Page 2 of Falling for her Guardian

Cold or not, it was fucking beautiful up here, though.

It was also beautiful at his home down in the Pennsylvania mountains, where his brother was alpha of their people. He hadn’t been home in six months, not since he’d gone down to visit his mom for her seventieth birthday. Among the gifts and flowers and her favorite cake, his mother had urged him to take a mate and start a family before it was too late.

He wasn’t a teenager anymore, but he was hardlyold.Hell, he was still two years away from thirty. He wanted that life, he just wanted to wait for his truemate.

Wherever the hell she was.

The snow crunched under his heavy boots as he headed toward the Entrance. He let his bear out a little to help him listen and watch for anything out of the ordinary.

In the ten years that Storm had been a Guardian, Jack Frost had attacked every single year, particularly on Christmas Day, when Santa’s magic was depleted from delivering toys, and he was the most vulnerable.

December was the most dangerous time of year for the Guardians when they were more likely to have to face Frost or one of his followers, an elf turned evil by Jack’s dark magic. He didn’t plan to shuffle off the mortal coil anytime soon, Jack Frost or not.

A magical person could open a portal from anywhere in the world to come to Northernmost and the Well of Magic, and they had to come at least once a year to replenish their magic. But while there were an infinite number of locations for a portaltoNorthernmost, every portal to the top of the world merged in one place.

The Guardians called it the Entrance, and it was just outside the barracks the Guardians used for housing.

He passed by Santa’s home, a snow-covered cabin that always smelled like cinnamon and cocoa, past the elf barracks and workshops, and finally past the Well of Magic, a huge stone pit that glowed with the same neon yellows and greens as the Northern Lights.

As he trudged toward the Entrance and passed close to the Well, a chill swept up his neck and he took a few steps away from the stone pit. Even though he wasn’t a magical person, he was affected by the magic nonetheless. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and prickles race down his spine. It was like being under an electrical tower and feeling the power coursing through the wires. But it wasn’t electricity that made the Well, it was pure magic and the only source of replenishment for the magical people in the world.

If Jack Frost had his way and turned the Well to darkness, those who didn’t want to touch dark magic would eventually lose all their power. Then only dark magic would abound and that was a world that would border on apocalyptic.

All that would be left were magicless good people, shifters and humans, and all the evil magic users that would willingly follow Jack Frost to the very ends of the earth.

Hard pass on that.

Shifters, like humans, weren’t magical. He couldn’t get to Northernmost, or back home, without an escort. He didn’t mind not having access to magic, although it would be handy as hell to be able to fly like the fae or cast spells like the warlocks. But he was definitely blessed to be able to shift.

The Entrance came into view. It was an archway made of the bones of some ancient arctic creature, curved and twisted, bleached with the sun. Hundreds of thousands of magical people came to Northernmost through the Entrance every year. Some came as groups, like the witches, and some came individually, but they all had to come, otherwise, their magic would run out, and they wouldn’t be able to open a portal on their own.

There was light and dark magic, good and evil, but evil magic wasn’t replenished at the Well.

The Entrance rumbled as it was engaged. The bones began to glow and pulse, and he shielded his eyes as it brightened to a blistering white. When the glow faded, three females stood in red cloaks.

He recognized them from the dossier for those who’d arranged to come to the Well that day.

“Ladies,” he said. “Welcome to Northernmost.”

“Hello, Storm,” said Anyanka, the head of a small witch’s coven in Washington, as she dropped her hood back to reveal a striking head of red hair.

She gave him a little smile as she and her other coven members walked by him and made their way to the Well. She was pretty and powerful, but she wasn’t his truemate. While his mother’s anxious words echoed in his head and his polar beardeclared he wouldn’t mind rolling around in the snowwith her, he shook his head to no one in particular.

He was waiting for his truemate, no matter how long it took.

Yeah, he was lonely. At eighteen, he’d come to Northernmost to train to be a Guardian and had left his family behind, save for his brothers, Hunter and Winter, who joined him later. Someday, though, he’d find his truemate, and then his bed wouldn’t be cold, and his heart wouldn’t feel like it was half empty.

Until then, though, he’d focus on work.

It was going to be a hell of a busy month, after all.

Frost and his evil followers wouldn’t wait long before they attacked, trying to get into Northernmost and take over the Well, not to mention taking out Santa too.

It was Storm’s job to ensure that didn’t happen, come hell or high water.

Or as they liked to say at the top of the world, come snow or solid ice.

He’d successfully defended the Well for ten years. He wasn’t about to mess up now.

---