Wrap It Up (MM)
Who Needs Christmas? 12

Professional Reviews

4.5 DELIGHTFUL DIVAS: "Joyee Flynn’s Wrap It Up is a terrific ending to the Who Needs Christmas? series. Not only does every elf in the “Smith” family find his mate, but this story begins with a heart-stopping fight, a horde of vampires, a reunion with an Egyptian god, a continuance of much soul searching, a vampire who gets his wish, and an ending with a political compromise that unites those-who-live-among-us. Got your attention? That’s a lot of plotlines to plug into one novella, but Ms. Flynn pulls it off with panache. I’ve enjoyed this series about elves who leave the North Pole to live in Chicago. There was a surprise about Shadow’s origins in this one as well as a little change to the usual vampire canon. If you are the world builder you can make the rules, and Ms. Flynn is a world builder extrodinaire. The title is perfect for the last book in the series. Each title refers to something about Christmas that the featured elf doesn’t like, but this one obviously had a double meaning. Another feature of each book is the epilogue isn’t about the elf of the main story, it’s a finale of sorts about one of the other elves. With this being the last book, Shadow doesn’t get his epilogue, so Ms. Flynn has posted one on her website as a free read – http://www.joyeeflynn.com. I’ll give you a one-word question that should make you rush to this epilogue: baby? I’ve enjoyed the series about elves that isn’t really a series about Christmas and can be read anytime of the year. It’s fun, full of all kinds of paranormal creatures as well as humans, has great man-on-man sex in every book, and all are relatively quick reads. What’s not to like? They can be read as stand-alones or out of order, but are much more entertaining if read in order, without missing a single one. Enjoy!" -- Maggie B, Dark Divas Reviews

Excerpt

STORY EXCERPT 

“Here we go,” I growled as I glanced at the skylights, having seen shadows crossing over them. Please don’t let me get them all killed, I thought desperately as I always did when I dragged any of my friends into my fight. “Bren, Shely, Benjii, and anyone with guns, pay attention to the windows.”

 I did a quick scan around the room to see where my friends were positioned, and I noticed how ridiculous we all looked wearing our normal clothes while holding all these deadly weapons. We all just had on jeans and different T-shirts or button-down shirts, which were so not meant for fighting. I was used to my custom-made, formfitting attire that ensured maximum flexibility.

But this was an emergency, and we didn’t exactly have time for everyone to get custom-made outfits. I snapped out of my wandering thoughts to listen to the people around me.

“Way ahead of ya.” Benjii chuckled. “This is gonna be fun.” Glad he sounded so excited. Part of me wanted to see what he was doing, but I had to trust my crew to do their jobs. I didn’t want to take my focus off the vamps for a second.

“I really wish you weren’t so excited,” Surprise mumbled. Thank you! Though it was better than pissing his pants, so I’d take my wins where I could.

“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel!” Was that like a Southern joke? Who put fish in a barrel?

I watched in horror as the first wave of bloodsuckers came in through the ceiling, the vast drop not even fazing them. The guns were going off all around me, and while I was best at hand-to-hand combat, I did have a few tricks up my sleeve. I focused my magic into moving the larger chunks of broken glass and decapitating, or at least incapacitating, as many as I could.

Except it was extremely hard to focus with all the noise and miniexplosions happening all around me. Though, I had to pat myself on the back for coming up with those arrows. Next was silver grenades. Oh! And maybe a grenade launcher! Damn, I loved progress. All the new toys were so much better than just swords. I mean swords were cool and all but sometimes they weren’t that practical.

“Magazine!” Shely and Bren called out together as Benjii was loading more casings into his shotgun. The front windows imploded toward us, the force of the blast knocking most of them off their feet. I’d been ready since I’d seen the show before. Vamps might not have magic but like most paranormals, they had something different about them and that normally meant gifts or powers humans didn’t have.

Shely and Justice moved to kneel in front of us, taking forward positions as they kept firing their weapons relentlessly. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the way we were all working as a fluid unit. We might just have a shot at winning after all. But then again, I shouldn’t be so shocked…it was amazing what people would do to protect the ones they loved. Gods knew what I’d sacrifice to keep my chosen family safe.

