Page 3 of Mistletoe (Monsters of the Nexus #3)

Chapter Two

Emma

West Lands

Mistletoe Farm

The Barn

The figure loomed above her, big and green and full of menace.

He jumped down, landing in a crouch before her. The ground shook, or maybe that was just her heart.

The thing frightening the hens turned out to be a massive green monster in the barn. Surprise barely registered. Of course there was a monster in the barn. What else could it be? It was always the winter solstice. The family had to be cursed.

First, there was the winter solstice ice storm that caused a tree—the only tree for miles—to fall on the roof. At least the tree provided enough lumber to patch the roof and replenish the firewood. Then, there was the winter solstice when her father was attacked by a beast. He survived but had extensive scarring on one side and a limp. He spun the event into an epic ballad of the struggle of humans versus the wild that, for reasons Emma could not fathom, was wildly popular. Royalties from the poem added a parlor to the house and finally put on a proper roof.

Then, of course, there was this year. The military came through and took anything worth taking: food, supplies, and her brother. Emma thought starving to death would be her primary concern, but now facing down a green monster, she reassessed her situation.

The monster stood, stretching to his full height. Emma’s gaze started at his bare feet and swept up. He was broad, nude, and green. And male. Definitely male, even if the equipment seemed nonstandard, but that could have been a trick of the shadows.

Emma jerked her head up, determined not to stare at the man in his undressed state, but he was hard.

It. It was hard not to stare.

Scars ran across his chest and his arms, mended with crude stitching. Dark hair hung in a tangled mess over his shoulders. His face was harsh angles pulled into an unhappy scowl. Two tusks jutted out from his lower lips.

He was unlike anything she had ever seen outside of a well-worn book of fairy tales, yet her mind supplied a name: orc.

She should be terrified. He was huge, and his appearance gruesome, but she only felt…well, she was in shock and wasn’t sure exactly what she felt. Sympathy, most likely. The temperature was freezing and he didn’t have a stitch on.

“You must be cold,” she said, finally regaining her voice. She was cold just looking at him.

Actually, that wasn’t entirely honest. She felt strangely flush with warmth observing him. He was… certainly an eyeful.

“My brother is a larger gentleman. I’m sure he has something you can wear, but it’s in the house.” She pointed over her shoulder in case the creature didn’t understand her words.

No. Stop that. His eyes were bright with intelligence. He was human or had been at some point. All monsters started as humans. Everyone knew that. The beast’s bite spread that particular affliction. She had no idea how or if orcism was contagious, but speaking to the man with respect surely wouldn’t put her at risk.

He grabbed the shotgun, tearing it out of her hands and tossing it aside. He opened his mouth to speak, making only a reedy, rasping groan.

Now that the shock of his appearance had diminished, Emma noted the exhaustion in his expression. There was a significant amount of snow on the ground. Chances were good he was on the run from something, possibly even the military. Rumors flew about town that the military kept monsters as weapons of war. Not quite tame, they were a twisted kind of pet to be unleashed on their opponent. The old timers swore up and down that they had seen the military transport beasts in cages. Emma always figured the stories to be just that, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t know where you came from, but you had a heck of a journey finding your way to my barn,” she said.

He grumbled as if agreeing.

“Here.” She grabbed a thick, woolen horse blanket hanging nearby. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll warm you up until I get back.”

She unfolded the blanket and stepped forward. The orc flinched back.

“Be calm,” she said, using the same gentle tone she employed with the more skittish sheep. “That was on me. I should have given you some warning. Now, I want to give you this blanket.”

She eased forward, moving slowly. The orc remained tense, poised as if he would run away at any moment. She continued her soft, gentle prattle, just as if she were speaking to a frightened animal. “Are you hungry? We don’t have a lot, but I can fix you up a plate. Ma’s been cooking Christmas dinner all day. Coq au vin, which is just fancy talk for a stringy old rooster in red wine. It’s better than it sounds. Cook anything in red wine long enough, and it’ll be tender and delicious. There.”

