The Snow Leopard's Christmas Surprise

by Emilia Hartley

  Inside of him, his beast’s tail thumped. His beast begged to differ. It wanted to make the harsh woman scream their name. Gareth promptly told his beast to shut up. The monster that lived in his mind laid its head on its claws and gave him a level glare before turning its attention back to her. The beast’s tail thumped with impatience and made his head hurt. It was a loud message that Gareth didn’t want to hear.

  “Rhiannon Kendrick,” a monotonous voice said over an intercom. “Please report to the hearing or face insubordination charges.”

  The woman’s face fell. Her arms fell away from her body.

  Rhiannon.

  Can you not want any other woman, Gareth asked his impetuous beast? The thing growled at him without looking away from her. She was off limits. Forever.

  “You need to leave,” Rhiannon commanded him.

  “Do not think that this is over between us,” he warned her.

  Chapter Two

  She watched the dragon man walk away. Air filled her lungs for the first time. A hand reached out and patted her arm. Rhiannon looked down to an elderly woman wearing a name badge around her neck.

  “Whatever you did,” the elderly woman said, “he will forgive you. I’ve known my fair share of hot headed men in my life. He loves you, no matter what his actions say. You just have to give them space to vent their fire.”

  Rhiannon laughed, at once seeing the irony in the woman’s choice of words and appalled that anyone would ever think the two of them a couple. She didn’t try to correct her. The hearing was calling for her and she didn’t need insubordination charges on top of what she was already going through.

  The hearing flew by, but Rhiannon heard little of it. There was a dull roar in her ears that made her head ache and her eyes heavy. The stress of the month’s events were getting to her, she thought. Her supervisor would insist that she see an in-house therapist, one equipped to deal with the trauma that GOE agents often go through. She declined several times already. All she needed was to go home and open a beer.

  The silence of being home alone would reinvigorate her and allow her to clear her mind, even if she could not clear her conscience. If not, a good night’s sleep would do the trick. Yet, when she pulled into her drive-way she knew that wasn’t in the cards for her tonight. The hunter green truck parked outside her house might have been familiar, but it did not mean that it was welcome.

  Her former partner was inside already, having known where she hid her extra key because they worked together for almost ten years already. He set up camp on her couch while he waited for her to return. Tomorrow, it would be his turn to sit on the hearing. He would tell his side of the story, one that they both practiced.

  She ignored him and went straight for her fridge. The dull roar filled her ears again. She paused in the chill that seeped from her open fridge and closed her eyes. It eased her aching head only a little. With a sigh, she grabbed the last beer in the fridge and popped the metal cap.

  “To what do I owe the visit? You and I both know that we aren’t supposed to be seen together while the hearing is going on. They’re going to think we are corroborating our story.”

  She heard her old couch creak and groan as Everett stood to follow her into the kitchen. He paused in the doorway, blocking any exit, yet not quite filling the frame. Not like the dragon man from the Judiciary building would have.

  Rhiannon shook her head. She couldn’t be thinking about him right now. He shouldn’t even be a blip on her radar. He was a dragon shifter. It was his kind that rendered her parentless before the age of three. It was because of his kind that she couldn’t even remember her parents.

  She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, willing control to herself. Her life was sideways right now. That was why she was having such a difficult time. It was why her mind wandered in wayward directions. Anything to keep from thinking about what will happen to her boss.

  “We did corroborate a story,” Everett reminded her.

  Rhiannon shrugged. He wasn’t wrong. “Then you have no reason to be here. I wanted a night alone to drink myself into oblivion and fall asleep on the couch. You’re putting a serious wrench in those plans.”

  “Don’t blame me,” Everett said. “I’m here because Wilson asked.”

  Her world seemed to pause for a moment. “He went to you and not me?”

  “After your showdown with the dragon in the lobby of the Judiciary building, he thought it would be more prudent to ask me. All eyes were on you after that.”

  He was right. It didn’t keep her fist from tightening until her knuckles were white. Wilson should have trusted her to be discreet. The run in with the dragon man was an annoyance in her day. Nothing more.

  “Fine. What does he want? Aren’t we supposed to be laying low until this blows over?”

  “It’s not going to blow over, Rhiannon. Not with the woman’s testimony pitted against our own. We shot her. She might have healed quickly, but there’s still a scar.”

  Rhiannon closed her eyes and tried to draw in a slow, steady breath.

  “We have to turn the story against the dragons. It has to look like they’re lying to save their own skin. If our actions were truly self-defense and the woman turned on us, then Wilson has a chance to get through this without seeing the inside of a prison cell. Wilson has a plan that should help us be able to do just that.”

  She had a bad feeling and it made her chest tighten. Her breathing exercises were going to get her nowhere. Instead, she threw back the beer in her hand. It might help her relax, she thought. If not, it would at least drop her into a feeling of nothingness.

  Brushing past Everett, she sank onto the couch before looking up to meet his eyes. He didn’t move from where he stood in the kitchen doorway. Again, she was reminded of the dragon man from the Judiciary building. He would have towered over her partner. Whereas Everett has sandy blonde hair that he kept neatly cut, the dragon man had been more gruff and rough.

