“Told you she’s a fainter,” Jax said as Leven laid me on the bed, and despite my wavering focus, Leven’s words circled my mind. The ones about making me scream—in the best possible way. And hearing a man speak to me in such a way, while he was naked and his antlers retracted, should not have been turning me on. Except I was burning up with arousal.

Tatum was at my side and he handed me a glass of water. “Drink. You’re dehydrated.”

I gulped down the refreshing drink and stared at the three men around the bed, now dressed, yet in my mind, I pictured them naked. I wasn’t sure I could ever get that wonderful image out of my head.

“Best we get to sleep,” Tatum said, reaching for the bottle of whiskey and pouring himself another glass. The label with a skull on it caught my attention.

“I think that’s one of my whiskeys.” A sense of pride shot through me, even though it was my uncle’s hard work.

Tatum checked the bottle and nodded. “Yep, says here Holler Distillery. It’s good stuff. You should be proud.” Jax was by his side and grabbed himself a shot as well. I sat back and watched Jax pull the spare blankets and pillows out the closet and set up his bed on the couch while Tatum laid a blanket in front of the heater.

“Maybe I should take the couch,” I said.

“No.” Leven crossed the room and vanished into the bathroom while the others got comfy. To say everything felt unreal was an understatement, and maybe when I woke up, I’d find myself at home, having experienced the weirdest dream in history.

By the time Leven returned, he wore only jeans. He switched off the lights and climbed into bed with me. I wasn’t going to shoo him away when I was occupying their bed, so I shuffled over to my side, curling the covers over myself. The mattress bounced and indented behind me. “I’m not going to bite,” he said.

“You two better not be getting on, or I’m joining,” Jax called out.

“Nothing is happening,” I replied, thankful the lights had been switched off and I didn’t need to face anyone. How could Jax assume I’d jump onto Leven because we shared a bed? Was that what they did when they met a woman? I curled the blanket tighter around myself.

“Go to sleep,” Tatum blurted out.

Leven lay behind me, his exhales playing across the back of my head, and I sensed his heavy presence. While part of me wondered what it would be like to curl into the arms of a man like him, I wasn’t sure I was ready to go there. Whenever I got close to anyone, they hurt me. Like my parents. The foster system. Even the few friends I had ending being jerks, stealing money from me. Maybe it was just me—I attracted the assholes.

It was just Britta and me in this world, and I’d do anything to protect her. Exhaustion pulled through me and I couldn’t stay awake knowing I needed to get back to my sister.

So I closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep, needing today to be over and to stop feeling as if I wandered through fog. I was tired of not believing my eyes, of my head thumping and me passing out. If I was going to have a nickname, it had to be something cool, not The Fainter. Gah. I pushed those thoughts away and pictured Britta and me going out Christmas tree hunting. She’d squeal with delight and I couldn’t wait.

“I thought you had a car we could use.” I gripped my hips and stared at Tatum, who stood in front of me in deer form. He was an enormous animal, covered in a white pelt, towering over me. He had a streak of darker fur across his brow. I should have been scared, but I was simply amazed after watching him transform.

The morning breeze carried a chill, ruffling my hair, and I pulled the collar of my coat higher around my neck. We stood deeper in the woods with snow blanketing the ground as far as I could see. Overhead, gray clouds smudged the sky, but the storm had eased, and the guys had insisted on taking me home. Foolish me expected a car.

I stared at Tatum… or more like the animal in front of me, strapped with a saddle they had borrowed from someone in town. Hot breaths floated from Tatum’s flaring nostrils as he proceeded to kneel down on bent legs.

“That’s your car, sweetheart,” Jax said, his body already shimmering into a transformation. And maybe the three of them assumed I’d embraced the whole shifting-into-a-reindeer thing, except I hadn’t. It freaked me out, but I held back the nerves wracking through me. How could I explain I struggled to believe what I’d witnessed firsthand? I’d figured after a long sleep, I’d wake up and all of this would make sense. Sure, my mind was clearer, but everything else remained a twisted mess. Now the other two were changing into reindeer too. God, how could I be hallucinating for so long?

Leven nudged me closer, yet my legs refused to move. “You want to see your sister, right?”

“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll do this my way.”

He raised his hands and backed away, his transformation already taking him over. Clothes withered away as if magically vanishing, replaced by the white pelt stretching over his morphing body. The snapping bones had me flinching each time, and I looked away, meeting Tatum’s stare. He grunted and rocked his head back and forth.

