by T. S. Joyce
Ash watched with her eyes so wide, the cold air threatened to freeze them open. Juno slammed on the brakes and drifted to a stop in front of the library. What the hell had gotten into her?
“Ash!” Juno said, hanging out the driver-side window. “Ash!”
Ash looked around. “Why are you yelling? You can see I’m looking right at you, right?”
“We got mail!” Juno crowed, holding up a fistful of envelopes. “Lots and lots of mail!”
Maybe her friend had been drinking. Ash should probably drive.
Ash stood while gathering up her purse and fancy but pointless interview boots and shuffled across the icy sidewalk to Juno’s car. But when she tried to dump her curvy butt unceremoniously into the passenger’s seat, she couldn’t because it was already taken up with about fifty colorful envelopes that were dripping off the seat and onto the floorboard.
“What is this?” she asked, picking one up to study the address.
Rogue Pride Crew
1010 Wayward Way, Tillamook, Oregon
The return address simply said Almost Alpha, Gray Backs, Damon’s Mountains
When she looked back at Juno, who was sitting on the open windowsill and hanging onto the roof of her car, she was grinning at Ash like her face was frozen.
“Is your mouth okay?” Ash asked, concerned.
“It’s Christmas cards from the Crews.”
Ash gasped and ripped one open.
Have an ornamental holiday season.
From Willa. And Matt. But mostly Willa because Matt didn’t want to take this picture but I made him so technically it’s from both of us. Drink lots of eggnog.
Willamena Barns
The picture was of Willa and Matt hanging upside down from a tree by ropes at their ankles. They were dressed in festive, sparkly-silver onesies. Like living ornaments. Willa was grinning from ear to ear but Matt, who was beside her, had his arms crossed and a grumpy look on his face. His branch bent so far down his head almost touched the ground.
Ash cracked up and handed it to Juno.
“Oh, my gosh, Juno! We’re in the Christmas card loop now!” Ash said on a breath.
“Yeah,” Juno whispered. “We finally have a Crew to join in. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Safety, eating together, and trying to get along—”
“No, no, no, not what a Crew means. I mean, now we have to join in on the fun, right? We have to come up with the best Christmas card picture to send to the Crews of Damon’s Mountains!”
“Oh. Yes, that seems important.” More important than getting along, she supposed. Which was good because Grim and Rhett and Kamp fought all the time.
“Get in. We have Christmas shit to buy.”
“W-what kind of Christmas…stuff?”
Juno was busy shoving the piles of holiday cards onto her floorboard to clear off the passenger’s seat. “We need three giant candy canes, six twelve packs of Pen15 Juice Beer, sixteen strands of holiday lights, and a baby miniature donkey. I’ve already called Remi. She’s going to figure out the timer on the new camera so we can all be in the picture.
Ash tried not to scrunch up her face as she sat into the seat, but she had concerns. “Umm, Juno?” she asked over the blaring hip-hop version of “Silent Night.” “I don’t think Grim will take a picture like that. He hates Christmas.”
“I’ve already got a plan for that part.”
“You do?”
“Yes. A coupon book of future blow jobs from you.”
“What?”
“Bribery, Ash. Take six to twelve for the team so we can get this picture.”
“Okay.” She still had concerns. “But I do that all the time anyways. It’s not really taking one for the team if I like it.”
Juno hit the gas and skidded on the ice for a second before the tires caught traction and catapulted them forward. She was wearing the biggest smile Ash had ever witnessed.
“Are you okay?” she asked her friend.
“I just love Christmas now! Everything is so different. Before, I was always rushing in to try and see you and Remi and my family in Damon’s mountains for a few days in December and then rushing right back out again. Not anymore! Now we have a real-life Crew, Ash! A real one that won’t disappear, and we get to build up holiday traditions like I used to do in the Ashe Crew, how you used to do in the Boarlanders, and Remi used to do in the Gray Backs. This is our holiday moment!”
Now Ash couldn’t help but get a little bit excited about the picture. Anything that would distract her from how bad she’d done in that interview. So okay…candy canes and beer and baby donkeys. She was on board.