Suddenly the vampires were coming into the media room faster than we could hold them off. The big guns and explosives weren’t going to work anymore without the risk of friendly fire.

“We’re up,” I growled, pulling out my swords as vampires filled the room like cockroaches. “Don’t break formation for any reason.”

“There’s so many,” Button whispered, and I shivered. Yeah, there was, more than I’d ever dealt with in one fight before. I sent up a silent prayer to whoever was listening that we could just keep it together. We were doing well. We could do this as long as no one freaked.

Or at least that’s what I was going to keep telling myself.

I don’t think I had ever seen this many vampires in one area at once. Even when we fought that group holding Daran hostage, there hadn’t been this many. I mean sure there had been a lot, but it didn’t even come close to what I was witnessing now.

And why weren’t they immediately attacking?

“Deal’s off,” one vampire snarled to a man behind him. “He’s been claimed. He’s food now.” The vampire licked his lips as he stared at Maze’s mate.

“That wasn’t the deal!” Another man screamed like a little girl and pushed the guy. Fuck! I hated when I was right sometimes. “Zander is mine. That was the trade, Shadow and Maze for Zander. You kill the elf and the bond is broken.” Ahh, this must be Bryl. Fuckhead.

“I will never be yours whether Maze is alive or not!” Zander shouted, raising his crossbow to take aim at his stepbrother’s heart. “And I’ll see you dead before you hurt a hair on his head.”

He pulled the trigger and I had a new appreciation for my brother-in-law. For one, he had balls the size of Alaska. Two, he knew where his loyalties were and did what was necessary, no matter how distasteful, to keep the people he cared about safe.

There were several screams as the arrow from Zander went off. Horse grabbed Maze to talk with him and Button, but I could barely hear them over the crazy amount of noise filling the room. I was also busy ’porting in and out of the different clusters of vamps and picking several off that way when they couldn’t see me coming. “Can we shoot energy blasts full of silver?”

“Yes!” Maze exclaimed. “That never crossed my mind because I can’t do that.” 

That was a fan-fucking-tastic idea! I never thought of it and while I was the oldest, I had primal, raw power that I never bothered to harness and control. Horse was the man when it came to learning new magic and pushing limits.  

ADULT EXCERPT 

“We made a mess,” I joked. “Shower?”

“I can get on board with that.” He gave me a small smile and another one of those cute blushes of his. We untangled ourselves and rolled off the bed. I smiled when Terry reached for my hand as if needing to stay as close to me as possible.

Once in the bathroom, I used my other hand to turn on the shower and then turned to face him. He was smiling shyly down at me as I pulled him into the stall and closed the glass doors. I also couldn’t miss he was hard again. His long, thick cock was up against his stomach, almost hitting his navel.

Without a thought in my head, I dropped to my knees, ignoring the dull pain that I felt from my knees slamming onto the shower floor. I ran my hands up his muscular thighs, squeezing them as he started to pant. I nuzzled his groin, inhaling his scent. “Let me please you.”

“Okay,” he practically squeaked as my tongue darted out to lick his sac. I maneuvered him to lean back against the tiled wall, spreading his legs wide. I kept worshipping his balls with my tongue as I reached back behind them to his hole.

“This is where I’m going to take you one day and show you such bliss you’ll pass out from it.” I rubbed the pads of my fingers against the puckered entrance I wanted to sink my cock into.

“Okay,” he moaned, shuddering with pleasure at my touch. I knew he wasn’t giving me permission yet, simply acknowledging what I was saying. I could wait.

“Such a pretty cock.” I gave it a few licks before swallowing it down.

“Holy fucking gods on Olympus,” Terry gasped. His fingers tangled in my short hair, but he didn’t pull too hard or try to thrust down my throat. I figured it was more he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands just then. He just knew that he wanted to touch me, and his warm, strong hands felt wonderful as they massaged my head.

I sucked on him hard as I squeezed his sac. I wanted this to be perfect for him, and if I showed lots of enthusiasm, I had a feeling he wouldn’t get upset if he came too quickly. I thought it was hot when he did. But most men saw it as a sign of their failing to control their own bodies.

Since when was anything to do with sex about control?