Chapter 3
Arian sat upright with a growl, his beasts roaring at him to protect his mate. The thick, black claws of his polar bear slid from his fingers and fangs punched from his gums. A feminine gasp reached his ears, and he knew immediately that it was his mate.
“Where is it?” he said, a growl rumbling in his chest as he scanned the room. He crouched, ready to stop whatever was coming to harm his mate. Nothing was familiar, and he wasn’t sure why he was here or where exactly here was.
“Where is what?” a soft voice asked, panic threading the words.
He lowered his gaze and saw a female clutching a purple blanket around her. Brown eyes like the finest chocolate were wide with fright and she was trembling.
“Danger.” He couldn’t get his brain to work right. He could smell her fear, and his beasts were anxious to protect her.
She scooted from him, but he reached for her, grabbing the blanket and tugging her close. She squeaked in alarm. “I won’t hurt you, I promise! I found you in the woods. Oh shit, please!”
He closed his eyes and inhaled, letting his beasts sort through the scents and listen for any signs of intruders. When he found only the scent and sound of his mate, he relaxed and forced his beasts to stand down. His fingers and teeth returned to normal, and he released his hold on the blanket.
He eased from his crouch and sat on his heels. “I know you won’t hurt me. I thought you were in danger.”
She blinked and brushed a tear from her cheek. “Oh. I…your eyes were yellow, and you had fangs and claws.”
She moved and the blanket wrapping her parted to reveal a smooth expanse of lightly tanned thigh. His beasts roared at him again and images of himself and the female lying naked together filled his mind. The images dissipated as quickly as they came when he saw that she was upset. Her heart pounded and her hands were white-knuckled as she held the blanket in front of her.
He didn’t like her being upset. She should never be afraid of him. “My name is Arian. What’s your name, beauty?”
She blinked. “Charlotte, but everyone calls me Charli.”
He smiled and her gaze dropped to his mouth, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. He barely stopped the growl of happiness from his beasts as they scented the subtle shift in her scent, from fear to arousal. Resisting the urge to do anything that might frighten her again, he said, “Do you know what happened?”
“You fell from the sky.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment, and he sensed her hesitation.
Arian reached out and cupped her cheek. She sighed softly and leaned into his touch.
“What is it, beauty?”
“You were a reindeer. I thought you were dead, but when I touched your fur, you shifted into a human. You said likli fanna and then you passed out. I know I must sound crazy, but it’s what happened.”
He stroked her soft cheek and tried to remember what had happened. He remembered being part of the sleigh team, and then something breaking on his harness, causing him to fall through the night sky, but then his mind went blank.
“You don’t sound crazy, Charli. I did fall from the sky. I’m part of the sleigh team, or rather, it was my first time with the team and something happened to the harness and I fell. I’m lucky to be alive, and I’m doubly lucky to have been found by my mate. You saved my life.”
He leaned toward her, intending to find out how soft her lips were, when she leaned away and put her hand up between them.
“First of all…sleigh team? Like Santa’s sleigh?”
He nodded and kissed her palm.
“Oh man, I’ve completely lost my mind. I’m so lonely out here in the middle of nowhere that I hallucinated a gorgeous naked man who’s not only a reindeer shifter but is also part of Santa’s team.” She pinched her arm and then squeaked in pain. “Ouch. Damn it. Am I dead?”
Arian chuckled and moved closer. She didn’t shy away. “You’re not dreaming, Charli, or dead. I’m real and so are you. Where is this place?”
“You’re in my home, outside of Jonah Woods. Do you really know Santa?”
“Sure. I’ve been working for him since I turned eighteen and took on my shifts, but this was my first flight.” Something flickered through his mind, and he stood up and strode to a window. Looking out at the night sky, he asked what time it was.
“Um, just after one a.m. on Christmas morning.”
“Do you have a computer?”
“Sure.” She gathered the blanket around herself and moved to a small desk. “What do you need?”
“I need to let NPC Security know where I am.” He sat down behind the desk and opened the Internet browser.
“Oh, okay.” She chewed her lip again.
He glanced up and frowned. “Charli, what’s wrong?”
She chuckled mirthlessly. “Besides the fact that I’ve got a reindeer shifter in my cabin? You’re leaving.” Tears glistened in her eyes, and Arian’s heart melted at the sight. She scrubbed at her eyes and groaned. “I’m acting like an idiot. I know I just met you, but I don’t want you to go.”
He reached for her and pulled her into his lap. She gasped and tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’m letting them know I’m safe, Charli, but I’m not going anywhere. And you shouldn’t be embarrassed by your feelings because I feel the same way. You’re my mate and that’s a powerful, instant connection.”
“Mate?” Her scent, which smelled sweet like cotton candy, deepened, and his whole body tightened.
“North Pole shifters find their mates in one of two ways – either Mrs. C mate-matches or they find them through fate. You’re my fated mate, Charli. I’m sure that’s a surprise, since you’re human and know nothing about our kind, but I’ll explain more in a minute.”
