Page 10 of Naughty Elf: Aster
“Wolfe is my name. Explain. Now.”
I shivered as he took all of me in. A smile tugged at one side of his mouth. The elf made no move to hide his groin. Didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed about being in a stranger’s home, naked. Except the damned hat. The hat had made it through his transition but not the pants?
Huh.
“I’m here because I was turned into a statue as a punishment.”
“Punishment? So you’re some kind of criminal in the North Pole?” I asked. “That is if you’re actually from the North Pole. What kind of crime did you commit other than the one you’re engaging in right now?”
The elf cocked his head. Some of his blond hair fell along his forehead, revealing his pointy ears. Well, I’ll be strung up and hung on a mantel, maybe he was an elf.
Still, there was plenty of explaining to do.
“What crime?” he asked, turning in a circle.
“Trespassing. Coming into my home uninvited. That’s the crime.”
Aster laughed, but I found nothing remotely funny. “Actually I was invited in by your son—or maybe you. You brought me here.”
I groaned. Gods, he was entirely too gorgeous to be a criminal.Let it be a mistake, please.
“I was made a statue as a punishment by Santa. I was the head baker and salt was mixed up with sugar. I didn’t taste the batch before feeding them to him.”
“You fed Santa cookies with salt instead of sugar, and he made into you a statue as punishment?”
“Yes. Feeding Santa something inedible is one of the rules no one breaks at the North Pole…until me. If I had only tasted the batch…”
“How long were you in that store? Were you waiting for someone to buy you?” I asked, my heart melting a bit at his story. In the human world and anywhere south of the North Pole, accidentally putting salt instead of sugar into cookies would’ve been something to laugh about—something to chalk up as a silly mistake.
Clearly things weren’t the same up there.
“Time is strange as a statue, posing as an inanimate object. I don’t really know. What is the date?”
“It’s almost Christmas, Aster,” I answered. “How long?”
I felt sorry for the male. There was such sadness in his icy-blue eyes when he told the story. I had a feeling there were some details he was leaving out, but the punishment hardly fit the crime.
“Oh. Only a week, then. Maybe a bit less. I’m really not sure.”
I pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over his shoulders. My wolf approved. He found nothing dangerous about the elf in our living room, and the more he spoke, the more comfortable I grew. All of a sudden, I had words, strong, piercing words, for Santa.
Turning someone into a statue. Santa should be on the naughty list, sounded like to me.
“Thank you, Wolfe. That is very kind of you.” He pulled the blanket tighter around his body, and I had to refrain from hugging him to me, sharing some of my warmth with him. My animal was howling about him being my mate, but I still had to make sure this man could be around my son.
David definitely would’ve kicked him out on his ass into the snow by now.
Then again, if David was here, my wolf would never mutter a syllable of the word mate. Because David had been that.
“I don’t know what to think. My son is here. You are a stranger to us.”
Aster nodded and looked toward the fire. He sidestepped closer to it and sighed. “How do your kind change that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“How do I become not a stranger?”
“You said it’s been over a week. Are you hungry? I have food. We can share some cookies and hot apple cider, and you can tell me more about your life.”