Page 1 of Falling for her Guardian

Santa stared out the window of the security office. Behind him, the room held the shifters and elves who were part of the security team that kept the North Pole safe. Through the glass, the Northern Lights danced in the sky, a medley of yellows and greens dotted with stars. The sky looked deceptively normal, but there wasn’t anything normal about tonight.

It was the last night of November, which meant tomorrow heralded the first day of December.

A day when, traditionally, his brother, formerly known as Angel Nicholas and currently holding the title of Jack Frost, would begin his campaign to take control of the most important thing to magical people worldwide—the Well of Magic.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Santa asked the nearly full room without turning from the view out the window. “That if things were different, if my brother hadn’t turned to dark magic to try to take over the Well but had instead embraced his position as Jack Frost and worked with me, we wouldn’t have to have these meetings?”

He and his brother used to work together.

They didn’t anymore.

Now they were on opposite sides of a battle that had raged for decades. Santa was the eldest member of the Nicholas familyand, therefore destined to be Santa Claus, the lead protector of the Well of Magic and the most powerful warlock in the world.

Jack, simply put, was not.

“It would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about him starting his shit up again,” said Winter, a polar bear.

“Indeed.” Santa turned from the window and faced the large group, consisting of the Yuletide Guardians and the elves who were part of the security team. “Tomorrow is December first, gentlemen, and you know what that means. My brother will once again try to take control of the Well of Magic and take me out. Vigilance is the key, and I know that I can trust all of you to help me keep the Well safe. Every year, he grows more clever and dangerous in his attempts to seize control of the Well.”

“Right,” Declan, a wolf shifter, said. “Last year on the winter solstice, he focused an ice storm over the Well and covered it with several feet of ice. It took us days to thaw it so people could replenish their magic.”

The males all nodded. “The year before that,” Hunter, a polar bear, said, “he blackmailed a warlock coven to take down the magical perimeter around Northernmost.”

“Each time he’s come against us,” Santa said, “we’ve been able to stop him and then put better safety measures in place.”

“We’ll keep the Well safe,” Maverick, a snow leopard, said, his voice ringing with conviction.

In previous years, Santa had tried to bridge the gap with his brother and extend an olive branch, but Jack was too far gone into dark magic to turn away from his goal. And that meant Santa had no choice but to keep fighting so the Well would remain under his control. Without Santa, the magical people in the world were in danger of losing their magic entirely, and that was something that he couldn’t allow to happen.

“As we draw close to Christmas, be sure to watch each other’s backs and keep your head on a swivel. Jack’s dangerous and crazy, and there’s no telling what he might do.”

It was ironic that the brother he’d once loved now actively tried to kill him several times a year.

“Take care of yourselves and each other,” Santa said. “Alert the team and me if anything’s amiss or suspicious. I wouldn’t put it past Jack to try something tomorrow, but even if he doesn’t, we don’t let our guards down.”

The males all agreed.

Santa dismissed them and left the security office, heading for his own office to get to work. There were only twenty-five days until Christmas, after all.

Storm McAdams rolled his neck and stared out at the wintry expanse at the top of the world known as the city of Northernmost. Here in the coldest place he’d ever been was the most important thing to any and every magical person: the Well of Magic.

Tonight, as November ended and December began, his bear let out a curious bellow in his mind, urging him to shift and roll around in the snow.

Later.

His walkie squawked, and he lifted it from his belt, pressing the button with his thumb. “Yeah?”

“You near the Entrance? There’s an alert that someone is coming through,” Sebastian, one of the wolf Guardians, said, his voice tinny through the small speaker.

Storm looked around, realizing he’d been staring at the Northern Lights for so long that he didn’t remember where he was in relation to the Well.

After getting his bearings, he said, “Uh, yeah, I’m about five minutes out. I’ll go.”

“Thanks. Lemme know if you need anything.”

Storm slid the walkie back into the holster and turned on his heel, heading toward the Entrance.

Nine Yuletide Guardians comprised of the three largest shifter groups: polar bear, wolf, and snow leopard. As a polar bear, Storm was uniquely suited to the cold temperatures, but not when he was human. His bear loved to race through the snow and look for tasty things to eat. While he didn’t mind the cold when he was human, he definitely preferred the layer of fur in his shift when the temperatures went into the negatives.

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