Wyvern Protection Unit - Chapter 86: Chapter 86

Present Day in Santa’s Workshop…
The gathering of Elves stared wide-eyed at the descriptive explanation of Candy’s and Medjed’s goings-ons the night before and her cheeks heated in embarrassment.
Well, one part embarrassment and one part desire, if she were being honest, and Christmas Elves were nothing if not honest. However, she had no idea the big dumb dummy was going to do a play-by-play of their naughty shenanigans, right down to every last shiver.
“Whoa, buddy, that’s enough of that.” Candy slapped her hand over Medjed’s mouth to stop him from spilling any more of their carnal secrets.
“But, rohi, I am explaining to San Ta—” Medjed mumbled from behind her hand.
Then, wicked male that he was, he licked her palm, and she drew it back. She was shocked at not only his behavior, but at the fact she liked it.
“It’s pronounced Santa, one word, not two. Even so, he doesn’t need to know all that,” she growled.
Sheesh.
Some things were just nobody else’s fluffing business! She could feel herself blushing to the tips of her ears. When the heck had the conversation turned to the amazeballs sex she had shared with the man after all of two minutes of talking with him?
“What did I do wrong, rohi?”
Medjed cocked his head in that cutesy oblivious manner he had. Like he didn’t know he was being outrageous.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Sexy or not, she was not about to talk about her fluffing sexcapades with the man to her boss. As it was, Santa’s eyes seemed ready to bulge out of his head.
“Ixnay on the exsay!” she hissed.
“What?” Medjed asked, and she shook her head, kicking him under the table.
“Ouch!”
“Stop talking about our sex life to Santa!” she shouted.
“Oh, I see,” Medjed grumbled, rubbing his shin before crossing his arms.
“You are ashamed of me and our claiming night. Perhaps I did not satisfy? I would like to try again,” he declared, standing up, and some of the Elves around them wolf whistled.
Dirty rotten snowball lickers!
“OMG! Will you guys shush? And no, Medjed, that is not what I meant,” she confessed, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“Then I did satisfy? Still, I think we should perhaps try again,” he insisted, concern on his handsome face.
“Medjed, you know you, um, satisfied me, but do you really want every Christmas Elf in the village to know what I look like naked or the sounds I make during orgasm?” she whisper-screamed at him.
Medjed’s brown eyes turned an alarming shade of red as he stood to his full height and suddenly had his khopesh in hand.
“I will slay every one of them who dares gaze upon what is mine!” Medjed growled, turning to face the whimpering Elves.
“Okay, then,” Santa interrupted. “Let’s get back on track, folks. Medjed, have a seat there, buddy. Candy is right, perhaps some things are better left inside the bedroom⁠—”
“It was a cave,” Medjed corrected, unhelpfully, and Candy rolled her eyes.
“Okay, cave, then. Now, it seems the Fates brought you two together. I am not discounting that, and after that replay of how, um, explosive you two are, I would say there is no denying it. Am I right?” he asked, and Candy reluctantly nodded.
“Well, now that we have that part settled, how is it you two split apart?” Santa asked.
Candy wrapped her arms around herself, refusing to look at Medjed while he answered this part of Santa’s questions. Misery filled her, and she sighed as fat snowflakes started falling from the sky.
“I truly do not know what went wrong, but my heart breaks knowing I somehow insulted my sweet rohi.”
“Explain what you do know then, son,” Santa urged, and all the Elves leaned closer to listen.
Candy glared at Jolly, but her redheaded bestie shrugged, then turned his attention back to Medjed. She supposed everyone was curious to learn how Candy had failed at yet another thing.
Oh Granny, why me?
She steeled herself against the story, not quite ready to hear it again. But she had no choice, she supposed. Besides, closure was good, right? But fluffin’ flurries, she wished he would hurry so she could go drown her misery in some spiked hot cocoa.
“One minute, I was out of the cave gathering fresh snow to melt for water for the Huskies and the little flightless bird. The next, Candy had run away from me. No note. No nothing. And she took Fluffy, too,” he said and sounded so upset and confused she could hardly believe it.
“Well, Candy? Care to explain?” Santa asked.
She could feel her heart squeeze and her stomach flip as she looked around at the gathering of Elves. What was wrong with them?
Anger filled her as she scowled at them. Gossip hounds! They were far too interested in her personal sex life than the task at hand, which was to get Santa’s sleigh loaded so he could deliver goodies to all the boys and girls of the earth in a single night.
“Fine,” she grumbled and turned to look at Santa as opposed to the man who had broken her heart.
“Santa, you know it is every she-Elf’s dream to find her one true and fated mate. Most find their significant others within the Elf community, but every now and then there is an Elf who is destined for something else. Well, my Granny Elf told me before she passed, I would not find my mate here. She told me to wait for the signs and when I saw them to leave to seek my mate, so, um, I did.”
Candy stopped, needing a moment to continue, and Santa Claus, blessed creature that he was, patted her hand. She ignored Medjed’s ridiculous growl and kept her gaze on Santa.
