Christmas Kisses Read online

  He kissed me then, and I responded with all my soul.

  “I thought of something,” he said, trailing kisses along the line of my jaw before claiming my lips again.

  “Something involving a bed?” I asked, on fire to feel his naked skin against mine.

  He chuckled and nibbled my ear, sending tingles down my spine. “Always that, but something else, too.”

  “Tell me.” I encircled his neck with my arms and went up on tiptoe to kiss him.

  “Our children, whether they end up blue or red dragons, will always have someplace they belong even if our damned clans prove intractable.”

  “Where is that?” I asked breathlessly.

  “With us. With our family,” he said. “The one we’ll create together. If we have to build our own clan, we damn well will.” He hugged me, nearly crushing my ribs. “But I don’t think it’ll come to that. Mother will be charmed by grandchildren, be they red or blue. Children bring people together, ever notice that?”

  “I’ve noticed that children don’t have the prejudices that adults do.” I kissed the tip of his nose. “It’s only when they’re taught to hate that they do. It’s not their natural instinct. Walk into any pre-teen classroom at the Zodiac Mountain School, and you’ll see that.”

  “We used to be that,” Orlando whispered in my ear. “And now, tonight, thanks to your wonderful witch, we’re that again. Let the force fields fall, Em, we don’t need them, do we?”

  “Not when we have each other,” I declared, and when his mouth covered mine, I was lost. No, I was found. I was home.

  The End.

  If you enjoyed Emily and Orlando’s story, you might like to share Marley and Donovan’s.

  You can find The Dragon, The Witch, and The Wedding here.

  Through the Blizzard

  by Dominique Eastwick

  Book Description

  Through the Blizzard

  Five years ago Oakley was banished from the snow leopard leap. When even his mate turned her back on him he left without a backward glance. Now living in the mountains of Wyoming he provides help to those who need it not only those of his kind the Sagittarius shifters but to other zodiac signs as well.

  Nova’s life had been blessed and easy. She lived in the sanctuary city of her people, her mate came to her early and she was adored. Or so she thought. When her mate is framed she is too young and naïve. Too late she realizes her folly, now with a new prime at the head of the family she is tasked with bring Oakley back. But will he have any place in his life for those who betrayed him?

  A storm is brewing can she get through to him or is it too late?

  Dedicated to Melissa Snark whose idea for the Zodiac Shifters has brought my muse new life.

  The Story

  The mountains of Western Wyoming, December 19th

  Lucky.

  Everyone thought Oakley of the Western North American snow leopard leap lucky. Or blessed. So very blessed he had found his mate so very young. Some waited decades or centuries to cross paths with their chosen one. He had been thirty-two, Nova twenty-nine, both still considered adolescents for their kind. So they had waited. Fifteen years of moving between leaps so they could be together.

  He would spend half the year with his leap or family and then travel to the sanctuary city on the lost island of Baltia in the Baltic Sea to spend the rest of the year, including the month their sign of Sagittarius ruled, with her.

  Everyone had been wrong. Cursed would be a better way to describe it. Five years ago, he’d never expected to be in this house alone. A house he had been building in secret for his mate. High in the mountains of Wyoming, isolated from the world, a place where the two of them could be alone. Alone. Though his kind loved to travel, and it was in their blood to explore, he wanted some time for he and his mate to be together with no one around them.

  For the last thirty-nine months, he had felt nothing. The emptiness had been a welcome relief from the early months where his heart had been ripped from his chest bit by bit. The fates did everything in their powers to bring those mated together. Unlike humans the shifters had no freewill. So each day that went by without contact had been harder and harder. In the past she had been young the need to mate hadn’t been as strong. But this Zodiac cycle she had entered into maturity and his need to be claimed by her became overpowering.

  Numb, he could manage. He spent his days adding onto the log cabin, collecting wood for the long winter, and hunting for food. When called upon, he share his home with other shifters as a safe haven from the Foniás, the slayers created by the gods to hunt his kind. But the nights were his, to read, meditate, or simply watch the snow fall. Snow for a snow leopard was like sun to a lion—it called to them.

  A peaceful emptiness had filled him until twenty-three minutes ago when someone crossed over the first of many wards protecting his land. Twenty minutes ago, anger had engulfed him, and he knew, she, Nova was close and approaching the cabin at a good run. He didn’t know what enraged him more, that she dared set foot into the world when the Foniás were so near or that she came to his land to search out him. He wouldn’t be fooled by her again.

  He saw her in the tree line. Knew she was trying to judge if the house was occupied. The windows always looked dark, an added protection allowing him to watch without being seen and giving those who would attack a false sense of security. He had even managed to vent the fireplace out of the side of the house so it didn’t give off the smoke from the false chimney on the roofline. Nova took a hesitant step into the open field. There was nothing to hide her from where she stood to the house. Even her white fur wouldn’t give her coverage she craved. He could sense her hesitation. And shut down the connection. If he could sense her feelings, she could sense his. At that moment, she sprinted.

