The Snow Leopard's Christmas Surprise

by Emilia Hartley

Dakota laughed softly as she held her hysterical friend. Clary wiped her budding tears away with the back of her hand as she pulled back. “I was safe, Clary. You don’t need to beat yourself up over this. If anything, we should go out and beat those guys up. They tried to drug you and I drank your drink.”

  Clary ran a hand through her messy blonde tresses. “That’s what I found out later. I panicked when I realized you were gone. What happened to you?”

  Dakota pushed her way into the room, not wanting to talk about what happened in the hall even if she was bursting with the need to share her night with someone. It wasn’t like she could call her mother up and gush over her exciting day. Boy crazy Clary would be happy to listen to her. She sat on the edge of her dorm bed and let a smile take over her face as she looked up.

  “I met a…” She couldn’t say dragon shifter. It would destroy everything. Especially if he was some kind of prince. It still blew her mind that the prince of the Welsh dragon shifters had slept with her. “I met a guy.”

  Clary’s eyes widened. She quickly shut the dorm room door behind her and rushed over to hop onto her own bed. As Clary settled in to listen to Dakota’s story, Dakota was trying to find a way to tell it without incriminating herself.

  “Remember the guy I talked to at the bar last night?”

  Clary’s eyes widened and she practically bounced with excitement. “You bet your ass I do! He was all about you until you walked away.”

  Dakota smiled. “His name is Wesley. When the guy that drugged your drink tried to take advantage of…” Dakota swallowed hard as she thought of how close she had come to real danger. “When he realized I drank your cocktail, he tried to take me into an alley behind the bar. Wesley caught on and came to my rescue. I don’t remember much of what happened, just that Wesley didn’t know what to do with a roofied girl besides take her home.”

  Clary’s eyebrows pushed together in worry. Dakota raised her hands in his defense.

  “Not like that. He didn’t know where I would be safe so he took me home with him and let me sleep off the drug. I have to say it was alarming to wake up in an unfamiliar room when I couldn’t remember the night before.” Dakota told her friend about how her text had helped to set things straight.

  “I see you’re not wearing the dress from last night. What happened to it?”

  Dakota felt her face warm. Clary took that as evidence and bounced excitedly again.

  “You slept with him?”

  Dakota waggled her eye brows suggestively and her roommate let out a howl of laughter before leveling serious eyes on her again.

  “How was it?”

  “You have no idea.” Dakota didn’t regale Clary with details. Those were too private to share, but she did let Clary know that he most definitely put her first. Dakota didn’t once mention that her lover for the night had been a dragon. That was one detail she would likely keep to herself for the rest of her life. Clary was appeased to know that her friend was not only safe, but ended up having the morning of her life, too. She was more than a little jealous, bemoaning how hungover she had felt after such a disappointing night.

  “Do you plan on seeing him again?” Clary asked suddenly.

  Dakota looked up from what she was doing. Her heart raced at the thought. Going against her own desire, she shook her head. “There’s no way we could be together.”

  Clary pouted. ‘You mean your lover isn’t your dragon mate?”

  Dakota’s head shot up. She felt the world fall out from beneath her for a second. Then, Clary winked and the world righted itself again.

  “I was kind of hoping to meet one while I was here, but it would be really hard to hide from the school. Those guys have got to stand out in a crowd. Don’t you think?”

  Dakota nodded. Her secret was still safe.

  For now. What would she do if it did get out? She couldn’t go home empty handed. She couldn’t go home and tell her mother that she lost her chance because she foolishly slept with a dragon shifter.

  Bea Brennan would implode from sheer impropriety alone.

  ***

  History class wasn’t as bad as Dakota had expected it to be. The professor that had mocked the GOE representative hadn’t mentioned the dragon territory once during her lecture, which surprised Dakota. Instead, Professor Taniff launched into early welsh history long before the rise of Dinas Emrys.

  Dakota even found herself somewhat enjoying the class. It wasn’t until the end, while she was packing up her notes and text books that the Professor became weird. She was walking between the desks, chatting with students to let them know she was there if they needed help later in the class. That wasn’t what Dakota found odd, even if professors were usually more hands off.

  It was when the professor paused at the edge of Dakota’s desk that warning bells went off in the back of her mind. Looking up, she found Professor Taniff practically glaring down at her while her nose flared. Dakota barely said a word at all during the lecture. She didn’t know what she’d done to earn such ire.

  “I-I’m sorry?” Dakota stuttered under the woman’s indomitable gaze.

  The professor seemed to wake from a haze. She shook her head and plastered a smile across her face, revealing the crow’s feet that touched the corners of her eyes. “Apologies. It seems my tea hasn’t quite enough caffeine to keep me going.” Her head tilted to the side as she studied Dakota. “Did you enjoy the visit to the ruins the other day?”

  Dakota wasn’t sure how to answer. The woman clearly had no regard for GOE and brought her student far too close to the Snowdonia territory. Yet, Dakota woke there only two days ago and threw away her fears to sleep with the dragon man that helped her.

  “It was okay,” was all Dakota could manage.

