Little Tree, page 1
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LITTLE TREE. Copyright © 2022 by Amanda Hocking. All rights reserved.
First Edition
www.hockingbooks.com
ISBN: 9781005463052
Table of Contents
Other Books by Amanda Hocking
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About the Author
Other Books by Amanda Hocking
My Blood Approves Saga
My Blood Approves
Fate
Flutter
Wisdom
Swear
Letters to Elise (Prequel Novella)
Little Tree (Short Story)
My Blood Approves: Complete Saga (eBook Bundle)
Seven Fallen Hearts
Virtue
Tristitia
Superbia (Coming Winter 2022/2023)
Trylle Saga
Switched
Torn
Ascend
Frostfire
Ice Kissed
Crystal Kingdom
The King’s Games: A Short Story
The Lost City
The Morning Flower
The Ever After
Watersong Saga
Wake
Lullaby
Tidal
Elegy
Forgotten Lyrics: A Short Story
The Hollows
Hollowland
Hollowmen
The Hollows: A Graphic Novel
Valkyrie Duology
Between the Blade and the Heart
From the Earth to the Shadows
Stand Alone Novels
Freeks
Bestow the Darkness
Chapter One
Our bags were packed and ready to go, but Jack was an entirely different thing. Even though it was his idea to join me on my last-minute work trip, he hadn’t really been apart from Zuzu yet.
He knelt on the floor as our four-month-old Newfoundland puppy covered him in kisses and chomped on his shirt. She was a big, black, fluffy girl, and she was absolutely the light of Jack’s life.
“I will see you very soon, and Bobby will take good care of you,” Jack promised Zuzu.
“Are you sure she won't be too much for you?” I asked Bobby. Zuzu was potty trained, but she chewed on everything still, and she'd never been on a plane before.
“Honestly, I can't imagine it's worse than traveling with two kids under the age of three,” Bobby said, and he was only half joking. He and Milo had added two children to our family, with the aid of a surrogate mother. “One puppy versus two babies in diapers.” Bobby held up his hands, pretending to weigh the two options. “Today I'll find out which is more difficult.”
“Thank you,” I told him again. “This job shouldn't be too dangerous or take too long, but it's still no place for a puppy.”
“Well, I'll have my phone and laptop if you need anything,” he reminded me.
“I always do,” I said. “But it should be fine, and we'll see you in a few days at the Christmas party.”
Jack stood up, holding his wiggly pup in his arms, and he proceeded to run through all the important info about taking care of Zuzu, as if Bobby wouldn't be able to handle it. In Jack's defense, he wanted Zuzu to have a long, healthy life.
Last December, his beloved Great Pyrenees, Matilda, had died of old age, and he had been devastated. It had taken him a while to even feel ready to get another dog, but the apartment had been so quiet. Before Milo and Bobby decided to have children, they'd moved out and bought a house about twenty minutes away from mine and Jack's apartment in downtown Amsterdam. So, our home had actually been kinda empty until Zuzu.
But with the new puppy, it had been even harder for Jack and me to get away. Not that we'd really been big travelers before then. In fact, in our seven years of marriage, we'd only gone on two true vacations.
Which is why when my boss called me this morning, it seemed serendipitous to Jack.
“I know that this is bad timing,” Ettie had told me over the phone, her French accent apologetic. “You are free to say no, of course, and I couldn't blame you. You’ve asked for the time off to visit your family, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt that.
At the time, I was in my pajamas on our balcony. The sun was just starting to rise, and Jack wanted to take pictures of the puppy during the golden hour. The daylight was wonderfully soft and warm during the hour after sunrise, and that made it the perfect time for a photoshoot with Zuzu.
“It never hurts to ask,” I said. “What’s the job?”
“There have been a series of... unusual circumstances happening around a mountain village in Switzerland,” Ettie explained. “The Agency nearby is short-staffed, as so many of our offices. The small town is overrun with humans thanks to the holiday tourism right now, and with a possible predator lurking about, it could be very bad for everyone.”
“What’s the time frame?” I asked.
“Leave tonight and hopefully only stay on a day or two,” Ettie said.
“Can I talk to Jack and call you back?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“So...” Jack replied when I explained to him what Ettie had said. “She wants you to go to a super quaint holiday village right before Christmas?”
His mouth was already curving up into a smile, and there was a glimmer in his eye, which was not what I expected when I told him I was considering working through part of our planned holiday.
Ezra and Mae had finally finished the renovations on their estate in London, the Brunehamme Manor, after nearly ten years, and as such, Mae planned a big glamorous party on Christmas Eve. Since it was such a celebration, Mae had invited vampire friends from all over, so it would be far more than just family.
Milo had already gone last week, because he needed time for the catering he planned to do. In recent years, he had begun experimenting with vampire “cuisine” and he’d found ways to make infused blood cocktails and even edibles that we could actually digest.
