The Snow Leopard's Christmas Surprise

by Emilia Hartley

  Yet, the man she was beginning to see had proven to be far better than the other rabble she seemed to draw in.

  Ellie sighed.

  “Why don’t you get him something for Christmas?” Grace offered. “Just to say thank you for coming back. I know he took his time, but he did come back and now he’s trying to show you he isn’t going anywhere.”

  She scoffed in response. “Do you really think he deserves a gift?”

  Even as she spoke, Ellie knew she was being selfish and vindictive. The bitterness she still held because of his disappearance clung to her and colored the way she saw him. The night before, Nolan had been there for her. Before that, he’d managed to return and vowed to be a better father.

  “Why is the man here all the time?” Casper asked from his perch on the fireplace mantle. He crouched like a monkey, feet spread apart and hands between them, gripping the wooden shelf.

  Ellie shot up from her seat and plucked her son from his perch, an exercise they practiced at least once a day if not more. In the few days Nolan had been with Casper, she’d forgotten how often she had to do just that. Nolan had been tempering Casper’s boundless energy with games and careful attention.

  “Nolan,” Grace said, reminding the boy. “Nolan is here to celebrate Christmas because he couldn’t think of spending the holiday with anyone but us. Isn’t that nice?”

  Casper nodded enthusiastically from Ellie’s arms. “I like the man a lot.” His head turned to Ellie, taking her face between his tiny hands. His bright eyes caught her off guard. “Can the man be my daddy for Christmas?”

  Ellie could have sworn she felt her heart breaking. How did she tell Casper she didn’t know if she could trust Nolan? The man who begot this precious child could still be a threat to their family. They had no idea of knowing, even after the past week.

  Before Ellie could speak, her mother chimed in. “You’ll have to ask Nolan that question for yourself.”

  The glare she threw her mother could have turned the woman to stone, but Grace shrugged it off with a sly smile. She thought she was being clever, fiddling with Ellie’s life to implant Nolan, but all it was doing was making her angry.

  “Where is he, anyway?” Grace glanced around.

  “He, uh, had to step out,” was all Ellie could manage to say. Truthfully, she was wondering what was taking Nolan so long. All he had to do was dispose of the creepy box, but when she glanced at the clock on her phone Ellie realized an hour had passed unnoticed.

  Setting Casper onto his own two feet, Ellie turned back toward the kitchen. There was a cake begging to be covered in fondant and sugar flowers that still needed to be made. She asked her mother to watch Casper and ducked into her room to throw on appropriate baking clothing, which meant garments that could bear a bit of flour and sugar.

  While she laid out the thin sheets of white fondant, rolling them beneath the pin in her hands, her mind wandered. She could get Nolan a gift for Christmas. It was the least she could do after last night. He didn’t have to do anything, yet he’d come running when he heard her heart racing.

  Besides, she didn’t want to be indebted to him for anything. For all she knew, he hovered around them for moments like that, so he could swoop in and play the hero, redeeming his ego and earning favor among her family. There was no way to know his true intentions. They hadn’t had a moment alone together beside the kiss by the door or last night, and neither had quite worked out the way they should have.

  If her house hadn’t been full of bodies and, consequently, ears she would have had time to talk to Nolan, to figure him out. But, she’d been surrounded not only by Casper, who couldn’t know who Nolan was, but by her meddling parents. Ellie would have to fabricate some kind of time, ask her parents to take Casper out for the night, to finally get a chance to talk to Nolan face to face.

  Because, as bitter ass she was, there was still a voice in the back of her mind, quiet and soft spoken, that argued on Nolan’s behalf. The voice wanted Ellie to know he could very well be a good man. Nolan had, after all, begotten Casper.

  ***

  Nolan prowled the streets, following the scent of Adam’s cologne with a wicked smile on his lips. All the while, his mind went over what he was going to do to the man when he found him. Nolan wanted to string him upside down from the bridge in the middle of town. He wanted to break his fingers so that he could never use a camera again.

