Emily Hu drove the specially rigged up truck through the wilds of northwestern Washington, along the Canadian border, through the park. While Clan Marron had handled the permits, she’d still gotten hassled by some park rangers when they learned why she was at the park with the most suspicious looking vehicle they’d ever seen, but some well-placed phone calls had gotten the caravan of bear snatchers back on track.

“Jasper really owes us for this one,” said Aiden, one of Emily’s mates.

“If we end up missing the feast for this, I’m the one he’s gonna need to kidnap next year,” said Carlos.

“Em, you gotta take the next right,” said Kai, who was sitting next to Emily and using both a paper map and a smartphone to help her navigate the winding paths of the woods.

“At least this thing handles like a dream,” said Emily. “Ethan’s real generous. Had this custom made.”

“You think he told Kevin?” asked Todd. “They were pretty close back in the day.”

“No way,” said Emily. “The five of us only know because we ‘have’ to know. I could put two and two together though. I’ve known what the council’s been doing with these bears for a long, long time now.”

“The only reason they told us is that they knew you couldn’t keep your mouth shut,” said Kai.

“I can’t keep it shut around y’all,” corrected Emily. “They know that fated mates can’t keep secrets from one another.”

“Alright, now, we continue down this road until we see the orange flag,” said Kai.

“You boys know what do,” said Emily. “I’m gonna go in, try to see if he’ll come on his own…but if he doesn’t, well, you’ll go in and get him.”

“I have a feeling your Plan B is really your Plan A,” said Carlos.

“And what makes you say that?” asked Emily.

“Because this car only has five seats, not six,” said Aiden.

“There’s the flag,” said Steve. “Okay. Park here. We don’t want him to see us coming.”

“I’m going in,” said Emily, before she got out of the truck and went up to the small wooden cabin in the middle of a cleared glade. Outside was a sign reading, simply, ‘Ranger.’

Emily walked up to the door and knocked, waiting for an answer.

An answer came, in the form of a sizeable shirtless man with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was barely recognizable as Kevin Murphy of Clan Marron, as his face was covered with a thick beard and his hair had been grown out to past his shoulders.

“Hey, Kevin,” said Emily. “I don’t know if you heard, but, we’re having Thanksgiving down at the Clan Lodge.”

“Uh-huh,” said Kevin, looking down at Emily.

Kevin knew why she was there. He’d heard whispers of shifters disappearing after being seen talking to her around Thanksgiving. Kevin thought he’d be safe, given he lived in the park year-round, but apparently, Emily had her ways of finding her victims. Was she a vampire or a succubus, like some had said? Kevin wasn’t about to find out.

“Well, it’s awful kind of you to come out this way, but, I’m workin’,” said Kevin, moving to close the door.

Emily stopped Kevin from moving the door. She had to strain a bit, as male shifters were slightly stronger than her, but Kevin seemed particularly strong. Whether it was due to his job, or the potential onset of mate madness, she wasn’t sure.

“Kevin, wait,” said Emily. “Look…it’d mean a lot if you came down with us for Thanksgiving.”

Emily took a surreptitious look into the cabin. It was filled with scraps of clothes, which wouldn’t have been there if Kevin was healthy. Clothing burst when a shifter with a shift as big as a bear shifter turned from human to animal, but, Kevin was here on his own. There was no reason why he couldn’t just disrobe before he shifted. There was no explanation as to why there were great scratches over his walls, why there were things knocked over and broken as if a wild animal had broken into the cabin. In a way, a wild animal had broken in, and now, the question was, could the wild man break out?

“Us?” asked Kevin, quirking an eyebrow. His bear roared, a roar Kevin interpreted as suspicious. He quickly looked behind Emily and saw the specially outfitted truck, a truck that could only be for one thing. He sniffed the air and could scent out four familiar shifters.

Kevin didn’t bother to shut the front door. Instead, he shifted and ran out the back door, which he’d left open as soon as he’d heard someone driving down the road to his cabin. He made his way into the dark woods, woods he knew like the back of his hand, but when he heard the footsteps of not one, but four bears, he knew he was not only outnumbered but was going to be outwitted.

Kevin ran towards the river. If he could get in the water, he could cause the bears to lose their scent. He had barely broken into the riparian zone surrounding the stream before he was knocked back by one bear, and then, piled on by three more bears. The bears each grabbed one of his arms. He struggled and snapped, but they slowly carried him back through the woods and out to the truck.

The truck was a sight for Kevin to behold up close. There was a large semi-truck style cab, but the metal trailer on the back had a large cage, triple layered with chicken wire on the outside and inside and a center layer of barbed wire, all nestled inside the all-metal trailer. There would be no escaping that cage.

Emily opened up the back of the truck, and the bears tossed Kevin in the back.

Kevin shifted back into human form after he hit the cold metal of the cage.

“Emily, wait,” said Kevin. “I’ll hear you out.”