He had brought the kids with him so Mae and Ezra could spend more time with them, while Bobby, Jack, and I stayed behind to work. But the three of us were set to head out tonight with the puppy in tow, until I had gotten the job offer from Ettie.
And now I was asking Jack about upending our plans, and he seemed excited about it.
“What are your thoughts?” I asked.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
“Let’s?”
He nodded eagerly. “Yeah. You’re talking about a romantic locale, and neither of us are working for once.”
Jack owned a comic book shop and building it up had taken a lot of his time. I still worked for the Stoker and Hawthorne Agency, helping police other vampires. With Bobby taking a step back since the kids were born, I had spent even more hours out in the field.
Most of my work kept me in the Netherlands, but I occasionally had jobs that took me throughout Europe. I preferred staying closer to home and going to bed with Jack every morning, even though both of our long hours meant that was often all we had time for.
We also had our own hobbies and own interests. Working out and training had become a big part of my life since I’d worked for the Agency, and Jack joined in enough that he could defend himself if need be. Reading and movies took up much of his past time (and mine too, honestly), and he’d really gotten into his creative side, exploring his newfound love of photography.
Plus, we had family and friends. Especially with the new niece and nephew, Jack and I spent a lot of time — both together and separately — helping Milo and Bobby, and we even had regular game nights with my coworker Abner and his husband, Marten.
All of that is to say, Jack and I actually hadn’t gone on a vacation or even done a romantic date night in quite some time.
“I would still have to work on this trip,” I pointed out. “That is the whole reason I’m going in the first place.”
“Only for some of it,” Jack reasoned. “Ettie said it should only be a day or two, and you could use the back up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’d be my backup?”
“Hey, I’m better than nothing,” he said with a crooked smile. He came over to me and slid his arms around my waist. “Come on, Alice. We haven’t done anything romantic or spontaneous in a while. Let’s go to Switzerland, and I promise I’ll sweep you off your feet.”
Chapter Two
“This is the first song you picked for our romantic road trip?” Jack asked with a playful smirk as the car stereo played “Last Christmas.”
“What? You love Wham!” I argued.
“I have never said that,” he protested. “Sure, ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ is catchy as hell, and obviously ‘Faith’ is a banger, but that’s George Michael solo, not Wham! But all of that is beside the point.”
“What is the point again?”
“You put ‘Last Christmas’ on our romantic getaway-slash-work trip.” He looked over at me, his sandy hair falling across his forehead. “It’s a song about heartbreak.”
“Well, I didn’t think of that when I was making the playlist,” I answered honestly. “It’s a good song. So this is your fault for putting me in c harge of music while you booked the trip.”
“Fair enough.” He reached over and took my hand, holding it as he drove us away from the city. “I shouldn’t complain, even in jest, because I’m looking forward to this so much.”
I smiled over at him. “Me, too.”
While the years had been kinder to us than they had been for so many, they hadn’t exactly been easy. As vampires, we’d been able to avoid most of the real dangers of a viral pandemic, but the civil unrest that affected human societies and governments always impacted us, too. Blood had been on shorter supply for a time, and that had led to an increase in aggression among vampires, which made for long, grueling hours for me at the Agency.
Not to mention that life had been changing simply as we got older. While our bodies remained young, and we didn’t mature quite the same as humans, time passed for us all the same. We had experienced so much loss over the course of our relationship — Jane, Daisy, Jack’s mother, Matilda, and Peter.
We’d left behind our lives in Minnesota — the only home that Jack, Milo, Bobby and I had ever known — and family dynamics had changed. Milo’s and my mother had become a vampire after she reunited with our vampire father, Leif, and the two of them lived off-the-grid in the Canadian wilderness. Ezra and Mae lived alone in London, where they worked on rebuilding a manor and their marriage. Milo and Bobby had married, moved out, and started a family. Jack ran his own comic book shop, and I had become a capable vampire hunter.
Many of those things were good, even if I missed some of our family, but it had been a lot of major changes in a relatively short amount of time. I don’t know that either Jack or I did well at processing all of that, and we’d been so busy that we didn’t always connect. Sometimes, when work was overwhelming and the puppy was struggling with potty-training, we felt like two ships passing in the night.
All of that is to say, Jack and I really needed a vacation together, even a brief work-related one, and I was happy just to be spending time with him.
We’d left early enough in the day that we made the long trek from the Netherlands down to the southern side of Switzerland by midnight, and the drive had been pleasant, with scenic views most of the way.
The village of Kleinerbaum was especially picturesque. It was located in the upper valley of the Saane River, nestled between riverbanks to the north and the Alps to the south, and thick evergreen forests covered the rolling hills. The town itself was utterly charming, too. Brick houses with wreathes on the doors, and lights decorating snow-covered roofs. The roads were even cobblestone.