“I see. So, that is why I was short-staffed on Christmas Eve and why Mrs. Stripes was having kittens when she told me what had transpired. Now, I take it you didn’t mean to cause such a ruckus,” her boss said in a tone she didn’t quite care for, even though she knew she’d more than earned it.
“Yes, Santa,” she said. “Anyway, after marching for hours through the colder-than-Christmas North Pole that exists in the human realm, I found a small penguin that needed my help. The baby chick had been abandoned and I couldn’t just leave her to die.”
“Of course not,” Santa replied, and nodded.
“So, I tied my scarf around her and sought shelter in a nearby cave. He was already inside,” she said and gestured to where Medjed sat watching her with covetous eyes. “The second I saw him, I sort of just knew he belonged to me. At least, that was what I thought at the time.”
She sighed heavily. Candy did not have to look at him to know exactly where he was. His scent wrapped around her, spicier and cinnamonier than any gingerbread or snickerdoodle she’d ever had. So rich and enticing, like nothing else in the universe, she admitted, even if only to herself.
“Go on, Candy,” Santa encouraged.
“Well, it was like he said. Love at first sight, for me anyway,” she huffed despite Medjed’s growly objection. “Then, this morning he stepped outside and as you all know, we Elves have superior hearing, pointed ears and all, and, well, I heard him.” She sniffed.
“Heard him?” Santa asked.
“Yes, he was on the phone with his other mate! The lousy two-timing snowball cruncher!”
Candy yelled her heartbreak, but she couldn’t help tearing up. She sniffed loudly and blinked back the tears that stung her eyes.
“What is this treachery? Who told you that? I have no other mate!” roared Medjed.
“I heard what you said. You and your friend said no one could ever replace Carolina in your heart as your first mate, you, you rotten ginger-berry sucking, ice-munching narwhal humper!”
“WHOA!”
The gathered crowd gasped. It was the crowning cusswords of all cusswords in the North Pole and Candy was not proud of herself, but boy was she angry. The Elves surrounding them whispered and pointed as if they could hardly believe she had uttered such a phrase, but there it was.
The whole, ugly, yellow-stained-snow, stinking, belated-Christmas-present, underwear-and-sock-gift-giving truth. And there it was. Out in the open for everyone to see.
Sniff.
“Ooh!”
“Oh my!”
“Fluffernutter!”
Her one fated mate was so not true. He was a two-timer, and Candy was a fool.
“I am sorry for leaving, Santa,” she said and turned her back on a red-faced Medjed. “I will take my punishment. I know when midnight strikes, we will disappear back to the holiday plane, and I will never be allowed back here again.”
Candy whimpered and wiped her eyes, desperate to get away from her heartache, and truth be told, all its witnesses. Especially him.
“If that is what you want,” Santa said quietly.
He stood up as if to leave. The Elves whispered amongst themselves, and Candy shuddered as she turned her back on everyone. She needed some alone time. And rum. A whole bucket of rum.
But her plans to wallow in her misery were cut short when, suddenly, the workshop was taken over by a whipping wind full of warm golden sand. The Elves yelped and gasped, many had never seen real desert sand, and Candy was taken by surprise.
“Wait!” Medjed stood up, and she turned to see him surrounded by bronze light, and the circling sands that seemed to emanate from him. “Don’t I get to speak?” he asked.
“Of course you do, son, but please tone down the fireworks, will you? Ho ho ho.”
Santa laughed a little nervously, and Medjed’s fury did not abate. Candy narrowed her eyes. She’d had enough of all this.
“I don’t want to listen to him, Santa,” Candy said, but her boss narrowed his eyes and pointed to the chair.
She knew better than to argue. Having been on the naughty list once or twice over the centuries, it was nowhere she wanted to be. Candy was not a fan of coal. It was terrible for the environment and hell on her skin.
Medjed stood up, walked around her chair until he was facing her. He looked furious—and sexy. Like drool-worthy sexy. The very air around him seemed to crack with his anger, and Candy bit her lip as he stared wide eyed while he magicked the sands he'd conjured away again.
“I am Medjed,” he announced, turning his head to encompass the crowd so that all could hear him.
“Warrior and Guard of the House of Osiris, Sword of the Underworld, and you,” Medjed continued, turning his liquid black gaze back to her. “You, candy Kane, are mine. My rohi. My very soul. You are my one and only true mate. What you heard with your magnificently pointed ears was half a conversation, and had you asked me, I would have gladly explained it to you,” he said, and she could sense both his anger, hurt, and amusement.
“Like I wanted to give you another chance to lie to me,” she stomped.
“I do not lie, rohi. Never. And certainly not to you. You are part of my very own soul, and since when can a man, Demon, or Demigod, lie to himself?” he asked, and she found herself wavering.
