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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  O Christmas Knight

  Copyright Em Petrova 2018

  Ebook Edition

  Electronic book publication 2018

  All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.

  Other titles in this series:

  All Knighter

  Heat of the Knight

  Hot Louisiana Knight

  After MidKnight

  Knight Shift

  O’ Christmas Knight

  Angel of the Knight

  Tyler Knight, younger sister of the famed brothers who make up the Knight Ops team, ran off and joined the Marines, demanding to be treated as one of the guys and given all the accolades that have her big brothers thumping their chests daily. So a dark mission to clear a Middle Eastern village of a threat finally rewards her with the guts and glory she asked for. Until the tables are turned on her team, and she finds herself entrenched in a dangerous battle. She only hopes she can get home at all, never mind it’s Christmas and her family expects her.

  Bo has always loved a strong woman, but a stubborn one? No way. After trying to rescue Tyler and her team, he finds the woman impossible—beautiful and sexy as hell, but impossible. Even though Tyler views backing down as wimpy, he has other priorities, and that is getting her home to her family alive.

  It’s not long before Tyler’s stubborn pride has her running, but this time Bo’s having none of it, even if he has to dip into some very special Christmas magic to make her see how strong they are together.

  O Christmas Knight

  by

  Em Petrova

  Chapter One

  The finish line was in sight, and Tyler was damn well getting a personal best time today. Her thighs were already burning from her flat-out sprint uphill the last mile, but she had it in her. She was a Knight.

  Her commanding officer stood waiting for her, a stopwatch in hand. “Move your ass, Knight!” she yelled, and that was all the push Tyler needed.

  She hardly felt the road under her feet and ignored the sting of sweat in her eyes as she strode for the last few hundred yards of the drill. She ran it daily, and hell, after twenty-mile treks through woods and mud in full gear, running ten miles unhindered on a road made her feel as light as air.

  The unseen clock was ticking in her ears, but she ran faster than the rhythm of that sound and crossed the finish line to her commanding officer shouting her time. “45:01!”

  “Dammit,” she rasped as she downshifted to a jog and circled the finish line several times.

  “Tell me you’re pissed at that time, Knight, and I’ll say you’re a tougher little shit than I ever believed.” Her CO was a hard ass woman made of grit and nails cemented together with sarcastic comments. From day one she’d nicknamed Tyler “little shit” which sure beat her brothers calling her Tyleri, a more feminine play on her boyish name.

  Tyler shot her CO a look. “Gebrselassie did it in 44:24 flat out on the road in The Netherlands.”

  Her CO never laughed, but her eyes crinkled at the corners. “You’re seriously comparing yourself to another runner? I thought you were seeking a personal best, and you did it. Here, have a water.” She reached down at her feet into a cooler and plucked up a bottle covered in ice water. She tossed it to Tyler, and she caught it with ease. Five big brothers had taught her to either catch—or dodge—whatever was coming her way. Smelly socks being one of the things most dodged in the Knight household.

  She twisted off the cap and brought the water to her lips just as the next woman crossed the line, almost a full minute behind her. Okay, so maybe she was a little proud of her time.

  “You’ve got another thirty seconds to recover, Knight, and then I want to see you hitting those ropes.” Her CO nodded toward the wall. Twelve feet tall with several ropes thrown over.

  Tyler dropped the bottle into the dirt. “I don’t need thirty seconds.” She took off and swore she heard a laugh behind her. But no, that couldn’t be her CO. She probably hadn’t even laughed in infancy when a rattle was shaken at her.

  Tyler threw herself at the wall with all she had. Hand over hand, digging in the toes of her boots to propel her up and over. She dropped the distance in a freefall, landing in a crouch and then rolling as she’d been taught during some of her first days of basic training.

  There stood another officer. “Good work, Knight.”

  “Thank you.”

  She filled her lungs with a big breath of air and launched to her feet, sprinting toward the next obstacle. This one a belly crawl through filth that would send her twin sister Lexi into shrieks. As sisters, they were as different as night and day, but Tyler often wondered how they’d shared the same womb. All she could figure was Lexi must have decorated her half with flowery pillows and room scents to make it through the ordeal.

  She almost laughed at the vision of her very girly sister floating amidst all the feminine things she loved. Flowers in particular. It was no wonder she loved her job at the local flower shop.

  Tyler flopped into the muck. And this wasn’t just mud. It reeked of manure.

  Breathing through her mouth against the stench, she dug in her knees and elbows, moving as fast as she could through the shit and… pig parts? Yes, the higher-ups had felt it a good idea to make them crawl through body parts with swarming flies. She passed by a hoof and turned her face aside. No way was she going to admit her stomach was turning. She was made of tougher stuff than that.

  I’m a Knight.

  If only her brothers could see her now. She’d heard enough of their self-praise at home and their legendary acts had followed her all through basic training, so the only way to get out from under the yoke of their prowess was to top them.

  Which so far, she was. Her time had to be excellent.

