A Shifter's Christmas Box Set

by Emilia Hartley

  Was she lucky to have met him? Or would he walk out when he realized she couldn’t handle what she’d become? She didn’t know how to keep going on this way. Every day was a challenge she wasn’t prepared to encounter. Interactions often drained her. Exhaustion opened a door for the wolf to come bounding through.

  A brilliant idea struck her.

  “You said you don’t have anywhere to go right now. Do you think you could come to my family gathering with me?” Her heart pounded in nervous excitement. “You don’t have to go as my date or anything. You can tell them you’re a coworker. It’s just that I’m scared I’ll get there, and they’ll push all my buttons and I’ll lose my—”

  Atticus put a finger to her lips to quiet her. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Besides, I can act like the big boss dragon while you decide whether or not you want me in your life.”

  “Oh, no. You can’t tell them. My family cannot know that you’re a dragon,” she commanded.

  “Relax, Frankie. It was a play on words.”

  Her name on his lips didn’t sound childish or crude. He made her feel like a woman. Maybe that was partially because she was aware of every part of her body that was pressed up against his, like her breasts.

  “I, uh, need to call my parents and let them know what’s going on.” She carefully extracted herself from the tub but grieved the lost heat the moment she was away from him.

  What was it about this man that made her feel this way? She had the feeling that when she turned her back, he wouldn’t disappear. He’d come from nowhere only to become an installation in her life. It was like finding a part of herself that she’d lost.

  Frankie told herself she was being a fool. She was rushing into things because his dragon made her feel safe. He could have horrible secrets locked away. He could be an awful person, but she turned a blind eye to it for the sake of her own sanity. Did she like Atticus? Or was it his effect on her that she craved?

  She grabbed her phone and went outside. They were a couple of hours from her family home, but she didn’t feel like getting back on the road. Sleeping in the hotel sounded nice. She could have one more quiet night before she stepped into the fray. Tomorrow, her dad would drink too much of the wine meant for the turkey. Her brother would flip the card table when he lost their family gambling game. Her aunt would invite herself and her small horde of grandchildren over so they could fill the house with shrill screams.

  Two years ago, Frankie had loved the chaos. It’d filled the house with life. Now, she wanted to run back down to her small apartment in Maryland.

  She held the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. Her mother picked up on the third ring and immediately asked Frankie where she was. Frankie could almost see her mother nervously wringing a kitchen towel in her hands.

  “Mom, I’m fine. I promise.” Frankie huffed a breath that clouded in the freezing air. Winter was coming to New York. “There was a blizzard while I was on the highway. Yes. I’m fine.”

  Her mother barraged her with questions, but Frankie did her best to avoid telling her anything about how the Volkswagen went off the road or the accident that she and Atticus cleared.

  “I’m bringing a co-worker with me. He didn’t have anyone to celebrate with this year, so I thought he could take part in our yearly disaster.”

  Her mother chuckled. “I’ll have you know the Christmas you missed was disaster free.”

  “Are you saying I’m a catalyst for disaster?” Frankie meant it as a joke, but she often felt like it was the truth.

  “No, no, no! We both know it’s your father and brother who are the disasters. I don’t know if the card table will survive your brother this year. It’s more tape than table at this point.”

  “Remember that time you cooked the turkey in a slow cooker? That was possibly the driest and soggiest turkey we’ve ever had. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  Her mother groaned. “I want to forget about that year. Really, it was just the skin that was soggy. That slow cooker went to the thrift store. It can haunt someone else’s holiday nightmares.”

  A hole inside Frankie where her family’s warmth had been howled in the cold air. She couldn’t believe how badly the phone call made her ache. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine sitting around the table with a cheap glass of wine as they recounted their past get-togethers.

  “This co-worker,” her mother said. “She doesn’t have family?”

  “He,” Frankie corrected and immediately regretted it because her mother let out a suggestive laugh. “No, it’s not like that.”

  Or was it? Frankie couldn’t deny that she was attracted to Atticus. His broad shoulders were a shield against the world. His smiles were soft and genuine. Frankie wished she knew him better, but they had time. Right?

  “Bring him along,” her mother told her. “Just make sure you both get here safe and sound tomorrow.”

  Frankie savored her mother’s love long after she hung up. Going home would be difficult, but with Atticus helping her tame the beast inside her, maybe she could feel normal for a little while.

  Chapter Four

  Atticus plugged in the burner phone. The little battery on the screen started blinking to let him know it was working. The background had a picture of his old crew. Althea the grizzly shifter. Bertrand the wolf shifter. The other quarry employees. Everyone smiled at the camera. He’d forgotten how tight knit they were. The business was a pack all by itself. They made dinner for each other and ate as a crew. When one needed help, the others were there.

  As their boss, Atticus had been on the outside of it all. He had been the big dragon no one wanted to approach. They bent their heads in reverence to him, but never invited him to their meals, never asked him for help when he was in the best position to grant it.

  Always on the outside.

  Not moments after he plugged it in, the device vibrated with a message. He scowled down at it.

  No one should have this number. Perhaps someone had sent their text to the wrong number. He opened it out of curiosity. Instead of an unrecognizable number, the message bore a familiar name. Atticus forgot that the crew had programmed themselves into his burner phones.