  The desperate need for violence made Nolan’s fingers twitch at his sides. He wasn’t the man he’d been pretending to be, a sweet and patient father. In truth, Nolan’s existence had revolved around causing pain. He was the guy people called when they wanted someone like Adam to go away. He made a fine living from it and, in the end, it’d been satisfying to see the hurt party smile again.

  That kind of life couldn’t be continued while Nolan lived here, but he could use the skills he’d learned to make Adam cry. The man would never again bother Ellie or his son.

  Across the street, Nolan watched Adam unpacking a truck. The man was on his own, stacking boxes on the street before he carried them onto a store., With the back of the truck empty, Adam hopped back into the driver’s seat of his delivery truck. Nolan jogged across the street, through the slush. He might have used some of his inhuman speed to avoid being spotted by Adam. Just as the truck rumbled into gear again, Nolan jumped onto the back, gripping the door handle.

  The night before, the sudden thunder of Ellie’s heartbeat had pulled him from his sleep and lifted his body from the couch. He’d raced down the hall toward the sound of her terror, not once thinking to wonder why he’d acted so quickly. Now, as he clung to the back of the truck, he was able to look back. It hadn’t been Casper in trouble, though the thought did cross his mind. Still, when he found Ellie alone and struck with panic, rage had crawled through him.

  He’d thrown the window open, scented the other man, and wanted nothing more than to hunt down Adam. He’d been on his way to do so when Ellie asked him to stay. As much as he wanted to see the man hurt, the urge to ease her fear had been stronger. It made him lay down on the bed beside her through the night.

  When he woke beside her, something stirred inside his chest. He looked at the messy waves of blonde hair that made a halo around her head and felt his heart thump. In the room next door, he could hear Casper stirring in his sleep. Unable to process what he was feeling, Nolan had lain in bed and simply savored the moment.

  Nolan held onto the truck, getting a free ride back to the warehouse parking lot where Adam worked. The truck settled in the back of the lot and Nolan waited for the sound of Adam’s door clicking open before he let go of the sides of the vehicle, letting his rage boil through him.

  Before Adam knew what happened, Nolan was in front of him, hand around his throat. The man’s feet lifted from the ground. Nolan let the animal inside of him touch the surface, feeling his eyes bleed into the gold of his cat’s. His animal shape wasn’t the biggest cat, but this cat would rip the man’s throat out before he knew what happened.

  Adam’s eyes widened. There was a spark in them that was less fear and more outrage. His lips pulled back, but Nolan was faster than him and slapped a hand over the man’s mouth.

  “You will listen to me,” Nolan began. He’d seen men like Adam, the kind who thought they owned a woman, who saw them as nothing more than a doll that happened to make dinner. To him, Ellie would never be a human being and that was dangerous. For her. For Casper.

  The man’s lips moved against the palm of his hand, but the sound was muffled, and it brought a chuckle to is lips. Nolan swallowed his humor and tightened his grip on the man’s face.

  “No,” he said. “You’re supposed to listen. Ellie doesn’t appreciate your photography and she appreciates your gift even less.”

  Adam’s eyes narrowed. His hand swung and crashed into the side of Nolan’s head. Pain throbbed in his temple, but Nolan didn’t let go. If he let Adam, even for a moment, suspect that he was weaker, then Ellie would have a bigge
r problem. So, he tried to ignore the pain and slammed Adam’s body against the side of the truck once more.

  Just to rattle him.

  Maybe, if Nolan was lucky, he might scramble Adam’s brains, too. But, it seemed, he wasn’t so lucky. Adam kicked against his body, feet colliding with his stomach and hip, narrowly missing more important parts.

  “Okay, you don’t want to listen. I guess I’ll just have to give you an example. You aren’t to fuck with my family anymore. If you do, I’ll make sure you have nothing to fuck with anymore. Got it?”

  Nolan’s animal stalked behind his eyes, the big cat sizing the man up. Inside, Adam was weak and afraid. That kind of fear made him controlling to the point of hurting people, just so he can have some kind of certainty in his life.