Kevin felt the urge to shift, to make his escape while the truck was still stationary, and tried to hold it back.

“I know you would if you could,” said Emily sadly. “But, Kevin…you and I both know why it has to be this way.”

“Don’t say it,” said Kevin.

“Mate madness,” said Emily. “You’re in the early stages. I saw your apartment. I can see that you can barely stay in your human form right now. When you tried to escape…you weren’t a werebear. You were a straight-up bear. You can’t control if you shift anymore. If you succumb…you’ll be a bear forever. You know that. So we have to do the only thing we can do to prevent that from happening.”

“You’re going to kill me?” asked Kevin.

“What?” asked Emily. “No. The council has a solution, and given that you’ve already started showing signs of mate madness…you’ll have to do whatever it is they say. You won’t have a choice in the matter. I’ve got to go, Kevin. We’ll be home soon. You’ll be getting the help you need soon.”

Emily tore herself away from the cage and from the screams of the man that soon turned into primal roars. She got in the driver’s seat and put her head against the wheel.

“I’m sorry,” said Emily. “I…I can’t do the drive back.”

“You’re tired,” said Carlos, giving her an out. “Come back here and nap. Todd, navigate with me. Kai, just…you know what to do.”

The mates all swapped seats. It wouldn’t’ve mattered where Emily had sat, because everyone in the cab could hear the alternating screams and roars as Kevin turned from human to bear back to human again, over and over and over during the drive.

After hours of driving, the came to a halt. After a few minutes, Kevin was blinded by a sudden light, as the trailer’s door came open. He saw a silhouette open the cage door and walk towards him. His bear roared. Kevin lunged at the intruder.

Kevin fell the ground, bound in chains. He struggled against the metal chain. How could the stranger have wrapped him in chains so quickly? Kevin’s bear allowed Kevin to turn back into his weaker human form so he could wiggle out of the chains, but the chains tightened around Kevin’s human form. Kevin turned back into a bear, but the links didn’t burst. Instead, they expanded, so they were still wrapped tightly around Kevin, barely loose enough to allow Kevin to breathe.

“Stronger shifters than you have tried to break those, and stronger shifters than you have failed,” said the stranger. “Jasper? Tranq him.”

Another shadowy silhouette came into view and held up a big item that Kevin assumed must be the tranquilizer gun. Kevin struggled against the chains, but it was no use. Soon, he felt a sharp stinging, and then, within a half hour, his vision faded to black.

Kevin woke up and found that he was chained to a chair in his human form, the chair located inside a large cage, placed in the center of the council chambers.

“Wh-what is this?” asked Kevin groggily.

“Kevin Murphy, you’ve got mate madness,” said Jasper Jackson, Alpha of Clan Marron. “There’s only one solution. You need to find your fated mate before your bear takes over and you lose your humanity, forever.”

“I don’t have mate madness,” protested Kevin.

“I know what I saw,” said Jasper. “Because you’re in the early stages of mate madness, we’re not going to offer you a deal. You’re going somewhere where you can get help.”

“You’re going somewhere where you’ll find your mate,” said a familiar voice.

Kevin looked. For some reason, Rowan Hooligan was in the room. He knew for a fact that bad boy matchmaker was as mateless as he was. At least, he had been, the last time Kevin had heard any gossip from Nuthusk…which hadn’t been in a long while.

“Rowan? Am I seeing things or is that you?” asked Kevin.

“I found my mate last year, same way you will,” said Rowan. “You just need to cooperate. Dude, you’ve got the madness. You need to do what the Clan is telling you to do.”

“Which is what?” asked Kevin. “Just go and find a mate? You think I would’ve if I could’ve?”

“No,” said a voice.

Kevin watched as out of thin air, a man appeared. The man had dark black hair, a tailored suit, rough stubble, and brilliant green eyes. He recognized the man’s silhouette as that of the man who had bound him in the back of the trailer.

“Who are you?” asked Kevin.

“The name’s Krampus, the Christmas demon, although apparently, my reputation doesn’t precede me on this side of the Atlantic,” said the man. “I’m here to take you to Camp Kringle, where I’ll work your ass into the ground, and you’ll learn to control a new shift.”

“A new shift?” asked Kevin. “You can’t take away my bear!”

“Can’t is a very strong word,” said Krampus, walking straight into the cage without opening the door.

Krampus tore his suit jacket off in one move and placed a hand on Kevin.

Krampus’s touch burned Kevin’s chest. Kevin struggled away from Krampus’s hand, but the burning only intensified. Kevin started to shift, letting his bear take over his body to stop the demon from doing whatever he was doing, but it was too late.

Krampus stepped backward, exiting the cage without even opening the cage door.

“I’ll be keeping hold of this for you,” said Krampus, showing Kevin his palm.

On Krampus’s palm was Kevin’s mate mark, the mark that was meant to lead him to his fated mate.

“You can’t take that!” shouted Kevin.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re using it,” said Krampus with a smirk.

