The Snow Leopard's Christmas Surprise

by Emilia Hartley

  “Quit that,” Grace snapped. “That cat is not Nolan. The cat on the couch is not Casper. You need to call the police, then we need to go outside and find your son.”

  This was going just about as well as Ellie thought it might. It was clear her parents weren’t going to believe a word Ellie had to say. But, Nolan had already changed twice today. It probably put a strain on him and changing once more might be dangerous.

  She turned toward Nolan. “Will you be hungry after this? Want something sweet?”

  The cat raised its head and let out a rough sound of approval with what could only be described as a cat’s smile. He pulled himself off the floor and came over to investigate Casper’s sleeping form. As she watched the fur began to slough off his skin and the shape of a human boy revealed itself.

  “Oh, heavens,” Grace whispered. She was staring at the shape of Casper sleeping soundly with disbelief.

  Ellie sucked in a breath, steeling herself for the fight to come. This wouldn’t be easy, but Ellie was prepared to stand up to her mother. “This is my family. Like it or not, no one chose this, but I’m happy to say they are mine.” Ellie’s put one hand over Casper’s form just to remind herself he was alive, and let the other sink into Nolan’s fur. “You’re welcome to leave if you don’t like it. There’s the door.”

  Ellie’s father sidled up to Grace and put a hand on her shoulder. “Well, isn’t that extraordinary. It’s good to know the little turd didn’t get far after all. We’re awful babysitters since he got outside in the first place.”

  A long moment of silence washed over the room. There was only the glow of the Christmas tree and the sound of breathing as minds tried to process what happened. Ellie made a decision, knowing in the depths of her heart that there was truly no other choice. She loved Nolan.

  In the time that he was gone, she’d only been waiting for him to return. She could see that now, how no one ever measured up to the man who’d helped her create the miracle beside her.

  “Well,” Grace began, falling into a chair. “This certainly makes the holidays more interesting.”

  Ellie laughed. “It makes life more interesting.”

  Her gaze slid toward the leopard on the floor. Life would become infinitely more interesting. He’d claimed her as his mate, a pledge to her and her life. She knew, in her heart, that she had no real say in the matter. She belonged to him the same way he claimed to belong to her. There was no other option she would ever want.

  The leopard seemed to see the unspoken words in her eyes and chittered with happiness. With a satisfied smile on her face, she extracted herself from the couch, asking her mother to put Casper to bed, and sought out her kitchen to throw together a bowl of edible brownie batter.

  Santa was to come tonight and she would need the extra sugar to get through it. While she was busy in the kitchen, Nolan changed back into the form her parents recognized, earning him some strange stares from them. But, they said nothing as the two of them wrapped presents and tucked them beneath the glowing tree while sharing the bowl of brownie batter.

  Nolan even stole a chocolate flavored kiss and Ellie could hear her mother’s happy squeal from the hall. This was the life she’d been waiting for. There was only one thing missing, she thought, setting the last gift beneath the tree.

  With everything she’d been given this year, it could wait. Ellie smiled and pulled Nolan into her bedroom for the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “This….?” Ellie didn’t have words for what she saw before her. Nolan confessed to getting her something for Christmas, but she never once thought it would be anything like this. The whitewashed brick façade of the building sat directly across from Reggie’s candy shop. She knew because each time Casper begged her to go inside Reggie’s shop, she stood in the window and looked across the street with longing.

  Now, the For Rent sign was gone and a pretty bow had been slapped on the front door. Casper, not as full of energy as he had been, ran forward to play with the bow on the door. Ellie looked back at Nolan as if to double check. This was wrong.

  It was too much.

  How could he afford to do something like this?

  As she hesitated, wordless, his smile faltered. “Do you… do you like it?”

  She balked. “Like it? I freaking love it!”

  His shoulders relaxed as a smile spread across his face. How had she not noticed the dimple in the left corner of his mouth before? It captivated her gaze, pulling her toward him. She threw her arms around his neck and dragged him in for a long kiss. Beside her, Casper cried out with disgust.

  “You do too much for everyone else in your life,” Nolan whispered when she pulled back. His hands sat on her lower back, protective and possessive in a way she liked. “You deserve this and so much more after everything you’ve done.”

  She pulled back. He had to be kidding. She didn’t do that much, did she?

  But, his words made her pause. Never would she have been able to save enough money for the dream she’d been holding on to. Every little penny she made went to taking care of Casper in one way or another, letting her own care and dreams fall behind day by day. Nolan, in the short time he’d been there, had seen that and answered her Christmas wish.

  “But,” she paused, chewing her lip. Honestly, she hadn’t gotten anything for Nolan. She’d been so set on pushing him back, on denying what she felt, that she hadn’t thought to treat him to anything.

  He shook his head and pulled her back to his body. His hand slipped up her spine and, even through the thick winter coat, she shivered at his touch. “For Christmas, you gave me what I never thought possible. You gave me a mate.”

