Elf-napped (A Filthy Dirty Christmas)

  Copyright © 2021 by Abby Knox

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is coincidental.

  Edited by Aquila Editing

  Cover Designer: Cormar Covers

  Elf-napped

  A FILTHY DIRTY CHRISTMAS

  ABBY KNOX

  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

  Epilogue

  A Filthy Dirty Christmas

  About the Author

  More by Abby Knox

  Chapter One

  Clara

  Me, texting my friend who convinced me to leave the house today: “This is the worst Tinder date in the history of Tinder dates. I should have stayed home and watched Lord of the Rings again.”

  Reba doesn’t reply right away. She’s busy with her long-distance boyfriend Deacon, plus she’s totally over my homebody ways.

  Earlier, while practically pushing me out the door, Reba had half-joked, “I hate to break it to you, sweetie, But Legolas is never going to be the one to de-virgin you. You have to put yourself out there for the actual human males.”

  My freezing hand stuffs my phone back in my puffy coat’s pocket, and I look up, scanning my surroundings.

  What I had hoped might be a casual meet-up for festive fun at the Christmas tree farm has turned out to be a whole mess.

  I should be sipping hot cocoa in the farm’s faux North Pole village right now. Perhaps listening to carolers, making a wreath in Santa’s Workshop, or browsing ornaments in the gift shop. Holly Berry Farm is a whole experience that people in the city drive their families to on weekends for wholesome fun. And the guy had agreed to my suggestion.

  Yet what are we doing instead? Wandering off the farm’s property and into the neighboring woods. And why do I not simply let this idiot get lost and freeze to death? Probably because he’d been hitting his flask pretty hard since the moment he arrived, and it’s only 11 a.m. He might be an alcoholic, a fact that tugs at my perhaps overly compassionate heart. Dammit.

  My tattered thread of hope for a human romantic interest had snapped as soon as I’d smelled Daren’s breath upon arrival. “So…you wanna make a wreath and then pick out a tree, or…?” I’d said, determined to make the best of this day now that I had driven 30 minutes out of the city.

  I had watched him pour vodka from a flask into a cup of the free apple cider. That should have been my first red flag to turn around and go home.

  Did I? No.

  Instead, I proceeded to watch my date dash off to hop on the hay wagon, seemingly eager to take the tractor ride out to the tree field right away. “Let’s go get us a fuckin’ TREE!” He shouted this as if he was an emcee at a wrestling match, and everyone was staring. At me, not him. Because I’m a woman, and I’m supposed to be in charge of a man’s behavior?

  Fuck my life.

  As soon as the tractor approached the field of available trees, Daren bolted off the wagon and wandered off…in the wrong direction.

  Right into the Elder Woods. What a dumbass.

  I’m not superstitious, but even I know you don’t go wandering into the Elder Woods.

  “Daren, are you aware that tree shopping involves actually being on the premises of trees that are for sale? And does not entail wandering into the very haunted-looking nearby woods?”

  Seems no one is interested in responding to my cries for help today.

  Oh, but Daren does utter some vodka-soaked gibberish to himself as we hike deeper and deeper into the woods, farther and farther away from the adorable village.

  I’m going to kill Reba. “’Go to Holly Berry Farm,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fun and safe,” she said.

  I mean, I won’t literally kill my best friend. But I intend to remind her as soon as I get home that spending another Saturday afternoon with Orlando Bloom — while wearing my homemade Legolas tee-shirt and swooning at the man’s pointy ears and flawless skin — is a much better use of my time than spending a single second with a human man. I lay the blame for my sexual and romantic fixations at the feet of J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson. One is responsible for my wish to live in a fantasy world, and the other is responsible for the movie that awakened my sexuality.

  And now here I am, following this drunk idiot into the woods. Just then, my phone pings.

  Reba: “LotR for the 87th time this year is not an option. The fresh air will do you some good.”

  My parents also thought I needed to get out of the house more. When, as a child, I balked at team sports, they dragged me to martial arts classes. Turns out, I sort of liked those lessons, so I kept going with it to keep my parents happy. It was a pleasant enough trade-off to living the rest of my life with my face in a book.

  Me: “Current situation: following his drunk ass into the Elder Woods for god knows what reason.”

  Reba: “Wut?”

  Me: “I should turn around and let him get lost, but I have zero sense of self-preservation despite my martial arts training, evidently.”

  Reba: “:(“

  Me: “You and Deacon are walking around the apartment naked, aren’t you?”

  Reba: “Maybeee?”

  Me: “Ugh.”

  Reba: “We’ll get dressed if you decide to come home, I promise.”