  What was wrong with her? Why did he keep interrupting her thoughts? Anger rolled through her. He was invading her personal space without even being near her. It was unbearable.

  “Tell me what Wilson wants,” she said to distract her mind from it’s dangerous path.

  Everett crossed his arms over his chest and pushed his feet apart. It was a sure sign that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “We have to fake a terror attack from the dragons. Wilson wants us to destroy a GOE building and make it look like a dragon attack.”

  She felt her stomach hit the floor. The feeling made her queasy. She set the beer on the table beside her and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. Did she really hear him correctly? Wilson was asking her to destroy part of her own job? Hell, he was asking her to throw away her career if she was caught.

  “No.” She shook her head. “We are not doing this. Do you realize how many lives that puts at stake? Sure, the woman was just one life in the face of many, but this could potentially hurt hundreds if not thousands.”

  Everett shook his head. “We’re going in during the wee hours of the morning when no one will be there. We place several small explosives near appliances that will create fire and then we get out. The building will go down without harming the ones around it.”

  “You’re talking like I’ve already agreed to this.”

  “Are you saying that you’re not going to help your father? He’s facing time in prison because he wanted to help humanity. He was trying to be a noble knight of GOE and this is how they want to thank him. I won’t stand by and let them do that to him. Why would you?”

  She dropped her head into her hands. She had no choice, really. She owed Wilson everything that she had. She would do anything for him.

  “Alright,” she said. Her voice was small. She didn’t want to be a part of this, but if this plan was what it took to set things right again she would follow orders. She was a knight of GOE, too. There would always be choices that would weigh on her conscience. All that mattered was
that they made the world safer for humanity. “I’ll do it. Drop the plans off tomorrow night, but don’t tell me when it’s happening until the night of. I don’t want to know much if anyone questions me.”

  Everett nodded. “Good soldier.”

  Was she, though? Was she a good soldier? The idea of following through with Wilson’s plans dropped a heavy weight on her shoulders that made her reluctant to step forward. Regret over what they did to the human woman made her nights sleepless. Everything they did was in the name of protecting humanity from a danger that could easily wipe out cities. Yet, here she was letting one invade her private thoughts at each turn.

  She was no longer the soldier that Wilson had groomed for GOE, but that didn’t mean she would turn her back on them. She would live with the guilt and pain if it meant a safer world.

  At least, that’s what she told herself as Everett saw himself out. There was a time when he would have stayed the night. Before Raph arrived on the scene, she and Everett slept together after most missions. The sex released the pent-up tension and adrenaline that built during the job. Now, she was afraid that he could see what she had become, that it disgusted him.

  Chapter Three

  After GOE tried to kidnap and murder Dakota, the shifters were allowed a bit more freedom. The exception was meant to escort Dakota to and from the hearings at GOE. She was understandably reluctant to appear in a roomful of the people that tried to kill her.

  Gareth, on the other hand, took the exception as a way to leave the territory when he normally shouldn’t have. He was restless with everything that was going on. Every time they stepped off the territory there were cameras in their faces and people shouting questions. There were women by the sides of the roads, lifting their shirts in exuberant display to perhaps become a dragon’s mate. Wes didn’t see any of them. Not that he’d been the kind to openly gawk at women before meeting Dakota. Gareth sneered at them.

  Maybe those kinds of women would have been fun to roll around with fifty years ago. Gareth had changed. His soul hardened each time he realized that he would live a long life with no one in it. That was probably for the best, he thought.

  Gareth was low on the chain when it came to the dragons. That was his own fault. Honor was what bound and drove every dragon shifter. It commanded their actions and their relations to one another. Drystan led them because his honor was far above any other dragon he’d ever met. His own honor had systematically been destroyed through his youth by his own hands.

  He snuck out of the territory or started fights with his brethren. He couldn’t help it. The fire that burned inside of him was too great at times. He feared that if bound he would unleash a fire on the whole territory. Instead of burning down his home he picked fights he knew he would lose with Elgar the old. He rutted with women he would never see again, knowing that none of them would ever be his mate.

  So, when his beast burned with the image of Rhiannon, Gareth decided that he had to put his body into motion. He drove his beat-up truck around the city of Bangor while the unusual scent of that woman haunted his senses. His beast pulled it back to the forefront of his mind each time he thought to push it back and forget about it.

  His knuckles tightened on the metal steering wheel. The thing was already bent in several places from Gareth’s anger. Living with another creature inside one’s head was not a pleasant experience when they could not agree. Perhaps that was where his fire came from. It was the two of them constantly butting heads.

  Find her. The beast thought to command him.

  You are not in charge here, Gareth told his beast.

  I could be if I wanted to. Go find her. She needs us, even if she does not know it.

  His beast was full of himself. She was a GOE agent. She was off the tables for the greedy beast. He didn’t know how to explain that to something that was built on urges and desires.

  Still, he found himself rolling down the window of his truck. Cool, night air flooded the cab. It filled the truck with a myriad of smells, ranging from car exhaust to rotting trash. Mixed beneath it was the scent of an unfamiliar dragon.