  Damn it to hell. Nova had gotten back into his psyche.

  The knock sounded, and he debated ignoring it but, at this point, she knew he was inside. He would send her on her way. If she left immediately…even if she left this very second she would never make it down the mountain before nightfall, no matter how fast she could run. And his mate had never been forced to spend a single hour in the elements before now.

  Throwing the heavy oak door open, he glared. “What the hell do you want?”

  Teeth chattering and standing naked before him, she shivered. “Heat would be nice.”

  “I have a good mind to tell you to fuck off,” he snarled at her between gritted teeth.

  “It-it-it’s, really co-co-cold.”

  No matter how much bile he had built within him for this woman, he could not in good conscience let another shifter freeze. He stepped to the side .“Better to have you in than all my heat out.”

  “Thank y-y-y-you.”

  “Where are your clothes?” He led her into library where the fire was roaring. He would do anything not to look at her body, waging an inner battle with his leopard as it screamed for him to claim her. “I can’t believe you would be stupid enough to come up this way without a sack.” They always carried a set of clothes in their mouth when making any long trip where they didn’t have supplies stashed.

  “I dropped it over a cliff some ways back.”

  “Of course, you did. You must be the only snow leopard unable to scale a mountain,” he muttered then cursed as she crouched before the fire giving him a great view of her backside. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Not likely with this fire here.” She smiled at him then as their eyes met and the chill had her smile faltering.

  In the bedroom on the lower level, he reached into the right side of the closet and pulled out three Ziploc bags. He suspected she was an XL from the size of her ample, luscious hips. Each bag held; sweat pants and shirt, a tee shirt, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, and an assortment of toiletries. He had packs of supplies in men’s and women’s sizes from infant to adult 3x. Everything a shifter on the run and in need of help could require. Not fashionable, but they were comfortable.

 
; She hadn’t moved from her spot in front of the fire when he reentered minutes later. “Here. These should fit.”

  She looked from the bag to him. “What are these?”

  “Clothes.”

  “Yes, but why would you have them?” She turned the bag over. “And packaged…”

  “You lost all right to question anything I do, Nova. I am only housing you for the night. At daybreak, you can make your way back to where you came from.” He prayed to the fates that the looming blizzard would hold off. The last thing he needed was to be stuck in the cabin together for the last two days of Sagittarius when everything in him screamed to claim her.

  “Aren’t you even curious as to why I am here?”

  “Not really,” he lied. He was curious, but be damned if he gave her the satisfaction. “Get dressed, and I will make you something to eat. You must be starving.”

  He didn’t give her a second to respond he marching into the large kitchen pulled out a beer form the well-stocked fridge and gulped it down. How was he to make it through one night with her under this roof and not claim her as his?

  This was what Nova had expected. Actually better than she expected. Oakley had let her over the threshold. The odds had been against her getting this far, but it still hurt. She told herself again, she had no right to be hurt. No right to expect anything from him. He had been the victim, she the guilty party. She had come to make things right for Oakley. The leap had been in disarray since his banishment. Some had seen through the ruse to make him look guilty. Unfortunately, she had seen the truth of his innocence too late.

  She no longer wondered if he still wanted her. His hate had hit her like a brick wall when she entered his land. But now it took everything within her to stay standing when all she wanted was to curl up in a ball in the corner and cry. After pulling the sweats out of the bag, she hurried to throw them on. She had hoped the sight of her body might seduce him into thawing a bit, but it had only made him angrier and her more uncertain.

  Twenty minutes, she stood on the edge of the forest. Two things prevented her from turning back: the near certainty a Foniás was on her track and the smell of snow in the air. Shifted, her body was made for the snow. Or it should have been, but growing up in the city, she never once had even been camping. The closest she had ever come to braving the elements had been when she was a teenager alone on the beach and a storm blew in, soaking her to the skin in a heavy downpour.

  At least feeling was returning to her fingers, that was a plus, even if it was pin and needles and the blood flow started again.

  “Good. They fit.” He stood in the doorway, a steaming bowl in one hand, a small plate holding a sandwich in the other. Didn’t matter to her what was inside the bowl, only that it was hot and food. He placed them on the coffee table. “Eat. There are two bedrooms on this floor. I suggest you pick one after you’re done with dinner and, when you turn in, leave the bedroom door open so the woodstove can take the chill from the air. Be gone in the morning. Good night.”

  Night? Already? She looked out the window to find the sun had set. “I need to talk to you.”

  “No. You want to talk to.” He glared at her. “There is a difference.”

  “You were innocent,” she blurted.

  He met her announcement with cold indifferent silence.

  Finally, she tried again. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “I have nothing to say. You came a long way to tell me something I knew all along.” He turned toward the stairs.

  “Please stay.”

  “Why? So you can beg for forgiveness? Plead to have things go back to the way they were?” The cold hatred forced her to take a step back. “You’re forgiven. Do the words make anything better? There is no going back. I was banished, and the one person I thought would believe in my innocence turned her back on me.”