No matter if she got a job right away or not, she was with the man she loved and she lived in the same trailer park in the same Crew as her best friends.
This was going to be the best Christmas ever.
Chapter Three
The trailer park was too quiet.
Ash scanned the clearing, listening. There was no throaty rumble of the logging equipment up the mountain, no scent of the exhaust from the processor, no country music blaring from Rhett’s jobsite. The birds who were stubborn enough to try to wait out winter in these mountains were even silent.
“Something’s off,” Juno said softly from where she stood next to her car with an armload of letters.
The chills up Ash’s spine agreed with Juno’s observation. “Is it Vyr?” Ash whispered.
“No. We would smell his smoke, and it would be raining ashes.”
The clouds above them were dark, but snow wasn’t even falling right now to have them guess at ashes.
These were the Red Dragon’s Mountains, and Grim had told her Vyr came back from time to time to scorch the earth and eat the ashes around the border of his territory, but this deafening silence wasn’t the dragon’s doing. He wasn’t quiet. They would’ve seen fire by now.
“I’m going to check if Remi is in the brewery.” Okay, it wasn’t really a brewery that the boys had behind the trailers. More like a shed, but the best damn beer brewed on this side of the country was made right there. Rhett had named it Pen15 Juice, a fact that always made Ash laugh when she thought about it, but not right now. Not when her arm hairs were standing straight up under her jacket and she felt lightning was about to strike.
Inside of her, the bear squirmed in discomfort.
“Remi?” Juno called as they made their way around the trailers toward the shed.
“Are you being a beer wench?” Ash asked, her voice echoing through the silent mountains.
“Ash! Juno!” Remi screamed from the woods. “Help!”
“Oh, my God,” Juno murmured, right before she threw the letters up in the air and Changed into her massive grizzly bear.
As the holiday cards rained down like snow on Ash, she gave her own bear her body. Remi was in trouble!
Adrenaline dumping into her bloodstream, Ash landed on all four paws and dug into the snowy earth with her long, curved claws as she bolted after Juno. All she could see from behind Juno was flying snow and bear-butt.
“Ash!” Remi screamed again.
Shoot, shoot, shoot! Maybe the Tarian Pride was here to finish Grim off! Or maybe the council of lion shifters was rebuilding and trying to recruit him! The woods were sailing by now, and it was all she could do to keep up with Juno. Remi’s pleading cries for help were rattling around in her head right along with her theories on what the heck could be wrong.
Maybe she’d fallen and broken an ankle, or perhaps one of the boys hurt themselves on one of the dangerous logging machines! Or an avalanche! Or, or, or—
Juno skidded to a stop in the snow so fast Ash ran right into her and they tumbled end over end until they landed at Kamp’s feet. Remi’s mate was leaned up against a giant pine tree, arms crossed, twig hanging loosely from his lips, glaring at two brawling lions and one pissed-off she-grizzly trying to stop the fight.
Grim, her scarred-up, fearsome, hellraiser of a mate looked to be successfully mu
rdering Rhett right now. There on the ground was the Christmas hat Ash had given Grim, and the three-way fight between Remi-the-griz and the two lions was so shockingly violent Ash stood up slowly with her big bear mouth hanging open.
What the fuck? she tried to say out loud, but it came out as grrrrrr. Then she snuffled at the end. It sounded like a bear-sneeze. Very un-intimidating.
This was fight number four, and it was only Tuesday, the second day of the week. She knew because she was very good at counting and two was a very easy number to count to.
The Reaper was on a fighting spree.
If she wasn’t fourteen percent worried about Grim’s teeth on Rhett’s throat, she would’ve taken a moment to admire his lithe agility and ability to murder, but as it stood, Rhett was in trouble.
Juno apparently figured that out at the same time Ash did, and they both bolted for the fight.
