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  Kat hurried to the dresser, pulled out a small box wrapped in festive green and red holiday paper, and held the gift out to her. “I was going to give you this tonight anyway. This just wasn’t the way I pictured doing it.”

  Dev slowly took the box and unwrapped it. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  Dev opened the lid and gasped when she saw the ring.

  “Now do you see why I reacted the way I did?” Kat asked.

  “Yeah.” Dev smiled and wiped away a tear. “And you’re right. I probably would have laughed if you’d given me this before I gave you mine.”

  “Is it safe to assume your answer is yes?” Kat took the ring and held it, waiting for Dev to offer her left hand.

  “Yes.” Dev smiled when Kat slid it on her ring finger. “My answer to you will always be yes.”

  Dev pulled the box out of her pocket again, removed the ring, and put it on Kat’s finger.

  “I love you, Devon.”

  “And I love you.”

  “I was so worried you’d say no.”

  “You were worried?” Dev snorted. “I think Nessa was convinced I was going into shock when I finally decided on a ring.”

  “Nessa knew you were doing this?” Kat somehow managed to stop the laugh this time. Wait until I get my hands on that kid.

  “I needed her help. I wasn’t sure what kind of ring you would want because you don’t wear much jewelry. I also needed her to convince me you wouldn’t say no.”

  “She helped me pick your ring, too.” Kat chuckled. “I’ve got one hell of a sneaky daughter. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she planned all of this.”

  “We have one hell of a sneaky daughter.” Dev held up her left hand to wave the ring in Kat’s face. “She’s started calling me mom when you aren’t around.”

  Kat put her arms around Dev’s neck and pulled her closer for a kiss.

  “Jesus, Kat,” Dev said breathlessly. “I can’t believe the things you do to me.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby.” Kat began to undo the buttons on Devon’s shirt.

  Dev covered Kat’s hands and laughed. “We have guests downstairs.”

  “How can you even think about them right now?” Kat gave a pretty good imitation of a pout. “They’ll never know we’re gone.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know about you, but I would really hate it if your little niece walked in here thinking it was the bathroom, only to find us naked and writhing around on the bed.”

  “Our niece.”

  “That’s all you have to say? You aren’t worried about things like that?”

  “No one’s going to walk in on us. Everyone’s gone, Devon.” Kat resumed unbuttoning the shirt when Dev’s hands dropped away. “I talked to Nessa before I came up here. I told her that when she saw you come up the stairs looking for me, to make sure everyone left. She knew I was going to propose to you tonight. She was happy to do it—because she’s exhausted from the honeymoon. I told her she shouldn’t have planned to come back on Christmas Eve.”

  Dev backed away and looked out the window. Dev slowly returned, letting her shirt fall to the floor. “There are no cars in the driveway. Everyone really is gone. You tricked me, Katherine.”

  “True.” Kat raised her arms, allowing Dev to remove her sweater. She groaned when Dev’s mouth found her nipple and bit it lightly through her bra. She held Dev’s head against her with one hand while reaching back with the other and unsnapping her bra. “Are you complaining?”

  “Never.” Dev watched Kat’s eyes darken with desire.

  Wishes really do come true.

  Lesley Davis lives with her American partner Cindy in the West Midlands of England. She is a die-hard science-fiction/fantasy fan in all its forms and an extremely passionate gamer. When her Nintendo DSi is out of her grasp, Lesley is seated before the computer writing. Truth Behind The Mask was her first publication with Bold Strokes Books. She has short stories in Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments, Road Games: Erotic Interludes 5, and Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets. A novel entitled Playing Passion’s Game is forthcoming in 2011. “Christmas in Chastilian” revisits characters from Truth Behind The Mask.

  Christmas in Chastilian

  Lesley Davis

  Poised atop the stepladder, Pagan Osborne leaned with her arm outstretched.

  “Hey! Be careful!” Erith Baylor stood below, her hands wrapped tightly around the stepladder’s legs, her foot resting on the bottom rung to hold the steps steady.