“Goddamn, I can’t believe I’m even doing this,” I said. But by the time I would find a car to hire, convince them to rent the vehicle to me with no money, as my wallet was still in the broken-down van in the woods, it might take hours. Tatum and his crew didn’t have any funds, having used it all on the motel and food. Seeing as they weren’t leaving my side, I’d gone along with this idea. Running away was impossible, as they’d keep up, so fuck, I’d accept this insanity a while longer.

I climbed onto the saddle, straddling Tatum, and reached out but found no reins. “Hey, what do I hold on to?”

But when he started to get up, me lurching back and forth from his movement, I reached forward, seizing his antlers, and held on. And we were off, me riding a reindeer while the other two strode behind us. I fell into the steady rhythm, figuring I could get used to this bumpy ride. What a sight I must have been, but at least we were moving forward. Soon, Tatum picked up the pace, and we covered ground fast, following the snowy road.

By the time we reached the section of the woods where my van had broken down, we slowed down and trotted past my vehicle that now looked half its size, flattened, and caked in snow.

Dread slithered up my spine as I remembered the attack that had thrown my world into chaos. Maybe I ought to get off and see if my wallet and phone were retrievable, except Tatum didn’t stop and instead burst into a gallop. I held on for the rest of the trip, trying to come to terms with what I’d experienced.

The whole Santa and Krampus drama.

Reindeer shifters, or Arietes as they called themselves.

And how darn sore my thighs were getting. Why did anyone choose to ride horses intentionally?

Hopping up and down with each move, I gritted my teeth and rode through the discomfort until we emerged from the woods. Ahead was the rear of the distillery and my house. The sight had me beaming, and I straightened my posture. No longer feeling the pain, I urged Tatum to move faster. This end of the yard had no fence and backed onto the woods, which explained how the three guys had entered my yard that time I’d spotted them near my home.

Once we reached the distillery, we came to a stop, and I slid a leg off Tatum, jumping off him before he lowered himself. My thighs wobbled beneath me, and the stinging ache raced down my legs. Yep, I felt bowlegged, but I didn’t care. I was home, and I turned toward the house when in the distance I spotted someone stepping down from the front porch, carrying what looked like a huge garbage bag over their shoulder.

“Jana,” I called out, hurrying forward, wondering if she’d had enough and was headed home. I’d have to make it up to her, but the closer I got, the more the figure didn’t resemble Jana. Whoever it was, they were taller and wore all black and dragged something else in the snow behind them.

Someone grasped my shoulder from behind and pulled me to a halt. Leven stepped in front of me.

“Get behind us,” he growled.

“What are you doing?” I peered past the three men in front of me, all of them in human form and now magically dressed in their jeans and jackets. But my sights set on the person near my home.

The person stepped out of the shadows and looked nothing like Jana. I gasped loudly, and ice threaded through my veins.

The thing I stared at was the monster from the woods. My knees weakened, breaths ragged and harsh.

Krampus!

The bag on its back shifted about. Whatever was inside kicked and cried out in soft female whimpers I was all too familiar with. My heart dropped through me, hitting the ground.

“Britta!” I screamed and shoved past Jax, running to get to my sister. Tears choked my throat, blurring my vision, but anger twisted around my chest, and fury drove me to move faster.

My sister.

He had her.

I darted, each step feeling slow and sluggish in the snow, yet the monster seemed miles away. Except it stood there and dropped the sack. Britta’s cry shattered me. It reminded me of the times she’d sob when my dad would beat me, and despite my pain, hearing her agony killed me.

The bastard lifted its chains and twirled them in a hand, facing me. “Give yourself willingly, and she lives,” it growled, sounding like a wild animal snarling the words.

The men behind me swooshed past, and their momentum bathed me in a rushed wind. Snatching up the sack with Britta, the monster ran out of the clearing with the speed of lightning.

“Stop!” I yelled, chasing after them, but he was too fast, the sack bouncing across his back. I would never catch up.

They had vanished into the woods, and while the men pursued him, I dropped to my knees, tears falling and my world splintered into a million pieces. There was a part of me that refused to believe what I’d witnessed, that Britta would be in her bed, fast asleep. That she’d laugh at me when I burst into her room.

I lifted my head and I was alone in the yard. I kept thinking I’d imagined the whole incident, so I scrambled to my feet and darted into the house. Upstairs, I ran into Britta’s room. Please be there. Please.

Her bed lay empty and disheveled.

