A Shifter Christmas Carol

by Jennifer Ashley

  “I remember making hard decisions, lad.” Putting Connor into a Collar had torn Dylan apart inside. “Which ones did you make?”

  Zander slanted him a sideways glance. “You don’t want to know, my friend. You do not want to know.”

  Dylan let that go. Zander was enigmatic about his deep past, to everyone but Rae.

  “Anyway,” Zander went on. “Yeah, I am showing you that your family has a fine time without you. If you keep missing their parties, they’re going to forget to ask you to them. It’s a lesson I’m supposed to be teaching you.” He spread his arms in a grandiose gesture and addressed the sky. “I am the spirit of Christmas Presents.” He lowered his hands. “Wait—why do Christmas gifts need a spirit? Unless they’re magical presents …”

  “You mean the Spirit of Christmas Present,” Dylan said dryly. “I read that story when it was first published. I’m no Ebenezer Scrooge.”

  “Sure, you’re not.” Zander gave him a skeptical look. “Which is why you’re hunkering by yourself in a dark and empty house while your family is dancing, drinking, feasting …”

  “I didn’t go there to avoid my family, and you know it. I’m making another hard decision …”

  Tiger, a very large man with orange-and-black striped hair, halted right in front of them. He cradled his cub, Seth, against his chest with one large hand.

  Zander waved. “Hey, big guy.”

  Tiger studied the air in front of him, frowning as though he thought he saw something but wasn’t sure. He stood for a long time, sniffing delicately, testing for scent.

  His son gurgled, and Tiger’s attention snapped back to him. Tiger walked away, heading for Carly. He threw one puzzled glance over his shoulder then focused on Carly, sliding his arm around her and sinking into her embrace.

  “He senses what’s real,” Zander said. “Even if others can’t. Tiger’s a strange and wonderful Shifter.”

  Dylan wasn’t listening. Another strange and wonderful Shifter had caught his gaze—Glory, dressed in red leather with a white, sparkly sweater that glittered like snow in moonlight.

  She was swaying to music pumping out from speakers Sean had set up, dancing very close to a Feline—a leopard from an arrogant family who thought they were the next hot things in Shiftertown. The Feline was in human form, in jeans and a leather jacket, sliding his knee between Glory’s as they gyrated together. Glory had a wide smile on her face, and placed her hand on the Feline’s shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” Dylan said tightly.

  He strode across the clearing, making his way toward Glory, ignoring Zander’s, “Nothing you can do about it. You’re not really here …”

  Dylan reached Glory and yanked her away from the son of a bitch.

  Chapter Four

  At least, Dylan tried to yank her away. His hands went right through Glory, as insubstantial as smoke.

  The dance continued. Dylan could smell the Feline, the wood smoke in his clothes, the whisky on his breath.

  “Glory,” Dylan yelled into her ear, over the music. “Lass.”

  She didn’t hear him. Glory was six feet tall with the curves to match, a Lupine with a wolf’s grace and gray-eyed stare. At the moment, her eyes were half closed, her body catching the beat of the music.

  Dylan reached for her, but again, his hand connected with nothing.

  He gathered his strength. Dylan had never allowed anything or anyone to get the better of him, or to stand between himself and something he truly wanted. He saw, he acted.

  He concentrated on every cell in his body, willing them to obey. Then he wrapped himself around Glory.

  He was still incorporeal from her perspective, but he slid like water over her body, pressing every part of her.

  Glory jumped. She glared at the Feline dancing with her, her eyes changing to the white-gray of a wolf, a snarl snapping from her throat. She shoved the Feline away. “What the fuck?”

  He blinked at her in startled confusion. “What?”

  “I’m mated, asshole. Or as good as. Can’t we just enjoy a dance?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The Feline stopped dancing and held up his hands. “I haven’t touched you.”

  “Sure, dick-brain. Go paw at someone else.”

  The Feline wrinkled his nose in a parody of a leopard snarl. “What I get for going after Dylan’s leavings.”

  Glory sprang at him, her Collar sparking. Dylan tangled himself in her, slowing her down, and her eyes widened.