Kamp still looked uninterested in being a hero, so okay, it was lady-beast time. Girl power, lady prowess, woman speed, and— Oh, God, Grim was scary when he slapped a claw out like that. He probably wouldn’t hurt her, though, being his mate and all, so she spun away from the claws of destruction and then barreled right into him with her round, furry rump. He fell hard
On his back, Grim sank his front paws into her neck and shoulders before he even looked at her, and as she stood over him, staring into his empty yellow eyes, she regretted, with such clarity, exactly five things she’d done today. One, she’d smeared moisturizer on her toothbrush instead of toothpaste. Two, she brushed her teeth for a good four seconds before she realized it was coconut-flavored and slimy, not minty and crisp. Three, her socks didn’t match because she’d forgotten to put her laundry in the dryer last night, and one of them was an ankle sock that kept slipping down to the arch of her foot. That was the big reason she’d been distracted in the interview. Four, she’d agreed to help find a baby donkey, but it wasn’t baby donkey season right now and she had concerns about finding baby livestock in the dead of winter and would probably let Juno down. And five, her biggest regret, attacking the danged Reaper, thinking he wouldn’t hurt her. His claws were sharp!
She’d already had a weird day and he was making it worse.
Kisses not claws—that’s what mates deserved.
So…
She bit him.
Because good men should hear compliments when they did something right, but they also should get their asses handed to ’em when they messed up.
And he was messin’ up!
She sank her teeth right into his shoulder, swearing up and down in her mind that she would set the mountains on fire before she gave the Reaper a coupon book for blow jobs.
He extracted his claws, so she let him go as a reward for stopping the hurt. He bellowed a forest-shaking roar and buckled in on himself, thrashing in the snow. And then his lion imploded into a hunky, tattooed, mohawked man-form that was super cute, but also super in trouble.
When she sucked her bear in tight, she yelped at the pain of the quick Change. While she sat there on her knees in the snow, huffing and hurting, she mindlessly yelled, “You’re ruining Christmas!”
“What?” Grim groaned, holding his bleeding shoulder.
“It’s three days before the best day of the year, and you’re fighting with Rhett. Again!”
“Because he’s fucking with me,” Grim snarled, his bright yellow eyes on Rhett-the-hissing-lion.
When Rhett charged, Ash yelled as loud as she could, holding her hand up to stop him but, luckily, Remi-the-bear neatly swatted his legs out from under him and he smashed onto the snowy ground, chin first.
“How is he messing with you?” Ash asked, baffled about what could possibly have caused her mate to once again fight his own dang Crew.
Grim stood up and dusted snow off his dick. Snow. Off his giant, swinging, perfect dick. Focus.
He jammed a finger at Rhett and announced, “He got off his rig and made his way a damn mile to drop a fuckin’ Santa hat on my jobsite.”
Ash frowned and pointed at the red hat sitting in the snow. “That one?”
“Yep! And he gave me a Goddamn pebble that won’t stop talking to me. I’m not sleeping well because I can’t shut off the fucking Reaper. I just want to stay steady, but I can’t if my own damn Crew is making me feel crazy!”
“You are crazy,” Rhett gritted out after he Changed back into his naked man form. He already had one helluva black eye. Eek. They must’ve had a fist fight before they turned lion and tried to kill each other. Men. “I didn’t walk a mile in the snow to drop a stupid hat off to you, you dunce!”
Grim tried to charge, but Ash restrained him by the shoulders. “Call me a dunce again,” he challenged Rhett.”
“Dunce.”
Grim yelled a bellowing noise that echoed across the mountains. But thank the Lord, Kamp finally moved his ass off the tree to help because Ash couldn’t have held Grim back for long, and Remi and Juno were still bears.
“I gave you the Santa hat this morning,” Ash said. “Remember?”
A deep frown drew Grim’s dark eyebrows down low. As he stared at her with such confusion swimming in those striking gold eyes, she softened her tone. “Well, don’t ya? I bought it in town yesterday on sale, half off. I got two of them, one for me, too, and asked you to take a selfie this morning in front of ten-ten to send to my dad. Which you did.”
Grim huffed a shocked-sounding breath and staggered back a step. “I did?”
“Crazy.”
“Shut up, Rhett!” Grim and Kamp both yelled at the same time.
