of you, but it’s there. My biggest fear, before Marco gave his pronouncement, wasn’t that I’d be punished, but that I’d be sent away, and that I’d never see any of you again. She held her hand out and stopped her ring finger a few inches in front of the ring.
And sensed all of them breathed easier when the ring went on and fit.
James was to her left, and she lifted the largest ring and turned to him. “Will you let me put yours on? And then, if you put Fabio’s on, and he puts Eunice’s on, it’ll kind of be like closing the circle.”
James held his hand out, and she slid the ring onto his finger. He lifted both rings, looked inside, and put one of them down. She must’ve looked puzzled, because Eunice said, “All four of our names are engraved inside each ring, with the owner of that ring’s name in all-caps.”
Kelsey smiled again. “Closing the circle, again.”
When Fabio put Eunice’s ring on him, Kelsey once again felt blood magic, which wasn’t right, since she hadn’t fed blood from all of them, but it didn’t matter. The little ring ceremony had strengthened the blood-bond already in place.
“Can we try something?” she asked, and before they could refuse her, or ask questions, she took Eunice and Collosa’s hands in hers. “Everyone hold hands, please.”
For once, the men did as she asked, and she closed her eyes and focused — and felt her weight coming off the table. She opened her eyes, and all four of them were levitated.
“Excellent, Cupcake,” Fabio said. “I can feel how it’s done. It’s like, reverse magnetism, but not quite. Reverse something.”
“Can ya’ll hold onto it, if we release our hands?”
“One way to find out,” James said, and he let go of her hand.
The other mean followed, and then they wobbled and fought to control their equilibrium, but they all stayed a foot over the table. Kelsey rose two feet over them, and Fabio smiled and went up to join her a few seconds later.
It took a little longer, but the other two men eventually rose to meet them. Kelsey straightened her legs beneath her and let her own magic fade, so she was standing on the table. “It looks like we all have some work to do, learning new tricks.”
38
Kelsey hadn’t thought Christmas morning would ever arrive. Her men had gone upstairs to their own bedrooms at one in the morning, and she’d had four hours alone before she was allowed to wake them so everyone could open their presents.
The men had napped during the day, so four hours would be more than enough to get them through what promised to be a long day for them. For all of them, since they’d take her with them up on the mountain today.
She twirled in front of the mirror and looked at herself in the little Santa minidress. The red heels and red gloves set it off, but the black belt was too much, so she took it off. Yes, the lines were better without it. Her fingernails and toenails were painted in a red-and-white diagonal candy-cane stripe, and the red bow at her chest could be undone to show acres of cleavage — but that could wait. She touched her lipstick up, grabbed the small but powerful speaker, and levitated up the steps so she wouldn’t wake them until she was upstairs.
The music was already broadcasting via Bluetooth, so all she had to do was unmute the speaker, which she did outside of Collosa’s room. She loved dancing to Rocking around the Christmas Tree.
She danced through all of their rooms, laughing and smiling and avoiding their hands, and then danced her way back down the steps to the living room. Everything was ready for the fire, someone only needed to light it. Vampires are more flammable than shapeshifters, so she was only allowed to play with fire in an emergency. She knew not to even try to argue that setting the scene for Christmas morning was an emergency, but she was tempted.
She couldn’t wait for them to open their gifts. She’d peeked into their heads to see what they’d bought each other in previous years, to get an idea of a price range, and she was pleased to discover the men went all out for Christmas when it came to gift giving, too.
And was thankful she’d earned enough to be able to afford to buy her men kinds of gifts she wanted to