“Britta?” I yelled, darting from room to room, back downstairs, not finding her. With each movement, my stomach hardened. The growing grief surged with each rushed breath. This couldn’t be happening to me.

“What’s going on?” Jana stepped out of the bathroom, still in her nightgown, her silvery hair falling over her shoulders.

“Britta,” was the only word I managed between sobs and tears crowding my eyes.

Jana’s face blanched and she rushed upstairs, but she wouldn’t find anything. Her loud cry sank through me, and I collapsed onto a chair at the dining table, my world darkening. What the fuck had I just seen outside?

When I glanced out the kitchen window, Jax, Tatum, and Leven were marching out of the woods and toward the house, their heads low, their postures defeated.

No. Britta!

I curled into my seat, and I covered my face, crying into my hands.

Fuck. Everything they’d said was real. And Krampus had just kidnapped my sister because of me.

Next to the last line was an image of underwear with a red line crossed through it.

“Wait up,” I said, my head already swimming from the half glass of whiskey I’d just drunk. “No one said anything about being naked.”

But when I turned around, all the men had vanished into the men’s changing room, leaving me alone to contemplate the whole situation. What was I doing exactly? I peered into the sauna through the small window in the door. Wooden panels ran across the walls and ceiling, along with the three layers of ascending benches. The place was empty. I paced back and forth. If the guys intended to do anything to me, they would have done it already, right? I glanced over at the pile of towels near the ladies’ changing room. And since when did I ever shy away from trying something new?

I snatched a towel and palmed open the door before heading inside. By the time I came out, washed, naked, and wrapped in a towel, I grabbed another and entered the sauna.

A wall of sweltering heat collided into me, not a burning kind, more like a buck-load of humidity. Tatum sat near the wall and wore a towel around his lap, like the rest of them, which I appreciated, because I wasn’t sure what I was doing here with them. Except my head felt light, and I had the urge to just laugh and let myself relax for a while. My gaze swung from bare chest to another, all muscular, powerful, and hairless. Not one of them had chest hair, which was interesting. But they were built like quarterbacks.

Leven crossed his legs, and I looked away to avoid being flashed, while Jax smiled my way, his skin glistening with sweat.

I joined him on the second layered bench, laid a towel down, and sat. “It’s hard to breathe in here.” My nostrils stung slightly.

“You get used to it,” Jax said.

It wasn’t long before sweat rolled down my back and the sides of my face. Salty drops ran into my mouth, and I wiped them away.

“What I wouldn’t give for an iced drink right now,” I said. “Or a chocolate milkshake.” All I could think about was food. Whenever I drank, I got the biggest hunger bursts. 

“As long as it’s not milk and cookies,” Leven blurted out and everyone chuckled.

“Inside joke, eh?” I reclined against the back step as more sweat smothered me, convinced pretty soon I would turn into a puddle.

“It’s a running gag,” Jax explained. “Santa has this thing where he doesn’t allow his elite reindeer to ever share any of the milk and cookies that families leave for him on Christmas Eve. He enjoys them all himself.”

“Seems a bit greedy,” I added.

“Right! Which is why he’s got such a healthy belly.” Tatum laughed. “He insists the elite reindeers need to remain fit. And now the other reindeer pay them out at any chance they get. One Christmas, the reserve team left so many packet of cookies outside their rooms, that by morning, they couldn’t open their the doors to their dorms.”

“Poor guys. I’d sneak them cookies before their trip.” I figured I might as well go along with the whole Santa thing if the guys were playing the game. And for the first time since leaving home, I slouched and didn’t look over my shoulder at every sound. Instead, I wanted to laugh and have fun. Well, the word fun was questionable when it came to me and three sexy men, and I smirked to myself at the idea. Then I caught Tatum staring across at me, as if he’d caught me grinning at my own fantasy.

“You look mischievous when you smile,” he said, and despite feeling as if I were already burning up, an inferno swept over my cheeks. “So,” he continued. “What brings you to Austria? Guessing you’re from America.”

“Long story, but I’ll give you the short rendition.” The one where I explained getting my uncle’s inheritance, how my life had sucked back in California, about my sister, and how this was a new chance for us to start fresh. I left out the whole my-parents-being-druggies-and-in-prison-for-attempted-murder thing. I didn’t need to be judged by their actions. Plus, long ago, I’d promised myself not to speak of them to anyone. Pretending they didn’t exist was the best approach.

