Page 10 of Saved By Her Guardian (Yuletide Shifters #4)

Aralyn was the coldest she’d ever been in her life when she slowly woke. Her wrists were particularly cold, and as she sat up and lifted her arms, she saw what looked like cuffs made of ice encircling each wrist.

Her breath puffed out in front of her in the frigid air as she sat on a bare cot in what could only be described as a cell. The bars were made of dark metal and covered with ice, and the stone floor and walls were shiny in places where water had dripped through cracks and frozen.

Where the hell was she? And what had happened?

She heard something whir and click, and then the smell of tobacco caught her nose.

She looked to the bars and saw Jack Frost.

He had icy-blue hair, the palest blue eyes, and a devilish smile.

“Hello again, Aralyn. Oh, you don’t recall meeting me before? Let me try this on for you.” He swiped his hand over himself and he changed forms before her eyes, turning into the ancient reaper. The same devilish smile remained though everything else about him had changed.

Her heart sank.

It had all been a trap? But for what purpose?

Then she remembered the feel of that rune-covered shard of stone in her hand, and how it had felt off to her but she’d been so determined to get out of her assignment that she’d ignored the red flags.

As Frost returned to his natural form, he took a long drag on his cigarette and then blew out the smoke. It hovered in the air above him like a wraith before it dissipated.

“Good news,” he said, sounding jovial, “while you failed to plant the shard in the Portal, you’ve got a chance at a new assignment anyway. I’m going to give you one more opportunity to help me.”

She rose to her feet, anger surging through her.

She tried to open a portal, but her magic was gone. The cuffs on her wrists felt heavier suddenly and she looked down to see them glowing.

“I’ve contained your magic, dear. You can’t go anywhere. Except to your new assignment where you’ll be bait.”

“What?”

“You’ll lure your mate here to my lair, and I’ll use him to draw out my brother. It’s possible my brother won’t leave the protection of his magical perimeter, and if that’s the case, then I’ll just kill your mate, along with any other shifters and elves I can take out.”

He chuckled when she recoiled in horror.

The book appeared in his hands and he waved it at her.

“You were so easy to con, Aralyn. Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you.

If only you’d accepted your lot in life as a reaper and done your job so Grim didn’t have to put you in my path, then you wouldn’t be in this position.

You’ll lure your mate here or you’ll die screaming.

” Frost tapped the edge of the book against his chin in thought. “Maybe you’ll die screaming anyway.”

While dread coiled in her stomach like a snake made of acid and lava, she still managed to lift her chin in defiance. “I won’t help you harm my mate.”

“Oh, I think you will. I’m already in your head, Aralyn. I can make you do whatever I want you to.”

“No, you can’t. My magic is neutral; it won’t help your magic at all.”

“I can still take it. I’ve never taken a reaper’s magic and turned them into one of my followers, but it doesn’t mean I can’t.”

She stared at him. She wanted to ask if he was joking, but there wasn’t anything funny about him taking her magic the way that he did to those with good magic. They became entirely new creatures, not knowing their families or friends and fully beholden to Frost.

Shuddering, she took a step back from the bars and he chuckled.

He took another drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke in her direction. She waved it away from her face as it seemed to cloud around her, coughing and trying not to choke on the thick smoke.

When she’d managed to get out from under the strange tobacco-scented cloud, she found herself alone, Frost gone.

She cautiously moved to the bars and touched them so she could lean as close to them as possible and see down the hall.

Her fingers froze against the cold iron, and she pulled them away. The cell door creaked.

She touched it again, pushing at it with her knuckles, and it swung open with another loud creak.

Holy crap, they hadn’t locked her in.

She didn’t stop to wonder why it was unlocked because she didn’t want to waste an opportunity. She stepped free of the cell, then closed the door behind her, listening intently to hear if someone might come for her.

When there was only silence, she crept down the hall toward a set of stone stairs. On either side of the hall were empty cells. As she reached the stairs, she hurried up them and followed the part of her that was connected to Maverick to get out of Frost’s lair.

She knew he was near Northernmost but outside the magical perimeter; she didn’t know how far away it was. And she wasn’t wearing very warm clothes.

There was a single door at the end of the hall, and she opened it slowly, peering out.

She saw only darkness.

But she could feel that someone was nearby, maybe several someones.

Taking in a deep breath, she could feel the connection to Maverick in her heart, promising herself that she’d tell him how sorry she was that she got herself in trouble with Frost trying to change her reaper destiny, and then she stepped into the cold.

She heard the crunch of boots on the ice and snow and knew it was now or never.

There were lights in the distance, the Well glowing in the darkness, and she knew she just had to get to the Well and she could get to Maverick.

As the steps drew closer, she ran as fast as she could, aware that a lot of things were against her at the moment, particularly the cold that bit at her exposed skin and made her regret not dressing warmer.

As the cold surrounded her and sank into her skin, she ran for the lights of Northernmost, determined to get to her mate.

* * *

Maverick roared again, his snow leopard furious that Azure had taken Aralyn from him. He’d been a heartbeat too late to save her, and now she was in Frost’s control.

“Hey, it’ll be okay. Santa’s on the way,” Heath said. “He’ll fix it. We’ll get her back.”

The other Guardians and security team elves gathered around him as he stared at the Portal. He held up the stone that Aralyn had been about to shove into the Portal to get a better look at it and realized it had runes carved into it.

“What the hell do these mean?” he asked.

Marcus, one of the elves and his alpha female’s father, took it from him and said, “I don’t know exactly, but this feels like dark magic. If Azure is who grabbed her, you can bet that she was given this by Jack Frost.”

The question was, what was she doing talking to Jack Frost or coming to Northernmost to put something into the Portal for him? She knew he was evil.

What the hell had his mate been up to while they’d been apart?

Santa strode toward them and Marcus handed over the piece of stone.

He let out a low growl and his eyes flashed purple for a moment. The stone shattered and turned to dust, and with a swipe of his hand, Santa sent the dust up into the air and away from Northernmost.

“Those were dark magic runes,” Santa said.

After learning what had transpired, Santa stroked his beard.

“The stone was carved with runes meant to alter the Portal to allow people with dark magic to come in. Right now, the Portal is only for good magic users, or neutral ones like your mate. But if she’d put the stone into the Portal, it would have had dire consequences. ”

“I don’t know how this happened,” Maverick said. He was entirely at a loss, and he didn’t know what to do. He looked toward Frost’s lair, and although he only saw darkness, he was sure his mate was there, somewhere in the cold, alone and scared.

He rubbed the space over his heart and growled.

“I need to get her.”

“Of course,” Santa said. He put his hand on Maverick’s shoulder.

“He obviously duped her. You said she didn’t want her assignment, so maybe it’s related to that.

But either way, I can get you past his magical defenses so you can find her, I’m certain he would have put her in the cells.

And if not, once you’re close, you should be able to find her. ”

Santa couldn’t come with them because it was obviously a trap of some kind, but he could send his magic with them to undo Frost’s defenses.

As they prepared to leave the perimeter, with enough males to combat Frost’s forces without leaving Northernmost vulnerable, he had the strangest feeling that Aralyn was near him.

He shouted for everyone to be quiet and when they’d all closed their pie holes, he could hear someone crying and the sound of someone running.

He knew it was Aralyn.

“Shit, it’s my mate!”

“Watch out for an ambush,” Santa warned. “Frost could be up to his old tricks.”

Maverick didn’t care, he just wanted to get Aralyn.

Racing toward the sound of her, he shouted, “I’m coming, sweetheart!”