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CHAPTER ONE

DEVLIN

I sit across from my date and smile into my coffee mug in a way that brings a pretty strain to her cheeks. The girl—an adult in every sense of the word though still many centuries younger than I am—let me have a second date with her, and that, in her short history, is unheard of.

Just as a Krampus stalker like myself should know.

You see, Tanya Hinson is on the naughty list. My naughty list.

Not that she knows it, but watching her flit from date to date in the coffee shop beneath her apartment like her online contacts are her personal flirt bar brews something within me I know I should never let roam free.

Except Christmas is the season I love to hate…and unluckily for her, it’s here.

Self control is never something I’ve worried about, much like my present-tossing brother who exists off the joy people throw into the atmosphere for a few meager days of the year.

My existence absorbs emotion on a much darker scale.

And Christmas week in San Francisco, a full three days until my big bro’s big day, is the prime time to screw around and find out.

Twins, born of the same soul and split, like a sunbeam and its shadowy accompaniment.

Only I’m not irrevocably linked to my sibling.

While Saint Nick is out making all the good offspring of humanity happy, I focus on those a little older, and activities a whole lot… filthier.

The old pamphlets that used to send Europe into a flurry about the horned devil terrorizing children were really just me with a little spanking habit and a whole lot of satisfied wives who wouldn’t know what true pleasure was if I didn’t visit them on an annual basis.

I mean, a Krampus should share the love, and all.

After a while I became tired of being hunted by cuckolded husbands, and the demands of otherwise unsated housewives addicted to my form of pleasure who got to call themselves a princess while they rode my cock once a year.

Then humanity fell into a cesspit of wars so entangled with their own egos that I hid away from the world entirely, and chose to terrorize a few otherworldly creatures for the duration.

When I emerged, I found the world changed, though the people were…different.

The housewives came into their own in an age of liberation where moderation no longer matters.

Not that it ever did, but now addictions are out in the open for all and sundry to see.

Females like my pretty Tanya spread her legs not for a husband but a thick, buzzing stick in a collection of colors that drew her moan just as loudly as my little harem, now long gone, used up and turned to dust.

A part of me likes this new world, the power I’ve inadvertently collected in my absence, who I can become in its age of technology I’ve taken steps to understand.

And I like the way the girl— singular —I choose to stalk teases and flirts and walks away from her dates and returns to her solo existence above the coffee shop with a secret smile on her face that no one is able to decode.

But I know. I watch her come over and over each night until the city disappears for me and I see only her.

Now, so close to Christmas, I know tonight she’ll lie alone on her bed, and my time stalking her has come to a point of action. A call to it, like a siren’s song.

Her dark hair flips over her shoulder as she watches me through almond eyes, dark and framed with the sort of thick, curled lashes I’ve always had a soft spot for.

Not too made up; she doesn’t need extra help to enhance her natural glow.

Some angel bestowed that gift upon her long ago.

From the way her eyes peer sexily at me through her lashes, she absolutely understands the effect she has on the male of her species. Possibly a few females, too.

Which is her M.O. To peer through those lashes, all wanton and ripe for juicing, right before she whispers goodnight . She’ll stand and sashay to the stairs hidden away behind a coded lock where her long line of whimpering, salivating dates with their leaking, erect cocks can’t follow.

But I can.

One of my favorite pastimes is picking locks. And the best of those are the ones that sit well above ground level, where the facade of safety withers with height.

Finding her in her bed will be fun. Also, the terror in her eye before I put my clawed hand to good use on her stunning behind.

A guy has to have hobbies, right? I savor every single one of mine.

And I've had an eon to cultivate enough fantasies to fill even this debauched world that runs on a ceaseless stream of instant gratification. But right now…

“I remember you said work was getting boring.” Her first date hit all the right notes: what she did for employment without actually telling me where. Her interests, without being specific. The topping she hates on a pizza.

Graphic designer, loves movies but not what sort or which ones, and pineapple heated up sucks, especially next to cheese.

