Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 38048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 190(@200wpm)___ 152(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 190(@200wpm)___ 152(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
“Klaus, I don’t know if…if you can tunnel your…your way out,” she panted at last.
“The hell I can’t!” he growled. “I’m going to—”
But just then he stumbled and fell forward into the wall of snow.
Kelli couldn’t understand what was happening at first, but then she remembered the front porch steps. He must have put out his foot, expecting it to land on solid ground and instead the step down was there, making his trip.
“Klaus? Klaus, are you all right?”
She blundered into the snowy wall beside him, doing her best to dig him out with her frozen fingers.
The big Kindred was thrashing in the snow, trying to get his balance back. At last, with Kelly pulling on the wide black Santa belt, he managed to get upright, though he was still on his knees on the porch.
“Fuck!” he growled and wiped the snow off his face. “This is crazy!”
“No, this is snowed in,” Kelli told him. “It was one of the items on the list, remember? I think when you checked the ‘Maximum Romance’ box, it included everything else that was offered.”
“You’re fucking serious?”Klaus swiped his now damp hair off his forehead.
“I’m afraid so.” Kelli nodded. “It’s kind of like we went to a restaurant and you ordered everything on the menu.”
“But how the fuck are we supposed to get out of here?” he demanded. “I don’t think I can dig our way out. I mean, I can try but there’s no way to know how far this goes on.” He gestured at the snow, where the two of them had barely made a dent. “If it goes all the way to the ship, we’ll freeze before we get halfway there!”
“I think we’re only going to be snowed in for the night if what I read on the checklist was right,” Kelli said slowly. “So it might be better to just come back inside and get warm.” She shivered. “Even with this fur coat on, I’m freezing! And look at you—you’re soaked to the bone!”
She nodded at his sodden Santa Suit, which had absorbed a lot of melted snow.
“Yeah, guess I am.” A hard shiver wracked his big body. “Okay, back inside—at least for now.”
They went back in and Kelli wondered what else was on the Maximum Romance list. There were still a few items she was unsure about.
“I’m going to find the bathroom and get a shower started for you,” she said to Klaus. “You strip off those wet clothes before you catch a cold.”
“You c-c-can’t get a c-cold just from being wet,” he growled, but his teeth were already chattering.
“Hurry up and get those off,” Kelli ordered. “Here, you can wrap yourself in this.” She snatched the red and white checked throw off the back of the couch and handed it to him.
Then she went to hunt for the bathroom.
11
KLAUS
Klaus shivered as he stripped out of the soaked Santa Suit. Damn it, how could snowfall so fast? Or melt so quickly, for that matter. He felt like he had fallen into an icy lake with all his clothes on! It was almost like the damn suit was meant to get as wet as possible so he would have no choice but to take it off.
He frowned at the thought—would the Questarions do something like that? And what were they really studying here? Was it truly the effect a beloved holiday had on people who observed it, as they had claimed when they first contacted the Kindred? Or was it something else?
He got all the way naked, since the suit and everything under it was completely soaked, and then wrapped the red and white blanket Kelli had given him around his waist. He went to stand in front of the fire, but he was still freezing—his skin was covered in chill bumps and he just couldn’t seem to get warm.
“Hey, we have a problem.” Kelli reappeared with a worried look on her face.
“Another one?” Klaus raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “What is it this time?”
“It’s the shower—I can’t get it to turn on.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve tried everything—do you want to give it a go?”
“Might as well.” Klaus fought back a shiver and followed her down a short hallway and into the back of the cabin.
“It’s in here—through the bedroom,” Kelli told him.
She led him past a large bed that looked big enough for three or four people. It was covered in a green spread decorated with red flowers Klaus thought were called “point-setters” or something like that. At the very back of the room was another door that led into the fresher—or the bathroom, as the humans called it.
The fresher was tiled in a neutral beige color, which Klaus found refreshing after all the Christmas colors. Inside was a shower stall and a toilet, which was set in a small alcove, maybe for privacy. But it was the glass-walled shower stall that Klaus was interested in.