“Holler Distillery is renowned for their Krampus schnapps,” Leven said, as if I didn’t already know.

“I just learned it’s our biggest seller each year,” I added, lifting my chin, actually proud that I now managed a successful business. Me, the girl who couldn’t get a job as a personal assistant because I hadn’t earned my high school degree. I might have inherited the joint, but I was going to learn everything about the distillery and grow it even more.

Leven piped in. “Most think it’s just a tradition to leave out a glass of schanpps for Krampus. But it keeps their children safe. He can’t resist the schnapps that relaxes him so much, it makes him weak. He knows he shouldn’t drink it, but when he smells the aroma, his anger fades.”

“His Achilles’ heel,” I said. “So what’s with the bells on clothes then?”

“It deters evil,” Jax said. “And the sound hurts Krampus’s ears. Why do you think Santa wears them around Christmas time? To ensure he isn’t attacked by the fucker.” His brow pinched while his voice deepened.

Okay, the mood had shifted quickly, so I changed the topic. “Anyway, what were you doing in my backyard a couple of weeks ago?” I wanted to see how far they would take this story.

Tatum cleared his throat. “Well, after you almost ran us over, we followed you home to ensure you arrived safely since you were driving all over the road.”

I froze, my mouth falling open. “It was really you?”

They exchanged looks, and Leven shook his head. “That’s what we’ve been saying all night.”

Even now, I struggled to believe them, but how else would they have known about the reindeer incident on our drive to Hirschheim? And right now, I wasn’t sure if it was the whiskey dancing in my mind or their insistence they were telling the truth, but everything felt surreal. And if that was the case, then I intended to enjoy the night and not prod too deeply. Still, if this wasn’t my imagination, then I had to accept the hard facts, that these men were indeed reindeer shifters. God, did that mean werewolves existed too? Why was I even contemplating this?

“Gonna get some drinks.” Jax got up and left the room, returning moments later with several bottles of water, the towel still wrapped around his waist. It saw low on his hip bones, the V tapering off his torso drawing my attention to all his muscles, and lower still to his bulge. When he smirked my way, I burned up and climbed down from the bench, approaching him to collect a bottle. Anything to distract myself—because I had no self-control. And for all I knew, I was keeping company with three murderers. Except they’d been nothing but nice to me.

He handed the other water out and approached the smoking pit, probably to add more water. I screwed open my bottle, standing there with sweat dripping down my arms and legs. I’d need a shower after this.

A sudden explosion of tiny popping sounds detonated from where Jax stood.

I jumped in my skin. The bottle slipped from my grip, falling to the ground as my towel unraveled from around me, cascading down my body.

Everything happened so fast, the crackling sound, panic driving me to rush toward the door stark naked, while the three men laughed.

With my hand on the handle, I stopped and glanced over my shoulder at the three of them cackling while I showed them my assets. Jax opened up his palm and showed me several red berries rolling about.

“They crackle and pop in fire. It’s tradition to use them in spas for good luck,” he said, smiling widely, his gaze settling on my ass. My face burned, but at the same time, something playful slithered through me because with the way they stared at me clearly wasn’t to ridicule me. They liked what they saw. I could tell.

“People use them when camping to scare away predators.” Tatum removed the towel from his lap and reclined, his cock so damn hard and large. I gasped when the other two followed suit, and now there were three erect dicks in this room with me. “So you don’t feel out of place,” he said.

“You’re all a horny bunch,” I said, hurrying to collect my towel and covering myself back up. “What do you think this is; buck mating season?” I half-smiled at my lame joke to break the awkwardness.

“Actually, male reindeer aren’t called bucks. We’re bulls,” Leven said.

“And once you go bull, you won’t give a buck!” Jax hollered in laughter, the sound unrestrained, his joy contagious because I couldn’t help but join in with the rest of the guys at his joke, which was worse than mine. Yep, the three of them were naked without a care in the world, and I fought the urge to ogle.

“What’s the difference between a buck and bull?” I asked.

“Well,” Leven began, already smirking as he lounged on his bench, “you can bull a buck, but you can’t buck a bull.”

The chuckles continued, and that joke flew over my head, but who cared when they sat there naked? But with my bottle in hand, and Jax within arm’s reach, I turned and squirted half my cold water across his chest.

He flinched and hissed.

I giggled even louder. “Payback for scaring the hell out of me and making me drop my towel.”

He stared at me with starved eyes while water dripped down his solid chest in rivets, trailing down his ripped stomach and lower. “I don’t regret a thing.” He stalked toward me, holding an unopened bottle, while Tatum and Leven hooted.

