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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Author's note
: All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

Chapter One

“Why do they get all the fucking best jobs? We could’ve been sitting pretty in that upscale Bridgegate mall…instead, we’re hunting fucking blood suckers in shitty alleys. Fucking jumped up prissy Santa wannabes!”

Rudi sighed at her partner, Darrick’s, growl and ducked the wild swing of the vampire in front of her. “Darrick, I keep telling you, Cole and Rhod aren’t Santa wannabes. They are Santa. For one night a year, they’re the real deal. Just like the hundreds of other Santa’s in the bloodlines. It’s been two years, when are you gonna get over it?”

Darrick grumbled at her and she chuckled. She wasn’t under any impression he’d seriously been in love with Mia, one of the PPA’s Christmas elves, before she’d picked Cole Claus. Pixies were territorial, so it was more his male pride which had been injured.

Side-stepping, she twisted and slammed a fist up under the bloodsucker’s chin. His jaw snapped shut with a click, the force of her blow carrying him up into the air in a graceful comic-book style arc to land in an unconscious heap on the other side of the alley.

Darrick paused for a moment and cast a glance at the crumpled form. Surprise and admiration shone in the Pixie’s eyes. “Dayum, girl…you pack a punch. You sure you ain’t got no Valkyrie in you?”

She grinned. “None at all. Pure blooded shifter. Sorry.”

A dark figure rose behind him. A vampire with claws extended, mouth open and drool dripping from its fangs. She didn’t bother to raise the alarm. Darrick was a big boy, not to mention a trained operative. If he couldn’t take on a few revenants, then it was a poor showing on his part.

Without breaking eye contact, he lifted his arm and slammed the back of his fist into the vampire’s face. There was a sharp crack and the scent of blood in the air as its nose went from hooked and prominent to flat as a pancake.

“Pure shifter?” His eyes twinkling, he twisted and looped a strong arm around the stunned vampire’s neck. With a powerful twist of his torso and shoulders, he wrenched the creature's head clean from its neck. A fizzle and a pop later and the body dissolved into dust.

Rudi whistled. She’d worked with Darrick for a few years now, so she knew pixies were total badasses who learned to fight almost before they could walk, but the casual display of strength impressed even her.

“Yup, pure shifter.” She turned to survey the carnage in the alleyway.

They’d trailed the group of revenants across half a block, watching them track a group of human women dressed for a night on the town. Fortunately, they’d been able to head the creatures off into an alley, this alley, before the humans noticed. No great feat there, at times humans were the dumbest beings Rudi had ever encountered. Within minutes, she and Darrick had reduced the group to five piles of ash and one crumpled heap.

Her companion grumbled under his breath as he stepped over and stopped next to her to look down at the revenant. “Are you ever going to tell me what type of shifter you are?”

“Nope.” She slid him a sideways glance, keeping her smile to herself.

They’d been playing this game since they’d met. Everyone at the Paranormal Protection Agency knew she was a shifter, but no one knew what sort. At her request, Iliona had sealed Rudi’s personnel file, and she never, ever shifted. Didn’t even pop a tail…

She was a shifter, yeah. Shifter types were divided into two kinds; Predators and…not predators. The PPA had a lot of predator-type shifters. Their natural aggression and hardiness made them excellent operatives few wanted to take on in a fight. Jared Stone, for example, only had to stroll into the holding room back at base and half the ‘guests’ tried to crawl up their own asses to avoid him. The other half got busy praying to whatever gods they held dear.

They did the same when she walked in. Over the five years she’d been at the PPA, she’d developed a reputation as a mean bitch with balls of steel. But she wasn’t a predator-type shifter… her inner animal didn’t hunger for the chase and the kill. Instead, the creature inside her longed for the feeling of air through her fur and the pull of traces on her body as she pulled a load through the sky. Longed for the sound of sleigh-bells and a deep
‘ho-ho-ho’
from behind her.

Rudi wasn’t a predator. She was a were-reindeer, and the magic of Christmas ran through her veins.

