D'Vaire #14.5
There are presents to wrap, cookies to decorate, and a tree to trim! The Draconis High Court of D’Vaire is about to have their largest holiday celebration, and as they prepare for their first-ever Secret Santa, much to Aleksander’s surprise, he’s given the role of Santa himself.
Tasked with this new responsibility, Aleksander is the recipient of multiple letters with suggestions for anonymous gift-givers while he puzzles over what to get the person whose name he plucked out of a hat crafted from his own dragonskin.
With plenty of festive spirit, the gang is ready for the big day and all its fanfare. However, an unexpected arrival takes the D’Vaires by surprise, serving as a beautiful reminder that the most important part of the season is their incredible family, including and especially their beloved Aleksanta.
Chapter 1
High King Aleksander D’Vairedraconis strode down the hallway of his mansion toward the room where his family was already gathered. It was Monday night and time for their weekly meeting. He had no doubt the entire gang was already waiting for him; as he passed his office, he could hear their voices and though it was December, no one sounded jolly.
His sensitive dragon ears were assaulted as he entered the space that housed their eating and entertaining area. Not only was there yelling, Grand Warlock Dra’Kaedan was on his feet with his hands on his tiny hips. For a man who topped five feet and perhaps two or three inches—and that was with his shoes on—he commanded the air around him like the force of nature he was.
“I told you last year that the skeleton idea wasn’t going to work,” Dra’Kaedan shouted.
The equally enraged necromancer in their family was unmoved by his anger. “Everyone’s coming this year, so there are going to be a lot more sentinels and not just one necro and a necro hybrid, so it works. Your idea of a winter wonderland is stupid. We live in a desert,” Blodwen snapped.
“So what? I can make snow with magic.”
Dra’Kaedan had barely spoken when the room erupted into chaos as people threw in their ideas and gave their opinions. Aleksander stood behind his usual seat for a moment, hoping his presence would be enough to get them all to shut up, but they didn’t appear to notice he was there. With no choice, he placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply to get the lunatics’ attention.
“I like skeletons as much as the next person, but we just did that for All Hallow’s Eve,” Dra’Kaedan said as everyone around him quieted. He whipped his body around and smiled sickly at Aleksander. “Oh, hey.”
“Hey, Squirt. You want to park it, or should I leave so you guys can continue to argue?”
Without hesitation, the warlock launched himself onto the lap of Aleksander’s best friend, Grand Duke Brogan, whose arms came around him in an instant.
“It’s a good thing you showed up,” Aleksander’s middle brother, Duke Argent Worthington, said. “I was moments away from moving out.”
“You’re full of shit,” Aleksander told him as he rounded the sofa to sit.
“It’s the only choice he has; he’s too cheap to buy earplugs,” their youngest sibling, Somerly, accused.
“He could probably get them on sale this time of year,” his mate and Dra’Kaedan’s twin, Grand Summoner Dre’Kariston, drawled.
“I’m not sure I want to thank you guys for coming to our meeting tonight as I normally do. You all seem to be in pissy moods,” Aleksander said.
“I don’t know why everyone thinks this is such a happy time of year,” his cousin Noirin retorted. “There are presents to buy, a house to decorate, food to make, and we’re all supposed to slap smiles on our faces as we pretend we aren’t stressed.”
“You guys are the ones who wanted to open the house up to everyone for the holidays,” Aleksander reminded her. “We can always return to what we’ve done in the past and keep it a small thing for only ourselves.”
“No way. Our family has grown, and it’s mean to leave out the people who don’t live here,” Dra’Kaedan’s familiar, Renny, argued.
“I agree with you, but if this is going to turn into a shit show, then it’s not worth planning a big holiday,” Aleksander answered.
“We’re acting like jerks,” Dra’Kaedan stated.
“Yeah,” Blodwen agreed as she gave him a lopsided smile. “We need to remember—this is about us getting together to exchange gifts and eating until we explode.”
“Great, so let’s get started with our planning. I don’t want to create another battle, so Noir, where do you think we should begin?” Aleksander asked the woman who ran the house.
“There’s been some discussion about whether we should have a theme for our celebration. If we’re going to have one, we need to start there,” Noirin responded.
“Okay, why exactly do we need a theme?” Brogan asked.
“So the house doesn’t look like a hot mess with a mixture of weird shit together,” Dra’Kaedan told his other half.
“Not that I know jack about decorating, but isn’t this entire house a mixture of weird shit?” Worth asked.
