A Gift for Nicholas

  Horned Holidays (An Alien Warrior Holiday Romance)

  Honey Phillips

  Copyright © 2021 by Honey Phillips

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author.

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by The Book Brander

  Edited by Lindsay York at LY Publishing Services

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Other Titles

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The child was watching him again. As usual, Ambassador Nicholsarian D’Jelosvenn pretended not to notice her as he continued the process of clearing away the trees destroyed when his spaceship had landed… unexpectedly on this backwater planet. He refused to refer to it as a crash, but it was undeniable that the landing had not been as controlled as he would have preferred. He had been aiming for the shoreline and had ended up amongst the trees on the hill overlooking the beach instead.

  Only a minor miscalculation, he assured himself, as he took his axe - such a primitive instrument - to another fallen tree. At least clearing away the debris provided him with a way to maintain his strength while the nanobots repaired the damage to his ship. Even though he had always maintained the disciplined exercise regimen of a trained warrior, the physical labor had proven surprisingly challenging. It did not, however, provide much mental stimulation and he found himself wondering about his observer once more.

  He had little experience, or interest, in children, and yet, he found himself intrigued. The child was surprisingly stealthy - not as skilled as a Tandroki, of course - but it had taken him longer than it should have done to realize he was under observation. When he had first stumbled out of his ship after the incident, he had thought he had seen signs of another presence. He had been on high alert for the first few days, but then he had relaxed his scrutiny - only to discover a week later that he was being watched.

  Once he had realized that he was under observation, his first intention had been to eliminate the intruder, but then he had gotten a good look at his visitor and his concerns had disappeared. The child had no horns and no fangs. Its teeth were small and blunt, and even if it had retracted its claws as he did his, they would be far too tiny to cause any damage. Despite that, he knew that the young of other species could be dangerous. His second thought had been to trap the child and examine it in more detail.

  He had gone as far as starting to create a pit trap in the woods – a laborious, manual process he did not remotely enjoy – when the child had done something completely unexpected. Arriving at the site while Nicholsarian was in the woods, the child had darted into the clearing and placed two objects on a slab of tree trunk he had been using as an unsatisfactory table. Intrigued, he went to investigate as soon as the child left. A piece of fabric enclosed two round brown objects with an oddly enticing aroma, while a small bottle held an unfamiliar white liquid.

  He stared at them for a long, thoughtful moment. Was this some crude attempt to poison him? Surely whoever sent the child did not expect him to be so easily trapped? The very idea insulted him. Scooping up the unwelcome objects, he quickly disposed of them. His first reaction was to return the gesture with the much more subtle poisons he had at his disposal, but in the end, he discarded the idea. He had to make allowances for this primitive culture. No doubt they had never seen a true warrior before and were intimidated by his obvious prowess.

  He proceeded to dismiss the matter, but a few days later, the child repeated the offering. Really, this was most annoying. Had he not already shown that he was too clever for their efforts? After he discarded the second attempt, he discovered a few crumbs from the brown objects clinging to his fingers. They really did smell most enticing, and he decided to perform an analysis. Perhaps even here under these primitive conditions, he could discover an additional weapon to add to his arsenal.

  The analyzer hummed and whirred, then spat out the results. He stared at them in shock – the ingredients were nothing more than harmless materials frequently used in producing food. Why would the child have brought him food? Did it think him frail or unhealthy? Had this journey and the disturbance in his normal routine affected his physique? He quickly stripped off his red thermal suit and went to examine himself in the mirror. No, his muscles were still toned and strong, his horns gleamed from careful polishing, and his hair was still thick and lustrous.

  Frowning, he pulled his clothes back on and went to double check the results of the analyzer. The second scan produced an identical report. A small trace of the substance remained and he cautiously lifted it to his nose. It still smelled just as enticing, and with the recklessness he had so sternly suppressed over the years, he placed it on his tongue. The flavor exploded in his mouth – rich and sweet and delicious, like nothing he had ever tasted before. And he had destroyed the rest of it! By the Horns of Moroz, his suspicion had led to him missing out on more of the delicious treat.

  His interest in his observer became decidedly less casual. The next time he detected the presence of the child in the woods, he immediately abandoned his campsite. However, this time he concealed himself amongst the bushes and watched. The child peeked into the clearing to make sure that no one was present, then approached the table. Despite its initial caution, it showed no fear as it placed its offerings on the table. Instead, it lingered, looking curiously around the site.

  Not it, he decided, she. Even in miniature, the child’s features were clearly feminine - big blue eyes set in a pale, defenseless face. The dark curls tumbling down from under a crude knitted hat made his fingers twitch with the urge to restore order and groom her properly. She approached the line of reactor panels he had disassembled for cleaning, and he almost revealed himself. The panels were fragile – one false touch could render them worthless. And… they could damage the child in return.

