A Polar Bear Christmas

by Emilia Hartley

  “Wow. How rude of you to assume my humanity means weakness.” Okay, the truth was she hadn’t been able to get the dull knife through the thick rubber, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. Had the knife been any sharper, it would have worked.

  Her parents also would have forced her to pay for a new tire. Therefore, it was a good thing the knife had been useless.

  She let Claus take the wheel. When they returned to the manor, lights were still on in the dining room, but they avoided the front door altogether. Inside her tiny apartment, the air smelled of peppermint, coffee, and musky man. She found the scent exhilarating, even if she wasn’t a shifter. It tightened her stomach and warmed her core.

  The only problem was that Claus had stopped offering sex. The day before had been non-stop offers. It’d been clear that he’d been interested. Then, she’d tripped up and declared their relationship real. Since then, Claus had retreated.

  Dinner had been awkward at first. He’d been distant, his mind obviously somewhere else. She couldn’t read him as well as she would have liked. He could have been mad that she jammed snow into his ear. He could have been regretting his decision to pretend-date her.

  Elise’s dramatic entrance had saved her from the failing date. It sparked something within him that she’d watched fade. She wondered if she should let it fade again. If that was the right thing to do. They weren’t meant forever. She wasn’t going to find a mate in him. It was clear that Holly’s place had never been as part of the shifter community.

  It had rejected her the moment she was brought into this world.

  “Now you’ve gone all silent,” Claus commented. He slapped her ass as he passed on his way to the fridge.

  She jumped, her face heating. “Is that what it takes to make you frisky again? Tormenting my family?”

  He threw a glance over his shoulder while opening the freezer. Holly shook her head and reclaimed her spot on the futon, wrapping her blanket around her. They hadn’t had a chance to eat much of the food they’d ordered, and her stomach still growled. She didn’t want to enter the kitchen with Claus.

  If the only time he wanted her was when they were causing trouble, she figured it wasn’t her that he wanted. Instead, it was the way he responded to the thrill. Claus only wanted to sleep with her because his blood was pumping. Not because he wanted her in any way.

  A pint of ice-cream and a spoon entered her vision. She followed the thick hands up to Claus’s apologetic face.

  “Eat up,” he offered.

  Her mind betrayed her, thinking of something else she wouldn’t mind eating. She clamped down on the thought, taking the ice-cream while being careful not to touch Claus. The ice-cream chilled the mounting heat inside her. Enough so that she could organize her thoughts if she was very careful.

  Claus took up a seat on the floor. His shoulder touched her leg. She wanted to pull her feet beneath her but didn’t dare move away from him. The small touch was intoxicating. It made her want more.

  No, she told herself over and over. This would never work. If she let herself want him, she would only grow attached and never want to let him go. Once he wrested himself from her grasp, he would run as far as he possibly could. Leaving her on her own.

  That was the only way she’d ever lived. Alone. It was better that way. Her blood meant nothing to her, because they’d made it clear she meant nothing to them. All she had was her work family and the small collection of stuffed animals she kept on her couch at home.

  Once this was over and Claus went his own way, Holly could download a dating app. She would search around Raleigh for someone to fill the void, though a small voice inside her warned that no one would ever be able to take the place of the burly man-eating ice-cream and watching Christmas rom-coms with her.

  She grabbed the remote and turned off the TV before placing the cap back on her pint of ice-cream. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”

  Claus scowled at her over his shoulder. He reached for his phone and checked the time. “It’s only seven PM. You really think that’s bedtime?”

  Holly had no excuse. All she wanted was to put space between her and Claus. It wasn’t like she could leave the little apartment and wander the manor. Someone would inevitably find her and accost her for the show they’ put on at the restaurant. If it was Elise or Robbie, she could expect bruises. Her parents would ask her to reimburse Elise not only for the dinner, but for whatever perceived trouble it had caused her cousin.

  That would leave not only her spirit empty, but her bank account, too.

  “Yeah, I think it’s time for bed. I’m exhausted after stomping through the woods all day.” She stretched and feigned a yawn to show him.

  Claus wasn’t convinced. She could see the skepticism on his face, the way one brow lifted, and his serious eyes watched her.

  “You could come to bed,” he offered. “I promise to keep it very warm for you.”

  Holly’s response caught in her throat. She wanted to ask if that was an offer of sex, his running joke, but the desire it conjured warmed her face and twisted her tongue. All she could do was roll over and pull the blanket over her head.

  Behind her, Claus didn’t move. She wanted him to lay behind her and pull her into his body. Not that he would fit on the futon. When his arms slid beneath her, she cried out. He lifted her from the futon while she protested.

  “Just take the damn bed. You look miserable out here.” He kicked open the bedroom door and set her down on the unmade bed.

  She thought he would climb in beside her, but he only lifted the blankets over her and turned to walk away. Holly opened her mouth to say something but lost her voice while she watched him retreat. He shut the door behind him, leaving her alone in the dark.

  The bed was suddenly too large, the sheets too cold. It needed another body to fill the empty space. Yet, she knew it was better this way. As long as she didn’t ask him to stay, her heart would be spared.