“Including ourselves,” Dra’Kaedan’s mother, Lichpriestess Saura, added.
“I think the best thing about D’Vaire is our combination of things,” Larissa said. While Noirin ran the household, it was Larissa who’d decorated it from almost top to bottom.
“I agree. I want to see skeletons with winter stuff,” Noirin’s brother, Drindyr Duke Dravyn, stated. He was on the floor and leaning against the sofa with his baseball cap on backward, and the freckles he’d gotten from all his hours in the sun were clearly visible.
“I’m calling a vote. Who still believes we need a single theme instead of our crazy mix of shit?” Aleksander asked. When none of the thirty-four people who lived under his roof raised a hand, he was glad to have one crisis averted. “Do we have a complete list of everyone who is going to spend at least part of the solstice with us, so we can work on exchanging names to know who we need to buy for?”
Noirin handed it over to him. “Yes, we have a few who will be arriving late, but this is the whole gang.”
“Squirt, can you put each name on a piece of paper we can draw from?” Aleksander asked.
“Sure.” With a flourish of golden magic, Dra’Kaedan produced a large top hat in Aleksander’s blue-black dragonskin.
“What does that say?” Aleksander asked as he took it from Dra’Kaedan and tried to read it upside down.
“Aleksanta,” Renny supplied. “We’re calling it our Secret Aleksanta presents, and you’re going to pass them out on the big day.”
“What, now?” was all he could manage.
“We made you an outfit and everything,” Larissa revealed. “It’s awesome. Your dragonskin but with white trim like Santa.”
His instinct was to tell them “Oh, hell no,” but their faces were so excited, he didn’t have the heart to hurt their feelings. This was exactly how he wound up doing the strangest shit—he was incapable of refusing their nutty ideas. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You have zero choice in the matter, Bigfoot,” Dra’Kaedan snarked.
Without further comment, Aleksander pulled a slip of paper out of the hat and passed it to Brogan, so he could do the same. He unfolded it and found the name DRA’KAEDAN written in golden block letters. It just figured he’d have to find a gift for the man who could literally have anything he wanted with one magical flick of his wrist.
“I’ll keep a master list for everyone in case someone forgets who they have,” Noirin offered.
“Great idea. Everyone see Noir after we wrap up our meeting, so she can jot down who got who.”
“What if I don’t like who I got?” Renny asked.
Aleksander lifted a brow. “Is there a D’Vaire you don’t like?”
“No, I just had ideas for several people, and the one person I got I have zero clue what to give them. Can we do a one-time trade with someone?”
“Nope.”
“Then I’m glad I didn’t get your name, because you’d get a lump of coal for that answer,” Renny shot back.
“You’re free to give coal to whomever you want, even if you didn’t get their name,” Aleksander assured him.
Renny smirked at Dra’Kaedan. “Guess we know what you’ll be hip-deep in by the solstice.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Moving on,” Aleksander said. “We need a schedule. Right, Noir?”
“Yes, are we decorating the tree this weekend?”
Aleksander nodded. “I think we do that as well as the house.”
“We’re going to need outdoor lights. Lots of them,” Dra’Kaedan insisted.
“Why would we light up a house in the middle of nowhere?” Dre’Kariston demanded of his twin. “No one would even see it but us.”
“Plus, this house is enormous. It would take forever,” Noirin added.
“You’re a dragon. You can just fly over it with some lights in your mouth.”
“Then who is going to make all the fucking cookies you’ll be shoving in your face until the solstice?”
“When are we planning on helping you make all the ‘fucking cookies’?” Aleksander asked Noirin in his politest voice.
“Next weekend. Cookies and gingerbread houses.”
“While we drink tons of eggnog,” Renny enthused.
“Drunken decorating isn’t your best idea, dear,” Saura told him as she patted his hand.
“Plus, eggnog is the worst thing on the planet. I’d rather just drink bourbon or rum by itself,” High Arcanist Delaney Volkov-D’Vaire said.
“And it makes Brogan fart,” Dra’Kaedan interjected.
“Just had to share that, didn’t you?” the dragon asked.
“Brogan’s noxious fumes aside, what’s next?” Aleksander inquired.
“Are we doing a white elephant thing?” Blodwen asked.
“Please, yes. I have so many shitty things I want you guys to pick from,” Renny insisted.
