Falling For Her Guardian (Yuletide Shifters #1)

Chapter 1

Santa stared out the window of the security office. Behind him, the room held the shifters and elves who were part of the security team that kept the North Pole safe. Through the glass, the Northern Lights danced in the sky, a medley of yellows and greens dotted with stars. The sky looked deceptively normal, but there wasn’t anything normal about tonight.

It was the last night of November, which meant tomorrow heralded the first day of December.

A day when, traditionally, his brother, formerly known as Angel Nicholas and currently holding the title of Jack Frost, would begin his campaign to take control of the most important thing to magical people worldwide—the Well of Magic.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Santa asked the nearly full room without turning from the view out the window. “That if things were different, if my brother hadn’t turned to dark magic to try to take over the Well but had instead embraced his position as Jack Frost and worked with me, we wouldn’t have to have these meetings?”

He and his brother used to work together.

They didn’t anymore.

Now they were on opposite sides of a battle that had raged for decades. Santa was the eldest member of the Nicholas family and, therefore destined to be Santa Claus, the lead protector of the Well of Magic and the most powerful warlock in the world.

Jack, simply put, was not.

“It would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about him starting his shit up again,” said Winter, a polar bear.

“Indeed.” Santa turned from the window and faced the large group, consisting of the Yuletide Guardians and the elves who were part of the security team. “Tomorrow is December first, gentlemen, and you know what that means. My brother will once again try to take control of the Well of Magic and take me out. Vigilance is the key, and I know that I can trust all of you to help me keep the Well safe. Every year, he grows more clever and dangerous in his attempts to seize control of the Well.”

“Right,” Declan, a wolf shifter, said. “Last year on the winter solstice, he focused an ice storm over the Well and covered it with several feet of ice. It took us days to thaw it so people could replenish their magic.”

The males all nodded. “The year before that,” Hunter, a polar bear, said, “he blackmailed a warlock coven to take down the magical perimeter around Northernmost.”

“Each time he’s come against us,” Santa said, “we’ve been able to stop him and then put better safety measures in place.”

“We’ll keep the Well safe,” Maverick, a snow leopard, said, his voice ringing with conviction.

In previous years, Santa had tried to bridge the gap with his brother and extend an olive branch, but Jack was too far gone into dark magic to turn away from his goal. And that meant Santa had no choice but to keep fighting so the Well would remain under his control. Without Santa, the magical people in the world were in danger of losing their magic entirely, and that was something that he couldn’t allow to happen.

“As we draw close to Christmas, be sure to watch each other’s backs and keep your head on a swivel. Jack’s dangerous and crazy, and there’s no telling what he might do.”

It was ironic that the brother he’d once loved now actively tried to kill him several times a year.

“Take care of yourselves and each other,” Santa said. “Alert the team and me if anything’s amiss or suspicious. I wouldn’t put it past Jack to try something tomorrow, but even if he doesn’t, we don’t let our guards down.”

The males all agreed.

Santa dismissed them and left the security office, heading for his own office to get to work. There were only twenty-five days until Christmas, after all.

Storm McAdams rolled his neck and stared out at the wintry expanse at the top of the world known as the city of Northernmost. Here in the coldest place he’d ever been was the most important thing to any and every magical person: the Well of Magic.

Tonight, as November ended and December began, his bear let out a curious bellow in his mind, urging him to shift and roll around in the snow.

Later .

His walkie squawked, and he lifted it from his belt, pressing the button with his thumb. “Yeah?”

“You near the Entrance? There’s an alert that someone is coming through,” Sebastian, one of the wolf Guardians, said, his voice tinny through the small speaker.

Storm looked around, realizing he’d been staring at the Northern Lights for so long that he didn’t remember where he was in relation to the Well.

After getting his bearings, he said, “Uh, yeah, I’m about five minutes out. I’ll go.”

“Thanks. Lemme know if you need anything.”

Storm slid the walkie back into the holster and turned on his heel, heading toward the Entrance.

Nine Yuletide Guardians comprised of the three largest shifter groups: polar bear, wolf, and snow leopard. As a polar bear, Storm was uniquely suited to the cold temperatures, but not when he was human. His bear loved to race through the snow and look for tasty things to eat. While he didn’t mind the cold when he was human, he definitely preferred the layer of fur in his shift when the temperatures went into the negatives.

Cold or not, it was fucking beautiful up here, though.

It was also beautiful at his home down in the Pennsylvania mountains, where his brother was alpha of their people. He hadn’t been home in six months, not since he’d gone down to visit his mom for her seventieth birthday. Among the gifts and flowers and her favorite cake, his mother had urged him to take a mate and start a family before it was too late.

He wasn’t a teenager anymore, but he was hardly old. Hell, he was still two years away from thirty. He wanted that life, he just wanted to wait for his truemate.

Wherever the hell she was.

The snow crunched under his heavy boots as he headed toward the Entrance. He let his bear out a little to help him listen and watch for anything out of the ordinary.

In the ten years that Storm had been a Guardian, Jack Frost had attacked every single year, particularly on Christmas Day, when Santa’s magic was depleted from delivering toys, and he was the most vulnerable.

December was the most dangerous time of year for the Guardians when they were more likely to have to face Frost or one of his followers, an elf turned evil by Jack’s dark magic. He didn’t plan to shuffle off the mortal coil anytime soon, Jack Frost or not.