Near the town center, Jack pulled in front of a stone building with a painted wooden sign across the front saying Kleinerbaum Gasthaus. We grabbed our bags and went inside, where a bell jingled overhead as we entered. Everything smelled of pine and old wood, and there were snow globes on the front desk and the windowsills.
A jovial inn keeper worked behind the desk, wearing a striped winter hat and Christmas tree earrings. While we checked in, she cheerily told us all the holiday events going on over the next few days, including the fact the inn had complimentary hot chocolate that I was genuinely sorry that I couldn’t enjoy.
Our room was on the top floor, so we had a fantastic view of the mountains. The room itself was cozy and comfy, with a big plush bed, a stone fireplace, and little woodsy, holiday touches everywhere, like the pine wreath on the door.
“This is a Hallmark movie come to life,” I said as I peered out the window at the twinkling village beyond the inn.
“Do you think we’ll have to help the inn keeper find her holiday spirit and find true love?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. The inn keeper seemed to have quite a bit of holiday spirit already,” I said. “But she could still fall in love.”
He snapped his fingers, growing excited. “Maybe it will be with the vampire that brought us here. The vamp could be a curmudgeon, and that’s why they’re acting out. The inn keeper will show them the true meaning of the season.”
“That does sound nice,” I agreed. “But Ettie wasn’t even sure it was a vampire that’s causing trouble here.”
“Wait, what? You didn’t tell me that. What else would it be?” he asked.
“Could be humans or maybe animals. Wolves and bears are native to the mountains, too,” I said, relaying what Ettie had told me when I had agreed to take the job.
“But it could be something else supernatural?” he pressed. “Like what? Werewolves? Ice giants? Santa Claus?”
I laughed. “I sincerely doubt it’s Santa, but I guess I can’t completely rule out the others.”
“So what is the plan? We gear up and start tracking down this renegade elf?” Jack asked.
“It’s an elf now?” I laughed again and shook my head. “But no. I’m set to meet a local vampire. We actually got here fairly fast, and I’m not expected for another half-hour.”
Jack stepped away from the stone fireplace. “So, you’re saying that we have some time to ourselves?”
“It would seem that way.”
With a mischievous smile, Jack closed the distance between us, and he rested his hands on my hips. “It was a long ride, and we could freshen up with a quick shower.”
“I did spy a very large clawfoot tub in the bathroom,” I countered.
He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Do you think we have time for that?”
“If we move fast.”
And the words had barely escaped my mouth when he slid his hands under the hem of my sweater. Almost instantly, he pulled my sweater up over my head, so I was shirtless.
“Shouldn’t filling the tub be the priority over undressing me?” I asked.
“Hey, you have your priorities, and I have mine.” He kissed me quickly, then darted into the bathroom.
I hadn’t even taken off my boots yet, so I bent down and untied them. The pipes groaned as he turned on the taps, and when he came out a moment later, he was wearing only his jeans.
“You’re still dressed!” he protested, motioning to my jeans and my bra.
“You were gone for half-a-second. I only had time for my boots.”
“Or maybe I’ll just have to undress you myself,” Jack said, attempting to sound menacing as he stalked over to me. I stood defiantly before him, and he slid his finger underneath my bra strap.
A loud knock at our bedroom door interrupted the moment.
“I should get that,” I said sheepishly. “It could be for the job.”
“No, of course. I knew the deal when I tagged along,” he said with a sad smile. I pulled on my sweater, and he sat back on the bed.
When I answered the door, a short man with a bushy moustache stood before me. He had a striped scarf around his neck, and a bowler hat that he was holding in his gloved hands.
“Hello, I am Fritz Payne,” he said with a tight but polite smile. “I believe that a Ms. Ettie Lefevre told you about me.”
“She did. I am Alice Bonham, and this is Jack Bonham,” I said, gesturing behind me.
“I have worked with the Agency on a few occasions,” Fritz said. “I am a member of the Kleinerbaum Council, a role that I have served on many times over a hundred-fifty-years by playing my descendants.”
Playing one’s descendants was a common way for vampires to maintain positions, property, and wealth. They would live as themselves for ten to twenty years, or however long they can manage before people began noticing they’re supernaturally ageless. Once that happens, the vampire moves away for another decade or two, and then they return as their own child, set to inherit the life they had actually created.
I nodded. “Come in.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think we should waste too much time on pleasantries at the moment,” Fritz said. “I had the employee at the front desk alert me when you arrived, because another incident has just happened, and I wanted you to see it right away.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, and Jack was already pulling on his sweater.
“Just let me get my boots on, and take us to the scene,” I said
Chapter Three
The carcass had been left close enough to the village that we could walk to it from the inn. Fritz put on his hat as we made our way down the quiet roads, and the sky above us was clear and bright.
“This isn’t the first one we’ve found, obviously,” Fritz explained. “But it is certainly the largest.”
