Falling for Kindred Claus Read online

  Falling for Kindred Claus

  A Kindred Tales Christmas Novel

  Evangeline Anderson

  www.evangelineanderson.com

  Falling for Kindred Claus, 1st Edition,

  A Kindred Tales Christmas Novel

  Copyright © 2019 by Evangeline Anderson

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art Design © 2019 by Croco Designs

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writers’ imagination or have been used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to a retailer of your choice or evangelineanderson.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only.

  Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  Contents

  Falling for Kindred Claus

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  The End?

  Nocturne Academy

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  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

  Falling for Kindred Claus

  A case of mistaken identity:

  A warrior who knows nothing about Christmas forced to play Santa...with disastrous results.

  A girl running from her past, who lands in a dead-end job as Santa's Helper Elf.

  Can Lisa keep herself from...Falling for Kindred Claus?

  It's a week before Christmas and Lisa Murkowski is stuck in a dead-end job, playing Santa's little Elf at the local mall. After fleeing her home to get away from an abusive drunk of a husband, she's trying to keep a low profile, so it's not exactly like she has her pick of career paths. Still, she can't help feeling like she's hit rock bottom...that is until the mysterious Kindred playing Santa at her mall shows up.

  Asher is part of the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps. Sometimes he serves as an assassin, other times a diplomat, but he's never been Santa before. And he's not supposed to be now. When he mistakes Lisa for his contact and she mistakes him for the Kindred who is scheduled to be Old Saint Nick, two hours of confusion and peeing, puking kids are the result. After all, who ever heard of a seven-foot-tall Santa with fangs? The kids are scared, Asher is frustrated, and Lisa loses her job.

  To make up for the confusion, Asher offers to take Lisa on his next diplomatic mission—a boring and safe affair where all they have to do is attend the coronation of an alien Potentate. But things go horribly wrong when there is an assassination attempt and Lisa and Asher are caught in the middle of it.

  Will the two of them escape with their lives? Will Asher listen to his heart, which tells him Lisa is his fated mate? And will Lisa be able keep herself from...Falling for Kindred Claus?

  This one is for my awesome friend and assistant Laura, who gave me the idea for this Christmas novel while we were sweating in the park in 95 degree heat watching our kids go crazy. Laura, thanks for all you do—we are a team and I couldn't manage without you!

  Hugs,

  Evangeline

  One

  Asher’s long-range ship made another orbit around the small blue-green planet the Kindred called “Earth” as he waited for his latest mission to come over the viewscreen. He’d been traveling a long time to get here—a weary journey that involved multiple wormholes and folding space, all just to reach this contact.

  He just hoped he wouldn’t have to kill anyone this time.

  Not that he minded the violence but the clean-up was messy and time-consuming. So he preferred not to kill—though he certainly could, in a variety of interesting and efficient ways.

  As a member of the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps, he wore many hats. He was a diplomat, a spy, and when he need be, an assassin. It was a job he was well suited for in temperament—no matter how stressful the situation, he always kept a cool head. In fact, some of his fellow agents had joked that he had ice water in his veins instead of blood—nothing fazed him.

  And he was patient too, but waiting for his contact to call was trying that patience at present.

  He sighed and stared at the viewscreen where the Earth rolled by like a blue-green ball. A rather insignificant planet, he mused, and yet his kinsmen seemed to think it important enough to protect. As the Mother Ship orbiting the planet’s one moon could attest.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t see the attraction—though he had taken the time to learn one of the planet’s main languages—English, for this mission. It was a primitive tongue, unlike his own elegant, flowing native tongue of Talangese—which was rapidly becoming a dead language as his people died out.

  The Tangala Kindred had much in common with the Blood Kindred, of which they were an offshoot. A group of Blood Kindred had settled on Tangala Prime about four generations ago and mated with the native people. Unfortunately, as always happened with Kindred—who had a genetic anomaly which caused their population to be 95% male—they soon didn’t have enough women to continue to thrive.

  In the normal course of events, a male-heavy population could import more females from another race and continue their species. But though the Tangala DNA was compatible with the Kindred’s own genetic material, it was stubbornly unable to mix with any other race—at least any they had found, and they had searched far and wide.