  Before he could intervene, she moved away, and a few seconds later disappeared back into the woods. He waited cautiously to make sure that she had indeed left and was not observing from her favorite hiding place. As soon as he was sure she had departed, he went to investigate the day’s offering.

  To his disappointment, the objects in the cloth were golden this time, rather than brown. But when he lifted them to his nose, the smell was equally delightful. He should perform another analysis, but for the first time in a very long time, he let his impulses overrule his caution and simply took a bite. He groaned in appreciation as the object crumbled deliciously in his mouth.

  After a childhood of infrequent, scavenged meals, the plain but plentiful rations served at his training school had been a welcome change. Unlike the other cadets, he had never objected to the meals. Even after he graduated and his rank rapidly increased, he continued to favor a simple, basic approach to nutrition. But this – this was a revelation. Food not intended as fuel but simply as delight.

  The sweetness still thick in his mouth, he turned to the bottle of white liquid. Could this be where the poison was hidden? Was the trap more subtle than he had anticipated? Was someone trying to lure him with the feast, and then take him unawares? But he remembered the child’s innocent face, and with the same reckless abandon, took a drink. Not as sweet as the golden objects, but cool and smooth and a perfect complement. He drank thirstily, and for the first time since he had crashed on this godsforsaken planet, he smiled.

  It wasn’t until he had consumed the offering that his doubts resurfaced. Was it possible that the seemingly defenseless creature had been sent to spy on him and report back to the primitive beings who inhabited this planet? After considering the matter, he decided to send a drone to spy on the child. His plan had been successful. The child had immediately adopted the drone, disguised as a small, furry creature native to this planet, and always kept it at her side. This had allowed him to learn more about her primitive society. They were, of course, far inferior to his own people, the Tandroki, but he grudgingly admitted that they had shown some ingenuity in adapting to the primitive conditions on K.R.S. Three.

  And then there was Jenna…

  Jenna was the child’s biological parent – a small, curvy female with hair as dark as the moonless nights of Tandrok and eyes as blue as the uncontrolled skies of this planet. The first time he had seen her, his body had reacted in a most inappropriate way for a Tandroki male of his age and stature. The rush of desire had reminded him uneasily of his long-ago childhood. He had been an orphan, abandoned on the streets of Veleki without any recollection of his parents. He had used every ounce of his strength and intelligence to remove himself from those slums, eventually scheming his way into a training school for the Tandroki mili

tary where he ruthlessly proceeded to eliminate every trace of his ignoble background.

  His efforts had been successful, but every time he encountered his chief rival, Krampasarian D’Marchandar, a privileged child of wealth and lineage, he had been conscious of his deficiencies. That sense of inferiority had continued to follow him as they both pursued a career in the Tandroki military. When they were picked as the two top candidates for the position of ambassador, he had been determined to come out on top. He had arranged for a small… accident to occur on Krampasarian’s ship. The damage would not be fatal, but it would be sufficient to make sure that Krampasarian could not participate in the preliminary rounds of interviews and social mingling.

  He had been triumphant when his plans succeeded and he had successfully wooed the appropriate government and military officials and received the ambassadorship. But as the months wore on and Krampasarian did not reappear, a conscience he would have sworn he did not possess started to nag at him. Eventually it had grown strong enough to force him to leave the social season on Perchten and go in search of his rival.

  That search had led him to K.R.S. Three, only to find his own ship in distress and forced to land on this primitive planet. As his ship hurtled through the atmosphere, he had caught a brief signal that might have come from Krampasarian’s ship, but he had been too focused on making sure that he – and his ship – survived the landing to concentrate on it. Once the nanobots currently repairing the damage to his ship reached the monitoring system, he hoped he would be able to recover the signal.

  Unfortunately the repairs were a long and laborious process. He began to look forward to his daily visitor – only as a break in his routine, he assured himself. His interest in the child’s mother was not so easily dismissed. He wanted her with an unexpected intensity. With the same intensity he had felt as a child, fighting for scraps, and looking up to see a soldier in a crisp navy uniform strolling across the market square and buying any food he fancied. Or the first time he had seen a ship climbing into the sky as a young cadet. He wanted her the same way he had wanted them. But he had learned to hide those primitive, possessive instincts behind the veils of civilized Tandroki behavior.

  He would not allow her - or anyone - to threaten what it had taken him so long to achieve. Discipline and self-restraint ruled his life, and with that in mind, he continued his work. He refused to leave the clearing until long after the child had disappeared from her hiding place. There would be no treats today, nothing to distract him.