  She ducked under barbed wire but felt metal catch her shirt. She ripped it free with another thrust forward. Crap clung to her neck and soaked even her sports bra, and she couldn’t wait for the next leg of this course, which was the plunge into the lake and a quick swim.

  “Damn, Knight. I’ve never seen anyone crawl so fast through that.” The next officer leaned against a jeep, legs crossed, staring at her rather than the stopwatch in her hand.

  She’d grin but she’d risk getting shit in her mouth. So she pressed her lips shut and wiggled to the end, over a carcass with a final heave of pure determination.

  Hauling herself to her feet after that took a bit more willpower than she was expecting—she felt suctioned into the muck. But she made it, lurching forward without pause. The water twenty yards away was a welcome sight. She could almost feel that cool water washing away the sweat and so much more on her body.

  She felt like she could swim the Mississippi at this point. She was riding a high, had this in the bag. Guts and glory one mission at a time, was a motto of her brothers’ Knight Ops team. Well, she definitely had the guts, and the glory was hers, right after this swim.

  She dived in, dunking her head to wash the sweat out of her eyes and God knew what else. Her arms moved automatically, pistoning over and over, pulling herself easily through the water toward the other side.

  With the repetitive action, she felt her mind wandering to the last time she’d been home, and how she’d missed her brother Chaz’s wedding to a woman named Fleur. S
he’d seen photos of the pair, and Lexi had been in the wedding party, dressed in a blush-colored slip dress surrounded by flowers and looking lovely as usual. The bride and groom had been glowing with happiness, and Tyler had stared for a long time at them, feeling a pang of regret for missing it.

  In some other pictures, she was able to piece together their entire reception. White cake towering high, a Conga line meandering through the chic hotel reception room. Each of her brothers showing signs of fatigue, probably having just returned from some mission but damn happy—and damn lucky—to have made it to Chaz’s nuptials.

  And in the background was extended family and many friends, including Rocko, the odd man out on the Knight Ops team, the only guy who couldn’t boast Knight blood running through his veins. And Bo Hawkeye, aka Hawk .

  Hawk was a weird individual, and one Tyler couldn’t quite wrap her head around. He hung out with her brothers, was still very close to his ex-wife, who happened to be her brother Sean’s new spouse.

  Yeah, Hawk was a wild card. He fit with them, yet he didn’t. He came and went like one of those Windwalkers of the Cheyenne Indians, almost a spiritual entity who flew in and out of their family but never touched down completely.

  Tyler was ten feet from the shore, and she could finally say she was tired. She couldn’t wait to drag herself onto that bank and lie there with her face lifted to the sun so it could dry the droplets from her skin. She shook off thoughts of home and any homesickness she’d let seep in even for a minute. Two more hard kicks and her knees struck the soil bottom.

  She towed herself up onto the dirt and the officer standing there grinned down at her. “Well done, Knight. I’d say you’ve lived up to your family name.”

  About fucking time.

  * * * * *

  “Goddammit.” Hawk felt the vein in his temple bulge as his blood pressure hit numbers he didn’t want to contemplate. He sliced his hand through the air at Frisco. Two slashes of his hand meant go forward. Three to the left. He sent him forward, and Frisco rallied his three-man crew and followed orders. When they got to a ledge, their bellies hit the dirt and they switched to a crawl.

  He didn’t dare utter a whisper into his comms unit to tell them how to perform—he’d have to trust that his team was as badass as the terrifying bayou werewolf they were named after, Rougarou.

  His other teammate, Corporon, hung by Hawk’s side, awaiting orders, his face grim. Sometimes Operation Freedom Flag sent them into the most fucked up situations, all in the name of eradicating homeland terrorism. But the South was a hotbed of activity. And Louisiana provided enough ground cover to hide all the crazies, it seemed.

  But Team Rougarou knew these swamps better than anybody. They were good old bayou boys, every one of them, born and raised knee deep in gator-land. They outwitted any idiot with firepower and an agenda who stepped foot in these swamps.

  Right now, Team Rou was out-manned three to one. No matter. Hawk and his guys would neutralize the threat and come out alive.

  Over the past year and a half the special force had been assembled, they’d only lost one teammate. McMahon had been a hell of a warrior, and Hawk had been honored to call him friend. He died with honor, the same as they all wanted to when it was their time.

  But not today.

  “Ease left,” he breathed into his communication device, and the three on the ledge slithered sideways. He turned to look at Corporon and Depeux next to him. “They take the high ground and we go around. Go!”

  Depeux scrambled to his feet like a man who wasn’t laden with seventy-five pounds of gear, and Corporon followed with Hawk overtaking them to get in the lead. These assholes had been holed up in the swamp long enough. After evading New Orleans police, they’d been hiding in the swamps for days in a standoff that had finally gotten Team Rou called in.

  Right off, Depeux had determined they knew jack shit about the explosives they were threatening to detonate—for love of country, as any political radical would say. They weren’t just dangerous but stupid, which was an even more fatal combination. They had enough explosive to take out half of the bayou, but they only had it rigged to blow a small portion. Hawk was betting on their stupidity to see them captured.