I have to admit, I sympathize with that last. After our first date I ordered my first pizza from a place a few doors down, perched on the rooftop opposite in my full form like a statuesque gargoyle and devoured the lot from my claws, licking each one clean as she worked herself into a frenzy on her bed, all alone.

But not without an audience of one with a backdrop of a starless night.

For the first time she seemed to sense an extra presence and walked afterwards on wobbly legs to the window, toying with the heavy, red drapes that hung like thickest velvet.

Tanya stared out at the city moving sluggishly through the cold night when everyone should have been hurrying to warmer places.

Then, without a glance in my direction, even when I let the pizza box flutter to the sidewalk below in the hope she’d glance up and see my monstrous form, she pulled the drapes together.

Almost all the way.

That invitation to draw closer is the one I took whether she wanted me to, or not. Because the slim line of muted light let me view the most tantalizing glimpse of curved, plump thighs just right to dig my claws into and split apart before I tasted her center.

She did the job for me, spreading her legs wide as I watched, her fingers digging into the oh so soft flesh, and worked her fingers—four of them, her hands were that small—into her sweetly scented pussy until she gushed with a cry.

Tanya fell asleep with her legs spread wide, her glistening fingers draped across her stomach, and her chest still rising and falling a little faster than normal.

I knew; I checked her regular breathing on both our dates. Which brings me back to the one that, by my count, should be almost over, if she holds to her usual course of action.

“Work is…slow.” She sighs, her blouse lifting a little, gifting me the barest glimpse of a slice of her tender belly across the table.

Of course, I’ve seen so much more. Still, the tease is so sweet.

I salivate at her effort. “I want something more challenging than ad copy and social media posts. But it pays enough and so…that’s what I do. ”

“Perhaps it’s time for a change.” I shrug, leaning back in my chair as the conversation in the cafe hit a lull point. This human form itches. My horns ache to burst through and my tail is jammed up my own ass. “People often have more than one occupation these days, it seems.”

Tanya watches me with a crinkled brow. “You sound like an old man, yet you look too young for gray hairs.”

“Appearances can be deceitful.”

Her lips turn down, and her watchful eyes never leave me, much like the way I can’t stop seeing her whether she’s awake or asleep. “Why do you put it that way?”

“What way?” I toy with my cup, twirling it in quick circles without spilling a drop of the burnt milk and overcooked beans.

“Deceitful. That’s not the phrase. Everything about you is…”

Slightly off.

She doesn’t need to say it; we both follow her thoughts. And she’s right in that gut instinct. If she’s smart and varies her habits, it might save her one day.

But not from me.

I reach across the table and clasp her hand like the lovelorn fucker I most certainly am not.

Obssesser, not a lover. I mangle their phrases with pride.

Not a lover tonight, anyway. Right now, I have goals.

Tanya remains seated, though her smile strains. “I’m not very good at second dates.”

I consider a moment, not letting her hands go and circle her wrist with my fingers. Christ, she’s small. So much more fun to break later. “Not true. You just don’t go on many.”

Her hands leave mine with a sharp tug that only frees her because I let go. From the way her eyes flare as she wraps her arms around herself, she knows it, too.

“Thank you for the coffee, Mister David.”

Her eyes skate over me dismissively, but not before they narrow, taking in everything I want her to see and a few things I don’t.

“Devlin.” I supplied the fake name that appears to fit this form best, knowing she didn’t really forget.

“Devlin. Of course,” she murmurs.

And she turns, leaving me with a half drunk cappuccino and part of a shared date loaf she never touched.

I don’t blame her. The damn stuff tastes like poison.

Her jeans fit perfectly to the curves of her ass as she sashays away without a single glance over her shoulder. There will be no invitation from her tonight, or any other night. Not for me, her date last week, the one tomorrow, or the night after that.

No one ever gets up those stairs or between her pretty legs.

No one ever tastes her, and it’s such a loss.

One I intend to change tonight.

Being on my naughty list has perks. And some other things.