  Honestly, I’m a little surprised that she isn’t demanding that I make a 180 and bolt from this date immediately. She may be pushy and slightly manipulative, but she’s always looking out for my safety. I can’t blame her, though. It’s been months since she and Deacon have seen each other. And I’m a black belt in taekwondo. I haven’t had to use it on a man yet, and I don’t foresee needing to use it to fend off a drunk and sloppy Daren, either.

  I look up and see the man trudging through the woods and singing a sea shanty. I’ve got about 15 pounds on him, and he’s a clumsy drunk, so I think I’m okay as far as Daren is concerned. But it’s getting colder the deeper we walk into the woods. My sense of kindness is too much for this situation, and I decide I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t die of exposure out here.

  Me: “Nah. I’ll herd this cat back to the farm and call a cab for him. Grab me some cocoa and make the most of it. Just… don’t go near my Legolas figurines; I don’t want his innocent eyes seeing your nakedness.”

  Reba: “Okay, freak.”

  Now, where did Daren go? I follow his tracks, muttering that I need therapy to break this habit of being nice to people who exhibit bad behavior.

  On the other hand, it is a beautiful walk. I’m enjoying the cold, crisp air and the sunshine through the bare tree branches. The blanket of snow set against the whispering birches looks like the perfect Christmas postcard. There’s even a family of cardinals flying to and fro overhead.

  Eventually, the birches give way to a denser collection of massive pines and spruces, their evergreen branches blotting out the sun. I have a growing feeling that we should leave these woods as soon as possible. The Christmas tree farm is about a quarter-mile back, and my feet are numb. And I don’t see any branches pointing the way to a lamppost anywhere. God, I spend way too much time with my head in books. This isn’t Narnia, Clara.

  “Daren!”

  “It’s up here somewhere,” I hear him mutter. “The perfect tree.”

  I call after him, “We are supposed to be at the farm, making wreaths? Picking an approved tree? Sipping hot cider and cocoa?”

  Now I’m just sad and mad.

  I should turn back now and never take Reba’s advice ever again. She’s so caught up in her own romance she forgets to be practical. She threatened to kidnap me and drive me to my date this morning when I was on the verge of canceling.

  I had high hopes when I arrived at the farm today. Too bad I didn’t stick up for myself. And especially too bad that this adorable North Pole-esque village will never be a place I get to visit with my own children someday.

  I just have to face the fact that Legolas isn’t real, and I’m never going to have his little elven babies, and I’m going to die a virgin.

  Chapter Two

  Eldrin

  It’s going on five years since I was exiled for loving a human.

  To be punished for who I love… doesn’t feel very Christmassy and charitable, does it?

  The old fat man took everything away. My home, my job, my elven community. Worst of all, he took away my access Clara.

  I have watched over her since I grew into my role as List Keeper.

  I remember clearly the moment when I fell in love. I was following Clara home from high school, and I saw her walking by the park. A van had pulled up along the curb, and the driver was asking a little boy to help him look for his lost puppy. Clara had sprung into acti
on, put herself between the van and that boy, and told him to run. The driver tried to flee, but Clara performed an incredible nose jab with the heel of her palm. He was incapacitated until the police’s arrival. Based on her statements, that man was discovered to be a serial predator and still rots in prison to this day.

  That was not only the moment my adolescent brain fell in love with this beautiful human, but also it was the moment I started to question everything. Why were we spying on children and reporting behavior if we couldn’t intervene when they were in danger? And why were we surveilling children at all, if not to use our abilities to prevent adults from doing harm?

  “Our time would be much better spent making gifts for all children and using our magic to keep adults in check,” I told Nicholas during my first performance review.

  Nicholas told me to do my job and stop asking questions. That was my first warning.

  My second warning was less about my personal sense of right and wrong and a lot more about—well, about my horniness. When Clara turned 18 and had aged out of the Naughty or Nice program, I was supposed to cease my surveillance of her. I was supposed to report to the North Pole and replenish my list with a new batch of children to spy on.

  But I never showed up to that meeting. I was too busy watching Clara on a date.

  I kept my hawk eyes on her at all times, though unable to prevent her from dating a human. I knew I was in trouble, not meeting my deadlines, not doing my job, but that’s what love did to me. I spent all my time feeling frustrated, isolated, and driven mad by jealousy.

  And I took advantage of the elven gift of invisibility a few times too many.

  One day, Clara went to an outdoor music festival, where she met a man I knew to be bad news. He’d been one of my previous charges, a bad seed. Always on the naughty list and never grew out of it. She’d said no when he put his hands on her. He’d been touching her back, touching her hair. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I waited for my moment, even though I was half-blind with rage. When he wandered off into the trees to relieve himself, I might have encouraged a dying tree to fall on him. He didn’t die—I’m not a murderer even though I felt murderous. He walked away with a few broken ribs, and in the meantime, Clara had enough sense to stick close to Reba for the rest of the festival.