  Pagan stared down in amusement. “Excuse me? I spend most of the night traversing up and down buildings suspended only by wire, and you’re worried I might lose my balance on a stepladder?” She grinned at the sharp look Erith shot at her.

  “I have the utmost confidence in you when you don your Sentinel suit and watch over the city at night. And I remember all too clearly how marvellous you are at flying through the air after that time you jumped off a building with me in your arms.” Her eyes got a faraway look in them as she obviously recalled that night. Shaking her head, she gave Pagan a firm look.

  “But right here, right now, the fact you are perched upon a stepladder trying to drape tinsel garlands around the biggest tree I have ever seen is giving me cause for concern.”

  Pagan snorted at Erith’s unusually polite choice of words. “Cause for concern?”

  “You’re freakin’ the hell out of me! There, satisfied?” Erith grumbled. “Just drape the damn stuff and be done up there.”

  Laughing, Pagan carefully fixed the bright gold piece of tinsel around a high tree branch, then wrapped the rest around the lower branches. “You can’t just drape the tinsel any old how, sweetheart. Every piece has to be positioned just right. Believe me, I learnt that from the master.”

  “Says who?” Erith asked, tugging gently at the cuff of Pagan’s jeans.

  “So will say the Master herself when she appears,” Rogue Ronchetti announced as she walked into the room. She stopped in her tracks, taking in the sight before her. “Great job you’re doing there, Pagan. Have you untangled the lights yet?”

  “No, I thought I’d leave that job for you.” Pagan reached over a little bit more, conscious of Erith’s sharp intake of breath from below her, and just tweaked the tinsel into place. She caught Rogue mutter thanks for getting left with the worst job and then heard a faint tinkle as the mass of lights was lifted out from the box. Pagan twisted a dial on her hearing aids so she could hear every single sound. She loved the tiny noises that the lights made when tangled up with the string of bells Rogue had tossed in there last year when they had taken down the decorations. Once again she was grateful that Rogue had fashioned the aids that helped her hear when her world was usually so silent. Smiling at the contented feeling spreading through her, Pagan sat down on top of the stepladder and gazed down at Erith. “You could be decorating the lower branches, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Rogue added, “at least you’d be able to reach those.” With her back turned, she missed Erith’s glare.

  “Just because I’m not as tall as all of you are,” Erith grumbled as she climbed up a few steps to rest her hands on Pagan’s knees. “Or as handsome, or dark haired, or so totally gorgeous it blows my mind.” She caressed Pagan’s cheek and smiled when Pagan planted a kiss in her palm. “Tell me, why the need for such a big tree? And a real one at that? It’s going to shed like a bitch!”

  Pagan brushed her fingers through Erith’s bright red hair and thrilled to the softness that tickled her fingertips. “Because it’s just not Christmas without having a proper tree. You need that pine scent to fill your nostrils, have to see the lights shining through real branches. Artificial trees are all well and good, but nothing says Christmas like a real tree.”

  Erith leaned her cheek into Pagan’s hand. “Well, just don’t expect me to clean up after it when it’s shed its needles all over your floor.” Her gaze returned to the tree. “I can’t remember the last time my family h
ad a tree,” she admitted softly.

  Pagan’s hand stilled in Erith’s hair. “Did you not celebrate?”

  Erith shrugged. “Not really. Dad didn’t like to spend money on anything other than himself, and any decorations we did have usually ended up being used as a weapon when he’d gotten enough drink inside him. So I don’t really remember having a Christmas where there wasn’t some sort of trouble.” She must have read Pagan’s sadness in her face. “Hey, there’s to be no sad eyes. This year is going to be different.”

  “Yes, it is.” Pagan pressed her lips to Erith’s forehead.

  Melina Osborne, Pagan’s older sister, walked into the living room and Pagan whispered into Erith’s ear, “The Master has arrived.”

  “Wow, I have to admit I didn’t think that tree would have fit in here but it has. When you and Pagan brought it home, Rogue, I was certain you were going to have to cut a hole in the ceiling for it to fit.”

