A Fashionably Dead Christmas Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Edition License Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Author’s Note About This Book

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Thank You For Reading

  Excerpt: Fashionably Hotter Than Hell

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Happy New Year - Coming In 2016

  The Hot Damned Series – Book 7

  The Hot Damned Series – Book 8

  Book Lists (in correct reading order)

  About Robyn Peterman

  A Fashionably Dead Christmas

  Book 5 of THE HOT DAMNED Series

  By

  Robyn Peterman

  Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should delete it from your device and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

  This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

  Copyright 2015 by Robyn Peterman

  Cover by Rebecca Poole, dreams2media

  Edited by MYST Partners

  Acknowledgements

  Writing is a solitary sport, but putting a book out is anything but solitary.

  I am so lucky that I have so many talented and generous people around me.

  Thank you, Donna McDonald. You are my Mystery Science Theater Partner and the gal who has kept me sane.

  Jennifer Madden, you are amazeballs. I would be lost without you. Thank you.

  Rebecca Poole, your covers are perfect and your talent is large.

  My beta readers, Wanda, Melissa, Susan, Donna and Jennifer. You have saved me from myself numerous times. Thank you.

  Wanda, you and your OCD ways have made me a somewhat organized person. You are a gem and I think I will keep you forever!

  My readers, I am just a gal who writes without you. You have made me an author. Thank you.

  My family… thank you for letting me write at all times of the day and night. I love you to the moon and back and none of this would be worth it without you.

  Dedication

  For Sean. I will miss you always. Merry Christmas till we meet again.

  Author’s Note About This Book

  I wrote this novella for many different reasons. Many of you have written me and DEMANDED (LOL) a new Astrid book. It was a labor of love and possibly a necessity as Astrid sits in the front of my brain and talks incessantly.

  This year has been a very difficult one for my family. My brother died in an accident and our healing will take a very long time. A part of our heart is now forever missing. My brother was hilarious and Christmas will never quite be the same. My brother’s antics were so damned funny and usually wildly inappropriate. So I decided to write this novella in his honor because I wanted to laugh. I needed to laugh.

  I have written a funny Christmas story, which at the core is all about love and family. While my own family never celebrated a Christmas quite as destructive as the one you are about to read… there are a few “truths” slipped in.

  So Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy New Year and all other lovely things. I hope your holidays are filled with happiness. And let us not forget the food. I plan to eat my own weight in Christmas cookies. My Mother-in-law makes kick ass cookies!

  So, go forth and read.

  Enjoy the warped ramblings from my brain.

  And eat cookies.

  xoxo Robyn

  Book Description

  It’s Christmas at the Cressida House and all Hell is breaking loose.

  Tree? Decorated and lit. Elf on a Shelf? Seated with style. Baby Jesus on the mantle? Fourteen neatly in a row. Life sized Nutcracker? Creepy, but standing proud. Invitations sent to entire immortal family to celebrate the holiday? Possibly the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever done.

  Mixing Heaven and Hell on my cousin’s famous birthday seemed like such a brilliant idea. I wanted my baby’s first Christmas to be special—memorable. I’d like chalk my heinous idea up to having been fallen down drunk, but that won’t fly as it’s insanely difficult for a Vampyre to tie one on. So instead I’ll deal with obscene gifts from relatives, kidnapped rock stars and catering by Mother Nature.

  To complicate matters, our new family pet thinks the whole house is his toilet. Ethan and I can’t even find a room with working lock on the door to spread a little holiday cheer.

  Never, never again. Christmas from now on will be at a freakin’ spa for the undead—no poles for dancing and no slumber parties with the Devil.

  I just have to make it through the next twenty-four hours without beheading a beloved one.

  Merry freakin’ Christmas—and Happy New Year.

  Chapter 1

  “Absolutely not. You will return every bit of that crap,” I informed Martha and Jane.

  I cautiously poked through the pile of gifts they very mistakenly assumed they were giving to my child for Christmas. Half of the stuff looked like it could blow up the compound.

  There was no way in Hell I was permitting them to give my baby slash toddler son a do-it- yourself volcano kit, a set of razor sharp throwing stars, or an air soft gun with bullets and a charger. The crowning jewel was something that looked disturbingly like a teddy bear shaped grenade, though I couldn’t confirm it for certain.

  The old biddies were smoking crack if they thought any of this shit was going to fly.