  And so the Tangala Kindred were unable to bond with any woman without a trace of the Tangala genes in her bloodline. Which meant that, as fewer and fewer females were available, the race was dying out.

  Asher had left the planet as a young warrior and never looked back. He had chosen to work in the dangerous Elite Espionage Corps because he knew he would never mate—never find a female who
he could call his own. He would forever be denied the Three Signs a Tangala Kindred felt when he met his fated mate—The Strike, The Sight, and the Sound.

  These he had only heard about from his grandfather, who had raised him after his parents died in a shuttle crash. And since females had become so rare in his own generation, he doubted any of his age group would ever experience the Three Signs. They, like his native language, were dying off and would soon be no more.

  Not that he cared, Asher told himself, wondering why he was thinking about this at all. He was, after all, perfectly content with his life. He had no wish to quit the Elite Corps and settle down with a female. His life was perfect just as it was—or it would be if his Goddess-damned contact would ever call him and give him the next mission!

  As if on cue, his viewscreen finally crackled to life and a familiar face appeared.

  “Agent Asher, do you read me?”

  “Here, Agent Drugair.” Asher sat a little straighter in his seat. He was glad to hear the other male’s voice. He hadn’t been certain who his contact was but Drugair was an old friend and they had run several missions together. Asher was a little surprised though—he had thought that the other male had quit the Corps in order to settle on Earth with the Earth female he had found as a bride.

  “Good to hear your voice,” the other male said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been on a mission together.”

  “Are we going on this one together, then?” Asher asked, frowning. “Word around the Corps was that you’d retired when you Claimed your bride.”

  Which, he privately thought, was a miracle in and of itself.

  Dru was a rare Drake Kindred and kept a huge beast of fire and smoke locked within himself—what humans called a “dragon.” Apparently on Earth he was able to let the creature out from time to time and, even more surprising, his new bride approved of it. Asher supposed that was reason enough for his old friend to retire and settle down—it would be a rare female who would not only accept but welcome the beast inside him.

  The irony that his friend, with such a serious impediment to mating, had been able to find a female he could bond with while Asher himself, who had no such baggage, had no chance at the same happiness wasn’t lost on him. Yet, he didn’t begrudge Dru his good luck—even though he knew that he was never destined to have any such luck himself.

  “I’m only semi-retired,” his old friend informed him. “I’m coordinating missions for the Corps from Earth, though I’m on the Mother Ship at the moment. But I have the details of your next assignment.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Asher said neutrally. Time was when getting a new assignment would set his heart racing and his blood pumping but now, after so many years in the Corps, he was simply doing his job. Not that he didn’t enjoy his work, but it didn’t hold the same excitement it once had.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much,” Dru said, frowning from the viewscreen. “This is an encrypted channel but we’re not sure how long the encryption will hold. For the sake of caution, I can only give you the coordinates of your rendezvous down on Earth and let you know that you’ll be meeting another agent there. They will have the exact details of your mission.”

  “Can you tell me anything about this other agent? Is it a male or a female?” Asher asked, frowning. “How am I supposed to know who they are?”

  “Just be at the exact coordinates,” Dru said. “The agent you meet will be wearing Earth holiday garb—that will be your sign.”

  “Earth holiday garb? What Earth holiday?” Asher asked, bewildered.

  “This particular holiday is called ‘Christmas,’” Dru told him. “I am new to it myself—this being my first time celebrating with my new bride here on Earth—but it appears to be a peculiar blend of devout religion and rampant greed.”

  “What? What kind of religion celebrates greed?” Asher demanded.

  “I believe it is called ‘Capitalism’,” Dru said, frowning. “Forgive me, I am still new to the holiday myself, as I told you. Anyway, the Earth people wear red and green and give each other gifts wrapped in brightly colored paper. They also put a special kind of tree in the center of their domicile and decorate it with shiny baubles.”

  “What?” This was sounding more and more bewildering to Asher. “They bring a real tree into their domicile to decorate?”

