CHAPTER ONE
It was way past noon, and Avelyn still wasn’t ready. She was getting there. One step at a time. Patience was a virtue, and the past ten years had turned Avelyn… yes, feisty, hot-headed Avelyn Blackmane!... into the most virtuous shifter bride there was. Well, not the past ten years per se, but more like the three wolf pups who were currently clinging to her long skirt.
“Where could it be?” she mumbled under her breath as she almost stumbled down the stairs. She sighed. “Nick, please let go. Please.”
By pulling at her skirt, her 10-year-old son was setting a really bad example. His younger brothers, Lucas and Jacob, always looked up to him, studied him carefully, then imitated him like well-trained monkeys. The three of them could drive Avelyn insane!
“Where are you and dad going? Tell us, and I’ll let go.”
When Luke and Jake giggled and pulled at her skirt harder, Avelyn almost fell on her butt. She yelped and grabbed on to the railing.
“Deep breaths, Avelyn. Deep breaths.”
“We’ve discussed this. Your dad and I are going away for three days. Just three days. It’s not the end of the world, Nikolas.”
“But where?” Luke, her 9-year-old whined.
“It’s Christmas, mommy! You have to stay here, with us, or take us with you,” reasoned Jake, her 8-year-old.
Avelyn cleared her throat and turned to face them. Slowly, she managed to pry her skirt free from her sons’ tiny, evil fingers.
“You do remember this was your idea, right?”
Nick chewed on his lower lip and avoided her gaze. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Luke and Jake when they pointed at him and said at the same time:
“It was his idea, not ours!”
Avelyn cocked and eyebrow.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. It was an awesome surprise, and your dad and I decided to take it. Nikolas, honey, did you change your mind?”
It was wrong to manipulate her oldest son like that, but Avelyn needed a break so badly that she was ready to drop the whole virtuous mother act just this once. When Nick, Luke, and Jake had burst into her and Max’s room one week ago, shouting at the top of their lungs that they had a Christmas surprise for their parents, neither she, nor Max imagined it would be a fancily written permission slip to spend Christmas together, just the two of them, away from the Schloss.
Avelyn dug into her purse and took out the colored piece of paper her sons had handed her one week before. She knew it had taken them hours to draw the wobbly Christmas tree, and color the Christmas lights and globes, then maybe even more to come up with the text they scribbled in the center of the page:
After careful consideration, we decided, via this hereby, that mom and dad should spend Christmas alone, together, just the two of them, somewhere romantic.
Signed: Nikolas, Lucas, Jacob
Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad!
Aside from the fact that they had no idea how to use “hereby” in a sentence, the handmade permission slip was a nice surprise and Christmas present. The best she and Max had gotten from anyone in the past ten years!
The boys didn’t seem very willing to look at the piece of paper in her hand. Avelyn sighed, folded it, and placed it back in her purse.
“Okay. It’s not nice to take back a present, especially a Christmas present, but I get it. Give me a second, and I’ll let your dad know we’re staying.”
She made to leave. Sure enough, her three little scoundrels pulled at her skirt so suddenly that she could swear she’d eventually end up in nothing but her panties.
“Nooooo!” Nick was pouting so hard that he could barely speak. “We’re not taking our Christmas present back. You can go.”
Avelyn’s blue eyes skipped between the three of them.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” confirmed Luke and Jake.
“Alright, then.”
She waited another minute. Yes, she was late, and Max was waiting for her downstairs, but she couldn’t risk looking so excited at the prospect of taking a sweet, well-deserved break from her kids that they’d change their mind again.
“If you’re one hundred percent sure, then… maybe… you could tell me where my winter coat is?”
She batted her lashes and smiled cutely. She’d been looking for her coat for the past half an hour, and now she was pretty sure they had stolen it and stashed it away somewhere.
Lucas stole a quick glance at his brother, Nikolas. He ran back up the stairs only when Nick nodded his approval.
“My tiny Alpha,” Avelyn thought.
“She’ll need her boots, too,” whispered Jacob.
Nick nodded again, and Jacob ran to the kitchen.
Avelyn crossed her arms over her generous chest and shook her head.
“Anything else? Can I count on you that my clothes were in the suitcase when I gave it to Kevin?”
“Yes,” Nick mumbled. “We didn’t go through your suitcase.”
“Thank you.”
She took her coat and boots from Luke and Jake, then proceeded to finally run down the stairs, to the grand living room.
Max was waiting for her, brows furrowed, and foot lightly tapping with impatience.
“What took you so long? Our stuff is already there.”
“Sorry, baby.” She ran to him, lifted herself up on her tiptoes, and placed a chaste kiss on his full lips. “You can’t rush beauty, can you?” She winked seductively.
Max chuckled, but he wasn’t that clueless. He knew his sons well enough to figure out they had given Avelyn a hard time. Again. They would never give him a hard time, seeing as he was the Alpha of Clan Blackmane, and all, but that surely meant Avelyn was getting double treatment.
“You three be good now, okay?” He knelt and pulled his sons in a bear hug. “Don’t stress Aunt Jocelyn too much, or she’ll kick Santa back up the chimney tonight.”
“We don’t care as long as we get our presents,” Nick grinned.