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

After spending the night patrolling the grounds and exploring the old church, Aralyn had fallen into a restless sleep during the day.

The bed in the abbey was old and lumpy, and even though she’d lit a fire in the potbelly stove in the room, she hadn’t been able to chase the chill out of the air.

She’d have given her left arm for an electric blanket, but then again, she didn’t have access to electricity anyway.

In order to charge her cell phone, she’d had to walk into town and find the library, where she’d sat at a table and read while her phone charged.

After she’d stopped for food and supplies, she returned before sundown and changed into pink sweats and her favorite puffy coat. She’d decided to start by weeding around the church and abbey and had located a shed with tools and gardening supplies.

Church had kept her company, following her as she made her way around the buildings, pulling weeds and trimming back shrubs and plants that hadn’t been tended to in a long time. Everything was overgrown, and she knew it would take a while for her to get through this part.

As she’d settled back on her heels and her stomach had growled, letting her know it was dinner time, she’d heard the front gate squeak.

Someone had opened the gate!

Fear shot through her for a moment, but as quickly as it appeared it faded, replaced by curiosity and something else she couldn’t quite place.

Gathering her courage, she left her tools by the wheelbarrow and walked toward the front of the church, calling out a who goes there greeting and hoping it wasn’t grave robbers.

Because goodness knew she didn’t have the wherewithal to actually fight someone. Church would have to do that.

And then she’d stepped onto the gravel path and seen him .

Holy crap, they made hot males in Kentucky.

He was tall and broad shouldered, and she could tell by the way his leather jacket hugged his upper body that he was stacked with muscles. There was something feral about him, something otherworldly , and her brain thought it would be a good idea to snuggle right up to him.

So she put the kibosh on those entirely strange, sexy thoughts and focused on figuring out who he was. He sure didn’t look like a grave robber. He looked good enough to eat.

Focus!

Maverick the snow leopard.

She’d never met a snow leopard. Aside from growing up in a reaper-only town and going to a reaper-only school, she’d only had chance opportunities to cross paths with shifters here and there over the years, and the few she’d met had been wolves.

Something was intriguing about this Maverick guy.

As a certain word surged in her head and every feminine instinct in her wanted to figure out how to get naked with him, she pushed away the word and stared up at him.

He was so close to her she could feel the heat from his body and she thought she might drown in the intoxicating scent rolling off him, all leather and male and dark nights filled with promises.

She was going to spontaneously combust.

Or melt.

Mate.

Damn it! She tried to push the thought away, but it was there, like a neon sign on the roadside.

He was her truemate and she did not have time for this!

She’d just gotten the worst assignment in the history of reapers, and she had to figure out how to get back in her uncle’s good graces so she could not only not be assigned a literal dead-end job and also not have to reap the souls of children.

So this mate thing?

Not exactly in line with her plans.

She told him she was a reaper and his gaze had grown more intense, his eyes glowing amber and the mind-boggling scent of him deepening.

What would he think about her now that he knew she reaped souls?

“Are you okay?” he asked as he stared down at her with his yummy scruffy chin and plump lips.

Yeah, she was fine. She was just having a mental crisis and couldn’t stop picturing him naked.

“I’m good. You?”

Okay, she sounded like an idiot. Shaking her head, she said, “Sorry. I’m out of my element here.

It’s just me and Church, and this cemetery is full, so no one should be here except for maybe the ancestors of any of these witches and warlocks who come to pay their respects.

” She waved her hand absently toward the gravestones.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, and she was aware that he’d already asked that, and she hadn’t answered.

It took only a heartbeat for her to make a decision that might probably change the whole course of her life.

“Would you like to come into the church? It’s chilly out here.”

“Sure.”

She led him to the abbey and put a kettle on top of the pot belly stove, tucking a few more logs inside to get the fire stoked. “I just got here last night. It’s a punishment.”

He took off his leather coat, and she didn’t blink for quite a while as she watched him hang it up on a hook by the door.

He was as muscular as she’d thought, his shirt hugging his body like a second skin.

She took off the work apron and her coat and draped them over the bed.

He sat on one of the two old rocking chairs, which creaked under his weight, and he froze with a grimace before settling into it.

She joined him, telling him about her first assignment out of reaper school, her uncle’s punishment, and the fact that she had only a supernatural dog for company.

“So you can’t leave?” he asked, looking around.

“I can leave during the day, but I have to be back at sunset and stay until dawn. Sometimes people think there’s magic in old witch and warlock bones and will desecrate graves to steal them, so I was assigned here to stand guard with Church and also clean and tend to the church and grounds.”

“That’s why your last name sounds familiar. Grim’s last name is Lethe. I remember hearing Santa mention him.”

“He and Santa don’t really get along,” she said.

“Uncle Grim is neutral like all reapers, but he tends to lean more to the less-good side of the neutral line and does what he wants. My parents weren’t together when I was born, so I took my mom’s last name.

My father and his family didn’t want anything to do with me and my mom because of Grim.

I never talked to them, but my mom - who always said Grim was a good guy at heart - said my father thought Grim wasn’t a good guy, because good guys don’t do evil things for fun.

So I can see why Santa wouldn’t want to associate with him. ”

When the kettle whistled, she made tea for them, setting the cups, spoons, and a box of sugar cubes on a small, rickety table between them.