  It is for the best, he assured himself as he swung his axe again.

  Chapter Two

  “Ithink Santa likes the cookies,” Lottie said cheerfully as she rushed in from outside. Her daughter’s cheeks were flushed from the cold, but she was smiling happily. Jenna tried to hide her relief as she hugged her. It had been a very difficult year. Her mother – Lottie’s grandmother – had died the previous spring. They had both felt the loss, but Jenna could bury her sorrow in the constant struggle to support the two of them. Lottie didn’t have the same option. In spite of everything that Jenna had tried to do, her daughter had been a pale shadow of her former self until about a month ago. For the first time, Lottie’s former curiosity had reappeared, questioning Jenna endlessly about the legend of Santa.

  Many generations had passed since their ancestors had crashed on this planet, and an odd mixture of legend and history had evolved over the years. The original settlers had separated into different colonies and in some of the smaller groups, they no longer even remembered their origins. But Jenna lived in Bayport, one of a series of coastal villages formed by a larger colony, and they knew that they had come from a planet called Earth to settle amongst the stars. Despite that, after all these years, she suspected that most of the townspeople thought of Earth as simply another legend. Santa – the mythical red robed hero who distributed presents on the Longest Night of the year – was another such legend.

  Whether it too held some kernel of truth, she didn’t know, but if hearing the tale brought a smile to her daughter’s face, she was happy to accommodate her. Since then her daughter had often gone off to play with her imaginary Santa. Last year it had been fairies, Jenna remembered fondly.

  “He was busy today so we ate them. But Nutty is hungry,” Lottie added as she picked up her pet and gave Jenna a hopeful look.

  The squirrel her daughter had adopted - or who had adopted her daughter - had also contributed to the rise in her daughter’s spirits. He was not really a squirrel, of course, but the settlers had chosen familiar Earth names for the animals on their new planet - often based on very little resemblance to their namesakes. The so-called squirrels lived in the trees, gathered nuts, and were covered with fur. However, based on an old textbook Jenna had found in the town library, their silky white fur and huge lavender eyes, not to mention the small antlers between their oversized ears, were quite unlike the original.

  “Does that mean you’re hungry too?”

  At Lottie’s eager nod, Jenna laughed.

  “Then go and wash up while I get your supper. And don’t let Nutty up on the table,” she added as she crossed the stone paved floor of the big kitchen to the waiting stove.

  Like much of the original technology the settlers had brought with them, the machine to cut those level, uniform blocks had long ago ceased to work but she still appreciated the smooth surface. Newer houses had to rely on roughly cast bricks or even hard-packed soil. Not for the first time she wondered whether the village’s brick making skills would eventually improve, or if they would gradually slip further back into more primitive ways.

  Unfortunately, the latter seemed more likely, she thought grimly as she stirred the thick vegetable soup. The village had been experiencing hard times. Even though she had been as diligent as possible about storing and preserving the produce from the kitchen garden and the small patch of fields she could manage by herself, it was going to be a lean winter.

  But for tonight, they had plenty to eat, the kitchen was warm and bright despite the early winter darkness, and her daughter was smiling. Even if Nutty did end up on the table once again, watching everything with those big, curious eyes, she let herself enjoy the moment.

  An enjoyment which lasted until she sent Lottie off to get ready for bed.

  “Mama! There’s water in the hallway again!”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  She sighed as she went to collect the mop and bucket. When her mother had married Jenna’s stepfather Thomas after working as his housekeeper for many years, there had been a number of unkind whispers in the village about her marrying him for his wealth. What most of the villagers didn’t know was that despite the large house and surrounding acreage, Thomas had no other assets. The past few years had been a constant struggle to keep the forest from reclaiming the land and to keep the house from falling down around their ears. Now that both Thomas and her mother were gone and she was on her own, she knew she was losing that battle. She had retreated to the small annex originally designed for the servants, but she had difficulty even keeping up with that much maintenance.

  As she went to mop up the water and check for the source of the leak, her previous concerns resurfaced. Not for the first time she wondered if she should sell the property and move into the village. That is, if she could find anyone who could offer even half of what the place was worth. The blight had affected everyone.

  But even more than that, it would mean removing Lottie from the only home she’d ever known, she thought, as she walked into Lottie’s bedroom. The mural her mother had so carefully painted still brightened the walls, and the stars the three of them had embroidered hung from the ceiling, carefully arranged to mimic the night sky. No, she decided once again. Her daughter was happy here and as long as she could find a way to manage, they would remain.

  “Tell me the Santa story again, Mama,” Lottie demanded as Jenna perched on the edge of her bed. “The part where you give him cookies and milk, and he brings you what you really want.”

 

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