Page 2 of Found By Her Guardian

“Now,” Jack said, lifting his cigarette, “we wait. And we watch.”

“For?”

“The right opportunity,” Jack replied, setting the vial on his desk next to his spellbook, “to see what my brother will do when he’s forced to choose.”

“Choose what?”

Jack smiled. “The Well or his people.”

Winter McAdams had been a Guardian for a long time, but he’d never seen weather quite like the storms Jack Frost had been whipping up in the days leading up to Solstice. He was thankful he wasn’t as bothered by the cold as others were because he was a polar bear, but cold was cold, and it was cold in Northernmost.

Putting on his thick parka in the security office, he clipped a walkie to his belt and rummaged through the bin for gloves. Something prickled inside him and he straightened and saw a small group of males walk through the security office. They were elves who were part of the security team, but the one who stood out was a new recruit named Seth. Not necessarily because he was taller or more muscular than the others, but because he had an air of power around him that Winter couldn’t place.

He was a warlock who had come to join the security team, but none of the Guardians had worked with him. He worked strictly with Santa and was always guarded by a handful of elves as he moved around Northernmost.

“Yo.”

Winter shook his head to get his thoughts back on the task and turned to see Chase, one of the snow leopard Guardians, holding out a pair of gloves. “Oh, thanks. I was looking for these,” Winter said.

“You’ll need them. I’ve been inside for ten minutes and I’m still thawing,” Chase said. “Did you hear about the newest one of us to find his mate?”

“Gabriel?” Winter asked, finding a fleece-lined stocking cap and pulling it down over his white-blond hair. Gabriel, one of nine Guardians who guarded the Well of Magic, had found his mate in a dream walker. Ana was the reason their people knew that Jack Frost, that son of a bitch, had teamed up with Nightmare, the epitome of bad dreams.

“Yeah, he’s damn lucky,” Chase said. “I can’t wait to find my mate. My mom suggested I ask Santa for my mate in my stocking this year.”

Winter snorted. “If only it was that easy.” Winter was also hopeful to find his mate soon. His older cousins, Storm and Hunter, had found their mates in the last couple of years, leaving Winter the only unmated single male left in his family.

“Maybe this is our year,” Chase said. “What’s the saying? Hope springs eternal.”

“Maybe.” They fist-bumped and Chase left the office while Winter continued to get ready. Once he was outfitted for the blistering cold, he checked in with the security office leaders and met up with the three elves he was on patrol with.

Stepping out into the cold, he growled at the way the cold tried to suck the warmth from him, then looked up at the sky. The Northern Lights danced in the darkness, their lights mirrored in the Well of Magic, the source of the world’s good magic.

If Jack Frost had his way, the Well would be tainted with evil and good magic would die out. And that was something that the Guardians wouldn’t allow. Even if shifters didn’t use magic themselves, they’d dedicated themselves to protecting the Well, Santa and his elves, and all good magic users.

Jack Frost needed to get over his vendetta and stop trying to take over the Well. He hadn’t succeeded yet, and he wouldn’t. Not as long as Winter and the other Guardians had anything to say about it.

Turning his attention away from the short conversation with Chase about truemates, Winter moved through the snow-covered space around the town of Northernmost, safe under a protective, magical perimeter, and began his patrol.

He would think about finding his truemate later.

True Montgomery shook out her wrist, then picked up the tool again, carefully carving away another small section of wood on the figurine. The pale gold wood curled smoothly away, allowing her to define the wing of the owl figurine she was nearly finished with. The rest of the owl family was in a box, wrapped for travel, but she’d run out of time to finish the final one after an unseen knot was revealed and ruined the other owl she’d carved, forcing her to start over.

Her gaze lifted to the old-fashioned clock on her desk, the gold bells on top seldom used because True was an early bird and rarely needed an alarm. And the bells clanging her awake from dreams tended to freak her out more than simply wake her up.

“True,” her mom, Sabine, called from down the hall.

“Yeah?” she called back, turning her gaze back to the small owl.

“We need to go. Are you packed?” Her door creaked as it opened and True slid the blade along the owl’s tail feathers and put it down.

“Five minutes?”

“You said that ten minutes ago. Oh, holy crap, you haven’t packed?”

“I packed, I packed,” she said. “I need to sand and stain this one, but it’s done.”

Her mom leaned over and looked at the owl. “Adorable. Finny and Pearl will be in heaven when they see these.”