  So, to help get his message across, Nolan plucked the leather cuffs from his coat pocket and slapped one around Adam’s wrist. With his mouth freed, Adam tried screaming, the sound a howl. But, Nolan wasn’t having it. He jerked Adam’s body again and slammed it against the truck so hard Adam’s head lolled.

  Nolan slipped the cuff through the handle of the truck door before slapping it on the other wrist. When Adam found himself again, he was chained to the door of his truck, conveniently parked at the back of the lot where no one could see him. Nolan stepped back and admired his work. It wouldn’t be long until someone found him, but Nolan had one more trick up his sleeve.

  The animal beneath his skin was more than eager to help. It wanted to protect its family, the human desire to connect mixing with the animal’s primal instincts.

  Fur and claws slipped over Nolan’s hands before Adam’s eyes. With the flick of his wrist, Nolan laid a single gash down Adam’s cheek. If the man returned to bother his family, Nolan would make another mark. And so on.

  “She was mine,” Adam growled, his shaking knees giving away the fear that wasn’t in his voice.

  Nolan pulled the gag from his pocket and slipped it over the man’s head. Adam fought him, clenching his jaw to keep the red ball from entering his mouth, but Nolan was angry. His claws sank into the man’s skin until he cried out. Nolan jerked the ball into the man’s mouth and tightened the leather strip to hold it in place.

  Nolan shook his head and gently slapped Adam’s cheek. “Only in your dreams. Ellie belongs to no one.”

  Chained and gagged like he wanted to do to Ellie, Adam wouldn’t be found for a few hours. The thought made Nolan a bit happier. Knowing the man was truly afraid of him now made him even more content.

  Chapter Ten

  When Nolan returned, hours later, Ellie was covered from head to toe in a powdery white substance. The air smelled sweet and delicious, making his stomach grumble. Her head shot up at the sound of his arrival and her eyes narrowed. He knew he couldn’t tell her what he’d done. She would never trust him around their son again, not as violent as he was.

  So, Nolan avoided her questioning looks and yanked a stool up to the counter where she was working. There was an array of flowers scattered across the countertop, confusing Nolan. Wasn’t she making a cake? What were the flowers for? He reached out and plucked one off the counter, much to Ellie’s dismay.

  “Put that down! That’s for the cake.”

  “Wait? You put real flowers on cakes?”

  She shook her head. “That’s not real. It’s made out of fondant.”

  “What the heck is fondant?”

  Ellie laughed, a soft sound that made his stomach flip unexpectedly. His eyes shot up and he studied the woman across from him. What was it about her that drew him in?

  “Fondant is a glazy substance used to cover cakes, like frosting but not. I can also use it to make decorations, like flowers.”

  “You’re telling me this is edible?” He held up the flower in his hand, delicate petals with soft color transition from pink to white.

  “Don’t you dare eat it. These take forever to make and I can’t afford to lose one,” Ellie threatened him with the cooking utensil in her hand, a small stick with a little ball on the end.

  Carefully, he set it back down with the rest. Ellie handed him a scrap piece of white and told him he could eat that instead, it was made out of the same thing. He looked at the piece with skepticism.

  “I’ve been told it tastes a bit like gum. While it makes a cake pretty, I have to say I prefer frosting when it comes to flavor.”

  He popped the little piece into his mouth and tasted sweetness. She wasn’t wrong. It was a bit like gum.

  “So, are you going to tell me where you disappeared to?” She asked, not bothering to look up from her work.

  “I was looking for work.” It wasn’t a lie. After sending his warning to Adam, Nolan had prowled the small town in search of a more permanent job. Working as a bouncer wouldn’t pay the bills and, he knew, it wouldn’t impress Ellie.

  But, he had found something else that might impress the woman working tediously across from him. He’d spoken to someone about the opportunity and hoped she would appreciate the gift. It was the least he could do after she spent her years putting Casper first.

  Like a whirlwind that ended the conversation, Casper stormed into the kitchen. His trajectory aimed for the counter, the look on his face as if he might throw himself atop it. Nolan guessed correctly and jumped in, snatching his son from the air moments before his body crashed onto Ellie’s work.