  Not only that. It was a female dragon.

  His brow furrowed. Why would a female dragon be wandering this Welsh city alone? They were fierce creatures, but Wales was a bed of fear and fascination when it came to their kind. Didn’t she know that?

  Gareth found himself following the scent of the female dragon as he drove through Bangor. It never seemed to grow any closer. Instead, he lost the scent. A new one tickled his nose and drove his beast into a shuddering frenzy.

  The woman is nearby.

  Stuff it, he thought, even though he turned the steering wheel in the direction of Rhiannon’s scent. It led him to a small, single story house with two cars parked outside. From the days of sneaking out of the Territory in his youth, Gareth knew how to be careful. He drove around the corner and parked on a side street to avoid suspicion.

  In the dark of the night, Gareth hopped the fences that cut the space behind homes into small, personal segments. Light glowed in the window of the home that smelled like the frustrating Rhiannon. He didn’t know exactly what he thought he was doing here. It was an odd place to find himself when he should have been hunting the female dragon so that he could take her to the safety of the Territory.

  Gareth slunk beneath the kitchen window. He knew it was the kitchen from the scent of mildew beneath the sink that was behind his back. Closing his eyes, he could focus in on the voices in the house.

  “We have to fake a terror attack from the dragons. Wilson wants us to destroy a GOE building and make it look like a dragon attack,” a male voice said.

  There was a long pause before anyone spoke again.

  “No. We are not doing this. Do you realize how many lives that puts at stake?” Rhiannon’s voice was familiar, even through the wall. For a moment, he thought she might actually have a soul. Then she spoke again. “Sure, the woman was just one life in the face of many, but this could potentially hurt hundreds if not thousands.”

  “We’re going in during the wee hours of the morning when no one will be there. We place several small explosives near appliances that will create fire and then we get out. The building will go down without harming the ones around it.”

  Was Gareth actually hearing what he thought he was? The GOE agents that kidnapped his cousin’s mate were planning on attacking one of their own buildings with the intentions of blaming it on him and his family. When would they stop? When his family was bound in silver or dead? They had done nothing to Wales. Not for a century. Not since Elgar’s mate died.

  He sat for a long while, head against the building. Gareth knew what he’d seen in her eyes earlier that day. It was a true emotional response; it was regret. This woman, Rhiannon, could be sensible, he thought. Gareth could confront her and talk some sense into her. He could try, at the very least.

  He cursed his relative for all that happened a hundred years ago. He cursed Elgar for the wrath that he’d brought upon them when his family only wanted to live their lives in peace.

  The sound of an engine rolling over brought Gareth away from thoughts of the Occurrence and back to the present. As he listened to the car leave, he pushed himself to his feet. Rhiannon was not going to like him and that was okay. All he had to do was talk some sense into her. He might not have been the best choice for this. It was a job better left for Drystan, but his leader wasn’t there right then.

  It was just him. He snorted, knowing that this was going to go south very quickly. He was about to walk into the home of a GOE agent. He would be lucky if she didn’t try to kill him right away.

  “What are you doing on my porch?”

  It seemed that he didn’t have to knock. She found him. A light flicked on to backlight her athletic form. He couldn’t see her face, but he was fairly certain she was glaring menacingly at him. She did it well. She looked like violence barely contained in skin-tight pants and a neat bun. He wondered what she would be like when
she let her hair down and slipped out of those skin-tight pants.

  He would bet good money that the violence in her stance translated to wild love making. She would mark him with her teeth and nails, coming close to drawing blood. Her dark, red hair would feel like silk over his bare skin.

  “What are you staring at?”

  He snapped back to the present and realized he was, indeed, staring at the woman on the porch. He shook his head to expel the racy thoughts that clouded his mind. He shouldn’t be thinking of a GOE agent that way. She would sooner slit his throat than sleep with him. Even if she did deign to sexual relations with him, she would most likely kill him in his sleep.

  The conversation he overheard came back and the fire of anger filled him again. This woman was tasked with starting a war between humanity and the dragons here in Wales. He couldn’t afford to let his thoughts slip into affection when it came to her.

  Something is wrong with this one, his beast whispered into his mind.

  Yeah, she’s the enemy, he told the beast.

  He envisioned the beast shaking its head. No. Something is wrong with her. She smells… not right.

  Gareth swallowed the sigh of irritation that threatened to rise. He had no idea what his beast was trying to tell him. The thing couldn’t tell him exactly what was wrong with her, of course. It could only state the same thing over and over again, to grate on Gareth’s patience.

  “I heard what you were told to do,” Gareth confessed. “Your boss wants you to destroy one of your own people’s buildings so that they can call us terrorists.”

  “You were eavesdropping on me?” Her voice was a growl, slithering out from between her clenched teeth. She stepped closer to him, completely unafraid of his much bigger form.

  “Truthfully, I came to pop in and say hello to my favorite GOE agent, but I saw that you already had visitors. I thought I would wait until you were finished.” Sarcasm dripped from his lips.