Happy Howlidays: Shifters in Love Romance Collection (Shifter in Love Book 1)

by V. Vaughn

  The wolf left her, ghosting away like a cold breath on the wind.

  Which left her kneeling beside Miguel, her chin still on his thigh, and the musky scent of his wolf in her nose.

  Wolf…and his arousal.

  His hand on the back of her neck tightened, just a little. Just enough to trigger a jolt of desire shooting down her spine. When she looked up at him, his dark eyes glinted—melted chocolate flecked with gold—and her blood ran thick and molten.

  Curling her hand behind his knee, she leaned closer, not that there was any room left between them. She traced her fingertips higher on his thigh, and his erection surged.

  But he grasped her wrist, stopping her. With a light twist, he turned her hand palm up, and she winced at the sight of abraded skin and embedded sand.

  “I didn’t even notice,” she said. “How did I miss that?”

  “Get in the tub,” he said, his voice husky. “Let’s make sure you didn’t miss anyplace else.”

  With slow hands that made her heart beat faster, he cleaned her hands and feet. He used every jar on the shelf, filling the soft air with exotic fragrances.

  But all she breathed was him.

  He tsked. “You stepped on a thorn.”

  “Guess I need to toughen up.” She tried to smile, but it slipped away when he gave her a sidelong glance, those dark lashes making his gaze mysterious. She looked away. “Or…really, that’s never been a problem for me, has it?”

  So gentle she wanted to cry, he eased the splinter from her heel, soaping it well. She knew shifters healed quickly and easily; so why did the hurt seem to go deeper than one little thorn?

  “I don’t know what you feel,” he finally said.

  Letting out the breath she’d been holding, she admitted, “I want to feel you.”

  Thankfully he’d only filled the tub halfway.

  When he joined her in the bubbly water, she laughed, and the happiness fizzed in her veins like bath bombs.

  “What do you want to smell like?” She rubbed against him. “French, Japanese, or Turkish? Oh, and I also have Tahitian florals. It’s like a winter getaway. Where do want to go?”

  “I want to be right here.” He nuzzled into her neck. “Wherever you are.”

  They sudsed the water into a mountain of bubbles—and lost most of the water—before they rinsed off, and he bore her, still dripping, to the bedroom.

  “My feet are fine,” she protested.

  “They are,” he agreed. “They carried you all this way. Let me carry you this little bit.”

  She gripped him tight when he went to lay her down. “Stay here.”

  He climbed up over her, pressing her back into the pillow with the force of his kisses until she had to twine her arms behind his neck just to hold on to the spinning world. The winter night fell fast, and she hadn’t turned on the bedroom lamp, but the Christmas lights she’d strung along the hacienda wall reflected off the adobe in a warm glow like summer.

  His hands weren’t slow now, and neither were hers. She traced the lean lines of him—the ropey muscles, the strong fingers that molded iron and her with equal ease, even the sleek stripe of hair below his navel leading to the eager jut of his cock. Every line like a mark on a map that led her back to one place.

  Here, with him.

  He spread her like an X across the rumpled quilt, stretching her arms to the sides, his hips splaying her thighs wide. With a long, slow thrust, he pinned her, and the sensation went deeper than her core. Every muscle clenched, holding him, and with a groan he sank hard into her slick flesh. With each pump of his body, he let out a sexy little growl to match her breathless gasps.

  When she came, he was a half-step behind her, and the wild gush of his release only intensified the feeling rushing through her. She convulsed around him, arms and legs closing like a trap, and she kissed him so hard she tasted blood, just as she had all those years ago when the mating bite had bound them.

  Collapsing back to the damp sheets, it was a long time before their breathing slowed. She lay with her head on his shoulder, her knee crooked over his thigh, their bodies fused with sweat and the lingering scent of Tahiti.

  She traced one fingertip over the lines of him, as she had before, lingering over the moon tattoo centered on his chest. It was his pack affiliation, and the boys had the same. Eventually her grandchildren would also be marked, forever signifying their home with the wolves of Angels Rest.

  She’d never gotten hers, of course.

  At the sharp pang in her own heart, she hastily turned her attention to the unfamiliar ink on his wrist. She lifted his hand where it had been resting on her hip. The delicate roughness of his calluses sent a shiver over her skin as she rotated his hand as he’d done hers to check for wounds. The tattoo, in black and essence of moonstone, curled around his wrist, doubling back on itself, disappearing and reappearing in the glow from the window.

  “It’s an S,” he said. “For Solange.”

  Her curious caress stilled.

  He lifted their joined hands and settled them over his heart. “The moon mark, my place in the pack, is front and center, but I keep it covered. This one”—he turned his face to kiss her crown—“this one I see all the time. First in the morning when I drink coffee, last at night when I turn off the lights, when I start a new sculpture or when I finish one. I see this twisting path and always I thought it might bring me back to you, someday.”

  The breath caught in her throat. “Miguel—”

  Below her clenched hand, his stomach growled like a…a hungry beast.

  She blinked. “Really?”

  His eyes widened. “Did I mention it was a really long, really twisting path?”