  Rogue left the lights and swept Melina into her arms. “I cut a hole in the floor. We can always cover it with the carpet after.” She stilled Melina’s gasp with a kiss and grinned at her. “We picked a good one. It’s going to look beautiful when Pagan gets off her butt to finish decorating it.”

  Taking the hint, Pagan rose and gestured for the lights. “Let’s get this thing covered, then. Melina, please show Erith how you like your tree to look.”

  Melina guided Erith over to a large box full of all manner of baubles. “Some of these are years old. We add a few new ones every year when the older ones start to fade or get broken. Mom and Dad used to take us to pick new decorations and Pagan would always pick the biggest and brightest. On our first Christmas without them I wasn’t sure I wanted to even bother putting up a tree, but Rogue took Pagan to pick out her new baubles and they came back with a tree. The pleasure on Pagan’s face made me realise I couldn’t deprive her of Christmas, too.” Melina gave her lover a tender look. “Rogue told me life goes on regardless, and family traditions are what keep family together even when we’re separated.” She wrapped an arm around Erith’s waist and drew her close. “Later we’ll go shopping for this year’s baubles to hang on the tree, your baubles, because you’re a part of our family now and the tradition includes you.”

  Pagan’s heart clenched at the joy that coloured Erith’s face. Erith had suffered under the hands of a tyrannical father and a mother who had been too scared to keep her only child safe. Erith’s father had chosen the wrong side of the law to fight on, and just a few months previous, Pagan and her fellow Sentinels had gone up against the Phoenix, the man Erith’s father had put before his family. Fighting the Phoenix and his followers had devastated the city of Chastilian and cost too many lives, but it had brought Erith to Pagan. With the Phoenix dead and his followers imprisoned, the city was starting to rebuild itself and the Sentinels had returned to watching over the city at night in relative peace.

  Pagan was grateful that this year would soon be over, closing the book on what had been a terrifying chapter in Chastilian’s history. Melina and Rogue unfurled the tiny strings of lights together and surreptitiously watched Erith carefully wrap a tinsel bower over and around the tree’s branches, her entire concentration on getting it just right for Melina. Pagan loved how her family had welcomed Erith. She couldn’t imagine a better place to be at Christmas than with her family here in the home they shared. She smiled wryly at herself. Home. A security specialist shop beneath them, and hidden away in the lighthouse tower, the eyes of the Sighted who guide the Sentinels in their tasks.

  “You’d get the job done a lot quicker if you’d stop staring at your girl,” Rogue commented, waggling the lights before Pagan’s face.

  Pagan hastily grabbed at the lights, but not before she saw Erith wink at her. Pagan willed her face not to flame, but Rogue’s snicker announced that hadn’t worked.

  “Pagan, there’s a star in here. Do you want to put that on while you’re up there?” Erith asked as she dug through the box.

  “No, that doesn’t go on until Christmas Eve,” Pagan replied.

  “Let me guess,” Erith said. “Another Osborne / Ronchetti tradition?”

  Rogue answered her. “Yes, when everything else is decorated, lit up and tinselled to within an inch of its life, only then can the star be placed. It’s the crowning piece to signify the lighting of the star in the sky. You’ll get used to our strange ways, I promise.” Rogue unobtrusively held the stepladder still as Pagan worked her way down, then patted her on the back for a job well done. Pagan beamed at the silent praise.

  “I’m finding I like your strange ways.” Erith wrapped her arms around Pagan’s waist and hugged her close. “Though,” she tugged Pagan’s short hair, “some of you are stranger than others.”

  “I am not strange.” When Pagan pretended to pout and looked to her family for support, they hastily busied themselves with anything to hand. Rogue even whistled a Christmas carol off-tune. “Thanks,” Pagan muttered and picked Erith up off the ground and held her captive in her arms. “For that, you are so cleaning up the needles when this tree sheds!” Captivated as always by the bright lights that shone in Erith’s green eyes, Pagan dipped her head and kissed her soundly. “You’re going to have a great Christmas,” she promised when she finally drew back for air.

  Still dazzled by the kiss, Erith just grinned at her. “With all the mistletoe I know Rogue has yet to hang, yes, I think I am.”

