The Reindeer’s New Year Love
(Book Seven – Reindeer Holidays)
Elizabeth Ann Price
Copyright ©2020 by Elizabeth Ann Price
All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The author does not recommend that wolf pups be allowed to chew on anything they happen to get their paws on – they could choke, and it would certainly mess up all your things.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Chapter One
Riker nodded at the bartender for another beer. The greasy looking cougar shifter placed a bottle in front of him and moved away, eyeing him warily. In general, Riker could hardly be described as owning a friendly face. But the fresh, wicked scar across one eye, and the burgeoning bruises over the other weren’t exactly winning him any beauty contests, never mind earning him any new friends. Not that he cared about either of those things.
Riker grunted and grabbed the bottle. He cast a glance around the bar again; the place was a dive, pure and simple. His inner wolf huffed in disdain at the liquor license that went out of date two years ago. This wasn’t his first choice of watering hole, but it had been a long day, it was a shifter friendly dive, and given the rain beating against the roof, he didn’t fancy traveling far that night.
He was a wolf shifter, and had been a hunter for over twenty-five years, starting when he was just sixteen – the youngest ever admitted to the hunters, and he had, by far and wide, racked up the most successful hunts in the history of the hunters. The hunters chased down rogue shifters and forcibly dragged them back to the Shifter Council for punishment. Or, if they wouldn’t be dragged, occasionally, they were put down. The Council preferred them alive, but they were all shifters, they knew it wasn’t always possible, and sometimes preferred that it wasn’t possible, and perhaps Riker had put down more than his fair share. Given that he was generally sent after the ‘problem’ hunts, he had undoubtedly killed more than the other active shifters put together.
Riker grabbed his phone and sent a text to a fellow hunter, Mick the Brick – a crocodile shifter who, while originally being from Australia, liked to ham up his accent to maximum effect when trying to get information, or when trying his hand with females. Any luck?
A reply came within seconds. No. No sign of him.
Riker batted one back and put his phone away, without waiting to see what Mick had to say. Whether Mick agreed or not, he would bow to Riker’s decision. Calling it a night. Start again at daybreak.
He rolled his neck and tried to loosen his shoulders. He’d been a little tense the last couple of days; he always was when hunting. He and Mick had been looking for two brothers who had been making their own moonshine. That in and of itself was bad, but they got drunk on their own stuff, and poured a still of it into the local water supply, poisoning humans and livestock. As yet, no humans had died, but it wasn’t looking good.
The brothers hadn’t, until today, been considered particularly violent, but when Riker got his hands on one of them, the guy tried to claw his eyes out. Some hunts were more successful than others, he thought ruefully as he eyed the fresh wound in the dirty mirror behind the bar. Damn owl shifter grumbled his inner wolf. Still, he had managed to subdue him, and tomorrow they’d likely pick up his brother. The wound would probably heal, and if it didn’t, it would just leave him with another scar – what was one more?
His gaze flickered as the door to the bar was flung open. He watched in the mirror as a bedraggled woman shambled inside. Natural hunter instinct meant he always had to be aware of everyone around him, lest one of them try to attack him. He looked up every time the door opened, but this time, rather than looking, then immediately dismissing them, his gaze lingered, and his inner wolf let out a soft growl.
*
A few minutes earlier
“Ugh!”
Oddly, banging on the steering wheel didn’t make the car go. Neither did it make the bars return on her cell phone. Nor did it stop the rain from pouring.
Carrie let out a breath and leaned back in her seat. Her inner reindeer hooted gently, supportively, and Carrie calmed a little.
Yes, the car breaking down was a bit of a bummer given that it was new and she’d only had it two weeks. Yes, the weather was terrible. Yes, she appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. And yes, she had just driven sixty miles to surprise her boyfriend at a work convention, only to find him in bed with his supervisor. Had she left anything out? Nope, that seemed like the long and the short of it.
She wasn’t sure what bothered her more - probably the car, actually. Her boyfriend wasn’t exactly a great loss. They’d only been together one month, and his thoughtless, roguish charm was starting to wear thin. In fact it was completely worn when she turned up at the hotel and he invited her to join them and make it a threesome. Idiot fox shifter.
It was her own fault though. After all the trials and tribulations she went through as a kid with her dad – the wolf shifter – anyone would think she would shy away from dating predator shifters. But no, give her a set of fangs and a devilish smile and she went weak around the antlers every time.
Her inner reindeer sighed. Oh, she really needed to start dating reindeer shifters – safe veggie-eating shifters, who wouldn’t break her heart every chance they got. Though, reindeer could be pretty brutal when they wanted. Her brother, the hunter, was a testament to that. He too was a reindeer, taking after their mother rather than their father, but no one could accuse him of being gentle or soft.