  Still, she couldn’t find sleep. Holly kept reaching into the empty space, closing her fist tight on what wasn’t there.

  Chapter Nine

  He couldn’t deal with it anymore. Claus couldn’t stand being so close to Holly without being able to touch her. Every moment around her was another nail in the coffin. It was not his future that he worried about, but hers. If the mating bond took hold of her, it would drag her into the mess that he called his life. That wasn’t what he wanted for her.

  Outside, he stretched his arms, throwing them wide. The pull on his muscles felt glorious. His beast stirred. No one was around, no humans that would see the beast he wanted to unleash. Still, he walked toward the woods, eager to put more distance between him and Holly.

  Claus allowed himself to consider what life might be like if he stayed with her. There was no arguing that her smile and her cackling laughter was delightful. He couldn’t get enough of it. Especially when she was pulling a fast one on her family. Holly was clever and quick. She would have fit right into his world, but that wasn’t a place that he wanted her to be.

  For a moment, he thought about finishing this job and going out on his own. Not to become any kind of crime boss, but to live a life mostly on the straight and narrow. He could clean up his act, maybe move to Raleigh with Holly, and just be…normal. Though, he didn’t have any marketable skills that employers would want.

  And, what would a polar bear shifter do in Raleigh? Claus thought he would miss the snow, miss the wide-open spaces of the North East. The South was no place for a man like him.

  His beast was not convinced. It pushed at his form and slid free, falling to all four massive paws. It would not mind the smaller spaces or the freedom from the pressure of his current job. The fur on the back of his paws should have been red, not white. The bear was tired of it, tired of the screams that came with meting out his boss’s punishments.

  Life with a loving mate was much more preferable.

  The bear meandered through the woods. Snow had recently fallen, coating the g
round in a layer of white that allowed Claus to blend in. The woods smelled of deer and wood. He could see where they had rubbed their antlers against the trees, scraping the bark down to raw wood. There was no mistaking this wood.

  It belonged to the Carters.

  Still, Claus did not think they were anything to fear. He was worth two, if not three of them. Deer were not predators, either. So, he did not think to mind his surroundings or scent the wind. Not until they had him surrounded.

  Claus looked from reindeer to reindeer, trying to identify them. He figured the one that stalked forward with her head held high was most likely Elise. If this was about the credit card theft, he had no voice to tell them to fuck off.

  Instead, he reared back onto his hind legs and rose to his full height. His lips curled back from his teeth to reveal sharp canines. He could render them a bloody mess before they laid a hoof on him. At least, that was his thought process.

  As one, the reindeer kicked their hooves into the air. The chorus of stomping echoed along the ground. It disoriented him. A reindeer rushed at him. He didn’t expect such a bold move. It rendered him dumbfound until an antler grazed his side. His beast hissed in pain.

  Blood ran down his white fur. It was only fitting, he thought, that the outside match the inside.

  Claus dropped to all four paws again. He let loose a roar that shook the branches around them. Two reindeer paused. Hesitation and fear widened their eyes. Both looked as though they might bolt, but a third reindeer came toward them. Elise’s hoof collided with his nose.

  His eyes stung from the impact. He shook his head to chase away the feeling. Another reindeer took that moment to rush him. Antlers dug into his shoulder. The dull point attempted to pierce flesh but didn’t make it past his fur. He swung his paw and swatted the reindeer.

  Part of Claus hoped someone caught them. If a human walked by and saw a herd of reindeer beating up a polar bear, the Christmas magic the Carters had worked so hard to build would be shattered as the rumor spread around town. But, no one came.

  Claus was alone.

  No, he wasn’t. Thoughts of Holly bound him. He could not kill his attackers because, no matter what they did, they were his mate’s family. She would never be able to look at him if he killed any one of these damned reindeer. It limited his options, hampered his blows. He wanted to rush through them and drop them all to the ground, but he didn’t.

  Because of Holly.

  Because he loved her.

  He was a fool, it was true. He tossed his head and hit another reindeer. The beast staggered and whined. He let out a warning growl. Another reindeer charged him. Elise, he realized. The woman was still heated over the credit card fiasco. Claus ducked. When she thought she had the advantage, raising her hooves in the air, he lunged at her.

  His shoulder hit her ribs. The sound of bones snapping echoed through the woods. It brought every reindeer to a halt. Elise crumpled to the ground. She wheezed, struggling to breathe as she glared up at him.

  The fight was over. The other reindeer slowly approached her, nuzzling her with their noses while her body knit itself back together again. Claus spun, dizzy from loss of blood, and staggered back toward the manor.

  Back toward Holly.

  ***

  Holly didn’t have preternatural hearing, but it was as if a sixth sense had been awakened in her. She jolted upright in the bed. Her heart hammered an erratic beat as she scanned the darkness. When she was confident nothing lurked in the shadows, she shoved away the blankets and leapt out of bed.

  In the small living area, Claus lay on the floor. His chest heaved with each breath, blood dripping from his sides. With each step closer, she could better see how pale his face had become.

  She dropped to her knees beside him, hands already searching his body for more wounds. “What happened to you?”