  She slapped her palm lightly against his belly. “You’re in luck. I have a twenty-pound bird turning to turkey jerky in the oven and a garden’s worth of veggies.” Biting her lip, she glanced up at him. “Would you…like to stay for Christmas Eve dinner?”

  “I’d love to.”

  He carved the turkey for her, saving the tougher cuts for future enchiladas, but there was plenty for the two of them. Instead of eating at the table that she’d set the day before, they took their plates to the kiva fireplace. While she turned on the Christmas tree lights and spread a blanket in front of the brick hearth, he opened a bottle of wine and started a small fire.

  They ate, replayed the rescue of their new granddaughter, talked about his last art show in LA and her new account with the dragon shifters in Vegas. With the wine gone, they made love as the last embers burned down though the adobe held heat forever.

  When he carried her to bed—again; she could get used to this—he whispered, “Nochebuena.”

  It had been a good night, but… “It must be after midnight,” she murmured. “Merry Christmas.”

  She woke to the silvery morning glow of a winter wonderland.

  And she was alone.

  Holding her breath, she listened, but the hacienda was quiet.

  Gathering the quilt around her, she padded down the hallway. The wine glasses they’d left on the hearth were gone, and when she peeked in, the kitchen was spotless. Even the turkey bones were nowhere to be seen.

  A little tremor weakened her knees as she drifted toward the island.

  The gleaming butcher block reflected the light bouncing from the snow that had fallen overnight. But a small circle of darkness rested on the rich wood.

  She lifted the antiqued silver ring. The finely hammered metal was punched through with stars and almost completely cleaved in two by a curving S-shape carved all the way around.

  Only a silver crescent moon wrapped around a tiny bronze sun face held the two halves together.

  Of course it would fit perfectly, she knew, without even trying it on.

  Leaving it on the counter, she went to the kitchen door and walked out into the snow.

  The wall had blocked the worst of the wind, but little drifts had made fanciful mazes across the cobblestones, and everything looked new and st
range.

  But her gaze was focused past the protective adobe to the hills beyond. White snow and dark pine were a wild backdrop to the lone figure waiting there.

  Always waiting.

  The first time she'd changed for love. The second time she'd changed for life.

  This time the choice was only hers.

  She breathed in the bite of the winter air and dropped the quilt behind her. The wind whispered past her, a fierce and teasing caress, carrying his scent to her. A challenge, yes, but still her choice.

  In one bound, she cleared the wall. As she raced toward him, she tilted back her head, her call spiraling out behind her in an iridescent ribbon of sunlight and tiny crystals.

  He answered with a howl of joy, and when she joined him, their arched tails made a perfect dark heart against the snow.

  Missed the stories of wolf-shifter twins Blaze and Easton? Find them at ElsaJade.com and may all your Christmases be wolfy!

  Second Chance Xmas - Jacqueline Sweet

  a Bearfield story

  Copyright © 2018 by Jacqueline Sweet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The Bearfield tree lighting ceremony is a chance for shifters to meet their true mates, but for Krista Foster it’s a chance to reconnect with the wolf who broke her heart.

  1

  “You need to go.” Anna was pleading with her on the phone, and also trying not to laugh. “It’s important, you know? You gotta show up to the ceremony and make your voice heard, girl. Someone from our family needs to be at the tree lighting. It’s tradition.”

  “I’m busy,” Krista Foster told her cousin. “I actually am. I have seriously important work to do for the charity.” She had her phone awkwardly cradled between her ear and her sweater as she poured over her end-of-the-year spreadsheets wishing she could find just a little more funding hidden somewhere.

  “Every time I’ve ever gone,” Anna said, “there’s been hot guys there. Super hot guys. It’s a thing. All the families send their most eligible thirst traps. It’s the darkest night of the year, y’know? But it could also be the hottest.” There was a teasing quality to her voice, but Anna knew all about hot guys. She was mated to the second hottest guy Krista had ever seen.

  “I don’t need hot guys. I need more funds for the charity. And in my experience, super hot single guys are rarely the kind to help feed the homeless.” Krista’s hair hung in her eyes and she puffed it away with a sharp breath.

  There was a pause on the other line. “It’s been years, Krista. Years. You have to get over him. You need to get back out there.” Anna was being uncharacteristically serious.

  “I will,” Krista said. “When I’m ready. When I have time. When I have space in my life and my charity is in the black and all the homeless people in Northern California are taken care of.”

  “Girl,” Anna said sternly. “You get out there and sing Christmas songs and drink adult beverages and put on lipstick and smile at the boys. You do your part or I swear I will tell your mother.”

  Krista groaned loudly, making her cat—Parsnip—leap out of his nap in a fright. “Fine. Okay. I will go. I’ll represent the family. And I will even wear my ugliest Christmas sweater. The one your mom made for me.”

  “Promise?” Anna asked.

  “I pinky promise,” Krista muttered.

  Anna cheered on the other end of the line. “And when you meet a cute guy, send me a pic!”

  Krista and Anna were cousins, though it’d been years since they lived anywhere near each other. Ever since the Brandon Incident, when Krista had her heart shattered into ten million pieces and she fled across the country to get far, far away from Bran and guys who looked like Bran and guys who knew guys who looked like Bran.