A magical person could open a portal from anywhere in the world to come to Northernmost and the Well of Magic, and they had to come at least once a year to replenish their magic. But while there were an infinite number of locations for a portal to Northernmost, every portal to the top of the world merged in one place.

The Guardians called it the Entrance, and it was just outside the barracks the Guardians used for housing.

He passed by Santa’s home, a snow-covered cabin that always smelled like cinnamon and cocoa, past the elf barracks and workshops, and finally past the Well of Magic, a huge stone pit that glowed with the same neon yellows and greens as the Northern Lights.

As he trudged toward the Entrance and passed close to the Well, a chill swept up his neck and he took a few steps away from the stone pit. Even though he wasn’t a magical person, he was affected by the magic nonetheless. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and prickles race down his spine. It was like being under an electrical tower and feeling the power coursing through the wires. But it wasn’t electricity that made the Well, it was pure magic and the only source of replenishment for the magical people in the world.

If Jack Frost had his way and turned the Well to darkness, those who didn’t want to touch dark magic would eventually lose all their power. Then only dark magic would abound and that was a world that would border on apocalyptic.

All that would be left were magicless good people, shifters and humans, and all the evil magic users that would willingly follow Jack Frost to the very ends of the earth.

Hard pass on that.

Shifters, like humans, weren’t magical. He couldn’t get to Northernmost, or back home, without an escort. He didn’t mind not having access to magic, although it would be handy as hell to be able to fly like the fae or cast spells like the warlocks. But he was definitely blessed to be able to shift.

The Entrance came into view. It was an archway made of the bones of some ancient arctic creature, curved and twisted, bleached with the sun. Hundreds of thousands of magical people came to Northernmost through the Entrance every year. Some came as groups, like the witches, and some came individually, but they all had to come, otherwise, their magic would run out, and they wouldn’t be able to open a portal on their own.

There was light and dark magic, good and evil, but evil magic wasn’t replenished at the Well.

The Entrance rumbled as it was engaged. The bones began to glow and pulse, and he shielded his eyes as it brightened to a blistering white. When the glow faded, three females stood in red cloaks.

He recognized them from the dossier for those who’d arranged to come to the Well that day.

“Ladies,” he said. “Welcome to Northernmost.”

“Hello, Storm,” said Anyanka, the head of a small witch’s coven in Washington, as she dropped her hood back to reveal a striking head of red hair.

She gave him a little smile as she and her other coven members walked by him and made their way to the Well. She was pretty and powerful, but she wasn’t his truemate. While his mother’s anxious words echoed in his head and his polar bear declared he wouldn’t mind rolling around in the snow with her , he shook his head to no one in particular.

He was waiting for his truemate, no matter how long it took.

Yeah, he was lonely. At eighteen, he’d come to Northernmost to train to be a Guardian and had left his family behind, save for his brothers, Hunter and Winter, who joined him later. Someday, though, he’d find his truemate, and then his bed wouldn’t be cold, and his heart wouldn’t feel like it was half empty.

Until then, though, he’d focus on work.

It was going to be a hell of a busy month, after all.

Frost and his evil followers wouldn’t wait long before they attacked, trying to get into Northernmost and take over the Well, not to mention taking out Santa too.

It was Storm’s job to ensure that didn’t happen, come hell or high water.

Or as they liked to say at the top of the world, come snow or solid ice.

He’d successfully defended the Well for ten years. He wasn’t about to mess up now.

Turning to follow the witches, he ensured they were safe on the walk to the Well, and then he radioed Sebastian.

“Anyanka’s coven is here. I’ll stand guard until they’re done and then escort them back to the Entrance.”

“You on break after that?” Sebastian asked.

“Hell yes.” His stomach took that moment to growl.

“All right, I’ll relieve you when you’re done, holler at me.”

“Got it.”

He holstered the walkie again and watched the females as they approached the glowing pit.

He’d asked a warlock once what it felt like to have his magic replenished, and he likened it to taking a warm bath, a feeling of contentment and peace infused with whatever power one was graced with.

He’d wondered if it was similar to how he felt when he successfully took down something large in his shift, like a moose or an elk. That always made him feel like everything was right with the world, if only for a little while.

When the witches’ magic was replenished, Anyanka walked beside him while her two coven members walked ahead, hoods drawn and shoulders hunched against the cold.

“If you’re free, you can follow me through the portal,” she said, her voice low and melodious, almost like tinkling bells.

She would be fun for a while, he was sure. But his bear was snoozing in his head.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m waiting for my truemate.”

“What’s wrong with having fun in the meantime?” Her delicate hand cupped his biceps, and he felt the warmth of her power.

He stopped near the Entrance, where the other two females waited. Anyanka looked up at him, a foot shorter than his six-two frame.

He never really knew how to turn someone down without sounding like a giant jackass. Instead of actually turning down the pretty witch, he said, “Safe travels, Anyanka.”

Her lids lowered a little and she let out a soft hum, almost an accusation, as if to say she thought him a coward for not just saying what he wanted to say.

But he wasn’t in the mood to explain himself more than he already had.

Until his mate showed up, he wouldn’t be chasing anything except animals in his shift.

“Until next year.” She lifted her hood and walked away. The Entrance was humming and glowing, highlighting the witches with gold and white.

When they were gone, it dimmed, the bones now dull. He stared at the Entrance for a little while longer.

Would his mate come through the Entrance, a witch or a fairy? Or would he meet her when he journeyed back to his home for another family event? Maybe she was human or a shifter.

Whatever she was, he fucking hoped he met her soon.

He was waiting for her, after all.