“What I said this morning on the phone to my good friend and blood brother, Jasper Wessex, was that I felt about my own rohi the same way he felt about his wife and mate. Her name is Carolina. Then, my brother made a joke about when we first met,” Medjed explained, and the fury in his eyes gentled.
“Your brother?”
“Yes. The Wessex Clan has adopted me as theirs. I owe them much, you see. It is because of Jasper’s mate, I am even here. Yes, I had mistaken his mate for my own, as she was the woman who freed me from a magical scroll that had served as my prison for a millennium.”
“Oh,” Candy gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth. Tangled emotions roiled through her.
Anger, heartache, confusion, embarrassment, and guilt. But also, relief, love, happiness, and hope—yes, hope renewed, that elusive beauty, bloomed inside her.
“I swear to you, rohi, though I love the Wessex Clan as my family, I have never loved another as my mate. You, sweet Candy, are mine. I vow here and now, in front of the great and terrible San Ta Claws, that you alone are the true and fated mate of my heart and my soul.”
“Oh Medjed, I am so sorry,” she replied, feeling two inches tall.
“Don’t be, my love. It is good you test me. And I promise to worship, protect, and love you with every inch of my heart, body, mind, and soul until my own light fades out of existence. This I vow, rohi, and I will wear my vow on my skin as Nut wears our destinies on her,” as he spoke bright golden swirls of magic circled his biceps and right before her eyes a new hieroglyph appeared on his skin as if etched with gold.
The cryptographs were suddenly clear to her, and she was shocked she was able to read them through the magic of their shared matebond.
It was their story, the fated mates written in the stars who met under odd circumstances but shared a love like the world had never seen.
“This is the story of you and me. This is the story of us. This is my sword, rohi,” he said and pointed to one of the markings, “and I pledge it to you alone. I am capable of no greater vow.”
Then, to her surprise, the mighty Egyptian warrior, Demon, Demigod, er, whatever, kneeled before Candy. He looked up at her with sparkling dark eyes and his spicy cinnamon fragrance filling the air, and her heart melted.
Could she have been wrong about him? Was Granny right after all, that this man was her heart’s true mate?
“Oh, Medjed,” she said, and went to go to him, but a certain pudgy someone stopped her.
“One moment,” Santa said, and the two lovers looked into the head Elf’s twinkling blue eyes. One was angry, and the other confused. “Perhaps a mint, Candy?”
He said and offered a small, wrapped piece of confection to the Christmas Elf. All at once, she knew what she had to do.
“Oh my! Would you like one?” she said, biting her lip as she offered Medjed the truth mint that Jolly had slipped int her pack before she’d headed out on her journey.
“Certainly, rohi,” Medjed smiled and accepted the candy from her hands.
“How do you feel now? About us?” she asked, watching him for any sign that his feelings had changed.
“More in love with you by the second, mate of mine. Thank you, by the way, this mint is delicious.”
“I have a confession, it is a truth mint. You can’t lie for a little while after you eat one,” she confessed.
“I see. And are you happy with the truth?”
“Yes, Medjed. So happy.”
He smiled then and took her hands in his large, warm ones, and Candy could not stop smiling.
“Tell me now, love. Will you come with me to visit my adoptive earthly family? I would very much like to present you to them as my one and only mate, my love.”
“Oh, I would like that very much, but Santa? Is that possible?”
Medjed stood up then, holding her lightly around the waist, but she could feel his intense stare as he looked down his nose at her boss.
“Easy there, son. You know, I have a feeling you and I have a long way to go before there is trust between us, but I am willing. For Candy’s sake.” Santa winked.
“Now, you take this here,” he said and handed Candy what looked like a small pill dispenser.
“That is a never-ending supply of TEZ, that’s short for Teleportation Energy Zips. They will allow you to travel to and from the village in the blink of an eye, regardless of the time of year.”
“But I thought that magic ended at midnight tonight?” she gasped.
“No, that rule is just for the whole village, Candy. I can wink a few Elves, and even an ancient Egyptian Demon Warrior Demigod, um, whatever, back and forth from one plane to the other without expending too much magic. You know I am the Santa Claus, right?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Really? Then yes, please. We accept,” she said, holding Medjed’s hand as she took the TEZ dispenser. “Thank you, Santa!”
“Yes, thank you, San Ta Claws. We shall discuss your unhealthy voyeuristic habits when I return,” Medjed told him seriously before turning back to Candy.
“Well, rohi, are you coming with me?”
“You bet your jingle balls!” she said and vaulted into his arms with Fluffy in tow.
The Elves around them cheered and wolf-whistled, throwing glitter and environmentally friendly confetti at them. Candy was so happy, she almost burst out with joy.
Once upon a time, she was a lonely Elf, gazing at the stars, waiting for a sign. Now, she was mated to the most amazing man she could have ever imagined.
Did she know her true mate was going to be an Ancient Egyptian Warrior Demigod Demon?
Nope.
Would she change it?
No fluffin’ way!
Medjed might have been completely unexpected, but he was perfect for Candy. And she was going to keep him.