  *

  The weeks before Christmas flew past. Melina gathered reports from the Sentinels that spoke of Chastilian seeming finally free from the Phoenix’s chokehold. The police reported that crime had dropped to its more normal level. The Sentinels didn’t relax their vigilance, however. Crime bosses didn’t remain dormant for long when one had been toppled from his seat, but for now, Chastilian was ready to celebrate the holidays and ring in a very welcome new year.

  “Are you actually willing it to snow?” Erith asked softly.

  Embarrassed to be caught doing exactly that, Pagan turned away from the dark sky and regarded her love. “It has to snow tonight, it would make everything perfect.”

  Erith cuddled into Pagan’s side and slipped an arm about her waist. “Tell me, Sentinel, what could be more perfect than you and I out in the cold night air—you masked and dressed in some serious sexy leather,” Erith’s eyes drifted over Pagan’s suit, “and me wishing that Rogue’s jacket didn’t make me feel like I am wearing oversized hand-me-downs.” She flapped her arms to show just how long the sleeves were.

  Chuckling, Pagan fingered a stray piece of red hair that had escaped from beneath the black knit cap covering Erith’s head. “I won’t keep you out of the warm for long, I promise. I just wanted to share something with you. It’s one of my favourite holiday treats.”

  Erith stayed close at Pagan’s side as she led them out from the back of Ronchetti Security and onto the streets, all the time keeping to the shadows until the shadows from tall buildings provided huge pools of darkness where they could walk comfortably. Pagan checked around her then spoke quietly.

  “Heading topside, Sighted.”

  “We’ll keep the home fires burning.” Melina’s voice was soft in Pagan’s ear.

  Pagan fastened the clip from her utility belt to a corresponding one on Erith’s borrowed jacket. Satisfied they were secured together, Pagan pulled Erith close and aimed her wire gun at the building above them. The soft sound of the wire shooting out barely broke the silence of the night. Pagan felt the wire grip high above her, and with a quick warning to Erith to hold on, she pressed a button and they quickly flew up the side of the building.

  “Flying like this with you never gets old,” Erith said, grinning at Pagan in sheer exhilaration. “Just like so many other feelings I have with you that I love to relive over and over and over…”

  Pagan warmed at Erith’s seductive tone. “You know the Sighted can hear every word you’re saying, right?”

  “She knows all too well how I feel about you. It’s writt
en all over my face every moment of every day.” Erith snuggled into Pagan’s chest as the top of the apartment building neared.

  Slowing down their ascent, Pagan expertly found the foothold that would help boost them up onto the rooftop. “Hold tight,” she muttered. She easily lifted herself and Erith over the small ornate ledge that ran along the length of the roof, retracted the wire back into her gun, and unfastened Erith’s clasp. She noticed that Erith kept close to her even though they were separated. “Are you afraid to be up here?” Pagan asked, concerned. “I know I don’t usually bring you up this high.”

  Erith shook her head. “No. I mean, I’m a little nervous, tall building, long drop, sudden stop and all, but I know I’m safe up here with you. I’m safe wherever you are.”

  Holding out her hand, Pagan guided Erith over to the far side of the building. “I know you don’t really celebrate Christmas, and that the religious pageantry, as you call it, goes right over your head.” She lifted Erith’s chilled hands to brush a kiss across her knuckles. “I understand all that. For me Christmas is all about family, and you know how important my family is to me.”

  “They’re your world.”

  “And you are my everything, now and always.” Pagan took a deep breath. “You know I love you and that I will protect you until my last breath.”

  “Pagan,” Erith murmured, putting her fingers to Pagan’s lips, “don’t talk like that.”

  Kissing her fingertips, Pagan continued, “I have a present for you, something I want to share with you here. Before we exchange gifts with Melina and Rogue tomorrow. This is between you and me, my gift to you if you’ll accept it.” Reaching inside her jacket, she withdrew an envelope and handed it over to Erith.

  “What? You didn’t have time to wrap a bow around it?” Erith joked as she opened it up and removed the thick papers. She scanned the sheets by the light of the moon.

  Pagan’s chest hitched at Erith’s startled look.