Carrie blew out a breath and looked down at her phone again; still no signal. Though, as lightning whipped across the sky, she wasn’t very surprised.
She squinted through the windshield, and saw some flickering neon lights. Maybe there was a diner or something. They would probably have a landline, and she could call someone. She could call a tow truck to come and get her and she would pay for a hire car or something. She didn’t really want to call a member of her reindeer herd and admit to them just what a fool she’d made of herself over that damn predator. They had warned her and warned her to stay away from him, but would she listen? Her inner reindeer sighed. No, because she was a glutton for punishment where male predators were concerned.
She frowned as she searched through her purse. She was sure her wallet was in here. She had it when she was checking into
the hotel, and she had it in her hand when she was walking into her now ex-boyfriend’s room and… she had dropped it in horror on seeing him en flagrante with another woman. Carrie put her hand on her forehead and groaned. In her haste to get away she hadn’t picked it up.
“Damn,” she muttered.
Carrie chewed on her lip and stared at the vague neon lights. She briefly thought of her older brother, Mal – he was a hunter for the council of shifters. He did brave, crazy things every day of his life, and he wouldn’t be cowering in his car just because of a little rain and a vague feeling of unease. Mal had always taken care of her when she was young, when neither of her parents cared enough to do it. But Mal never had anyone to look out for him. No, he was brave and fearless, and it was about time she started to deal with her own messes.
Right, she would march on up there and ask to use a phone and she would get herself a darn tow truck. With purpose, Carrie pushed the door open, against the battling wind, and tried not to wince at the squelch as her pump became lodged in some mud. Yep, she could do this.
Chapter Two
Riker inhaled sharply. Reindeer. The young woman was smaller than the average reindeer cow, and maybe a little curvier - a lot curvier put in his interested wolf. She was sopping wet, her hair plastered to her head, and her clothes clinging to her. She also appeared to be missing a shoe.
The female took a moment to straighten her clothes – as much as she could – before she started limping toward the bar. Riker watched her in the mirror. There was a determined lilt to her expression, only marred slightly by the unease in her eyes. She had to be as aware as Riker of the fact that she was the only prey in the bar. A quick flicker around the room told him that everyone else was starting to realize it too, and many males were starting to show an interest. In backwood places like this, where predators dominated, prey girls were considered easy pickings, and she certainly was a pretty young thing, even in her disheveled state.
Riker focused on his beer, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she approached the bar. The bartender gave her a leery look and ambled over to see what she wanted.
“What?” he grumbled.
Riker rumbled softly and the bartender flinched. The female flicked her eyes to him. She blinked for a couple of beats and licked her lips before slowly returning her attention to the bartender.
“May I borrow your phone?” she asked only slightly croakily.
“Broken,” grunted the bartender.
“Oh.” She seemed to deflate a little. “Is there a payphone near here?”
“Motel three miles down the road, they have a phone.”
The unhelpful bartender ambled away to wipe some severely smudged glasses, lest she ask anything else. She sighed and drummed her fingers on the bar. She caught sight of her appearance in the mirror behind the bar and winced, then she caught Riker looking at her in the mirror and she inhaled softly.
“You can borrow my phone,” he said quickly.
He was almost embarrassed that she had caught him looking at her. Almost embarrassed by the fact that he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her.
The female turned to look at him, and she licked those damn, plump lips again. “You have a signal?” she asked a little breathlessly.
Riker turned as well, leaning one arm on the bar, trying not to react to the fact that he leaned in something decidedly sticky – this place really was the pits.
“Yeah.”
Hunters got special phones designed to work anywhere and any time. He was pretty sure that his phone would still be working come the apocalypse.
Her eyes dipped a little and her cheeks warmed to a blushing pink as she smiled. “Thank you, that would be very helpful.”
Riker hesitated at the smile, and even his wolf was a little taken aback. Pretty nothing, she was an absolute stunner, and surely everyone else was noticing it too.
He pulled out his phone and moved closer to her. His keen senses told him her breathing increased as he moved nearer to her. But while his ego would like to say she found him attractive, he suspected it was more likely she was scared of him. Even he couldn’t deny that a grizzled wolf shifter in his early forties and covered in scars was hardly the most welcome apparition to a lissome young reindeer.
Stopping a foot from her, he held out the phone. She looked up, her eyes met his, and as her eyes flashed to the darkness of her inner beast’s, his flashed amber. She looked down and quickly took the phone.
He remained standing, still as a rock, as she phoned and enquired about a tow truck. He carefully looked around the unusually quiet bar. Everyone was paying far too much attention to their drinks. They were clearly listening to every word she said, clearly interested, clearly waiting.
