Page 15 of The Selkie Santa

Maeve shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

Harper sighed. Another twenty minutes was about to be wasted.

“Come in,” Gran called out.

The door opened.

And in walked Noah.

CHAPTER 5

The first thing Noah saw was Harper sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, her pretty mouth forming an O of utter surprise and her eyes just as round.

The next thing was the group of well-dressed elderly monsters seated at a long table behind her.

Shit on a stick. The goblin at the café had said nothing about a reception committee when he’d asked where he could find Harper. They’d just grunted out directions without making eye contact. Friendly. Not.

As he wended his way down the neat pathways to the big old building, he’d rehearsed like crazy what to say to her. But now, standing in the doorway, he quaked in his boots as Harper’s face flushed red and her mouth opened and shut like a fish on a hook. The rather bedazzling elderly woman at the back of the room beckoned to him. “Come in young man, come in. We weren’t expecting another candidate, but we’re happy to see you.”

Expecting another candidate. For what?

As Noah stumbled into the room, Harper looked like she’d just been scalded with boiling water. She jumped out of her chair. “Gran, I really have to go.”

Gran. So the sparkly old lady was Harper’s gran. Made sense, she was unmistakably elf.

“Don’t be silly, darling. We have another Santa here to audition. Come in young man, here are the lines you need to read.”

Santa?WTF.

Somehow, Noah’s feet propelled him forward.

As he got closer, he heard the immaculately dressed vampire next to Gran murmur, “Oh my. You areperfect.”

Noah’s cheeks flushed bright as he felt the vampire’s eyes traveling up and down his body with more than friendly interest.

“Erm, what exactly am I supposed to do here?” he asked.

“Just read through these lines with Harper, our elf over there.” Glitter Gran flapped a piece of paper at him imperially, which he dutifully took.

Not game to ask anything else, Noah walked stiffly into the center of the room. He dared to glance at Harper, smirked stupidly and mouthed, “Hi.”

She stared at him stonily, then mumbled, “Hi.”

Clearly, time had not improved her opinion of him.

And then he looked at the piece of paper and all the letters jumbled in front of his eyes.

Noah scratched his forehead with his thumb. Scuffed his feet. Felt his face getting hotter and hotter. Out the corner of his eye, he could see Harper pacing up and down, biting her thumbnail.

Awk-ward!

“Look… I—er, I can’t read this,” he said gruffly after a moment. “I’m sorry. Big mistake me being here. I should go?—”

“Please don’t,” the vampire purred.

“Do stay,” squeaked the small birdlike creature, fluttering its rather bald wings.

“Please go ahead and read the lines,” Gran commanded, fixing him with a gimlet stare.

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