  Was this part of his mission? Had he gone out to find Robbie and lost a fight? Holly didn’t want to think about how quickly he was ready to leave her behind. Instead, she focused on the blood pouring from his ribs.

  Claus waved her off. “It will heal sometime tomorrow.”

  His voice was strained. She shook her head.

  “It will heal faster if you allow me to staunch the blood. Blood does more than just allow you to have a boner.”

  “Well, damn,” Claus wheezed. “You learn something new every day.”

  Holly lurched to her feet and stumbled into the bathroom, but there was nothing more than a crumpled box of Band-Aids under the sink. She groaned and rushed back to the living room where Clause was not looking any better. He flashed her what should have been a reassuring smile until he cringed with pain.

  “Looks like we have to venture into the manor for more first-aid.” She bit her lip. Any other time, she would have hidden in her apartment all night, but Claus’s pain filled her with panic. She couldn’t stand seeing him like that. It hurt to watch him fight against the slow healing of his wounded body. “What even happened to you?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you I ran into a Santa’s gang of surly reindeer?”

  Holly snorted. “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “Oh, cool. Because I might have put Vixen out of commission for the night. She’s not taking flight any time soon.”

  Vixen, Holly thought. He must have meant Elise. Of course, Elise would lead an attack on Claus while he was alone.

  “Wait. Why were you alone outside?”

  He struggled to his feet, grunting and groaning until he was completely upright. For a moment, he swayed then grimaced and found his center of gravity again. When his eyes met hers, there was an endless depth of emotion that she didn’t have time to process.

  First, find some antiseptic and gauze for his wounds. Then she would unpack whatever it was that chased him out of the apartment in the middle of the night. She never would have thought that he would have to fear going out. Her family seemed to have taken serious offense to Claus’s presence.

  That, or Robbie told them Claus’s true reason for being there and they were defending their own. She wouldn’t have put it past her family to go an extra mile for a fellow shifter in the family. No matter what Robbie might have done. They would clean up his mess.

  She ground her teeth at the thought. Never would any of them have done something like that for her. She was disposable. No, it was more than that. She was a black speck on the family history, a stain they couldn’t remove.

  “Do you think you can make it to the living room?”

  Claus swayed. She reached for him, as if she was strong enough to hold a man who had to be around three hundred pounds. He grabbed her, his brows furrowing, and they fell into a heap on the floor together. She landed atop him, her fall softened.

  He let out a grunt.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Holly scrambled to put distance between her and the wound in his side.

  “No,” he said, grabbing her and holding her tight. His arms wrapped around her middle, enclosing her in his warmth. “I’m healing just fine. Instead of going out there, how about we stay right here? Just like this?”

  Holly blew a breath out her nose. She was worried about Claus, but he was a shifter. He was right. He was healing as they spoke.

  “Have you ever been hurt this bad?” she asked with a small voice.

  “Oh, yeah. Much worse than this, too.” He spoke without opening his eyes, as if half of his attention was on knitting his body back together, even though Holly knew it didn’t work that way.

  “Tell me about those times. Make me worry about the here and now a little less.”

  “Where do I start?”

  “The worst fight you’ve ever been in? Tell me about how you survived it.” She didn’t take her hands off him, letting them wander along his shoulders. He was a big man. She would have thought some of him soft, but every bit she touched was the hard bulk of muscle.

  “Alright.” He paused to groan. She heard the pop of a bone sliding into place and felt a chill crawl up he
r spine. He took a deep breath, as if some imaginary weight had lessened. “There was this time, back when I was new to the Pack. The boss asked me to find this guy that’d been creeping on our territory and messing with deals. What he didn’t know was that the one guy turned out to be five bear shifters.

  “The pack of them were moving across the country, logging for cash. I approached them like I was supposed to, not once thinking the meeting could go south when it was five against one. Asked them to leave and keep their fingers out of our work. Well, they didn’t like that too much. Roughed me up real good after that. I had to drag my ass back home with my tail between my legs.

  “My only saving grace was that they left the next week anyway.”

  Holly listened to Claus weave his story. It was simple, but she understood. They each had their own horror stories from the lives they’d been handed. It was as if life offered nothing to help them, leaving them on their own to build whatever they could out of what little they had. She laid her head on his chest and wondered, while listening to his heartbeat, if they could make something even better together.

  She’d never laughed so much on her own. Every day was nearly the same back home. She got up, had her morning coffee, and went to work. Sometimes she stayed overnight to stock the shelves and move tables. Maybe she would go on a date with the cute guy she met in the literature section, but it never worked out.

  Realizing where she was, Holly quickly pulled herself back. She scrambled to her knees, three feet away from Claus. He watched her with loss in his eyes. He didn’t want to be anchored by her. That wasn’t part of the deal.

  She offered a small smile then swept her hair back from her face while trying to find something else to focus on. Anything else. Her eyes flitted over everything in the room before returning to Claus. He watched her with his piercing blue eyes. She felt them like an icy shot through her heart.

  “Do you want to go have sex on the presents that were under your parents’ Christmas tree?”