A Mistletoe Wish, page 1
A Mistletoe Wish
By
Jamie K. Schmidt
Also by Jamie K. Schmidt
Billionaires Behaving Badly
Hard Cover
Christmas Sweeties
The Candy Cane Cowboy
The Gingerbread Cowboy
Hawaii Heat
Life's A Beach
Beach Happens
Beach My Life
Beauty and the Beach
Kennedy Family Christmas
A Casual and Chaotic Christmas Collection
A Second Chance Christmas
Kinky Classics
Domme Quixote
Love Bites
Swipe for Androids
Sons of Babylon
Sentinel's Kiss
Ryder's Reckoning
Necessary Evil: Sons of Babylon MC Romance Book1 (S.O.B.)
Super Short Super Hero Instalove Romantasy
The Gemini Conflict
The Club Inferno Series
Desire
The Emerging Queens
The Queen's Choice
The Truth & Lies Series
Truth Kills
Truth Reveals
Wishing for Love
A Mistletoe Wish
Standalone
Flash Magic
Naked Truth
Shifter's Price
Maiden Voyage
The Graveyard Shift
Extra Whip
Warden's Woman
Sweet Alchemy: An Explosive Paranormal Romance Collection
A Casual Christmas
A Chaotic Christmas
A Not So Casual Christmas
Losing It
Dead Man Stalking
Love Bytes
Watch for more at Jamie K. Schmidt’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Also By Jamie K. Schmidt
A Mistletoe Wish (Wishing for Love)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Sign up for Jamie K. Schmidt's Mailing List
Further Reading: Swipe for Androids
Also By Jamie K. Schmidt
About the Author
A Mistletoe Wish is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright @2023 by Jamie K. Schmidt.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of copyright owner.
Please Note: The reverse engineering, uploading, and/or distributing of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Chapter One
Selena
It was a beautiful autumn day when Selena Moss was kicked out of her tribe. The elders had decreed that she would no longer be welcome among the ranks of their elite Fae warriors until she was curse-free.
“You may take three things,” the elder said. Her wrinkled face showed kindness despite the gravity of her decision.
Selena wanted to argue, to rage, to revert back to childhood and throw a tantrum on the dusty ground of the ancient tribunal. But any one of those things would shame her family further.
It wasn’t fair. None of this was her fault.
“I choose Artegenos,” Selena said, amazed that her voice didn’t quaver.
“Granted,” the elder said.
Artegenos was Selena’s family's ancestral sword, forged with elven craftsmanship, a masterpiece of elegance and lethal precision. The slender, gleaming blade danced through the air in battle with an almost musical rhythm. It had saved her life on more than one occasion, and it contained the spirits of the Fae women of her lineage. Her mother stepped forward from the crowd and handed it to her. Selena resisted the urge to hug her goodbye. It was forbidden. She slipped the sword into her belt. Her mother hovered close with the scabbard, but Selena couldn’t afford to ask for that as well.
“I choose the Map of Gates.” Selena wondered if she had gone too far by requesting this when the council withdrew and circled behind the dais where they had been seated at the hand-carved oaken table. Straining her ears, she could only hear the brush of soft whispering as they spoke to each other in ancient Elvish.
The map was a treasured document of their tribe. It showed all the places in the mortal world where Fae artifacts had been left behind to grant boons to deserving pilgrims. Since Selena had been unable to find a way to reverse her curse in Fairy, it stood to reason that she might find the solution in the mortal world.
While waiting for the council’s decision, Selena slid a glance at her sister, who had given her the idea to ask for the map. Fiona closed her eyes. The shunning had begun, and grief twisted Selena’s guts.
Selena was being banished from the Faelands because she was cursed with bad luck. If she could find a cure, she would be allowed back into her tribe. But until she did, she was a danger to her friends and family.
When the curse first manifested on Selena’s hundred and eighteenth birthday, it did so with harmless but annoying things, like milk curdling as she passed by or people near her tripping into a mud pile. But as she grew older, the effects had grown more dire. Just having her in the ranks could tank their army’s chance of success in battle.
Not much was known about who cursed her or how her misfortune had come to be. Some said one of her mother’s opponents had flung a death curse at her before she vanquished them, and Selena, as the eldest born, was doomed with it. Some said it had been Selena’s own fault. Perhaps she had unearthed a dark sidhe during one of her explorations and had earned its wrath. Still, others said the unlucky instances had all just been unfortunate coincidences. Sadly, those voices were in the minority.