  She gathered her books and her bag before the professor could launch into anymore conversation. There were other classes to get to. There was a night that she had to forget about. She left the strange professor behind, in a hurry to get to her next class across campus.

  Outside, the weather was a little chill, even if the sun was shining. She ducked between buildings as she tried to find the quickest way to her next class.

  Dakota felt the hair standing on the back of her neck as she walked between buildings. She reached up to rub the tingling skin. Her mind was filled with the events of the day with Wesley. Each movement reminded her of how the dragon man had touched her. In the spare moments between classes, she thought of the laughter they shared over lunch, the stories of his homeland that he’d fed to her had been more filling than food. She’d allowed him to put his phone number into her phone, giving her the choice to call him.

  Even after all that she’d enjoyed, the nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that it would come to bite her in the ass. She tried to shake off the feeling of being watched. It was only years of being told not to walk down alleys, she told herself. This was a college campus. She was safe.

  She pressed on until a figure stepped out in front of her. She startled, stepping back. Another college student stood before her, his beautiful face irritatingly familiar. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. He stepped forward, his nose flaring. What was with people today, she wondered? Was he smelling her?

  “Excuse me,” she said before trying to duck around him.

  An arm snaked out and grabbed her by her waist before she could get past him. He jerked her close to his body and she heard him take another deep breath through his nose. She knew the feel of his muscles around her, the immovable strength that they carried. Though, she had never felt the promise of violence in a dragon’s grip before.

  Her heart thundered. She finally recognized where she’d seen him before. He was the student from the introductory seminar that had caught her eye. She had drawn his face in her journal during the seminar, his attention on her and her roommate.

  “Let me go,” she growled. She kicked at his knees with the heels of her feet.

  “Why do you smell like red dragon filth?” he growled into
her ear. She felt the cold spike of fear push through her.

  There had been times that she’d been in danger before. Her body had nearly been violated outside the pub from the other night, but this was a whole new fear. She knew from the rumble in his voice that if she didn’t get away from him, her life was at stake.

  “Could you be the young brat’s mate?” he asked, laughter on his lips as he held her tight. “This ought to be fun, then. As you should understand, I have to report you to the Guardians. You’ve been in contact with a dragon. It’s the right thing to do.”

  The word mate fumbled through her panicked mind. Could she really be Wes’s mate? It seemed impossible. They’d only just met. As the new dragon moved his grip from her waist to her arm, she thought back to how she felt in Wes’s presence. She’d been safe and happy. He had fed her stories and made sure that she came first, in everything that they had done.

  Mate.

  The dragon dragged her to the Guardian’s office on campus. He armed the door open before shoving her toward the man with the unusually thick moustache. Her feet tangled beneath her, but she caught herself on the nearby desk and righted herself. A small voice in her head told her to run as she looked up at the moustache man.

  “Why are you bothering me, Raph?” the man grumbled.

  “I have a little something that should help you in our mission, Wilson.” The way he addressed the man with the moustache felt demeaning, dripping with mockery. “This here is the mate of one of the younger dragons. You can deport,” Raph put air quotes around the word, “the girl and cause quite the stir in the red dragon territory. Her mate should be so enraged that he slips up and breaks every law set in place. When he does, you can take hostile measures. They won’t react kindly to her or her mate’s death, giving you the chance to do away with them all once and for all.”

  Wilson grinned, his teeth showing beneath the caterpillar that lived over his lip. Dakota chewed on the inside of her cheek. She glanced around, feeling true fear. She didn’t know what the dragon named Raph meant by deport. It surely didn’t mean the true sense of the word.

  “My degree,” Dakota realized. The words escaped her. “My future…”

  The man with the moustache looked to her. “I wouldn’t worry about that anymore, child. Yours will be the death that helps spur the extermination of dragons in Wales.”

  Death? She shot to her feet and darted to the door behind Raph. He was faster than she was. He caught her by her waist again and swung her around. Wilson nodded to a secretary and she stood, pulling the blinds down on all the office’s windows. Dakota growled, a sound that she’d never made before.

  She had dreams that she’d worked too hard to give up on. She had a man who could possibly love her without holding her back. Her elbow flew back into the dragon’s face. She felt his nose crunch beneath the point of her elbow. Reflexively, he dropped her.

  Her feet touched the floor and she wasted no time to wonder how she’d been able to break a dragon’s nose. She launched herself toward the door.

  “I would calm down if I were you,” Wilson said.

  Dakota paused with her hand on the door handle. She looked over her shoulder. He held something black in his hand, a gun. It was aimed at her.

  “If you leave the room, I will shoot. I can easily tell the rest of the faculty that you are a dragon terrorist. You came here to attack the Guardians in defense of your precious dragon lover. When we caught you trying to plant a bomb, you attacked us and we took self-defense measures. Either way, your new mate gets his panties in a bunch.

  “It’s your choice if you want to die here or die later.”

  She whimpered, letting herself fall to the floor. Swallowing the weak sound, she pressed her head to the cold floor and let it clear her mind. It was better that she choose to live for a little while longer. It would give her time to escape. It would give her time to a chance to, at the very least, put a wrench in their plans.

