A Shifter Disaster Thanksgiving (Holiday Shifters of Frost Mountain #6)

Chapter Two

“Become My Wife… Or You Can Be My Prisoner.”

Sylvester Stormbringer registered the different emotions that flickered across the woman’s face at his words—shock, confusion, disbelief. As if subconsciously, she brushed her blonde hair over her shoulder, her gaze flicking between him and the door behind him as though she was considering her next move.

He almost smirked. Almost.

Diane let out a nervous chuckle. “Great joke. Thanks for saving me, though. I’ll just be on my way now.”

She didn’t make a move but looked to him like she was expecting his permission. He simply stared back at her, and her green eyes shone with realization.

“You’re not kidding,” she said in a quiet voice.

Sylvester said nothing, but instead continued to regard the woman. He’d watched her sleep for a bit after he’d brought her to the village and into his cabin. Awake, she was even more beautiful. Her face was oval-shaped, her skin smooth and creamy. He’d put the sweater on her because it matched her hair, and looking at her now, he couldn’t help but be impressed with his choice. The jeans hugged her hips, outlining her curves in a way that made his heart beat a little faster.

“You… you want me to be your wife?” She looked at him as though he was insane.

It did sound insane. No, it was . But that was exactly the point. If it irked Gregory, the village chief, it was even better. And taking a wife seemed like it just might do the trick, especially after the discussion he and Gregory had just had.

“Yes,” he said. “Was I not clear enough?”

“B-but that’s crazy! I’m grateful for your help, but I’m not going to marry you just because you saved my life. That makes no sense.” She laughed uncomfortably. “Why would you even say that?”

“Because it’s what I want,” he replied simply.

“It’s not what I want. Right now, I want—no, I need —to get off this mountain. I need to get home. I… I’ve got cats to feed.”

He lifted an eyebrow, unable to rest a smirk this time. When he plucked her out of the sky earlier, she’d had a terrified look plastered on her face. That look was back now. But she wasn’t in any real danger.

She was afraid of him.

A lot of people were, especially when he got angry. Sylvester understood their fear. In the past, Dragons were known to have caused destruction during fits of rage. And Stormbringers like him were especially dangerous. Most people feared being burned alive as a result of a dragon’s bad mood. But Sylvester had ways of calming himself down. He either busied himself blacksmithing or he took to the skies.

He'd been flying high above Frost Mountain yesterday when he saw that plane breach the portal. Even before the craft came apart in midair, he’d known that its occupants were doomed. And then he’d spotted a few of them rocketing toward the mountain. He’d managed to save two of them, a man in a blue suit and the woman standing before him right now. As for the others… they may have survived—or not.

Diane was lucky he’d been around when her plane breached that portal. The only reason Sylvester had been up there to begin with was his conversation with Gregory. Gregory was many things. He was the village chief. He was a warrior. He was also a Stormbringer.

Their conversation yesterday had not gone well. Gregory had been dismissive, as usual. “You are worrying about the wrong things at the wrong time, brother,” he’d snapped at Sylvester. "You should be focusing instead on the immediate danger this village faces. Pine Gap is under threat of war. Our father would have wanted you to focus on that problem.”

It was that last statement that had ticked him off. Even now, Sylvester could hardly believe the calmness with which his elder brother had uttered those words, especially when he had a hand in the death of their father, Malcolm, who’d been the village chief.

He could pretend all he wanted, but Gregory was not innocent. He was responsible for Malcolm’s death, and Sylvester knew it, even if no one else did. He knew for a fact that in the weeks before Malcolm was murdered in his sleep, he and Gregory had argued about the best approach to the imminent war between the villages. For days, they’d battled heatedly. Then Malcolm was discovered lying in the snow with a dagger in his chest.

That had been months ago. The tension between the villages was still rising. The opposing village, Glenstra, still threatened war, and Gregory was certainly preparing for it. Over the past few months, whenever Sylvester confronted his brother about their father’s mysterious death, all Gregory did was dismiss his concerns.

“We need to be ready for this war,” he told Sylvester. “We need everything we can get—weapons, food, warriors. You are a blacksmith. Go and do what you do best.”

And so Sylvester spent a lot of his time forging weapons alongside his friend Jon. Together, the duo had already produced an array of weapons that Sylvester believed to be more than enough for this impending war. And it still wasn’t enough for Gregory.

The way Sylvester saw it, his brother was using the war as an excuse to keep him distracted from the real problem. Glenstra and Pine Gap had always been at loggerheads with each other. This wouldn’t be the first threat of war in three decades. In that time, there had been several actual wars, some of which had resulted in painful casualties in Pine Gap. Sylvester still remembered holding his mother in his arms as she drew her final breath, just feet away from the corpse of the invader who had attacked her.

His mother had passed over a decade ago. Now his father was gone, too. And Gregory was the new village chief.