  “Close the noose,” he ordered to his team, and they converged on the group’s location. When shots whizzed by Hawk’s ear, he realized they’d been spotted, but no matter.

  The three he’d sent to the ledge opened fire, cutting off half of the group of men who were out to kill them. Hawk kept his three-man team down, at a better advantage since the radicals wouldn’t know exactly where the bullets were coming from.

  Swamp water swirled around his Gore-Tex military issue. Ripples reached him as another body hit the swamp with a sickening splash. What a terrible waste of bullets, he thought. The assholes should have just drunk poison Kool-Aid like so many other groups like this one who popped up in the South.

  The Knight Ops team joked about Mississippi being a hotbed of activity for nut-cases, but Hawk would lay his money on good old Louisiana every time. The shit they saw here… there was a new cockroach king slithering into the swamps every damn day.

  “Now!” Hawk’s order rang out, and they jumped up, spraying bullets at anything that shot at them. The moment felt oddly like one of those carnival games played as a kid, where you shot a BB at metal ducks until you had enough tickets to win a teddy bear. Hawk was sure he still had one of those neon-colored bears with staring eyes somewhere in the attic of his parents’ house.

  Bodies dropped with splashes.

  “Watch the gators, guys. They smell the blood.” Frisco’s warning brought Hawk out of his memories and he looked around himself.

  “There are two more. I counted nineteen in all. Spread out, search the swamps. Watch your six,” Hawk said.

  They fanned out, ignoring any gators coming in to feed on the blood they scented. Swishing through the water with weapon at the ready, Hawk focused on the trees springing up out of the murky water. Good hiding places for anybody if they crouched low enough.

  “Look to the trees,” he ordered. “Keep sharp.”

  A shot rang out, and he turned to watch a body drop.

  “Nice work,” Wolf said to Frisco.

  “Down to one. It’s you and me, asshole. Show yourself,” Hawk muttered to himself, though his team heard him.

  The sun was sinking in the sky, sending shadows through the swamps, but he and his men could pick out a person in the dark. He saw a shadow shimmering on the water, a shadow that was not a tree trunk or branches from above.

  He raised his weapon and took the shot.

  A cheer went up from the guys. It was a grim victory, but this game was kill or be killed.

  Hawk surveyed the waters. “What a fucking waste. Not one of them showed signs of giving themselves up or backing down. Frisco, call Jackson and tell him we need nineteen body bags and a recovery team,” Hawk said. “Our work is done, Team Rou. Good job.” The thrum of adrenaline hit his system as he walked out of the swamp, giving him a hard-on. After years of this, he came to expect it, but it was never easy when he calmed down and found himself alone with no lover to slake his lust on and celebrate the fact he was alive.

  Maybe tonight he’d head into the Big Easy and find himself a pretty little thing to dry-hump his thigh on a dance floor. Then cup her ass and grind his cock against her, showing her that she should pick him to come home with, not that he had any trouble with the ladies.

  How long had it been since he’d had a soft woman in his bed? Months, though he had no real reason for his abstinence other than searching for women bored him these days. But his erection told him to get the hell over it and find someone.

  “A team’s on their way, Hawk,” Frisco said with a white grin in his mud-smeared face.

  Hawk pounded him on the shoulder before turning to make his way out of the swamp.

  Oh yeah, it was time to celebrate this win.

  Chapter Two

  Tyler called herself
a confident woman. She was as comfortable in high heels as she was in combat boots. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t still be intimidated, and right now, she could bite off all her fingernails, if she had any long enough to bite.

  Being brought in front of Major Abigail Bishop, one of the only females to ever hold this title, was one of Tyler’s scariest and proudest moments.

  Feeling like she might either puke or kick up her heels in a happy jig at any moment, she walked the long corridor leading to the major’s office. When the private on duty gave her a sharp nod and pushed open the door for Tyler to enter, she returned the nod and stepped inside.

  The space was no-nonsense, just like the major herself, with a big metal desk and hard-looking chairs. Not even a picture frame of family could be seen. It seemed Major Bishop had exited the womb and landed directly in this chair.

  Tyler made a mental note to tell her brothers that first chance she got just to see their reactions. They’d probably laugh—but she couldn’t.

  She snapped to a rigid salute. The major eyed her and then said, “At ease, Knight. Take a seat.”

  Whoa. This was big. Tyler was being offered a seat?

  She sank to the chair, her spine straight and hands in her lap so the major didn’t see her white-knuckled grips on the arms.

  “I have some news.”

  All of a sudden, Tyler’s façade crumbled. Her heart began to pound.

  It had finally happened—one of her brothers had lost his life serving his country.

  She bowed her head, struggling with tears that were ready to overflow like hot lava. “Which one was it?” she managed to whisper.

  The major was still for a minute. “Oh. You think you lost one of your brothers. I’m very sorry to have led you to believe that, but your brothers are all safe.”

  She jerked her head up but knew her expression of shock and grief hadn’t yet been wiped off her face. “They are?”