“Is no one gonna tackle the fact that our Alpha has a talking pebble in his pocket?” Rhett yelled.
Grim’s cheeks were red, from pain or exertion maybe, but Ash was real good at reading him, and she thought it was maybe from something else. Shame.
“I just…” he said, letting the words trail off. “I just wanted to…” His face twisted with anger. “Why are you still here?” he asked to no one in particular, and then he turned and strode into the woods without looking back. At the edge of the tree line, he shoved his feet into a pair of toppled work boots. Then he stooped and picked up a pair of discarded jeans on his way into the forest.
Ash was trying to remain serious and focused, but Grim was the hottest man she’d ever seen, and he was naked and had shoulders as wide as the broadside of a barn, tattoos on his back, and muscles everywhere. Every. Where. And an ass you could bounce a quarter off of. She didn’t really understand that saying, but lots of people in Damon’s Mountains had said it about the males with the muscle butts.
Compliments usually fixed things, so she called out, “Your bottom looks very nice. Very firm. I’m sorry I bit you! Kind of…” She checked, and he hadn’t even punctured her skin with his claws. He was upset with himself and confused, and she had a feeling the second lion in her mate, the Reaper, was playing mind games.
She mourned the loss of her shredded clothes for just a moment before she grabbed her wool-lined boots, pulled them onto her feet fast, and jogged through the crunching snow after him.
If he wanted to, Grim could disappear like a ghost, but he’d left tracks in the snow, deep ones like he was moving fast. The wind was strong and cold, and her skin was half-frozen, so it felt like an eternity before she finally saw him. Grim sat on a felled log, his jeans on but unbuttoned, his head in his hands, him rubbing his hair back and forth slowly like he did when he had a headache.
“You thinking?” she asked, closing the distance between then.
His shoulders lifted and fell with his sigh. “Trying to remember.” He forced a tired smile. “I don’t like Christmas much.”
“You don’t? Or the Reaper doesn’t?”
Grim leaned forward and captured her hand with his, pulled her between his legs and rested his head against her breasts and neck. “You are the cleverest person I’ve ever met.”
“Me? Have you been drinking?”
Grim chuckled warmly, and the sound thawed her skin. The
re was her man.
“I guess the Reaper doesn’t like it much.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t allowed to celebrate it after he was born. The council thought holiday sentiment would make me too soft. The Reaper feels the same.”
Ash cradled his head and ran her nails through his hair. “Oh, Grim, I’m sorry.” She hated what the council had done to him. Alienated him, made rules that he couldn’t have a mate, took his childhood friend, Ronin, away from him, ruined the holidays… They stripped him of joyful moments so he would be molded into the killer the Tarian Pride needed.
The council was all dead now, but that didn’t stop her from wishing them back to life so she could maul them all over again. And that was saying something because she was a submissive bear, not a war bear.
“I really love you, you know?” she murmured, scratching his head over and over. “And I really understand you. You’re doing good.”
Grim huffed a breath and hugged her closer, hiding his eyes from her. “I think you’re just supportive. I don’t know why, but to you, I can do no wrong. I wanted to bring you back here, put you in 1010, take you on dates and make your heart fall for this place. For me. I wanted to be a better Alpha so I could give you a Crew you’ll always be safe in. I wanted to hit logging numbers so Vyr will keep paying us. I wanted to give you a good life.”
“And you are.”
“No, I’m not. It’s not good enough. I’m here, disrupting work, fighting the Crew instead of leading them, going crazier—”
“You aren’t—”
“I am and you know it, Ash.” He softened his voice and repeated, “I am.”
“Enough,” she murmured, cupping his cheeks and lifting those blazing yellow eyes to her. Those were the Reaper’s eyes, but Grim sounded like Grim. That said one thing to her. The Reaper was compromising, even if Grim didn’t see it that way. “Grim, you push people away. You learned to do that from your time with the Tarian Pride. Anyone you paid attention to got ripped away from you, so this is how you were built. The people you care about the most, you keep your distance so you can keep them.”