It seemed all too convenient. And the more he thought about it, the more he found himself wondering whether there was a chance that Gregory wasn’t merely using the war as a distraction. He’d pushed for war when Malcolm insisted on keeping the peace between the villages. Their father had always tried to avoid conflict. Gregory had seen that as a weakness. With him gone, Gregory was chief of the village and could do whatever he wanted unless Sylvester put a stop to his nonsense first.

“Why would you want to marry me?” Diane wanted to know. “Doesn’t it sound weird to you?”

He considered her question. She was human, no doubt. It wasn’t even the trepidation on her face that told him. By now, she should have sensed that they were different. She should have connected the dots. Instead, she stood in his living room, beautiful but clueless as to her situation. A supernatural would have put up a fight by now or tried to escape. In fact, if she’d been a supernatural, she might not even have needed saving.

She folded her arms across her chest, the very act pushing her breasts a little higher. “Are you going to answer me or not?”

I want to annoy my brother, he thought, but that’s not what he said. He cocked his head to one side. “I want you to be my wife. That is all that matters.”

Diane shook her head, pursing those delicious-looking lips of hers. “No. Nuh-uh. Negative. This is just outrageous. Don’t you realize how weird it sounds? I’m supposed to be in Chicago for my book signing. If my agent finds out I never made it, he’s going to flip. I’m sure by now he’s already wondering where the heck I am—he and all my readers. I’m probably pissing him off by not showing up. Trust me, readers are the most vicious kind of fans there are.

“Just let me get off this mountain and get home.” She sighed. “I’m really grateful for your help, Sylvester. Right now, I just need to make sure I get home safely. I’ll pay you or something, okay?”

Sylvester chuckled deeply. Diane blinked at him, stunned.

“You’re not leaving Frost Mountain,” he told her.

“Frost Mountain?” she repeated.

“You are not going anywhere. There is no going back home. No one has, and no one ever will. This mountain is too dangerous. If you wish to survive, you will remain here in this village, in this cabin, with me.”

A puzzled look crossed her face. “What do you mean, no one’s ever going home?” Then she shook her head. “That’s not happening. I’ll take my chances with the mountain.”

She could be quite stubborn, Sylvester noted. That fact amused him just as much as it irked him. Clueless as she was, this woman was intent on leaving. Hadn’t she already figured out it was dangerous outside? She’d almost died out there earlier.

Before he could stop himself, he drew closer, causing her to stumble backward. In a flash, he was standing before her, his hands on her hips to steady her. She gazed up at him through wide eyes, and he felt her body tighten against his. Her breasts swelled against his hard torso with each breath, and he thought he could feel her heartbeat.

She made no move to push him away. Her lips were slightly parted—in fear or confusion, he was sure which, but he was suddenly tempted to kiss her. He fought that urge grudgingly, clenching his jaw.

“You can take my offer and become my wife,” he told her, his grip tightening on her hips, which made her gasp, “or you can be my prisoner.”

Her eyebrows rose. “There’s not much of a choice.”

“Exactly.”

He hadn’t thought about making her his wife when he’d saved her yesterday. It had been until after he’d brought her into the village and had watched her sleep in his arms that the idea had crept into his mind.

Gregory was doing his best to ignore him, to push him aside. But taking Diane as his wife was outrageous. And that was exactly what Sylvester was counting on. That would surely get his brother’s attention.

And then what would happen? The question popped into Sylvester’s head almost instantly. Would Gregory be angry? Would he fly into a rage at his brother’s actions?

“You have your options,” he told Diane. “Choose wisely.”

She gulped. “I’ll be your wife,” she replied in a small voice.

He lifted an eyebrow. “What was that?”

“I’ll be your wife,” she said, louder this time.

He smiled. “That’s what I thought. You’re mine. You’ve been mine from the moment I plucked you out of the sky.”

Her green eyes widened at his words. Her lips parted even wider, and he saw the question forming on her lips. Sensing it would be impossible to resist the urge to kiss her for much longer, he let go of her, stepping backward.

“Stay here,” he instructed her. “I’m going back to the forge.”

With that, he turned and left the cabin, stepping off the porch into the narrow, snow-filled street. He glanced around for a moment. Pine Gap was quiet this morning. Most of the villagers were still in their homes, though a few walked through the streets, greeting him as he passed. Sylvester nodded back, his mind fixated on his encounter with the woman in his cabin.

She was in for an experience. And so was he, he realized, remembering how her body had felt against his. Taking a wife wasn’t something Sylvester had foreseen for himself in the last couple of decades. He’d always preferred to be on his own. Now he’d brought this woman into his life. The possibilities were endless.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t try to run off in his absence. With any luck, she believed what he’d told her about Frost Mountain being dangerous.

He discarded the thought and continued walking, eager to reach Jon. When he reached the forge, he would inform his friend about the latest development.