  Samuel, my eight-month old baby, who was roughly the size of a four year old, did enough damage on his own without any explosive paraphernalia to aid him. His natural abilities came with the territory of being a half Vampyre-half Demon.

  “Return it? No can do,” Martha informed me in her outdoor voice as she adjusted her saggy bosom.

  Her choice of clothing was nightmare inducing—a horrific lime green sequined tube dress. With the way the light from the chandelier illuminated it, it was all I could do not to squint at the fashion disaster.

  “Not gonna happen, Boobs McHootieland,” Jane told me with a curt nod of her head. It caused the blood red tinsel wreath with tiny blue ornamental balls in her sparse hair to angle dangerously to the left. She resembled a deranged Christmas tree.

  And to ensure sleepless nights, Jane was wearing a matching lime green sparkly knee length boob tube.

  Ignoring her creatively disgusting slam at my knockers, my eyes narrowed to slits and my fingers began to shoot sparks. Today was not the day to fuck with me. I was certain I’d made an enormously destructive mistake earlier by inviting my entire extended family for Christmas. I was not going to deal with two sexually ambiguous old Vampyres telling me no.

  Not a day went by that I didn’t regret having the conservative, bat shit crazy, boob obsessed, name calling old bags turned. If they hadn’t saved my precious son’s life, I’d consider removing their heads myse
lf. However, if they insisted on giving gifts from Hell, all bets were off.

  “I’m sure I didn’t hear you assmonkeys correctly,” I said through clenched teeth and around something that barely passed for a smile. “This shit goes back to the store today. If you don’t do it, I will.”

  “Well,” Martha stalled as she glared at Jane. “We don’t exactly have the receipts.”

  “And that would be because?” I asked.

  “Because Dipshitballbrains stole all of it,” Martha tattled.

  “You dared me, sow mamma,” Jane grunted and punctuated her remark with a left hook to Martha’s head that caused her wreath to go flying off.

  I watched in horror as they participated in a bitch fight that left each of them balder than they’d been only moments before. Briefly I wondered if I left the room right then if they’d kill each other. Samuel’s love for them and my stupid conscience were the only things that stopped me from testing my theory. As much as I wanted to string them up, I secretly kind of sort of liked them.

  “Enough,” I shouted. They froze mid body-slam. “Both of you idiots have money. Why in the Hell are you stealing things?”

  “You tell her,” a bleeding and bruised Jane grumbled as she spit out a hunk of Martha’s hair.

  “I’m not gonna tell her. You tell her,” Martha said as she got one last outstanding noogie in on the top Jane’s head.

  “Let’s just get Mikey,” I snapped.

  They stared at me blankly. “What? You never watched cereal commercials?” I asked.

  Again with the blank stares. Whateverthefuck.

  “I’d better tell her before she confuses us with more random pop culture bullshit from her fleeting youth,” Martha said. “Jane, pull up your dress. I can see three fourths of your left titty.”

  If I could have puked, I would have, but Vampyres were not afforded that luxury. Instead, I stared at the ceiling for twenty-three seconds before I gave them a glare that made them take cover.

  “Spill it,” I said as I waited impatiently for them to lie out of their boney asses.

  “Well, you see… um… we were playing an innocent game of poker with Ronald Regan,” Martha started.

  “Ronald Regan?” I repeated.

  “Yes. Ronald Regan. The fortieth president with an ass you could bounce a quarter off of,” Jane confirmed as I gagged.

  “And that was certainly a fucking stupid move,” Martha said with an eye roll. “Nancy cold cocked Jane with a hell of a punch for such a tiny thing.”

  “This is true,” Jane agreed. “She does have a tremendous rack though.”

  Martha nodded in agreement and I considered cold cocking both of them.

  “Ronald Regan is dead and Nancy Regan is not,” I said stating the obvious.

  “This is also true,” Jane said. “We played in Purgatory.”

  “Um, okay… that still doesn’t explain how Nancy was there,” I said.

  “Vampyre,” Jane whispered with big round eyes.

  “Holy shit,” I shouted. “Nancy Regan is a fucking Vampyre?”

  “Yes, but it’s a well-kept secret,” Martha said nodding solemnly.

  Actually, it made bizarre sense…

  “They live in Purgatory?” I asked confused. No one lived in Purgatory. The elevator music was enough to make even the most pious choose Hell.