She wrapped the blanket around his waist.

“Isn’t that better?”

The orc moved as if he would reach for her. Emma backed up a step. He advanced. She continued her reverse progression until her back hit a wall. The orc planted a hand over her head and glared down at her.

He was very large and tall. He made her feel tiny, which was a remarkable feat because Emma was a generously sized woman. She was taller than most and had a sturdy frame built for life on the frontier. Yet compared to this orc, she was as dainty as a spring blossom.

The orc leaned in. His nostrils flared as if taking in her scent.

“I, umm, I’m Emma—” Her ability to summon the endless stream of prattle vanished. While the orc’s appearance was alarming, he was also undeniably masculine. The chest, the strength in his arms, and the power in his broad shoulders had all her attention and not for the reasons that were in accord with her survival.

He glanced up to yet another mistletoe sprig hanging overhead.

“My mother goes a little overboard for the decorating,” Emma said, feeling the need to explain the midwinter decorations in the barn of all places.

He leaned in. For a moment, Emma wondered if he would kiss her and what the tusks would feel like.

He roared in her face, pushing away, and vanished out of the barn into the dark.

Stunned, she placed a hand over her chest and waited for her heart to settle down. When she had herself under control again, she calmly went to the house.

Emma sat through dinner and the Christmas Carol reading, too distracted to enjoy the story of the miser and the ghosts. Her father performed the same story every year since she was a child, complete with voices and dramatics. This year, her mind sorted through a catalog of Felix’s garments that she thought might fit the orc, possibly even a pair of old boots.

“My apologies if you find the story dull,” her father said, snapping the book shut.

Oscar stood in front of the fire, setting the book on the mantle. It was purely a prop, as his degenerating vision made him unable to read the pages. The warm glow of the fire illuminated his features, currently fixed in a scowl. Her father had a pleasant disposition, if absent-minded at times, but he was also prideful. He did not like being ignored.

“No, it’s not that. I’m missing Felix.” Heat flushed her cheeks at the lie because she should be worried about her brother. Instead, she schemed on how to outfit a monster, of whom she should be terrified. Whose presence she should have reported immediately to a monster hunter or, at the very least, informed her parents.

She had been face-to-face with a monster and she felt… fluttery. It was most disagreeable.

“Yes,” Oscar said, his expression softening. “I suppose it’s ridiculous to carry on as if nothing has changed, but I’m at a loss for an alternative. It seems wrong to let circumstances steal our joy.”

The entire dinner, the family smiled and acted as if nothing were wrong, but so much was amiss. Felix was gone, conscripted for at least a year to fight monsters, Emma was at the end of her tether trying to hold the farm together, and there was a monster in the barn.

A very big, very naked monster.

Whose existence she kept secret from her parents. If she told them, what would they do? Her mother would fret and search her recipes for a tonic to poison the monster. The success of said tonic was low, but Agatha would certainly throw herself in harm’s way to deliver it. Oscar would make a dramatic speech about a man defending his family, march to the barn, armed with nothing more than his poetic sensibilities and maybe the fire poker, and promptly be mauled.

No. Keeping her mouth shut was the best way to keep her family safe. Right now, the monster was… well, unclothed and not doing any harm. She’d bring him a meal and clothes as promised. Hopefully, he’d move along to haunt another barn.

Having reached that decision, the tension inside her stomach eased. She couldn’t do anything about her brother, but she had a handle on the orc situation.

“No one is allowed to steal our joy,” Emma said, smiling. She handed the book back to her father. “Felix would want you to finish the story.”

The monster would either be in the barn waiting for her or not. Chewing her fingernails and fretting only made her miserable and wouldn’t affect the outcome either way.

“How about another mug of mother’s spiced wine?” Oscar asked, accepting the book.