  So did the eyes of the Feline. Glory in attack mode wasn’t something to mess with. The Feline turned around and hurried off.

  The sparks on Glory’s Collar abruptly died. “Who’s touching me?” She inhaled, reading scent. “Dylan …? Where are you?” She swung around, head turning as she searched the space around her.

  “Here, love.” Dylan caressed her with his misty body. He cupped her breasts, dipped his hand between her legs.

  “Oh.” Glory’s voice softened, her skin warming under his touch. “Wow. Either I drank too much or I’m having one hell of a fantasy.”

  “I’m with you.” Dylan whispered into her ear, then licked her earlobe. “Come inside with me.”

  “Holy Goddess,” she whispered, her limbs going slack.

  Dylan felt her heart beating faster, her breath increasing, her desires rising. He kissed her, barely able to feel her lips, but he willed himself to solidify until she kissed him back.

  “Dylan,” she whispered. “I don’t know how you’re doing this, but … I like it.”

  “In the house,” Dylan said.

  Glory headed that direction. Others called to her, suggesting she come dance, join a circle around the Yule log, have some of these fantastic burgers, but she only waved and kept walking.

  Small Kenny, looking over Andrea’s shoulder as Glory went past her, fixed his gray gaze directly on Dylan. Those keen eyes sharpened, meeting Dylan’s without trouble.

  “Gan-Da,” he declared.

  “No, sweetheart,” Andrea said, jouncing him. “Your Grandda’s not here. He said he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Kenny didn’t answer. He kept his serious eyes on Dylan as Dylan led Glory up the porch stairs into the empty house.

  Glory didn’t know what crazy dream this was, but it was amazing. She swore she heard Dylan’s voice, felt his touch—no one knew how to touch her like Dylan.

  “Easy, lass,” she heard his whisper as she reached the bedroom. “Don’t give way too soon.”

  Glory wanted to explode. She pulled off her clothes and lay on top of the bed—even if this was just a dream, she could enjoy it.

  But it was so real. Glory sensed Dylan around her, cradling her, loving her, but she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t truly feel him, not like having him next to her in the flesh, but then again, his presence was palpable.

  His hands touched her thighs, his hot breath too, and then came the sensation of his fingers, his tongue, bringing her to life. She wanted to hold him, caress him—and also wanted to grab his quite substantial cock and delight in it. Frustrated, she reached for him, but he remained elusive.

  What Dylan did to her wasn’t elusive. Need built inside her, Dylan’s fingers doing their magic, his tongue and mouth providing a hot and skilled assist.

  Glory stopped struggling to touch him and lay back to bask in his thorough attention. She gripped the covers of the bed they shared, arching into the mattress.

  The cool air on her body caressed her like a lover. Or maybe that was Dylan. Lacy shadows danced across the ceiling, Glory fixing on them as her body heated beyond the bearable.

  Growls tore from her throat, the she-wolf not far below her surface. It wanted to emerge, needed to.

  Sometimes she and Dylan drove far into the countryside, seeking a remote stream or woods a long way from any town. There, they shifted to their animal forms and went at it with all the ferocity they had to tamp down when they were human-shaped.

  If Glory shifted now, would Dylan shift as w
ell? Taking her in wildness?

  Just the idea made her release want to come. Dimly she realized that if she did shift, and Andrea came to check on her, Andrea would see Glory in wolf form writhing and squealing alone on the bed. She suppressed the need, but it wasn’t easy.

  “Dylan,” she groaned. “I’m sorry. Whatever you’re torturing me for I’m … No, wait.” Her breath came too fast, her words slurring. “I’m not sorry. I’ll do it again. And again. And … Oh, dear Goddess …”

  She was coming. Glory reached for Dylan, found nothing, and seized a pillow instead. She bunched it so hard in her fists that it ripped, feathers bursting upward.

  The pillow was torn from her hands, and Dylan was there. Sort of. She saw his outline, his burning blue eyes, felt his weight on her.

