Chapter 6
Rhys hurried them out of the factory and toward the building where his room was. He said they were called barracks, and all the unmated males lived there. The cold was so severe that she’d almost retreated back into the warm toy factory, but the thought of getting to be with Rhys in a room with a real bed made her push through the discomfort that stung her cheeks and made her teeth chatter.
Rhys was gorgeous, and he looked at her like she was the only person on the planet. Searching her heart, she knew she felt the same way. She couldn’t explain how their connection was possible, but the jumbled pieces of her life had come together now that she’d met Rhys.
He pulled open the door to the barracks and ushered her inside. Ahead of them was a door that he said led to the rooms on the first floor, and the stairs were to the left. They took the stairs to the third floor, and by the time they arrived on the landing, her muscles burned. To her surprise, Rhys lifted her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way as if she weighed nothing.
“You must be naturally strong,” she murmured, brushing her fingers through the short hair at the side of his head.
“All shifters are, but quads are the strongest.”
“So there are people who aren’t quads but still can shift?”
“Yes. A quad can shift into the fourth animal – the reindeer. Other shifters have three animals instead of four. There are twelve quads in NPC, and eight of us work for SC.”
“What do the others do?”
“They work in security. I also work in security, but it’s an honor to be on the sleigh team. When a position opens up, SC chooses the quad who will fill that place.”
“Is there a ranking to the sleigh team? Like, is there one place on the team that everyone wants?”
“The team is ranked by our names. The lead reindeer is the Dasher position, and it goes on down through the names until the lowest position, Blitzen. But the sleigh team, even the lowest-ranked position, is a well-respected job.”
“Which one are you?”
“Dasher.”
She hummed. “Head of security and the top reindeer, that’s pretty neat.”
He opened the door to his room and slipped inside, shutting and locking it without putting her down. He carried her to the big bed in the corner and set her down gently, kissing her swiftly before he straightened. He took the stuffed teddy bear she’d taken from the storage room and propped it on the dresser, and then he returned and drew the gloves off her hands and the hat from her head, before helping her out of both coats.
When he disappeared into the closet, she kicked off the moccasins and tugged the socks from her feet. As she started to undo the buttons of the shirt, he came out of the closet with an ivory candle and a match. He flicked a light switch, tossing the room into darkness.
There was a faint scent of sulfur as he struck the match and held it near the wick. “Quads aren’t magical. The only real magic in NPC is through Santa and Mrs. Claus. But there are some things that they’ve given us for special occasions. This candle sat in my closet for years. I never thought I would have a need for it, but I remembered that Mrs. C told me that I would someday find someone to share this with, and I know it’s you.”
He lit the wick. It sparked to life, then slowly transformed, melting from a solid taper to a golden, glowing orb. The sphere lifted from Rhys’s hand as he blew out the match. It sparkled and cast lights all over the room. It reminded her of a disco ball, with warm golden twinkles that moved leisurely. The orb spun in slow moving circles when it reached the ceiling.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“You are,” he said, coming to stand next to the bed. “Merri, if I don’t tell you this, I’m afraid you’ll hate me.”
“Tell me what?” she asked.
“If you don’t leave NPC by dawn, which is in just a few hours, you’ll be trapped here until next Christmas Eve.”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Say that again?”
He repeated himself, but this time his words were punctuated with an angry growl, as his eyes turned bright gold.
“Why? Why would I be trapped?”
“NPC is a city protected by magic. It’s closed three hundred-sixty-four days a year. Only Santa is powerful enough to leave at other times of the year. For the rest of us, we can only leave for twenty-four hours, from dawn on Christmas Eve to dawn on Christmas Day. If one us of doesn’t come back by dawn on Christmas Day, then he or she is trapped in the human world for the year.”
She glanced at an old-fashioned clock on the dresser; the soft ticking that she hadn’t really noticed suddenly sounded very loud. A countdown of the seconds marked the time as it swiftly slipped away.
