Chapter 1
Arian rubbed the polishing cloth on the buckle of his harness until it shone brightly. Excitement filled him as he thought about what the night would bring. Christmas Eve in North Pole City was always a busy night, and as one of the chosen eight to pull the sleigh, Arian’s day had been especially busy. After he’d turned eighteen and first been able to shift into an arctic animal, he’d known that someday he’d be chosen for a sleigh run. He’d never expected it to take twelve years for a spot to open, but thanks to a mating arranged by Mrs. C, the Blitzen position had opened up.
It was about damn time.
Rhys, head of the North Pole City security team and also the Dasher position on the sleigh, slapped Arian on the shoulder. “You ready, rook?”
Arian arched a brow. “I’ve been shifting as long as you have, Rhys.”
“But you’ve never pulled the sleigh before. This is a trial run. If everything goes well tonight, you’ll be looking at a permanent position, and you know what that means.”
Arian felt the beasts within him stir. There weren’t many females in North Pole City. The males outnumbered them seven to one. In order to be allowed to pursue a female to mate, a male had to prove his worth in a noble profession – for shifters like himself, Arian needed to find a permanent position, such as sleigh-work. For the last twelve years, he’d been standing on the sidelines, working his ass off but never actually being given a permanent position. It had been hell. His beasts wanted to be mated and start a family. Waiting because of an ancient Santa law had started to make Arian want to forget his shifting abilities and take a permanent position somewhere else, like with the toy builders.
His beasts hadn’t much cared for that notion. Shifters weren’t supposed to be toy builders; they were part of security or part of the sleigh team, and sometimes they were both.
“I’ll do my best, Rhys,” Arian said.
Rhys smiled. “I know you will. If you’re nervous, go for a run in your shift before we have to harness up. It helps to take the edge off.”
“I will, thanks.”
Arian finished polishing the buckle on his harness and hung it on the rack in the stall. In a few hours, he would be shifting into his reindeer form – one of his four shifted forms – and an elf would attach the harness and hook him up in the line. He didn’t relish spending the evening staring at Roi’s ass as they flew from house to house, but he’d gladly take it to have a chance to find a mate and start a family.
Deciding to take Rhys’s advice to heart, Arian jogged out of the barn to the trees and stripped, closing his eyes and talking to the beasts inside him. He could transform into four arctic creatures at will – polar bear, snowy owl, arctic fox, and reindeer. His favorite shift was the arctic fox. He liked blending into the snow and being able to race through the trees. The polar bear, while powerful, was just not as fast as the fox.
He shook himself out as he took on the mantle of his shift and stretched, curling his claws into the snow and snapping his tail. Without any thought to the point of his run, he took off, the trees a blur as he raced by. As he ran, he thought about how powerfully unfair the mating situation was for those born in North Pole City. He’d never been to a human city before, but he’d heard rumors from some of the elves who regularly visited to pick up supplies for NPC, that humans mated at will. No one made them wait until they had a certain job, or matched them up through a special ceremony. It would be nice if he were human, but he wasn’t, so he was bound by the rules and laws of his world, which although on the same planet as the humans’, were about as different as night and day.
After lazily chasing some snowshoe rabbits and then chuckling to himself as they cursed him out in their strange bunny language from the safety of their dens, he headed back to the barn. He could feel the time drawing close for when he would need to shift and take his place. Excitement coursed through his veins, the idea of having the opportunity to mate with a female shoved to the back of his mind as more important tasks awaited him.
* * *
Declan shoved Sullivan, and the big male tilted slightly and took a swing at the bigger male, narrowly missing his face. “Ha, too slow, old man,” Declan taunted.
“I’m only three months older than you,” Sullivan said, grimacing.
“Stop messing around,” Lan, the elf in charge of the sleigh team, bellowed. “SC is on his way.”
Declan fell into step behind Rhys as the male walked in front of the stalls, stopping to wish each male a good run. After Rhys and Declan passed by, the males stripped and shifted into their reindeer forms. Arian was nervous, but he did his best to calm his racing heart.
“You’ll be great,” Rhys said as he stopped in front of Arian’s stall. “Just remember your training.”
When it had been revealed that Arian was a true arctic shifter, able to shift into so many forms, his training had begun for the sleigh team. If he hadn’t been able to shift into the all-important reindeer form, he would have been trained for the security team only. All those years of training were paying off tonight. He felt electricity in the air. He knew that by the time his first flight was over, he would be a completely different male. He relished the knowledge.
Declan gave a nod to Arian, and the two males walked back toward the front where their stalls were. Arian’s fingers trembled as he undid his trousers and let them fall. It took a moment for his nerves to calm enough for him to be able to claim his shift. His body stretched and his bones snapped and reformed as he became a reindeer. He stamped his hooves and snorted.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Oliver, one of the barn elves, said as he hurried into the stall and attached the ancient harness around Arian’s body. He patted Arian on the haunches and smiled. “Good travels, Blitzen.”
Arian snorted, trying not to prance out of the stall like some kind of show horse. Oliver led him to the sleigh, and the red painted wood shined under the light of the candles glowing brightly in the barn. Arian took his place, right in front of the sleigh and was attached to the main harness. Donner, his fellow shifter Jack, was next to him, and the male nudged Arian with his horns. Arian would have grinned if he’d had the ability.
SC, otherwise known around the world as Santa Claus, strode into the barn, his cloak billowing around him. Mrs. C, his wife, hurried next to him, clucking under her tongue as they had an argument that Arian had heard many times over the years.
“What if you just ate the cookies at every other house?” she asked.
“It’s important the kids know I was there.”
“The presents aren’t an indication of that?”
SC stopped next to Arian and put his big hand on Arian’s head, scratching him lightly just under the horns. “Good flight tonight, Blitzen.” Then he turned to his wife and drew her close, kissing her soundly. “You worry for nothing, sweetheart.”
She sighed. “I love you.”
“I’ll eat only a bite at each house. How does that sound?”
“Better.”
“And I’ll bring home a special cookie for you,” he said, his voice low and filled with lust.
Mrs. C giggled. “Stop it, you old horn dog. Safe journey, Santa Claus.”
“Until the dawn, Mrs. Claus.”
SC climbed into the sleigh and the barn doors were thrown wide. The elves cheered as SC picked up the reins and with a mighty shout, cracked them in the air. The two lead reindeer started them off, and Arian found himself caught up in the rush. His feet were moving before he could focus on the need to move, and he was thankful that some part of him was working on autopilot. As the North Pole dimmed in the distance below them, he blinked and found himself rushing through time and space.
The stops at the houses were so brief that they barely touched down before SC was back in the sleigh and they were moving on. Arian lost himself in the blur of the houses, focusing on doing his job and keeping the team on time.
The world was theirs for the night. The sleigh raced across the sky, invisible to human eyes, through the magic of SC. Arian was running high on adrenaline, happy to finally take the job that he’d longed to do for so many years.
He heard a clicking sound, like the ping of metal against metal, and as they flew through an expanse of wilderness, the buckle holding him against the main harness gave way. He bellowed in alarm and tried to grab the harness with his teeth to hold himself to the sleigh but his jaws snapped on air and he was falling. Down, down, down, through frigid air that took his breath away. Then he was being slapped rapidly by trees, before he hit the ground. His whole body cracked against the earth, and his brain rattled in his skull.
He remembered nothing else.