  Of course, I was caught immediately and brought up on charges of “Interfering in Human Affairs, Causing Bodily Injuries to Humans,” and—worst of all in the eyes of Nicholas—“Fixation on an Individual Human.”

  My punishment? To live out the rest of my days as a caretaker of the Elder Woods.

  This is a joke of an assignment.

  “Caretaker” means nothing except keeping humans away from our sacred land. Here, the Common elves harvest a unique sap to create healing draughts.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that I’m not looking down the barrel of five hundred years of being a List Keeper. I don’t give a fuck about exile.

  Except for one problem. Nicholas took away my ability to teleport and to be invisible. I’m essentially a very tall human with an ear deformity who will die of extreme old age. For my own survival and the survival of these woods, I can still talk to trees and plants. So at least I have that.

  But I can no longer keep my eyes on Clara. I haven’t been able to see her in five long years.

  Until today.

  I’ve finally got Clara in my sights, by a total fluke of coincidence. And I’m never letting her out of my sight again.

  Chapter Three

  “This is a terrible idea, dude!”

  The toasted man is getting us more and more lost, through the dense trees of Elder Woods. And I’m starting to get the creeps.

  And then I see the ax.

  What the actual fuck?

  He turns to face me with a proud grin on his face.

  “It’s like I said. Cutting down your own Christmas tree used to be a thing that men did all on their own in the woods.”

  He might have said that in his incoherent rambles, but I hadn’t heard it before now. If I had, I’d like to think I would have ditched him miles ago.

  This man-boy is certifiable.

  I wish whatever creature lives in these woods would pop out and make Daren piss his jeans right now. I’d love for his dick to freeze to them as a result. Not to do any permanent damage, but maybe enough to require medical intervention, like a much more embarrassing version of that scene in A Christmas Story.

  Daren rounds the corner, and he shouts, “Here it is! This is the one! Fuck yeah!”

  “Please do not think about cutting down a tree in these woods!” I exclaim.

  Too late. The chopping begins.

  Thwack!

  “Dude!” I shout. “You do know Clark Griswold is a fictional character, right? You do know this is wrong on so many levels?!”

  I hate running. I hate being out of breath. I also hate yelling. The fact that I’m doing all of these things is not lost on me. I’m also going to get caught by the farmer—or whatever weirdo haunts these woods—and be guilty by association.

  But my love of natural habitats far outweighs my worry about looking guilty if caught.

  Daren doesn’t answer but delivers blow after blow to some poor tree. God, just how big is this tree that he’s trying to cut down?

  “Come on, man! You’re being a huge dick right now. Birds probably live in that tree!”

  Later in life, when I retell this story to people, I will describe how at this moment, the chopping sounds stopped, and everything seemed to go eerily still.

  A human-like shadow cuts across the snow to my right. This is followed by complete and utter silence from the birds and all woodland creatures. Not a single chirp or scuttle can be heard. A minute later, Daren’s blood-curdling scream rents the air.

  “Daren!?”

  I don’t like the guy, but I run toward the screaming. What if he’s been caught in a bear trap or something?

  As I sprint to where the screaming came from, the shadow moves through the trees. When I round the corner where I think Daren went with his ax, he plows right over me, knocking me into a snowdrift.

  “Hey!” I shout.

  All I hear is his rapid retreat through the snow and his words, “I’m getting the fuck out of here. Never drinking again!”

  Struggling to stand, I slip and fall back into the snow. Panic rises in my throat. Something or someone is here.

  That something reaches out a hand to help me stand.

  Gulping, I stare first at the hand. Long, bare fingers extend toward me. This person’s lack of snow gear would be remarkable if another feature wasn’t overpowering everything else. His skin. It glows.

  He is the tallest man I’ve ever seen. But he can’t be a man. No man has glowing skin, a braid down to his waist, and—oh no, this isn’t natural—pointy ears. The creature’s almond-shaped eyes have no irises; they are two vast pools of blackness. His long smooth nose and severe mouth look carved from stone. He is naked except for a strange leather kilt and belt situation. Hands so big that one of them could rip a modestly sized Fraser fir up by the roots.

  And the outline in that leather kilt?

  Holy clanging silver bells.

  Chapter Four

  Eldrin

  I have her. She’s mine now.

  “Clara,” is all I can muster to say because I’m so overwhelmed by seeing her again.

  She and I had never made eye contact before, and something is blocking my throat, making speech difficult.

  Her lovely hazel eyes widen in fright when she hears me speak her name. Of course, she’s surprised. I’m nothing but a stranger to her, and a terrifying one at that.

  “I…did Reba send you? As…a joke?”

  A joke?

  An odd look comes over her face, and she collapses in peals of laughter.

  I have experienced being laughed at before in the elven community. A lot.