“Granted,” the elder said reluctantly as the council returned to the table.
Selena let out a long breath of relief. If they had denied her request, she didn’t have another way of searching for a cure.
“And your third thing?” another elder prompted, glaring at Selena’s mother, who was standing too close to her.
Selena probably should ask for the scabbard. It had been similarly enchanted as the great sword Excalibur’s scabbard had been in that it healed the wounds that the bearer took on in battle. Along with Artegenos, she would be safe in the mortal realm with both of them in her possession. And yet, she couldn’t leave her family—perhaps for eternity—without protection.
“I choose a cutting of mistletoe from my family’s estate.”
“What—?” her mother squawked and then immediately fell silent. Backpedaling into the crowd, her mother kept her head down.
If the elders were feeling capricious, they could sanction her mother for speaking out during the ceremony. But it seemed that Selena’s request had also distracted them.
“Very well,” the elder said faintly and motioned to Selena’s sister to go fetch it.
If Selena were unsuccessful in her quest, she would plant the mistletoe wherever she settled so that she would always have a reminder of home. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but after twenty-five years, she was losing confidence that there was a way to end the curse.
Fiona returned quickly and handed Selena a craft-wrapped sprig. It was magicked to sprout wherever it was planted. Fiona also risked the ire of the elders by briefly clasping Selena’s hand before she, too, faded into the crowd.
“Leave then, child of misfortune,” the elder intoned. “You do not exist for the Dawnstar tribe until you have rid yourself of the ill luck that surrounds you.”
Selena bowed her head and remained that way until the crowd dispersed, and she was alone. As she walked out of the village, none of her tribe acknowledged her existence. It was as if she had become a ghost. Her parents wouldn’t even catch her eye for one last farewell. Her battle siblings turned and busied themselves with other tasks as she walked by them. Selena walled away her feelings of hurt and misery. They wouldn’t serve a purpose now. Still, they ached like a sore tooth. She would
Selena wondered if she should have chosen a bow and a quiver of arrows instead of the map and the mistletoe. Or maybe a canteen and a hunting knife would have been more practical. And yet, those were items that she could barter for or even make herself if given the right tools. She wouldn’t go hungry or thirsty while she was in the Faelands, but the mortal lands were another matter. According to the map, she had a few weeks' walk to get to the nearest gate. She was confident she would find a solution before then.
Hopefully.
Over the following weeks, Selena was able to forage food from the wild plants that grew on the path to the gate. She sipped rainwater and the morning dew from the cuplike leaves of the many saplings of the connected Great Tree. At night, she cooked hearty root vegetables in her campfire that she started by striking her sword against a rock until the sparks lit the pine needles and other kindling sticks.
“I am not a common steel,” her sword said haughtily after several days of this treatment.
“Of course not, Artegenos,” Selena said soothingly. “But we need to warm ourselves by the fire.”
At her words, the fire jumped out of the carefully crafted pit she had dug and burned in a line towards the fragile sprouted saplings of the Great Tree.
“No, no, no,” Selena said, jumping up and stamping out the trail of flames before it could start a forest fire or, worse, kill the budding children of the Great Tree.
She needed to leave Fairy before her curse damned her to eternal banishment instead of this temporary one. She doused the fire and resigned herself to eating half-cooked potatoes and charred carrots that night. If she pushed on all day and all night tomorrow, she would make it to the mortal gate. There, she would have to find a job to support herself until she found something to break her curse. There had to be somebody who needed a warrior to fight their battles for them. Selena only hoped she could find someone honorable to hire her.
From the information on the map, the first Fae artifact that she would investigate was in a small town called Hope. The name seemed to bode well for her quest. The town was located in North America, in the forests of Connecticut. The artifact that was there was a wishing well created by rival Fae, who had been fighting over the town of Hope. The legend and lore stated that the Fae’s magic imbued the wishing well with the power to grant the supplicant’s heart’s desire if they were worthy.
Selena knew she was worthy. But she wasn't sure how she could prove it. Perhaps the wishing well would simply recognize her Fae blood, and her curse would be lifted. If that were the case, she would be back home for Yule, and there would be much celebration.
Or maybe she would have to do a quest or a noble deed. Whatever it took, Selena was committed to trying everything in her power. And if that didn’t work, she had an entire map of other artifacts to visit. She only hoped that her curse wouldn’t hurt anyone while she was investigating the well and its powers.