  Embarrassed to admit what knew he already knew she whispered, “I was scared.”

  “I never expected you to come with me. I only asked you to take my word.” There was nothing cold about him now he was a blazing source of anger. His hands were balled so tight at his sides, the knuckles were turning white. “I didn’t give two shits about your alpha or our prime. What I cared about was that when they found out I was innocent, you would be there. Hell, I ever harbored an inkling that for half a second you would be trying to prove my innocence. But you turned your back. So don’t ask to stay, now, when you couldn’t be bothered before.”

  She could offer no argument, nothing he’d have any reason to believe. In five years, she had done a lot of growing up. She had tried to follow him. But why would he believe that Hans had locked her in her room? For two months, she had peered out through the bars on her window, and no one except Hans or his betas had been allowed to interact with her. She had made the decision to follow her mate twenty-four hours too late. Hundreds of empty years lay before her.

  A door slamming upstairs jerked her from her thoughts. . She pushed the sandwich away and stood. She exited the library for the hallway that extended from the front door to the back of the house where she caught the gleam of a nicely appointed kitchen. Peeking in the first door, she found a sitting room with a view of the beautiful mountains beyond, but the chill inside indicated it hadn’t been used much. The other two doors led to the promised bedrooms.

  They were mirror images of one. Same light wood furniture, same simple patchwork quilt in shades of greens and browns, and identical braided carpet. In the end, she decided to go with the room the wind wasn’t battering on. Leaving the door ajar to allow heat to warm the room, she located a small half-bathroom under the staircase.

  After washing up, she wandered to the kitchen with its woodstove, refrigerator, and long table. Benches running down either side would seat quite a few diners. She opened a door to find a pantry, another to the outdoors, and a third to a set of steps leading into a basement . No art adorned the wall, no knickknacks or anything sentimental. Except an odd golden statue of a lion.

  Thankfully the large wood stove kept the back rooms near toasty. If it could only ease the chill in her heart.

  Oakley hadn’t slept, not a single wink. Nova, on the other hand had. He could sense her rhythm. The slow of her heart as she finally settled down. She had explored the first floor after he had gone to bed. Bed? No, retreated to the privacy of his room. Confined himself away for his own safety. If she had set foot on the second floor landing, he might have forgotten his vow never to mate. He would rather be alone than with someone who had no faith in his honor. Keep telling yourself that.

  This morning, he spent much of the time watching the snow come down. Even the weather seemed to be against him. When the control panel beside his computer desk alerted him that an outside door had opened then closed, he turned and left the room before he could think. The idiot was actually going to leave in whiteout conditions. She couldn’t see two feet before her. He wouldn’t try to make it down the mountain in these conditions. What the hell made her think she could? She’d barely made it up here in clear weather.

  Throwing the front door open, he could see no sign of her. About to strip off his clothing and shift, he yelled her name. He froze, surprised to hear her voice coming from behind him. “Did you need something?”

  He turned and found her leaning back to look at him from the kitchen. “You’re here.” Of course she is, you dolt.

  Nova didn’t answer him, so he closed the door and headed down the hall to her. “You didn’t leave.”

  “I don’t have a death wish, and I hoped you would find it in your heart not to send me out into it.” She kept her back to him, fumbling with something on the counter.

  “I wouldn’t send Hans out in this weather,” he admitted.

  “But then, Hans didn’t hurt you as badly as I did.”

  She spoke the truth. “Why did you go outside?”

  She stepped to the side to show a large metal bowl with snow in it. “I remembered how much you loved snow cream, and this is the pe
rfect snow for it. From the two cases of sweetened condensed milk in the pantry, I would say it’s still a favorite.”

  They had shared the treat once… “So you thought we would break our fast with snow cream.”

  “I’m happy to make something else, but this seemed like a good peace offering.” She offered a tentative smile. He knew he should tell her to go to hell. But something deep inside prevented him from destroying this very simple act of kindness.

  “Thank you I would love some.” He reached into the cabinet and pulled down two bowls. “There is no way you can get out in this. I wouldn’t even try it.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow.” She shrugged.

  “Perhaps.” But Oakley doubted it would be done snowing. This storm looked to dump a few feet.

  “I noticed you have a computer in the library. You don’t, by chance, have Internet?”

  “I have a sat phone and a hot spot I use, but coverage will be iffy with the storm. Why?”

  “I wanted to let my brother know I made it safely.” She scooped out two servings and pushed the bowl toward him.

  “Did you say you’d call? Should I expect the search and rescue units at my door?”

  She shook her head. “No, but it might be nice to let him know.” She took a spoonful of the sweetened snow and kept her focus on her food.

  He walked into the library, pulled the satellite phone from the desk, and placed it on the table before her. “Text him. When there is a signal, it will send automatically.”

  “Thank you.” She reached for the phone and tapped at the keys.

  He took a seat at the far end of the table. “How did you find me?”

  “Your sister.” She didn’t look up from the device.

  “Lieselotte told you?” He couldn’t believe his sister would betray him.