“Anyone object?” When no one raised their hand, Aleksander made a mental note to buy something corny to add to the gift exchange that was likely to devolve into absolute chaos as his family members were given license to steal from one another. Most of them needed little opportunity to act like maniacs, and this was an open invitation. “Are we going to do like we did last year and give the person whose name we drew an ornament?”
“Absolutely, it makes our tree look amazing. We’re going to need another one at some point though, because they’re stacking up much faster now that our family is bigger,” Noirin said.
“We can always add another large one in the throne room,” Aleksander suggested.
“I hope not,” Delaney’s mate, Vampyr Lord Grigori Volkov-D’Vaire, remarked. “It’s the ugliest room in the house.” His expression grew pained. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
Delaney nodded as he laughed.
“It’s not much, but we hardly use it,” Aleksander argued. “Someday maybe we’ll give it a makeover.”
“Well, in the meantime, don’t punish the poor tree that needs to hang out in there alone,” Worth responded.
“I have plans for it already this year anyway,” Noirin answered in a mock secretive whisper.
“Are you going to explain?” Aleksander inquired.
“Nope.”
“Can we write letters to Aleksanta to give our secret gift person ideas on what to buy or make for us?” Renny asked.
“We really have to call it Aleksanta?” Aleksander asked.
“Of course we do,” Larissa insisted with a crestfallen expression.
“Sorry,” he responded automatically. “I can give them to Noir to get them to the right person.”
“No, you’re Aleksanta. You have to read each one and decide if it’s a worthy request,” Renny said.
“A worthy request?”
“Yeah, like if they were naughty, you just trash it.”
“You want me to keep a naughty or nice list?”
“I suggested the elves in the family help out with that, but some of them aren’t even willing to think about it,” Chieftain-mate Talfryn of the Acwellan elf tribe retorted. “That’s what elves are supposed to do. We assist Aleksanta.”
His mate, Chieftain Lorcan Acwellan-D’Vaire, glared. “We’re not those kinds of elves.”
“We have pointy ears, don’t we?” Talfryn fired back.
“Does this look like a toy workshop? Am I wearing pointy shoes?” Lorcan snapped.
“Since the elves refuse to do their job, might I suggest Geddy and I handle the naughty or nice list?” Skeleton Lord Gavrael suggested. Aleksander was surprised at the normally quiet—and up until this moment, completely lucid—Gavrael volunteering to create a fantasy list for the household.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s what we do for the Sentinel Brotherhood. We determine if people are guilty of bad deeds or not. We can handle this,” his other half, Gedeon, added.
“That’s perfect,” Renny crowed with a clap of his hands.
“See, now Gavrael and Gedeon get to have all the fun,” Talfryn told Lorcan with a peeved expression.
Aleksander decided he was going to move on. “Is there anything left to discuss tonight?”
“We’re going to need some reindeer shifters,” Dra’Kaedan announced.
“That’s not a thing,” Blodwen insisted.
“Of course it is. Read a Council book.”
“In North America, they’re most often referred to as caribou,” Blodwen’s mate, Trystan, stated.
“Told you.”
“Well, how is Aleksanta going to make his grand entrance without reindeer?” Renny asked.
“I’m going to walk into the room. That’s my big grand entrance.”
“Don’t get your tinsel in a tangle; we’re trying to make this special,” Renny shot back.
“I believe we have our first person to add to the naughty list,” Gavrael stated.
“Oh shit, no! I’m sorry,” Renny rushed out.
“Okay, everybody. I’m going to call this meeting to a close. Remember to give Noir the name you got. I’ll contact our extended family members and get them to draw names too,” Aleksander said.
“Don’t forget to buy or make your ugly sweaters,” Noirin called out as they stood, and the room once again grew rowdy with the voices of some thirty-odd people exchanging what had to be insane ideas. Aleksander didn’t care what they were up to; he needed a beer—otherwise he was never going to survive the next few weeks.
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Jessamyn Kingley lives in Nevada where she begs the men in her head to tell her their amazing stories which she dutifully writes it all down in what has become a small mountain of notebooks. She falls in love with each couple and swears whatever book she wrote last is her absolute favorite.
Jessamyn is married and working toward remembering to start the dishwasher without being distracted by the scent of the magical detergent. For personal enjoyment, she aids in cat rescue while slashing and gashing her way through mobs in various MMORPGs. Caffeine is her very best friend and is only cast aside briefly for the sin better known as BBQ potato chips.
Letters to Aleksanta #14.5
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