  Glory came apart as he pushed inside her, nothing vague about his large cock now. She didn’t muffle her cries as he began to thrust—the revelry outside drowned out the sound.

  She shouted his name, heard, “Lass,” in his beautiful whisper in her ear.

  I love you, came her shaky thought.

  Hot awareness took over. She wrapped her arms around Dylan, rewarded with the firmness of his back, the fierceness of his mouth on hers.

  They came together, he growling her name in that faint but rumbling tone. Dylan didn’t hold back—he never did with her, knowing Glory was strong enough to take him.

  Glory was breathless by the time she felt Dylan’s touch on her face, his final, “Lass.” And suddenly he was gone.

  The warmth of him vanished, and his whisper died. A cool rush of air stirred the curtains at the window then … nothing.

  Glory gathered the remains of the pillow and held it tightly, tears spilling from her eyes. Her sobs turned to the howls of a wolf, lonely and mournful against the music and laughter that pounded in the crystal air outside.

  “There you are,” Zander said when Dylan returned to him. Zander had a beer in his hand. “All done?”

  Dylan resisted the urge to straighten his clothes. His jeans and jacket were perfectly in place, because what he’d done with Glory hadn’t really happened.

  Or had it? This in-between thing was maddening.

  Holding Glory had been real, he was certain of it. Her heat, her scent, her voice, her beauty—all her. Dylan’s mind couldn’t have conjured out of nothing the true Glory and her enjoyment of lovemaking. She was amazing.

  “Done for now,” Dylan answered.

  Zander had raised his beer to take a sip, but he burst out laughing. “You have it bad, my friend. When are the sun and moon ceremonies? Any mate bond happening?”

  “Not really your business.” His answer was curt because the question had been on Dylan’s mind, and he knew it was on Glory’s.

  But first things first. He couldn’t be distracted by mate issues while he was trying to save Shifters from extinction. Once Shifters were safe, free, and living in peace, he and Glory could have a long discussion about their future.

  Dylan knew damn well life wasn’t so tidy, but grief and fighting for the lives of others had taken its toll on him. Hence, he’d gone to New Orleans to meet with dangerous beings so the Shifters dancing like maniacs around the glowing Yule log could keep enjoying themselves.

  Zander set his beer on a tree stump, sighing with regret. “Time to go.”

  “Already?” Dylan watched Andrea and Sean swaying together, Kenny perched on Sean’s shoulders. Dylan wanted to stay and soak up the warmth of his family—he’d already sacrificed too much of that.

  Zander shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

  “Who does?” Dylan pinned him with a stare. “Who is doing this to me?”

  “I have no idea. The thing is—am I really doing this? Or are you just projecting me?”

  Dylan regarded him calmly. “If I were to conjure a guide to the spirit world, I doubt I’d conjure you.”

  “Good point. Well, anyway …”

  Zander waved at the crowd, as though they could see him. Then he caught Dylan’s hand with fingers like a coil of constrictors ready for their next meal.

  The warmth, light, laughter, and love ripped away like running watercolors. Dizziness smacked Dylan, and darkness tumbled him and Zander end over end, as the wind whipped around them, the cold now biting.

  When light returned, Dylan was back in the room in New Orleans, again buried in debris, feeling no pain but unable even to twitch.

  Zander had vanished, and a last beam of afternoon sunlight pierced the room. But was this the same day? The next day? The next week? The fact that Dylan was still aware must mean that not a lot of time had passed, else he’d be dead.

  Perhaps he already was. Perhaps his soul drifted from place to place, experiencing the past, the present. Why he’d see Ben and Zander, he did not know, but they were both highly magical beings. Maybe some part of them responded to his lost and drifting soul.

  Depressing. Dylan did not want to be dead, not now, and worse, his soul did not need to be floating around, ripe pickings for any Fae who sensed it. Fae were nasty enough to living Shifters they enslaved—Shifter souls fared even worse. A live Shifter at least could die, be sent to dust, and so be free of them. A soul could be trapped forever. Dylan hoped Zander would bring a Guardian soon.