“Sounds perfect.” She’d drink the spiced wine and enjoy the night.

Emma waited until the household went to sleep before rifling through Felix’s old castoffs, searching for something large enough to fit the creature. With every creak in the house, she paused, listening for movement. She found a shapeless brown sweater, a well-patched pair of trousers, and an old pair of boots. The leather was soft, and Emma hoped it would stretch enough to accommodate the orc’s feet.

Next, she crept into the kitchen to gather food for the monster. The stubborn part of her protested that she, a thirty-year-old woman, should not have to sneak about in the dark in her own house, but she really didn’t want to explain the naked orc in the barn to her ma or why Emma felt the need to feed him.

Ma would summon a monster hunter and Emma didn’t want that. Not until she knew the orc meant them harm. The orc was cold and alone in the middle of the winter. He needed help, not an executioner.

She considered the basket. Inside was a meal large enough to feed two hungry adults, but was it enough? How much did an orc eat? She tossed in another apple, the skin at the early stages of withering. The simple fact that she didn’t make much food to spare overshadowed any embarrassment she might feel at the less-than-ideal apple.

It’ll taste just fine.

By the time Emma returned with the clothes and food, the orc was gone. She left the items in a neat little pile on a hay bale.

They were gone by morning.

Hal

West Lands

Hal devoured the food and dressed. The obviously hand-knit sweater stretched over his torso, but it fit. Barely. The trousers were too short and the boots pinched his feet. The blanket he kept and wore as a cloak.

He wouldn’t complain. The woman showed him kindness—an unfamiliar experience—but he couldn’t linger. He left the barn in the dark hours before dawn. The dark was familiar, his constant companion for an unknown time. Moon and starlight were more than enough to illuminate his path. He navigated the landscape easily and found an abandoned cabin not far away. The floor was dirt, and the walls were rotten canvas over sod, but it was a shelter.

Hal hesitated, unsure if he should stop. The desire to put as much distance between himself and the mountains made his skin itch, but he needed to rest. He needed time to think.

He was still green. Still had tusks. A low-level rage still simmered inside. His senses were still hyper-sharp. The cabin stank with damp and mildew. Desperate to breathe clean air, he stumbled outside for relief.

No such luck. The air outside was too crisp, stinging in his lungs. The cold bit harder, even with the ill-fitting clothes and shoes the woman provided.

Gaps existed in his memory. He knew who he was—Hal Radcliffe—and all that. Memories of Earth were distant, like a gauzy curtain hung between himself and the past. That was fine. Life on Earth had been a struggle. There was a reason he and his brother left.

Recent events? He had no idea. Brief snatches of coherence, his brother, a room with harsh lights, pain, and anger. Mostly anger.

The woman in the barn—Emma—she shone through the fog of memory, a bright bonfire in the dark of winter.

Hal moved on instinct. He found firewood and flint in a lean-to against the cabin, implying the abandoned structure was used as a way station or for hunting. That same instinct told him he was handy with tools and basic repairs.

He cleared the small stone chimney of debris—instinct had him checking for blockages—and felt quite accomplished when the fire caught. It wasn’t a roaring blaze, but the warmth took the numbing chill out of his bones.

Then, the veil lifted on his memories, giving him a brief glimpse of his former life as he sat by the fire.

Back on Earth, wilderness survival skills were strictly recreational. He developed urban survival skills, such as strapping furnace filters to box fans to filter the air on high-pollution days. Or boiling water because the treatment plant was offline again. Or how to repair the archaic appliances that he could never afford to replace. Or how to keep warm in the depths of winter when the heating went out.

Hal needed to assess the situation. He needed to establish where he was, how much time had passed, and what happened to him exactly, even though he knew it was Ethan’s doing. The unknown outnumbered the known, irritating him like a stone in his too-tight boots.

He sat by the fire, waiting. For the holes in his memory to fill. For a plan to form. For sleep.

By morning, he’d move on.