  Wide eyes stared at the countertop, her breasts heaving as the panic started to recede. She looked from Casper to Nolan and mouthed a word of thanks. Nolan smiled, the moment warming his heart. The child in his arms made him smile, even as he wriggled to be free.

  “Haven’t we spoken about this?” Ellie asked, using her mother voice.

  Casper looked up at her with chagrin on his face. He nodded.

  Nolan could see himself staying here, doing this every day for the rest of his life. It was a novel idea, a thing he never would have foreseen for himself, but he stopped before he let himself sink too far into the idea. This was not a life meant for him. He was here for Casper and that was it.

  The woman across from him was nothing more than the mother of his child. She wasn’t a strong partner that could make him smile each morning. This house wasn’t his home.

  Nolan straightened himself and set Casper down. “Let’s go out and build a snowman. How about that? Does your mom have a carrot for his nose or is everything in this house made of sugar?”

  “Sugar!” Casper squealed.

  Nolan blocked out Ellie’s soft laughter at Casper’s excitement and went to the fridge to retrieve a carrot. This was not his home. The words played on repeat through his head, fighting back the warmth in his chest.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellie carted the heavy boxes out to the van while thick flakes of snow fell from the sky above. A glance told her all she needed to know, it was going to be a good storm. Normally, she would have bunkered inside and watched the snowflakes fall form the warmth of her home, but she had a wedding to make today. One that hadn’t been cancelled.

  Which meant her job wasn’t cancelled either. She had a duty to get the wedding cake to the new couple. If that meant braving the weather, so be it. She was a New York native; driving in the snow was second nature to her. Everything would be fine, she told herself.

  But, Nolan lingered in the doorway, his eyes flicking to the sky above while his lips pressed into a grim line.

  “What’s your problem?” Ellie asked, none of the usual bitterness touching her voice anymore. She was getting too used to Nolan, seeing a better side of him that she hadn’t needed to see. Everything would have been fine had he remained closed off and cold.

  “I don’t think you should leave,” he said. He rolled his shoulders, as if the weather affected his joints. Maybe it did. She knew so little about his kind, about shape-shifters.

  “What is a wedding without a wedding cake?”

  He shook his head. “They should reschedule, too.”

  “But, they didn’t so I have a job
to do.”

  Nolan growled, but she could tell the anger wasn’t aimed at her.

  “What do you want from me then?” She threw her hands in the air. There were two more boxes to grab, two bottom tiers that she didn’t want to lift.

  ***

  Grumbling the whole time, Nolan carried the last two boxes to the van and inserted himself into the passenger seat. Ellie balked at his insistence, but, in the end, she didn’t expel him from his seat. The pressure in the air weighed on his skin and warned him that a heavy storm was on its way. He wasn’t about to leave the mother of his child alone in the impending weather.

  The idea of her in a ditch or tumbling down the side of one of the squat mountains sent a pang of terror through his heart. He didn’t inspect the feeling, only followed his gut instinct. Which, more or less, told him to stick by her side.

  In the window of Ellie’s little house, Casper perched on the back of the couch and watched Nolan and Ellie back out of the driveway with sadness on his face.

  “Who gets married two days before Christmas?” Nolan grumbled.

  “If you don’t want to come along, you can get out of the car,” Ellie reminded him, twisting the wheel to direct the fat van onto the road. It slid in a small patch of slush, but she easily righted herself.

  Nolan shook his head. She snorted at him, but said nothing as she hit the gas. The drive went on in silence, thick flakes falling from the sky, but not impeding the flow of traffic. Nolan was starting to wonder if his instincts hadn’t been wrong until the snow on the road suddenly became six inches deep. The van trudged through, Ellie keeping the van’s tires in the tacks of the cars before them.

  “What a day for a white wedding,” Nolan muttered under his breath, mocking the Billy Idol song.

  “You’re not kidding.”

  “Who does this? Who forces other people to risk their lives to attend a stupid event?”