“Wh–when is dawn?” Her mouth felt dry; her heart pounded, and her eyes stung with tears.
“Six a.m.”
She had a little less than four hours until dawn. Until she’d be trapped – one place or the other. Either a year with Rhys or a year without him.
He dropped to his knees and grasped her hands. “I’ll take you home. We can be in touch through video calls. Next Christmas, I’ll come see you. Maybe you’ll be ready to come here to live.” He paused for a long moment, and she watched as his teeth morphed to fangs and his knuckles cracked as claws sprouted from his fingertips. “No, I can’t bear to be away from you for any length of time. I’ll pack and come to your world to live. We can take the time to get to know each other, and then we can decide where our future lies.”
She’d asked him for forever when they were in the toy factory. It had seemed like a simple request – the promise of a lifetime of happiness.
“You’d give up everything for me?” She lifted her hand to brush the tears from her cheeks, but he beat her to it, tenderly wiping them away.
“I can’t live without you. I’d rather have you in the human world, than be here alone. I know it’s fast, but it makes sense to me because I’ve known about fated mates my whole life. We’ve only known each other a little while, but you already feel like the center of my world. If having the chance to be together means I walk away from my life here, I would gladly do it.”
She felt entirely overwhelmed. “How can I make a decision like this in such a short time? What about my parents? My job? My home?”
“If you stay here, you can stay in touch with your parents through video calls. We can figure something out for you to tell your parents as to why you’ve left town. You don’t need to keep your job or a home in the human world – everything I have is yours.”
She’d never been faced with such an important decision. If she asked to be taken home, Rhys would be giving up everything for her. If she stayed, she’d give up everything for him.
“I can take you to see your parents on Christmas Eve morning every year. We could spend the day with them, and I could leave you with them while I fly with Santa. Then I could pick you up on the way home. I know it’s not fair to ask you to make this choice now.” He kissed her so tenderly that it made fresh tears spring to her eyes, and then he stood and tugged her from the bed. “Let me take you to Santa, and I’ll tell him that I’m leaving with you.”
She jerked on his hands and nearly fell back onto the bed with the motion. “No! I mean,” she said, straightening and clearing her throat with a chuckle, “that I don’t want that. I don’t want you to give up your life to be with me.”
His brow furrowed. “You don’t want me at all?” His voice cracked with emotion, and it made her heart ache.
“I do want you, Rhys. I want you more than I want my next breath. I can’t leave here and take you with me. It just doesn’t feel right. I want to build a home with you, here. In your world, not mine.”
“Really, sugarplum? You’ll stay?” The gold in his eyes swirled with the hazel, an impossibly sexy color that made every feminine instinct in her squeal in happiness.
She nodded, and the apprehension she’d felt earlier disappeared entirely. She knew she was making the right choice. He didn’t belong in her world, but she belonged in his.
“I’ll stay. I asked you to promise me forever, and I meant it. We’ll figure things out with my family and everything in my world, but right now all I really care about is being yours and starting our future off on the right foot.”
“What’s the right foot?” he asked, his voice tipping low and a soft growl rumbling in his chest.
She didn’t answer, but she held his gaze as she undid the buttons on the shirt she wore. It slipped off her body and dropped to the floor. He growled in a way that sounded like a purr; his eyes darkened as he watched her fumble with the belt that held the trousers on her hips. He dropped to his knees in front of her and pushed her hands away.
Undoing the buckle, he loosened the slacks and pushed them down her legs. She rested her hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she stepped from them. He trailed his hands up the outside of her legs as he leaned forward and kissed her navel, flicking his tongue along her flesh as he nuzzled the juncture of her thighs. She stepped back slowly until her knees hit the bed. She stretched out on her back, spreading her legs as he lifted her knees over his shoulders.
With a low growl, he pressed his lips to her pussy, tilting his head and sliding his tongue into her. She inhaled sharply as warmth stole over her. His hands were wrapped around her hips, holding her close to him as his questing tongue stroked in and out of her. He leaned closer, closing his lips around her clit and sucking.