  The mention of the word still stirred things inside Ellie. It made her warm and ache with desire. She gripped his arms and smiled, feeling happiness rise through her. She never thought she would find happiness like this. She wanted love, that was true, but it had been a dream, just like her own café.

  Now, both were a possibility.

  “Can we go inside now?” Casper howled.

  “Shush,” Ellie warned him with a low, but soft voice. “You and I both know you aren’t cold.”

  “But I’m bored.”

  Ellie laughed and ruffled her son’s dark hair before pulling him into her arms. She’d been relieved to find Casper had completely forgotten about her disappearance for a night. The glory of Christmas morning chased anything he might have harbored toward her away.

  The best present had been telling Casper who Nolan really was. Watching her son’s eyes widen with surprise and welling with tears had almost been too much. Ellie ducked out of the room to cry where no one could see her.

  A number of Christmas wishes had been answered this year. She turned back toward the building and felt her eyes begin to well with tears once more.

  “Reginald sold me some equipment for a fraction of the going price, so the kitchen is already outfitted with the equipment you might need. I didn’t know what you needed, but Reginald seemed to know what he was doing.”

  Her heart thumped.

  “What are you going to call your bakery?” Grace asked.

  Ellie searched for something, but came up empty. She was overwhelmed with emotions, unable to process everything.

  “Are you telling me you haven’t had a name since the very beginning?” Nolan spun her into his arms again, a wide smile cutting across his face and brightening his eyes as he teased her.

  “How about… Bun in the Oven?” she asked, voice low enough for just the two of them to hear with a gleam in her eye.

  His brows furrowed. “That’s not a… wait?”

  She smiled. Ellie remembered what it felt like last time. It was incredibly early, but she suspected that she was indeed pregnant. Nolan’s brows shot toward the sky above once he realized what she was implying. He let out a howl of laughter and picked her up, spinning his mate around with glee.

  They would have a while to wait before they knew for certain and then another few
months before they could tell anyone, but Ellie knew what she’d be doing with that time.

  Thank you!

  I really hope you enjoyed reading my first ever holiday romance! If you enjoyed my book, I’ve got great news for you! I’ve included tons of bonus material for you! You don’t want to miss them. Flip to the next page to begin book 1 of the Fated Dragons Series.

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  Mated to the Dragon

  Emilia Hartley

  Chapter One

  Dakota flipped through the school’s flyer more times than she could count on the ten hour flight. There were only so many clouds she could bear to look at beyond the window. After browsing the highlights of the Art History program of Bangor’s University for the millionth time, she sighed and tossed it to the empty seat beside her. At least she’d gotten lucky in that regard.

  The person beside her had gotten a free upgrade to first class. She didn’t complain. As a college student, just having the extra bit of space to spread out felt luxurious. She hadn’t been raised with much. Both of her parents worked overtime through her childhood to put clothes on her back and food on the table. College had been a distant dream for her as a child, a thing that even in youth she knew that her family could not afford.

  Then, in high school, she got her very first job. Every penny she earned while serving pizza to the kids in her class went into savings. She was determined to reach her dream, to go to school, and escape the grind that her parents seemed doomed to endure. She began with community college. Then, with scholarships and loans that made her cringe when she signed, Dakota took the plunge and applied to universities.

  When the grant to study Welsh art and architecture abroad nearly fell into her lap, she took it without a second thought. She’d worked so hard through her childhood and teen years that she wanted to do something that she desperately loved for the rest of her life and during a school field trip, Dakota realized that meant curating art for museums. She loved the almost religious air that filled museums, the wonder and awe as she moved from collection to collection. The study abroad program was a huge step in that direction for her, a new adventure that would look beautiful on her resume. She hadn’t been thinking about what else the world had to offer, what she should have been afraid of.

  Her eyes fell on the book thrown atop her backpack. She frowned. Her mother bought it for her when Dakota announced that she’d been accepted for the study program in Wales. She knew what lived in the Snowdonia territories, as did the rest of the world after the Occurrence.

  Dragons.

  The massive beasts that resided in Wales were masters of fire. They had born more than a few legends in Welsh myth, ones that Dakota had familiarized herself with only so that she’d have a leg up in her studies. Not because she was curious about the beasts that could take the form of humans, mostly men with violence in their eyes and tension in the muscles that could easily crush her thin frame.

  The day before she boarded the plane, Dakota’s mother had gifted her with the book. Dakota had felt a lump grow in her throat as she looked at it. Dragon Men and Their Urges was written across the cover. Bea, Dakota’s mother, had opened it right to the chapter on self-defense and escape should she run into one of the dragons.

  “Mom.” She’d snapped the book shut. “The school has a policy to protect the students from abroad. If a student should come across a dragon at all they’re forced to pack up and are sent on next plane home so that they aren’t in any danger. Besides, I did my research. There hasn’t been a reported dragon shifter sighting in Bangor in years. You have nothing to worry about.”