  And shifters, period.

  She’d met Bran while visiting Anna. Krista hadn’t grown up in Bearfield but nearby in Shasta. But she’d taken every chance she had to go to the little cozy tourist town. It had seemed like a magical place, because it was. A family of bear shifters ran the town in secret and other shifters could find sanctuary there. Krista wasn’t a shifter herself, but her dad was. So she had a touch of magic running through her veins. Not enough to turn into an animal, but enough so that when she crossed the Bearfield border she could feel the Great Bear spirit welcoming her. It was like getting a hug from your grandma after playing in the snow for a bit too long.

  When she met Brandon, she’d only been a girl—thirteen years old to Anna’s worldly sixteen. Bran was older than her by a few years and yes, a wolf shifter, a fact that Krista learned later. He’d been this gangly boy with a mop of brown hair that hung down to his nose—all elbows and knees. He was quiet and saw Krista when no one else did. He had a way of leaning against bookshelves or doorways or anything, really, that took Krista’s breath away. It was inexplicable, except to other teenage girls who immediately understood just how sexy a good lean could be.

  She couldn’t even say when she fell in love with him. She always had been. It just took her time to realize that. Seeing him made her skin itch all over. She wanted to punch him and yank at his flannel shirts and to smell the scent of shifting in his hair.

  Those days were a blur to her now—completely overshadowed by what came later. But heartbreak can do that to you. It was as if she’d written those first memories down in a diary and then hurled the book into a fire. Only ash remained.

  Back then it had almost been a joke. Anna had the boy she was in love with—Alex—and Krista had hers. Her parents treated it as if Krista was just going along with the puppy love routine because her cool older cousin was. But underneath it all, Krista was deadly serious. She was in love with Bran, with every inch of his awkward teenage boy frame.

  They exchanged numbers and called each other every chance they could. They wrote letters—actual letters on actual paper. They texted and eventually sexted and had a plan to do more than just sext as soon as Krista turned eighteen.

  And then it all went south.

  Krista lived an hour’s drive from Bearfield, so seeing Bran in person was a rare treat. They’d meet in the library or the little park downtown or go for walks alongside the mountain creek. They held hands and talked excited and stared into each other’s eyes like the secrets of the universe were hidden within. And they kissed, oh did they kiss, but they never went beyond over-the-clothes stuff. They had a date planned, for the weekend after her eighteenth birthday. He was going to meet her at her parents’ house while they were away on business and he was going to claim her. He was going to make her officially his mate.

  But he never showed.

  He stopped returning her calls.

  He never wrote her another letter.

  Anna never said what happened to him. After the Brandon Incident, mentioning him at all was strictly verboten.

  No one was allowed to mention it. Ever.

  Krista didn’t tell her parents or her aunts and uncles and cousins to not say his name. They just knew. Brandon wasn’t just dead to them. He’d been wiped from history.

  That was five years ago and hearing his name still made her skin ache.

  She still dreamed of him.

  She’d spin complex narratives where she’d find he’d been kidnapped by pirates and she’d find him tied up in the hold. He’d be even hotter than before with rippling muscles and a desperate longing in his eye. In her dreams Brandon would apologize and sob with regret. He’d pledge himself to her forever and ever as the ship sank below the waters. He’d beg her to save him, but no, she’d leave him to go down with the ship.

  Her Brandon dreams were often like that—filled with petty revenge and high drama, intermixed with explosive sex scenes that left her feeling aroused and furious at herself upon waking.

  She’d had othe
r boyfriends since, of course. College hadn’t been one long dry spell, and New York had been full of single guys on Tinder happy to swipe right on a curvy girl like her.

  She’d told Anna she was over him.

  But she knew better.

  She’d never be over Brandon Carver.

  Some people broke an ankle as a kid and had a limp the rest of their lives.

  Krista had broken her heart too young, and was forever damaged.

  The tree lighting and Christmas carol ceremony in downtown Bearfield wasn’t far from her apartment. All morning long the sound of bustling tourists and sidewalk Santas with their bells rose up to her windows. The weather was nice and even though she really did have a lot of work to do for the foundation, she headed out to the ceremony.

  Anna had demanded, via text, to know what Krista was wearing and rejected the first three outfits until they settled on a pair of form-fitting black leggings, ankle boots, the ugly sweater that showed off her curves and a leather jacket. She looked tough and hot, she knew. And any guys that came on to her today could fuck right off.

  She wasn’t going to the town Christmas party to meet a man. She was going because someone from every shifter family had to be there.

  The old families in town still called the holiday “Yule” and they hid their pagan rituals amongst the cartoon reindeer and red-cheeked St. Nicks. It wasn’t just a party here. Not in Bearfield. On the darkest day of the year it was a moment to rededicate yourself to the community, to your neighbors, and to the Great Bear that dwelt in the mountain.

  Her dad had always likened it to a married couple renewing their vows. He’d always been romantic.

  Her mom had compared it to renewing a lease. If they didn’t pledge themselves to the Spirit, someone else would. She’d always been pragmatic.