  A scraping sound cut off his thoughts. Dylan was already as still as he could be, but he focused, wondering who came for him now.

  Someone was climbing stairs, someone who moved with a strange gait, dragging its way to the top. At the landing, it paused, then came on. Dylan heard its grating breaths, its slow but steady progress down the hall.

  The being reached the doorway. Paused. Then moved forward toward the pile under which Dylan was partially buried.

  A misshapen hand, this one more skeletal than Ben’s massive one, grasped a beam and hauled it aside with great strength.

  Dylan looked up at a hooded form—not a cowled robe, but a man in a hoodie, his eyes glaring red in a skull-like face.

  Dylan relaxed a fraction. “Apologies if I am late for our meeting,” he tried to say. “Slight delay.”

  This time, nothing emerged. The words rang inside Dylan’s head but didn’t sound in the room.

  The man growled. He stank of death, and when his skeletal fingers touched Dylan, the cold of them burned past Dylan’s paralyzed state.

  They were blood drinkers. Bitter enemies of the Fae. Enemies of anyone, really, but they had promised to speak to Dylan about an alliance. It had to be on the solstice, they said, and then only. This was the shortest day and longest night in the northern hemisphere, when the zilithal could most easily gather.

  Did Dylan trust them? Not at all. But he’d rather have them on the Shifter side than lurking to ambush them after Shifters had defeated the Fae.

  The bloodsucker came closer. Dylan again tried to speak, to make his thoughts heard as he had with Ben and Zander. Nothing.

  Likely this zilithal had been sent to see if Dylan was on his way. Finding him trapped, mostly dead and unable to fight, must seem serendipitous. Free meal.

  Why the haunted house had allowed the creature inside, Dylan couldn’t say. Sometimes it let in unlikely people, but it was not kind to evil beings, or even anyone who tried to hurt the house’s inhabitants. He remembered how Mason, who’d mated with the house’s owner, gleefully told the story of the house walling up Jasmine’s obnoxious boyfriend.

  The house had also murdered a Fae who had charged into it, ready to kill the Shifters Jaycee and Dimitri, who’d been staying here while they fulfilled a mission of their own.

  “I hope you choke on me,” was Dylan’s last thought before the zilithal pulled back his hood, seized Dylan, and sank his teeth into the curve of Dylan’s neck.

  There was a crash, followed by a growl like the rumble of thunder. A massive Shifter grabbed the bloodsucker, hauled it off Dylan, and twisted the zilithal until it was a mass of unmoving, dead bones.

  Chapter Five

  Dylan breathed out in relief, or a
t least would if he could. “Tiger.”

  Tiger dropped the last of the dry bones and gazed at Dylan with his yellow eyes. Those eyes hid a swiftly calculating brain but also a gentle soul who loved with astonishing fury.

  “You should not be here,” Tiger announced.

  “That idea is occurring to me, lad.”

  “You should not be here at all.”

  “And if you help me up and get Zander back here to heal me, I’ll take your advice.”

  Tiger frowned, as though deciding how to respond. Sometimes he didn’t speak at all, keeping his quickly moving thoughts silent. Other times Dylan heard his rumbling voice going on at length to Carly, telling her stories or talking about whatever they found to converse on. Carly would laugh, her happiness vivid.

  “You coming here unmade everything,” Tiger said after a time.

  “What are you talking about?” Dylan demanded. “The bloodsuckers? They have information on the Fae I can find nowhere else.”

  “Best to leave them be. They can’t be trusted.”

  “I didn’t say I would trust them. I’ve been trying to speak to the zilithal for a year. Finally, I convinced a few to meet with me.”

  “Alone.”

  “With Ben,” Dylan said impatiently. “I’m not foolish enough to go in without backup. I’d have asked you along, but it’s the Yule festival. The rest of you deserve a day off, and I didn’t want to get into it with Carly.” She was a sweet woman but wasn’t afraid to tell Dylan to cease dragging Tiger into dangerous situations.

  Tiger nudged the bones, which were beginning to disintegrate. “They understand only one thing. Death.”