  This person wasn’t in the crew photo. Like Atticus, Devin kept his distance. Atticus sighed and disregarded the message. He was trying to explore this second chance he’d been given. The woman snoring on the bed across from him captivated his attention.

  She was the gift he never asked for, but Atticus wasn’t sure he could keep the two lives separate. Eventually someone would recognize him. Especially around here. Her family home was right in the middle of his old territory. Atticus had left and burrowed a distance away to avoid being dug out while his company mined salt and limestone.

  He wanted to devote himself to her and be everything she needed, but his old life would come knocking. There was no escaping one’s self. Not the past, the future, or even the present. As hard as Atticus might try, he knew Devin would find him.

  Atticus had never really trusted his cousin, but Devin had a good head for business and enough dominance to keep the pack under control. That was the only reason Atticus left the business in his cousin’s hands. It hadn’t been out of love or even kinship. Devin had the tools necessary, and when Atticus knew his time was running out, he signed the business over to Devin.

  With a single condition, of course. Atticus never thought the clause would be necessary, but Althea urged him to add it. Should Atticus wake from his slumber, Devin would have to step down, which meant that Atticus would have to keep hiding if he wanted to stay with Frankie.

  She didn’t need the pressure that would come with his position. Her beast was already strung out from being trapped in the human body for too long. He would need to get her to shift before they went to her parents’ house. That was the only way she would be able to enjoy visiting her family.

  If Atticus took control of his company again, she would be dragged
into a busy world. He wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with her. The promise he made to be there for her would fall apart.

  He sighed and turned off the phone so no one else could reach it. When he stood and saw Frankie sleeping on top of her comforter, his beast urged him to join her and keep her warm, but he’d gotten two beds for a reason.

  Laying in the tub with her had almost destroyed his control. She writhed in his arms and invoked a deep hunger he hadn’t felt in years. The scent of her skin and the desire radiating off her almost did him in. Frankie might be attracted to him, but if he was going to make her love him, he couldn’t push her boundaries yet.

  Women liked to be courted slowly. They wanted to know that a man loved them before they even considered loving back. He needed to keep showing her that his heart would only ever belong to her.

  This girl that he found on the side of the road was a new shifter without family. He stood and made his way into the bathroom, intending to wash the cave dust off himself. There was a chance his beast had just…woken and that Frankie happened to be nearby. The dragon saw a lonely girl and did its best to fill the emptiness in her life. Atticus couldn’t deny that she had an effect on him that no other woman ever had.

  Their combined scents lingered in the shower. He almost didn’t want to run the water because the smell would vanish, as might any chance he had with her. He wanted to believe that what he felt was more than a need to escape his loneliness.

  Even if they weren’t fated mates, maybe he could convince her to love him all the same. He would cherish her no matter what. Atticus wanted a reason to live. His slumber, which should have been akin to death, had ended. The universe handed him a second chance, and he was going to make the most of it.

  When he stepped out of the shower, he heard a phone ringing. It wasn’t the burner phone he’d claimed from his old stash. It was the hotel room’s phone. Atticus jumped on it to keep Frankie from waking. With the receiver in his hand, he watched her to see if she would wake, but she only made a small sound and rolled over.

  Atticus breathed a sigh of relief and brought the receiver up to his ear. The nasally clerk on the other end informed him that someone was waiting in the lobby for him. Atticus scowled. Perhaps Frankie’s family had met her halfway. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if they took her away and he couldn’t follow.

  The beast growled deep inside him.

  “Is it a family? Husband and wife?”

  “Uh, no. It’s just a man. He asked for you by name. I couldn’t give him your room number, but you’re welcome to meet him down here.” There was a scuffle. The clerk’s voice became distant. Sir! No. You can’t take…

  “Atticus,” Devin growled into the phone.

  Atticus’s growl deepened as his beast came closer to the surface. He could almost feel his scales ripple like the hackles of a dog preparing for danger. Atticus heard the threat in his cousin’s voice.

  “I’ll be right down. Leave the kid alone,” Atticus said before hanging up, snatching the room card, and flying down the stairs.

  Atticus’s hair was still wet when he grabbed Devin by the front of his shirt and dragged him outside into the freezing air. As they stared one another down, their breath fogged in a thick mist from the heat of the beasts inside them.

  Devin’s spine was rigid. He jutted his chin out like he had something to fight for.

  “Why are you here?” Atticus asked first.

  “One of your old phones came online. I had to make sure someone hadn’t stolen one of your caches.”

  The words didn’t feel like a lie, but something parallel. There was a hint of truth to it, but Atticus had the feeling that there was a lot Devin wasn’t saying. “You didn’t expect to find me?”

  “You’re…alive,” Devin breathed. A cloud of mist obscured his face for a brief second so Atticus couldn’t read how Devin truly felt about Atticus’s return. “I thought burrowing was the last thing a dragon ever did. There are legends of ancients waking when their territory was being assaulted, but everything here is fine. I don’t understand why you’re alive.”

  Devin’s choice of words made Atticus wary.