  “Rumor has it Ronnie might have gotten a little too close to Heaven’s astrologer. Nancy got pissed and… well let’s leave it at that,” Martha explained with a shudder.

  “Yessiree,” Jane added. “Heads rolled. Literally.”

  “Wait.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to block out the image of the very proper Vampyre Nancy Regan removing a head. “Ronald and Nancy Regan won all of your considerable fortune off of you?”

  “Hell no! They suck at poker. We just invited them to be eye candy. It was a friendly little evening until that fucker, Mister Rogers, showed up,” Jane growled.

  “Yep,” Martha added with a disgusted snort. “He waltzed in wearing that fugly-ass sweater and then the bastard held up the game for twenty goddamned minutes while he changed his tennis shoes.”

  “So Mister Rogers won all of your money?” I asked, curious to hear if anyone else had shown up. The dumbasses stared at the ground in shame. Holy Cousin Jesus, they were stupid. Everyone knew that Fred Rogers was a freakin’ card shark.

  “Yes,” they mumbled sadly.

  “So then, being broke, you freaks of nature decided you would steal an arsenal to give to my baby for Christmas?”

  “Sounds about right,” Martha said.

  “Clearly, and thankfully, you two assbags never had children. You do not give babies weapons. Ever.”

  “See? I told you that,” Jane groused at Martha. “We should have stuck with my plan to get him a hooker.”

  “Sweet baby Satan in a thong,” I shouted. “You two imbeciles will go the art room and make Samuel a present in less than twenty-four hours, since Christmas is tomorrow. You will craft something from soft materials and glue. You are forbidden to use staples or anything sharp in the making of said gift. There will be no more stealing or I will remove your hands and they would take at least six weeks to grow back. Are we clear?”

  “Can we make a hooker for him?” Jane suggested.

  “Can I pierce your heart with a silver fucking stake?” I shot back.

  “Um… no?” Jane replied.

  “There’s your answer,” I stated as I clasped my hands tightly together to keep from zapping them completely bald. “I’d also recommend neither of you say another word as my fingers are itching to blast your asses into tomorrow.”

  Martha raised her hand and looked at me expectantly.

  “Yes, Martha?”

  “What about the receipt-less gifts we procured?”

  I stared at the deadly pile and grinned. “No worries. I’ll give them to Uncle Satan. He’ll love them—especially the fact that they were stolen.”

  Martha and Jane paled, and then gulped loudly as they slunk out of the room. It was never a good idea to let my Uncle know your list of bad deeds. He had a memory like a steel trap. The mere thought of Martha and Jane eventually ending up in Hell made me laugh though. Even Satan wouldn’t be able to handle them.

  I would just add the weapons to the Journey concert tickets I’d bought the King of the Underworld. He’d be on Cloud Nine—well not really, that was more his brother God’s territory.

  Chapter 2

  The Great Room in the Cressida House was ginormous. Occasionally I missed my quaint, cozy, little house from when I was human, but this was my new home. The most important men in my life lived in it—Ethan, my mate, and Samuel, my son.

  Hell, I’d live in a cave and give up Prada to be with my boys.

  Glancing around the vast room, I giggled. Christmas decorations covered every conceivable nook and cranny. It had taken Gemma, Venus, Pam, Paris Hilton, and me four days of solid work to accomplish the feat and the results were garishly wonderful. Pam, my guardian angel and stepmother to my mate, created new and profane lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas. The atrocity would definitely go down in history. Unfortunately, Samuel had been present and I’d been hearing about turtle doves fornicating and pipers whacking off nonstop since.

  The twelve-foot tree in the corner was the crowning jewel. It was lit with brightly colored chaser lights and had so many ornaments on it the needles of the tree were barely visible. Samuel had screamed with delight when he saw it and changed his skin color for two hours straight to match the light show. My baby’s talents were many. The ability to adjust his skin color to his surroundings or to his liking was only the tip of the iceberg.

  He’d sported red and green skin for the last week in preparation for the holiday. Slightly alarming behavior—but tolerable. I picked my battles with my child carefully. Skin was skin. It was the conjuring up Trolls I took issue with…

  As stunning as the tree was, there was nothing more beautiful than the
large, sexier-than-Hell Vampyre sitting on the floor next to it. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt with his blond hair all sexy-messy, he looked like he was posing for an ad in a glossy magazine.