Kevin watched as the mark traveled up Krampus’s arm and into a sea of similar symbols. It didn’t take a genius to figure out those were other mate marks Krampus had stolen from other shifters.

“Your bear is going to come out in three…two…” started Krampus.

Before Krampus could say, ‘one,’ the bear emerged, kicking and roaring, out of Kevin. While the metal chair underneath Kevin was tossed aside, the chains around Kevin contorted, so the bear’s four limbs were held apart, spread eagle, with Kevin’s bear’s torso exposed, each paw hanging uselessly in the air.

“Alright, here’s the fun part,” said Krampus. “You don’t need your mark, and you certainly don’t need your shift.”

Krampus walked back into the cage and pulled a snow globe out of his pants pocket. He held the snow globe up to Kevin’s snapping face.

Kevin looked inside. There was a storm brewing in the snow globe. He swore he could hear the sound of thunder. Inside, something was moving, something with brown, with four legs, but it wasn’t a bear. It had horns. Was it a buck? An elk?

Krampus placed the glass of the snow globe against Kevin’s paw. The bear roared, but couldn’t draw its paw away from the snow globe.

Kevin watched as rivers of red and green magical energy emerged from the snow globe and wrapped themselves around his hand like a ribbon around a Christmas present. Kevin turned back into a human, but this time, it wasn’t because Kevin had willed it. Kevin felt something leave his body, and something else entered it. He swore he could smell the scent of freshly baked cinnamon apple pie and hear the sound of caroling.

“And…done,” said Krampus, holding the globe up to Kevin, showing Kevin that, inside the globe, there was no longer some kind of deer, but rather, Kevin’s shift, running through a dense forest in the rain, thunder booming through the glass of the snow globe.

“If my shift’s there, what’s inside me?” said Kevin angrily.

“Meet your new shift, Donner,” said Krampus. “He’s one of Santana Claus’s eight most trusted reindeer.”

“Santana Claus?” asked Kevin.

“You may know him as ‘Santa,’” said Krampus. “I’m his right-hand man.”

“Give. Me back. My shift,” ordered Kevin.

“Oh, silly shifter,” said Krampus. “You may be a bad boy, but I’m a bad man, a de-man, as the case may be.”

“What the Hell am I supposed to do as a reindeer, without a mate mark?” asked Kevin. “How will I find my fated mate?”

“If you’d let me explain, it’d all become clear,” said Krampus. “You’re coming with me, to Montana, to work at Camp Kringle, the Christmas tree farm of one Santana Claus. Trust me. You’re going to hone your body into a well-oiled machine, learn to work with Donner, and find your fated mate.”

“Let’s say I believe you, believe all this nonsense about Santa Claus. How exactly does that get me my shift back?” asked Kevin.

“Once you get off The Naughty List, you’ll earn your mark and your shift back,” said Krampus.

“The what?” asked Kevin.

“Look down,” said Krampus.

Across Kevin’s chest, in bright emerald green, was one word: ‘Naughty.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” said Kevin. “What is The Naughty List?”

“Santana Claus keeps track of who’s Naughty and who’s nice,” said Krampus. “You’re Naughty – because you didn’t try to find and claim your fated mate.”

“I was trying,” growled Kevin. “Why do you think I work as a park ranger? To meet other shifters – although most are self-sufficient enough not to need help from the rangers.”

“The list doesn’t lie,” said Krampus. “You weren’t looking for a mate. You were isolating yourself in case you fell into mate madness. Well, call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, because obviously, that’s what’s happened. Do not focus on the past. Do what you need to do to get on The Nice List, and you’ll get your mate mark back. Then, you just have to claim your fated mate by Christmas, and you’ll get to keep your shift. If you can help newbie campers not get eaten by bears – including your own beast – then you can handle this…”

“And if you’re pulling my tail?” asked Kevin.

“You’re gonna be seeing some things that’ll teach you the truth’s stranger than anything your mere mind can imagine,” said Krampus.

Krampus grabbed the chain that was binding Kevin, and it dissolved in Krampus’s hand. Kevin hit the bottom of the cage, hard. As he rubbed his ass, Krampus took the chain, which had shrunk down to the size of a necklace, and tossed it on the ground. The necklace expanded to ten feet in diameter. It filled with green flames which flickered away into the ether and showed a forest found in the center of a lake.

“Kevin! Listen to me!” called Rowan. “Remember – during Christmas, true love can tame the wildest beasts! Remember that!”

“What…what is that?” asked Kevin, looking up to Rowan and then, back down at the floor. Kevin was still sitting on his ass and was looking down into the mysterious magical portal.

“The doorway to your future,” said Krampus, before shoving Kevin’s shoulders down.

The portal sucked Kevin down towards Camp Kringle, towards the center of the Wreath. Krampus grabbed his suit jacket and jumped in the gateway to follow after his new ward. The only thing Krampus knew for sure was that Kevin would be one tough nut to crack.