Chapter Two
Ben
Ben Whitlock rose from his coffin precisely at sundown, as he had been doing for the last three hundred or so years. Back then, the town had been named Whitlock after his grandsire’s grandsire. That was before two meddling Fae had decided to battle for Whitlock, and at the end of it, the town was renamed Hope.
Hope. Ben sneered. They should have named it greed because that’s what brought flocks of tourists to the small town and their magic wishing well. As he exited his coffin, he was pleased that Sykes had left him a mug of warmed blood. It was body temperature, and he drank his first cup down the way most mortals did their morning coffee.
“You look stunning, my dark lord,” Sykes said with the appropriate amount of snivel in his voice when Ben walked into his office in the town hall. Sykes was what the vampire community called a Renfield. He was a butler, servant, blood donor, and pretty much anything else Ben wanted him to be. He was a loyal and useful retainer, and if Sykes served Ben well, he would be changed into a vampire at the end of his life and granted a territory all his own.
“The violet of the cravat brings out the radiance in your eyes.”
Because Ben could not look into a mirror due to his lack of reflection, he would have to take Sykes’ word for it. But since Sykes was in charge of maintaining Ben’s clothing in the current century’s style, in addition to washing and ironing them, it was in Sykes’ best interest to have everything perfect.
Ben was not a forgiving master.
“What is on the agenda for today?” he asked, already dreading the answer.
“Today’s the sanctification of the wishing well for the Yuletide season.”
“Is it December already?” Ben asked, glancing out of his office window. It hadn’t started snowing yet. Maybe the weather gods were waiting until the winter solstice this year. That would be convenient. He wouldn’t have to waste the town’s budget on snow plowing. If it were up to him, the tourists could wait out the snowstorm in the several bed and breakfasts around the area. But the local merchants weren’t too keen on that idea, so to make everyone happy, he would send out the plows if needed.
“Today is December the first.”
Biting back a sigh, Ben said, “Prepare the ritual space. Make sure the area is cordoned off. We don’t want a repeat of last year’s fiasco.”
“No, Master.”
Last year, a vampire groupie stormed through the barricades and past three of Ben’s best ghoul bodyguards and flung herself at him, begging to be bitten. Ben had nearly tossed her in the well. But there had been paparazzi present, so he merely smiled for the camera and then let his incompetent bodyguards lead her away. The crowd had been amused. Ben had not.
He wasn’t even sure why he still performed the ritual. In all the years that he had prepared the wishing well for the Yuletide season, it had never granted him his heart’s desire. And he had been one of the first to drink from the well after Candace Juniper and Roderick Stone had created it and transformed the town of Whitlock into Hope.
His heart’s desire was simple but unattainable. He wanted someone to share his eternal un-life with. Sure, in the past years, he had bedmates and playmates. Some grew old and died. Some left him when he wouldn’t turn them into a vampire. Some were just here for the season. A few vampires had pledged themselves to him, but while they were loyal and good friends, none of them were his soulmate. And even then, after a few years, they moved on. Vampires preferred to travel alone or in pairs.
The truth was he was lonely.
A melancholy, broody vampire was too trite of a stereotype for him ever to let anyone see him in that light. He was proud of his little town. He just wished the wishing well wasn’t so popular. Every season, Ben would be forced to see people drink from the well and then walk around starry-eyed at the possibility of great wealth or the prospect of being cured of a disease. And on rare occasions, meeting their soulmate.
Even though the town posted many caveats about the success of the wishing well, it didn’t stop his office from receiving bitter complaints when the recipient didn’t get their wish.
“You were not worthy,” he would tell them, and then have to listen to their wailing and arguments until he hexed them with his gaze, and they realized they really wanted a cronut from Adelaide’s bakery.
He got a five percent kickback.
The six hours until midnight dragged on because Ben was dreading the sanctification ritual. It was mind-numbingly tiresome, and he’d been doing it for the past three hundred years without change. He tried to mix things up a few years back, but it hadn’t been well received.
When he had poured a very good wine from one of his family’s vineyards in France into the well instead of the champagne, the well rejected it and blew gamay rouge all over his best suit. When Ben had attempted to change the words of the ritual to something more modern and succinct, the waters had overflowed and soaked his thousand-dollar leather shoes.
Ben had stopped trying to improvise after that.
“Do you have a moment, Mayor Whitlock?” His secretary, Gertrude, asked from the doorway. She kept her eyes downcast but angled her bare neck at him as if he were a newly created vampire who couldn’t resist the pull of a throbbing vein.