Riker rumbled lowly in warning. A few of them – the smarter contingent of the room – flinched and really did focus on their drinks. The less smart sneered.
The female glanced up at him but didn’t miss a beat as she argued with whoever was on the other end of the line. The upshot was that no truck was coming out to her immediately. No, he didn’t suppose they would. There was flooding in the nearby area due to the rain, and he supposed they were prioritizing people who were stuck in their cars in the floods – lest they be swept away.
“Tomorrow morning?” she breathed. “But… but… that’s…” She sighed and pursed those pretty lips. “Yes, of course, you’re right. Yes, I’m in no danger, I suppose.”
Though, she glimpsed around the bar as she said it, so, clearly, she wasn’t oblivious to the males around her.
“Okay, fine, I’ll call you in the morning.”
Dejectedly, she ended the call and handed the phone back to Riker.
She blushed even more as Riker stared at her.
“Car broke down?”
She nodded.
“Can’t get to you until morning?”
She shook her head.
“You got anyone who can come pick you up?”
She winced. “I just broke up with my boyfriend, and my brother is… who knows where.”
Riker glared past her as a coyote shifter ambled up to the bar and stood a shade too close to her. She wrinkled her snub nose as the smell of the coyote hit her. He was all sweat, cheap cologne, alcohol, and a severe absence of soap.
“What’s your name, darling?” asked the coyote.
“Oh ah, it’s umm, Anne,” she replied, though without much conviction.
The coyote leaned over her shoulder and she visibly shivered. “You can stay at my place, darling,” he slurred.
Clearly, he was hammered, else he wouldn’t have the balls to approach her while she was talking to Riker.
“Thanks, but…”
“C’mon, darling, I’ll show you a good time.”
He made some frankly obscene motions with his hips, making his table of friends snicker. They were drunk too.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re very drunk, otherwise you couldn’t possibly think that would sway me.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” hissed the coyote as he tried to grasp her arm.
His inner wolf howled indignantly. Riker snarled and grabbed her, pulling her out of reach and toward his chest. She too tried to evade the coyote’s grasping hands and moved toward Riker, colliding with his chest.
“Oh, umm, sorry,” she stammered as she pressed against him, trying to move away.
Riker ignored her and held her steady. “Get out,” he growled.
“Me?” she breathed.
“Get. Out.” He snarled at the coyote.
The coyote scowled at him, puffing out his small chest – as if he was about to challenge him or something. The wolf inside prowled, hoping for a chance to tear a piece off of this insignificant male who would dare even look at the beautiful reindeer.
Riker didn’t move. Just stared at the coyote, ignoring how nice she felt writhing against him. The coyote tried to swagger and his friends started getting to their feet, started moving, just in case a fight broke out. Th
ough whether they would join in or just flee to the door was undecided.
Finally, under Riker’s unwavering stare, the coyote submitted and backed away.
“Bitch isn’t worth it anyway,” he muttered.
“What?” Riker snapped.
The coyote let out an eep and fled through the door. His friends tried to nonchalantly follow, though it was obvious that they were fleeing too. His wolf sneered.
“Umm…” she started.
“Come on. I’ll give you a ride to the motel.”
“Oh ah…”
Riker spun her around and steered her to the door. He grabbed the sodden case she had been dragging and propelled her outside into the rain. She squeaked at the heavy rain, but he didn’t slow down, merely hurled her into his truck, and didn’t breathe out until he was driving to the motel.
“This is kind of you,” she said, still a little stunned by how quickly things were happening.
Riker grunted. It wasn’t like he could leave her in that bar. If the coyotes weren’t waiting outside for her, then one of the other mealy-mouthed idiots would have made their move. He was just being a good guy. That was all it was. Well, there was a first time for everything.
Chapter Three
Carrie stared at the broad back of her hero. Okay, maybe hero was a little strong, but she was sure that if it weren’t for the wolf shifter, then she would currently be forced into joining the coyotes at their table for a very unwanted getting-to-know-you party. Just the thought made her shudder and her inner reindeer chuff in dismay.
The wolf banged on the bell again and rumbled impatiently. They were at the reception of the motel, though, no one seemed interested in coming to receive them.
“I’m afraid I don’t have my wallet with me – I have no money,” said Carrie worriedly, fearing that if the wolf didn’t help her out she really would have to find that damnable coyote shifter and take him up on his offer.
“I’ll cover it,” said the wolf in a low voice, and without any hesitation either.
“Thank you.”
The Reindeer's New Year Love (Reindeer Holidays Book 7) Page 1