Butterflies swirled in my stomach, and I couldn’t stop the excitement bubbling in my chest as I recoiled. “Don’t you dare.”

My back hit the hot wall, and I reached for Jax’s hand, wrestling against him, unable to quit laughing. But when he seized my other hand and pressed it to the wall above my head, a different kind of scorching heat filled me. His body pinned me in place, and he splashed the water over my head.

I squealed as the coldness washed over me, down my head, over my shoulders, and down my back. Yet my focus remained on his hardness nestled against my stomach, with only my towel between us. The dude was naked, pressing himself up against me, and I loved it. Sure, we’d only just met, but he was a freaking god in stature.

“Get off me,” I said after a moment, and he complied without hesitation. “I see you play dirty.”

When he winked, a thrill jolted through me, weakening my knees. I wasn’t sure if it was the sauna or me, but I might very well be standing in a fire because I was burning up from the inside out. For the first time in forever, I let myself go there with my thoughts for a guy, what it would be like to have a man like Jax in my life, or Tatum or Leven for that matter. So damn sexy and attentive, and the whole protective persona touched a part of me. Yeah, other guys like Dylan had been interested in. me, and I’d always pushed them away, but I hadn’t regretted it because none of them had ever left me floating on clouds. I wasn’t talking about dating because I had to sort out my life with Britta first, but these men captivated my thoughts. Made me stare at them, and then I remembered the sign outside about not ogling in the sauna. Well, hard not to when three naked hunks stared at me.

I tightened the towel around my chest, tucking the loose corner into the fabric under my arm.

“Can you guess which one of us three is the biggest?” Jax asked while Tatum shook his head and Leven grinned devilishly.

I met Jax’s stare and willed myself not to lower my gaze at his nakedness of that of the other two. From what I’d seen before, they were all damn huge, but I hadn’t compared.

“What are you talking about?” I finally asked, my breath catching in my chest, causing Leven to stare at me with a look that screamed he knew what I was thinking. Of course he couldn’t, though. Surely not.

“Don’t tease her,” Tatum warned.

“You scared?” Leven asked.

Jax shook himself, and within seconds, something seemed to move behind the skin across his temples. The flesh pried open just enough for a circular object the size of my thumb to extend out.

My breath froze in my lungs, just as it had when I’d witnessed Leven transform. “What are you doing?” I backed away.

He was growing antlers right before me, and when Leven started to shake himself and follow suit, I hugged myself, unable to stop staring.

Long antlers extended outward, soon towering over their heads like crowns made of bone. Half a dozen points extended from the main beams. They were spectacular and so beautiful. Jax stood there, completely naked and in human form, with deer antlers sticking out of his head. I should have been scared, but something else flooded me. A need to understand what I was seeing.

“Can I touch them?” I asked.

“Of course.” Jax turned sideways, and I reached over, noting they had a layer of what looked like fuzzy skin. Under my fingers, they were like velvet.

Jax groaned softly, his eyelids fluttering. And was his cock twitching?

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Your touch is like a feather stroking me. The skin covering the antlers is filled with nerves.”

Leven climbed down from the bench, standing not far from Jax, both their antlers long, but varied in design with a different number of small points stretching in different directions.

Tatum moved to join them, his antlers also on show, and I stepped back so the three of them could stand there taking up most of the space. I sat up on the top bench, unable to believe I was staring down at three naked men with antlers. When had my life gotten so lucky, so strange, to lead me to a sauna with them? But the antlers were throwing me off.

“Well,” Jax asked. “Whose is bigger?”

I chewed on my lower lip, unable to control my perpetually-dipping gaze.

“She’s checking out our junk,” Leven joked while I blushed and heat circled me to the point that the room did a tiny spin. My shoulder hit the wall from losing my balance, and I pushed myself back up.

“Whoa, did the room just tilt?” I asked.

Within seconds, Leven was at my side, his antlers retracting as he took my hand, and that was all I could stare at. How real they’d felt and looked.

“Come. We need to get you out of here.” He scooped an arm under my knees and another behind my back and carried me down with grace and ease. I was pressed against his bare chest, and I swung an arm around his neck, holding on while Tatum opened the door. The most wonderful cool air rushed over me. “God, yes. That feels amazing.”

As we hurried out, Leven leaned closer, his words dancing on my ear. “I can make you scream those words anytime you desire.”