And then he growled.
The vibrations wrapped around her, making her clit throb and her pussy clench. She arched her back, grabbing his wrists and holding on as he licked and sucked her clit, growling happily, the delicious waves of arousal rolling through her. Her stomach fluttered, and she felt herself rushing toward climax. She’d never come so quickly in her life. Rhys’s talented tongue and lips drove her to the edge so fast that her vision blurred and her chest heaved as she panted.
He growled deeply, his tongue pressing to her clit as her world narrowed impossibly and then heat bloomed as pleasure spiked through her. She cried out his name, her toes curling as she shuddered.
He kissed the inside of both her thighs and then smiled at her sinfully as he gently pulled her legs from his shoulders and stood.
“Sugarplum, you’re gorgeous, all flushed and sexy. How did I get so lucky?”
He shoved his trousers down his legs and stepped from them, kicking them away. Climbing up the bed, he kissed his way up her body until she hooked her legs around his waist and cupped his face.
“If the way you licked me is any indication of how our life together is going to be, then I’m definitely the luckiest.”
He pressed his lips to hers, flicking his tongue along the seam of her lips until she opened, sucking on his tongue as he’d sucked on her. He groaned as the head of his cock touched her pussy and pushed in. He was thick and stretched her, but she was so wet and ready that she could think of nothing but him being deep inside.
Tilting her hips, she urged him inside, tugging on him with her ankles hooked at his lower back. She exhaled when their bodies touched, and she felt a strange, deep connection solidify between them. She knew at that moment, that she’d made the right choice.
“Stars, you feel good,” he said, growling. He kissed down her throat, nibbling on her pulse as he tilted his hips and pulled from her pussy, before pressing back in. She gripped his shoulders and moved with him. The bed rocked under them, squeaking with each thrust. Overhead, the golden orb twirled, dotting the interior of the room with twinkling light.
He slipped from her pussy and gripped her leg, pushing her gently to her side as he lined up at her back and thrust into her. He kissed her neck and sucked her flesh gently into his mouth. Slipping her hand down to her clit, she rubbed the tight, sensitive bud in time with his strokes.
“Fuck yes, take me with you,” he said, his lips whispering over her flesh.
His heated words combined with her fingers twined inside her, and she knew she was close. He bit her, his teeth pressing to her throat, and she bucked back against him. Her climax took over, and she reached back and sank her fingers into his hair as she came at the same moment as she felt his cock spasm inside her. He snarled against her flesh and bit down more firmly, twin pains shocking her as his teeth sank deep. The pain ebbed swiftly as he lifted his teeth from her throat and then licked the wound, lowering her leg to the bed and curling around her.
“I marked you as mine, sugarplum,” he said gruffly. “I should have asked you first, but I couldn’t help myself. You’re so hot and tight and mine.”
She lifted his hand from where it rested on her stomach and kissed his fingertips. She shivered as an aftershock of pleasure rippled through her. “Is it a shifter thing?”
“Yes. I didn’t know the urge would be so strong or I would have mentioned it first.”
“It’s probably a case of better to ask forgiveness than permission. If you’d told me you wanted to bite me to mark me, I might have not been on board with it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask first.”
“Forgiven.”
She rolled over and rested her head on his bicep. He tugged her close until their lower bodies were pressed together. “Does it mean something special?”
“It means you’re mine and I’m yours.”
“Like married?”
He tucked his finger under her chin and lifted her head until he was staring into her eyes. “It’s bigger than marriage. Fated mates are for life. Nothing, and no one, on this planet will separate us.”
“I understand. I like being yours.”
“I’m yours too.”
“I especially like that.”
He chuckled and hugged her, rolling to his back and taking her with him so she was splayed over him like a blanket. She yawned and rubbed her cheek on his chest, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat.
“We should talk, sugarplum,” he said. “Time is running out.”
She opened her mouth to answer him, but then she was gone, fast asleep and dreaming about the Northern Lights.