  “Not always real,” Dru said. “Ours is artificial and came out of a very large box in sections which had to be fitted together. My new bride, Annie, and I set it up yesterday. Then she sprayed it with scent from a can to make it smell real. After that we hung the baubles and some long, shiny tubing called ‘tinsel’ on it. Lastly, she placed a minor household deity called an ‘angle’ at the top of the tree, to watch over our Christmas festivities. Then we sang traditional songs called ‘carols’—which I was not very good at. Annie says she thinks I am ‘tone deaf’ whatever that means. But she enjoyed trying to teach me the songs anyway.”

  “Decorating a fake tree and singing ridiculous tribal tunes?” Asher growled. “Why do you put up with such nonsense?”

  Dru shrugged. “It makes my bride happy. Annie loves sharing ‘Christmas traditions’ with me. They are not all bad, you know. She has been baking many different varieties of small, sweet confections called ‘Christmas cookies’ that taste delicious. She even baked a large one for my Drake.”

  Asher shook his head.

  “But all these customs sound so strange. Even more bizarre than the Horvaths’ Fertility Festival where the entire population dresses as stinging insects and performs the mating dance by ‘poking’ each other with their ‘barbs’.”

  “It gets even stranger,” Dru admitted. “There is also the tradition of Satan Clause.” He frowned. “Or is it Santa Claus? I always get the two mixed up though one is the bringer of all Evil and the other is a portly older male in a red fur suit who creeps into domiciles at night and leaves presents for good children and lumps of dirty carbon for bad ones. He lives at the very top of Earth and employs tiny creatures called ‘elves’ to make playthings. Oh, and he has magical ruminants called ‘reindeer’ who are able to fly and who pull him through the air on the night he makes his deliveries.”

  “Neither one of these entities sounds desirable to meet. Are you expecting this Satan Clause to try and break into your domicile soon? You had better be on your guard!” Asher cautioned him, frowning.

  Dru shook his head.

  “No. According to Annie, he is a fictional character, only used to make young ones behave. They fear to get carbon lumps instead of presents on Christmas morning if they are bad. They have a belief that this Santa—or Satan—Clause is able to see them at all times—whether they are asleep or awake. He knows if they have displayed acceptable or unacceptable behavior and notes their names down on a list of either ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ children for his records. There is even a Christmas carol about it which Annie attempted to teach me though she said I sang it very badly.”

  He smiled as he said it, as though it didn’t bother him to have failed in this particular holiday festivity.

  “You don’t seem upset that you were unable to complete the tradition satisfactorily,” Asher pointed out.

  Dru shrugged.

  “Annie gave me a small spice cake to eat shaped like a person called a…I think it’s a ‘tinder-bread male,’ for trying. She says it’s the thought that counts—which is the same principle behind choosing gifts. Though I am not allowed to give her cleaning appliances for our domicile unless she specifically asks for them,” he added, frowning. “However, I am allowed to choose lingerie for her, which she wears only for me—which is very pleasing,” he said, brightening.

  Asher couldn’t help thinking that despite the ridiculous festivities his old friend was being put through, he seemed happier than Asher had ever seen him.

  He tried to suppress the pang of jealousy which suddenly stabbed him—where had that come from? It wasn’t like he begrudged Dru his good fortune in finding a bride to bo
nd with. And it wasn’t like he would want such a thing himself. Being stuck on a strange planet decorating fake trees and eating confections shaped like people didn’t sound in the least appealing, he told himself firmly. And he was especially glad he wouldn’t have to deal with this strange “Satan Clause” in his red fur suit with his flying ruminants and his lumps of dirty carbon!

  “Well, I’ve taken enough of your time telling you these strange Earth traditions, old friend. You’d better get going if you’re going to meet your contact in time,” Dru said, breaking into his train of thought.

  “Send me the coordinates,” Asher said. “And you say I’m to look for someone dressed in red or green?”

  “Or red and green—holiday garb,” Dru said earnestly. “You’ll know it when you see it—believe me. And don’t worry about speaking first—the contact will approach you directly.”

  “All right.” Asher would have liked a more specific description but he was certain he could figure it out. After all, he’d been in the Elite Espionage Corps for over ten standard years now—he knew what he was doing. And it helped that the contact would be on the look-out and would know to approach him.