  “I don’t know why I’m awake,” Atticus said, subtly avoiding the word alive. He’d been alive the whole time.

  Devin glanced up at the hotel building, gears working behind his dark eyes. The man was tall and had a rectangular jaw that some women would have loved, but it was always clenched in perpetual annoyance that frightened away any potential mates. Atticus watched the muscles of his jaw twitch.

  “Is there a reason we’re talking outside and not in your hotel room?” Devin asked.

  Atticus shrugged. “I didn’t want to pay for anything we broke. We’ve always butted heads.”

  He could see that Devin wasn’t convinced. If Devin laid a hand on Frankie, Atticus would remove the appendage by force. His cousin wasn’t allowed anywhere near her. Not now, while she struggled with her beast. Maybe not ever.

  “Why are you here? I didn’t call you. Our lives are separate now and they will be from here on out,” Atticus growled.

  Devin moved his weight from side to side, like the dragon inside him was hungry for a fight, but he couldn’t unleash the monster just now. “You’re telling me you have no plans to take back your business?”

  “Second chances. New life.” Atticus wanted to end this conversation. Devin’s presence worried him.

  “Good. The business is mine,” Devin growled.

  Atticus should have expected this reaction. Greedy and hot-tempered, Devin would lay claim to everything Atticus built. Devin running it didn’t bother Atticus so much, but the possessive snarl embedded in his last word did.

  Devin said it like he would fight tooth and nail to keep it, laying waste to any who would defy him. It was a dangerous mindset, but Atticus told himself that it wasn’t his problem. Devin could keep the company. All Atticus wanted was Frankie.

  His second chance.

  “Come near me again and I will make sure you can’t even crawl back to your office,” Atticus said. He didn’t growl or snarl. There was no need when his promise spoke for itself. Atticus was more than capable of following through.

  He was the larger beast, the more powerful beast. Only creatures like him could burrow and sleep. Devin didn’t have half the power Atticus had coiled in his beast, in his muscles. If Devin thought he could come here and intimidate Atticus, he was wrong. Atticus would always come out on top.

  “Go home,” Atticus commanded.

  Devin’s lips curled back in a snarl. He was an animal stuffed into a human skin. Atticus hoped he was treating the pack right, but other than that, it wasn’t Atticus’s problem. His life was turning in a new direction and he would not be stopped by someone like Devin.

  Atticus stopped at the elevator but realized it would be too small for him once the doors opened. His beast wanted to spread its wings. The snowstorm had long stopped, and cities had too many eyes for him to be able to freely fly. He would just have to deal with his restlessness until there was an opportunity to be airborne.

  Along Frankie’s route was one of the old quarries. He’d told Devin that he had no interest in the business, but the land had always provided a safe place to shift. Frankie needed to have fun with her beast, too. Perhaps he could derail their journey for an hour or two, just long enough for them to expend some energy before they endured rooms full of humans.

  Trying to blend in was difficult for any shifter. Atticus had failed at it time and time again, every holiday party his business hosted for the investors, for the communities. He stood out because of the way he radiated dominance. Everyone had stared at him, openly or out of the corners of their eyes.

  They stayed away from him. It was why he’d gone to the car in the median earlier that day. Frankie had a smile that could disarm anyone. He’d let her put everyone involved in the accident at ease before he joined her.

  It
hadn’t mattered. One man had looked at them, seen freaks, and declared it to the world. Atticus realized as he reached for the hotel door that the man had photos. Soon, Atticus’s face would reach the world. He doubted the man’s claims would be taken seriously. No newspaper was printing over the holidays anyway.

  Still, it wouldn’t stop the man from posting the photos on social media. Atticus didn’t know how much the internet had changed in five years, but he could only assume the spread of information was faster than ever.

  Atticus had no way of knowing if the man had recorded them pulling the cars apart. His primary concern was for his face. If the pack saw that he was awake, would they call him? Would they warn him to stay away like Devin had? Atticus had always been on the outside of life at the quarry, but he never thought they hated him.

  Feared him, yes. Hated him? The way Devin acted made Atticus worry that the pack would lash out if they found him awake. From now on, Atticus would have to keep his head down. He wasn’t ready to go back to his old life.

  He had a mate to court. He would give her as much time as she needed. His life belonged to her now, not the pack. If they saw his face online and they didn’t want him back, he hoped they wouldn’t reach out. He didn’t want to be pushed further away.

  All he could do was hope that Frankie would be enough for his beast, that it didn’t need a whole pack to protect.

  Frankie stirred when he opened the door. She blinked at him with bleary eyes, scowling.

  “You look miserable,” she muttered before reaching out for him.

  His heart stumbled and tripped into her hands. He couldn’t help but be drawn into her, the only person to look straight at him and remain unafraid. She pulled him down onto the bed and wrapped her arms around him, so he was the little spoon. He wondered if she could feel his heart racing, the intrepid excitement that made him buzz with hope.

  She nuzzled his back. “I hope you aren’t unhappy. We can help you find what you’re looking for in the morning.”

  He knew she was probably talking in her sleep, but it warmed him all the same. He patted her hands and replied, “You have a Christmas to get to tomorrow.”