He entered a website address in the browser and waited for the page to load. Charli sat stiffly in his lap, and he wished she would relax, but he wagered that if he were in her shoes and someone had fallen from the sky in his backyard and said they were mates that he’d be suspicious and nervous, too.
“You said NPC Security. What is that?”
“NPC is short for North Pole City. It’s where all of the arctic shifters and other supernatural creatures live. I work for the security team as well as being a new member of the sleigh team.”
When the page loaded, a colorful cartoon image of Santa filled the page, directing visitors to several different pages within the site, from following the sleigh with a GPS program to games to coloring pages to print. Clicking on the GPS page, he triple clicked on a small icon in the left corner of the map, and then he double clicked on the image of the sleigh before triple clicking on the icon in the left corner again. The page blinked twice, and a small box appeared in the center, requesting a code. He entered his name, and a black screen with a blinking cursor appeared.
Arian_772 uninjured after fall from sleigh and safe with FM. Respectfully request removal from sleigh team and permanent move to current location.
He waited while an hourglass twirled in the center of the black screen.
“FM?” Charli asked.
“Fated mate.”
She looked at him, her eyes searching his face. “Is this really real? I write about stuff like this, but I didn’t know it really happened.”
At his urging, she told him that she wrote paranormal romance stories, about shifters finding their mates. Considering that humans didn’t know that shifters were real, he was amazed at how much she was right about as she shared some of the information she’d either read from other books or had made up on her own.
“It’s real, Charli. But we can never tell another human. It’s against our laws, and it’s dangerous for humans to know such things as a group. They tend to want to study or kill what they don’t understand.”
“I promise I won’t ever tell anyone. Arian?”
“Yes, beauty?”
“You’re really not leaving? I mean, you’re going to stay here with me?”
“Unless you want me to go? I can woo you, if you’d like. I’ve never done it before, but I could figure it out.” He looked toward the window. “I could live in the woods and woo you.”
Her hand that was resting on his shoulder tightened. “No! I mean,” she cleared her throat as she blushed, “you don’t have to live in the woods. I don’t…”
“You can tell me anything, Charli. We’re mates.”
“I don’t know why I feel so connected to you, but I do. I don’t want you to leave or live in the woods. The wooing thing? What does it involve?”
Her blush deepened, staining her cheeks a lovely color.
“I would visit you and bring you gifts. I would show you that I can be a good mate for you.”
“I like that, but you don’t have to live outside.”
He cupped her face and drew her close, intending to kiss her for the first time. His beasts purred in expectation, excited for the prospect of earning her trust and proving their worth as a mate. The computer beeped, and he turned his head, disappointed because they’d been so close to kissing and had been interrupted. He frowned as he read the reply from the North Pole Security Office:
Request denied. NPCS will arrive at your location at 5 a.m. local time.
The link was severed, and the screen blinked twice before returning to the main page.
“What does that mean?” Charli asked, her words tinged with worry.
“I don’t know.”
“Will they take you away?”
His hands tightened on her fractionally as his beasts raged inside him. “No, they won’t.”
But the truth was that he didn’t actually know. If he was outside of the North Pole after sunrise on Christmas Day, he would be trapped until Christmas Eve of the following year. North Pole-born creatures were only free to leave the confines of the North Pole for twenty four hours – dawn on Christmas Eve to dawn on Christmas Day. Grief stuttered through him, making him wish he hadn’t checked in. It had been an automatic response, one born from years of training. NP-born creatures were taught from birth that if they were away from North Pole City suddenly, such as though an accident, they were to immediately alert the security team. He’d never heard what to do in the case of finding a fated mate, but Charli was human and Arian didn’t know what that meant.
Her stomach growled, and he stood with her in his arms. “Let me make you something to eat, mate of mine.”
“I can cook for us,” she said as he carried her into the kitchen.
“It’s my honor to feed you, Charli.”
He set her on the counter, and she cupped his face, her eyes darkening as the scent of her arousal spiked in the air between them. “I don’t know you, but I’m terrified that you’ll be taken from me. It feels like you’re in my heart already. How is that possible?”
“It’s our way.”
“It’s not mine, though. I’m human and you’re a reindeer shifter who works for Santa. I didn’t even know he was real.”
“Let me feed you, and then we can talk. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, my life is an open book.”
She drew close to him, and he slid his hands up her back, feeling the warmth of her skin through her thin shirt. He pulled her close as their lips met and everything inside him quieted in a profound way. Her lips were soft and smooth, and as their mouths opened and their tongues met, the taste of her filled him with heat and desire that was so strong it threatened to boil him from the inside out. The blanket he’d wrapped around himself fell to the floor as she wrapped her legs around him and he tugged her closer. The apex of her thighs pressed against his stomach, and his cock twitched, anxious to sink inside her heat and bond them forever. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat, and he gripped the edge of her top and lifted it.
They separated for a heartbeat as the top went airborne over his head and he growled softly.
“Food,” he managed, his beasts clamoring for him to shut up and kiss her some more.
She smiled with a sultry gleam in her eyes. “Later.”