  Slowly, she forced herself into a sitting position. Raph stomped over to where she sat. Blood trickled down his face and over his chin. Angrily, he grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. She knew that her arm would bruise, but it was worth it for what she had done to his face.

  “You’re a dragon yourself,” she hissed, hoping to oust him to the guardians.

  She glanced to the man in the moustache to see his reaction, but nothing happened. He went about his business, barking orders to his employees now that Dakota had given up. Raph grabbed her face, his fingers pressing into her jaw, and turned her to look at him. His fingers burned with cold.

  “You bet your American ass that I am,” he growled into her face. “And I will see that all of the red dragons are pushed from the home they took from my family. It was never theirs.”

  He threw her forward. The man in the moustache motioned for her to walk. They led her out a back door to a black van with a Guardians logo on the side of it. They looked official. If anyone bothered to look at them, it would seem like a student was being sent home after having a run in with a dragon. It was only part of the truth.

  She wasn’t going home, though.

  It made her heart thump heavily inside of her chest. She placed a hand over her heart and willed it to calm itself. She climbed into the back of the van and promised herself that she would get out of this alive.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I smelled you on a student today,” his mother growled when he answered the door. The human woman with thin gray streaks in her hair pushed past him into his territory, trailing the scent of books and old dust with her.

  Wesley could do nothing as the small female fumed. He couldn’t be angry that she’d invaded his home like he would have if she were anyone else. He was bound to honor this woman, his mother and the mate of the head of the Welsh Dragons. She squared blazing eyes at him and stepped closer. Her finger pressed into his chest and he could do nothing. He had to endure her anger.

  “Why did I smell you on a student in my class when the rutting night is still two weeks away? When my son has chosen not to partake in a rutting night in years?”

  In her mate bond, not only had she benefited from the extended life of a dragon, but she had picked up their sense of smell, too. Wes was a little surprised that she hadn’t formed a beast of her own. He imagined that she would be a coal black monstrosity that flew over Snowdonia to terrify away those that might hurt her clan, as fierce as this small human woman was.

  It made him wonder, if only for a moment, what kind of beast his Dakota would have been if she were one of their kind.

  “So? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  He was jerked back to the present by the woman’s fisted hand in his shirt that yanked him forward as though he were a small child again. Wesley’s voice cracked. “She’s my mate, ma.”

  Her face lit up. All the burning anger that she once held was chased away by pure joy. She threw her hands into the air in celebration.

  “It’s about damn time,” she cried. “Do you know how long I’ve been dragging students to the eastern ruins just because I knew that my own son couldn’t stay bound to the earth like his father demanded?”

  Realization hit Wes like a ton of bricks. Though, he suspected the idiom would be lost on him if he were to be hit with a literal ton of bricks. It wouldn’t hold a candle to the way he felt as he stood in front of his mother.

  “You’re telling me that you orchestrated that?” he snapped. “You are a meddling Halfling.”

  “Your father certainly has called me worse. Halfling? Really? I’m fairly certain Tolkien did not envision a rare beauty such as myself when he envisioned his Hobbits. Anyway, I have to look out for you, don’t I? I am your mother and it was about time that you found yourself a mate.”

  “Oh, yes. Great idea, mother. You found me a woman that won’t even talk to me. She went back to her life and forgot about me while I’m still trapped here.” A vase on the hearth mantle cracked. Ceramic pieces shot across the room. H
e thought about Dakota day and night. There was no amount of work that could fill his time - that could chase the memory of her straddling him from his mind.

  The iron bed that he’d begun work on the day that he met her was shoved to the back of the workroom once he realized that she would never come back to him. It became a pointless dream. She had a life outside of Snowdonia that meant more to her than he did. It was reasonable, he told himself. They knew each other for only the span of a night.

  Instead, he forced himself to remain busy by forging tools and weapons that they would sell to markets. People had a large fascination with the days of old and the things used in them. Mostly weapons, Wesley thought. Men loved to buy swords that their ancestors could have used, when most of their ancestors probably had lived their lives as farmers and never touched a sword.

  “You should go to her. I will speak to your father about you leaving the territory. You aren’t the face of the Welsh dragons the way that he is. No one will recognize you aside from her. Go and win her over so that you aren’t forced to spend your life in loneliness.”

  Wesley shook his head. “No. She made a decision and I will honor that. She walked away and hasn’t called since. What do I have if I force her into a life she does not want?”

  His mother slapped his cheek, lightly, but with enough force to bring him back to the present. “You are her happiness. There aren’t many women in the world with a soul mate. Do you think she would live a happy life if she gave that up? Sure, dragons can be hot headed and controlling. They can be needy man children and they can be kings. But, at the end of the day, they have a soul just like anyone else.”

  As they were talking, Wes felt his stomach hit the floor like a sack of stones. He fell onto the nearby couch, dumbstruck. It was a feeling that he’d never felt before in his life. It was inexplicable, yet his mother took one glance at the stupid look on his face and her own face went grim.

  “Something is wrong with your mate,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Your father had that look when I cut my thigh open.”