He told her about his alphas having a party for their baby, and that he only had his grandma left in his family, and his need to return to Northernmost in the morning.

“This is a rough time of year for you guys,” she said. “Having to watch for Frost and keep everyone safe.”

He stared at her intensely. “You can’t leave,” he said.

She opened her mouth to remind him that she could leave, she just had to return, but then she realized what he’d really said. He had to leave because his duties were to Northernmost.

“Oh, damn,” she said. “You have to leave.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m honor bound to report back for duty in the morning. This is the time of year Frost ramps up his attempts to take over the Well. I wish I didn’t have to leave, especially now that I know you’re here.”

She smiled at him and a pang of sadness hit her.

“We have to do what we have to do.”

He let out a low grunt that she guessed was from his leopard, a rough sort of snarl that made her spine tingle.

They talked for a while longer and finished their tea, and then they ventured back out into the cold and darkness and he helped her with her weeding project.

They worked mostly in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Every so often, their arms would brush as they reached for the same tool or cleared debris side by side. The first time their fingers touched, a tingle shot up her arm and she glanced at him.

He met her gaze, his eyes molten amber and glowing faintly.

“Did you feel that?” she whispered.

His jaw ticked and he nodded. “Every time we bump into each other, my leopard snarls in my head to drag you into my arms and never let you go.”

It was hard to look into his eyes. It made something tighten in her chest. “Same. But I don’t have a snarling leopard in my subconscious.”

“I didn’t know why my leopard was bringing me here, I just knew there had to be a reason for it. It’s because we’re mates.”

She sat back on her heels and looked at him without turning away from the intensity of his gaze. She felt like he could see right through her, and she liked it. She liked being with him, liked talking to him. They were pulling weeds for goodness sake and she was having the time of her life.

The feelings hammering in her heart weren’t born of lust but of something deeper and more precious.

“I feel it too. It’s like my body is suddenly attuned to you.”

“Mine too.”

There was a moment where time stood still in the way she’d read in old romance novels she’d snuck out of the school library. Cliched but accurate.

Her gaze dropped to his lips and he let out a low purr.

He pulled her close and she tilted her head to meet his lips in a kiss that seared her to her very soul. Her heart ached as the passion flared between them, and then Church howled and the kiss abruptly ended.

She grumbled out a sigh and looked over her shoulder to see Church sitting on his haunches and looking at her.

“He’s got great timing,” Maverick said.

“Clearly,” she said with a snort.

With the passion waning after Church’s interruption, they turned their attention back to the task and shared stories of their pasts.

She envied him the close-knit snow leopard community and the friends he’d made in Northernmost. She didn’t have any close friends because she was Grim’s niece.

In another world, she might have been the most popular girl around because people wanted to get in his good graces, but he scared the living crap out of everyone, and no one wanted to mess with anyone related to him.

When the day dawned and their time together had drawn to a close, she hung up her apron and faced him. “I can’t believe how fast the night went when I had you to talk to.”

“I’m glad I could hang out with you.” She walked him to the cemetery gate. He stared down at her and she could see the conflict in his eyes. “We exchanged phone numbers, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.”

It seemed wildly unfair, but that was the way of things sometimes.

She put her hand on his arm and said, “You have a job to do, and so do I. You have to go back to Northernmost and I have to stay here. But Christmas will be here before you know it and you can come back to see me then. In the meantime, we can talk on the phone and text whenever we want.”

It wasn’t much but it would do, because what the hell choice did she have?

She was being punished and she didn’t want to know what the punishment for bailing on her punishment would be.

He lowered his head and kissed her, and once more, the world dropped away and it was just the two of them.

Her heart ached as the kiss ended and she thought she might cry.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re my truemate, Aralyn. I want to break my vow to Santa and the Guardians and stay with you.”

“I can’t let you do that. The Well is too important to good magical people to lose even one Guardian. Besides, it’s only a few weeks. And maybe by the time Christmas is over, I’ll have figured out a way to get a new assignment that doesn’t rob me of my magic.”

He snarled. “I hate this. I hate that I just met you and I have to leave.”

“I hate it too.” She kissed him again and said, “Call me when you get to Northernmost so I know you’re safe.”

“I will.”

With a final kiss, he walked away, his shoulders hunched as if he were carrying a heavy burden. As heavy as her heart was as she turned and walked back through the double gate, closing them with a squeak and a clang.

Church was waiting on the cobblestone walkway.

“Why did he have to show up now?” she whispered. “Now, when I’m stuck here in punishment and can’t be with him?”

Church whined softly and nudged her with his nose.

She scratched behind his ears and sighed.

“It’s just not fair. He has to leave to protect the world’s magic and I have to babysit a graveyard.”

Church barked once, the sound echoing in the early morning.

“I know, I know. He’ll be back. I’ll be here. But damn, I miss him already.”

She’d been punished, exiled to a cemetery where no one but people with bad intentions showed up, and she’d met her truemate. She was thankful she’d been assigned there just because she may never have met Maverick if she hadn’t been, but now that he was in Northernmost and she was stuck?

She hated it.

Hated being a reaper.

Hated Grim.

Something had to change. And she had until Christmas to figure it out.