  Her mother hadn’t looked convinced at all, shaking her hands with worry. Dakota assured her that it was the very last thing she wanted, reminding her mother that she would likely be spending all her time sequestered in museums and crumbling castles. That had been the thing that convinced her mother to let her go. She did know her own daughter after all. Or, at least that’s what she told herself.

  Dakota wasn’t going to let anyone ruin her chance to see the world. She’d dreamed about visiting castles and rolling hills all her life, etching their lines in a moleskin journal so that she could keep them close. She’d be damned if she let anyone take this chance away from her, mother or dragon man.

  Now, Dakota reached out and picked up the book that her mother had purchased and flipped it open to a random page. A sloppily drawn dragon graced the page with wings spread in clumsy flight, flanked by text that described a dragon male’s urge to find a mate. It described how the dragons often used their human forms to take human mates, despite the availability of the opposite sex in their race.

  Once the author started to theorize about traditions of kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome in days past, Dakota shut the book and flipped it over. The author’s face grinned back from above the synopsis. His thick mustache made her think of Tom Selleck, but the author’s eyes were dark and serious, giving him an air of commanding authority. Below the photo was the symbol of the Order of the Guardians of Existence, better known as GOE these days.

  GOE was the only force that stood between humanity and the dragons. They were briefly covered during Dakota’s global history class in high school, expanded upon in college if only barely. GOE had existed since the time of knights. Back then, they were only a few, but with time they spread across the earth. In the mid 1900’s when Dragons were forced into the light, the Guardians were the ones that stepped up to defend the humans from the beasts. Since then, the UN has worked closely with the Guardians to ensure that peace and, sometimes, justice remained between human and dragons.

  A voice chimed over the communication system above Dakota’s head. Through crackling static, the voice claimed that they were preparing for descent. Dakota’s stomach lurched in excitement for the drop in altitude. The clouds parted outside her window and a foreign city appeared. She couldn’t stop the silly smile that crossed her face as she looked outside the window.

  The plane lurched and jumped, finally touching ground. Soon, she would be taking her first step in another country, a whole new world. She had gone from a girl with nothing to finally being able to see her dream on the horizon.

  ***

  After the short bus ride to Bangor University, all the study abroad students had been herded into an introductory seminar. Dakota chose a seat toward the back and flipped open her black, moleskin journal. The pencil fit between her fingers like it belonged there. She studied the profile of a guy a few rows ahead of her. His fair hair launched like a wave over his forehead and his nose sloped up to meet it at the very tip. The pencil scratched those striking lines into her journal while she waited for the seminar to begin.

  She had not been expecting to see a familiar face walk across the stage. The man with the thick mustache on the book her mother had given her strode out before the assembled students. A close-lipped smile was pasted on his lips, but his eyes were still dark. His gaze swept over the crowd. Dakota thought that his gaze had lingered on her a little too long. She shook her head. There was no reason for something like that. She was simply exhausted from her flight. It was so much earlier here than it was back home.

  Professors that Dakota recognized from the website followed the man out onto the stage. A man wearing a tweed vest stood back with his hands in his pockets, his eyes hidden behind the glare on his narrow glasses. A woman followed them out. Her gray streaked hair was tied back into a braid that flowed over her shoulder. Perhaps it was the distance between them, but the woman appeared too you
ng to have graying hair already. She lowered herself into a folding chair and glared at the back of the Guardian’s head as if it was personal.

  Before Dakota could wonder what the Guardian had done to piss her off, the man launched into his speech.

  “Welcome to the University at Bangor!” His voice boomed through the room, his hands thrown into the air to encompass them all. “While we know that you all came here to devote your time to your studies, there are other things that we must address today.

  “As many of you know, Bangor is dangerously close to the territory of Snowdonia, the home of the Welsh Dragons. These dragons have a long history with the people of Wales and might see themselves as their protectors, but they are still predators. No matter how glamourous you think they are, keep in mind that if provoked, they can kill you with very little effort.

  “We advise all women travelling this semester to remain within the city limits, if not on Campus altogether. Dragons have always had a desire to steal young women away from their lives and keep them for their own as if they were property.”

  Dakota heard the words that the man was speaking, but her eyes were drawn to the woman behind him. Clearly under the impression that no one was watching her, she mocked him by dramatically mouthing his words every now and then with her arms crossed over her chest. She stopped once she realized that one of the students was watching her. Their eyes met and the woman began to nervously chew on her lower lip.

  Dakota dropped her gaze, but her pencil picked up and started to trace the lines of the professor’s face. She racked her memory to place the professor. She knew that she’d seen her face at one point in time. That was it, she was the history professor. Dakota was sure that she had at least one class with the woman during her semester. It made her wonder why she thought the man’s warnings were garbage. What did she know that no one else did?