moment of it. While their life together had been relatively short at just three years, it had been rich, full, until it was suddenly cut short by an aneurism, a single tiny blood vessel deep within Declans' brain rupturing. It had been quick, painless—he had been told—and for that, Adam was thankful.

With the last box emptied and neatly folded flat, Adam lowered the heavy lid to the dumpster, glad to be finished as a chilled breeze wove its way by, sinking through his knitted black sweater and setting his body shivering as it went. There were still a few days left before Christmas, so first thing in the morning, he was going to go out and buy all new decorations, maybe even sign up to help out at the new Delta rehabilitation centre, two buildings down and across the street. Since their opening the year before, he had been called upon more times than he cared to count, to help their new-arrival deltas back to health. While he didn't possess much actual healing ability through his mother's bloodlines, he did have an uncanny knack for growing herbs and being able to tell which a person needed, just by looking into their eyes. He had been more than happy to help out at the centre and loved spending time with the residents, watching them come out of their shells and bloom into the deltas they were always meant to be. The thought of spending Christmas day amongst them brought a smile to his face.

With his mind made up and a new plan of action, Adam took the stairs back inside his apartment two at a time. He needed an early night if he planned on getting a jumpstart on his fresh start. And with a thrill racing up his spine as a deep thread of excitement built, he just knew this Christmas was going to be