Darrick sighed. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that, gorgeous?”

She gave him a one-fingered salute and turned away. “You love it, and you know it. Bag and tag him, would ya? Let’s get him back to processing.”

She didn’t wait for Darrick’s reply, instead striding out of the alley. As soon as she emerged from the darkness, the lights and seasonal music of the shops around hit her. Less than a month until Christmas and the retail outlets were in full marketing swing. She stopped, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Christmas.

It was on the air already. The expectation, the anticipation, driven by a world full of children waiting to hear those same sleigh-bells in the air. For a moment, she was back there, waiting for the go from her Santa on the sleigh behind her. Anticipating the sharpness of the Christmas night air as she threw her weight against her harness and led her team out. Led them all out.

Because Rudi wasn’t just
any
reindeer. She was the granddaughter of the original Rudolph and a deer of her bloodline
always
led the first sleigh out.

But not her. Not anymore.

She opened her eyes and the sparkling lights and music around her were dimmed by the sadness welling up from her soul. She’d had it all. The ‘princess’ of her people, she’d been honored by all reindeer kind and her Santa… Nick Claus.

Like her, he was the grandson of the original. They’d played in their cribs together, grown up together, fought and made up…fallen in love. Everyone had expected them to get married, have kids. It was fate. Expected. The perfect love story. A match made of Christmas, at Christmas, and in the magic of the North Pole.

Until they’d had a huge argument one night and she’d stormed off for a run. When she’d come back, she’d found him with Ginger Snaps, a Christmas elf, in their bed.

A sharp pain sliced through her at the memory and she sucked in a breath. She’d left the Pole that night, with nothing but the clothes on her back, and she never planned on going back. Ever.

As far as she was concerned Christmas was canceled.

Permanently.

***

An hour later, Rudi leaned against the counter as Darrick filled in the paperwork to process their revenant. The creature itself had been taken down to the lower cells, to keep it out of the sunlight until it could be questioned.

Revenants were the lowest of the low in vampire-kind and were never loners. There was a nest somewhere and they needed to find it fast, or they’d be overrun with the bastard things before New Year’s Eve. No point in either her or Darrick questioning it, they were strictly muscle. The PPA had other creatures on staff who could pick the thing’s mind apart to get the information they needed. Like that half-Pixie guy, Rat.

Rudi suppressed a shiver. There was just something about him which gave her the creeps. It wasn’t like she was a speciest or anything. She worked with Darrick after all, and even though he’d grown his buzz cut out and had shoulder-length hair, it was still a shade of blue which marked him as a Pixie.

“What’s up with you?” Catching her movement, Darrick looked up from his paperwork. “You’ve been like a cat on a hot tin roof for weeks. Wanna clue me in on what’s going on?”

She shrugged one shoulder, wincing as the TV in the corner played a Christmas jingle. The muscle at the corner of her eye twitched. Shit, she should’ve asked for the month off to hibernate in her apartment.

One problem. Reindeer didn’t hibernate.

“All done, thanks Cynthia.” Darrick handed the completed forms over and turned. Shoving a hand under Rudi’s arm, he marched her toward the door and out into the walkway between the back compounds. The sounds of training drifted to them on the air, but they were concealed from prying eyes.

He spun her around, corralling her against the wall with his hands braced either side of her head. She froze, looking up at him.

“Okay, sweetheart. Out with it,” he rumbled, the expression in his blue eyes serious. “Every Christmas you’re a fucking bitch and I wanna know why. Plus, you know
way
more than most about those bastard Claus elves. What gives?”

She sighed, blowing her bangs out of her face. No matter what she did, her hair always escaped from the tight braid she kept it in, and curled around her face.

“Come on, I know you ain’t an elf…so why protect them?”

She barked out a laugh. “Believe me, I am the
last
person to ever protect a fucking Claus elf.”

“Come on, sweetheart.” He lifted a hand as if to stroke the loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her hand snapped out to grab his wrist in an iron hold, stopping his movement. His eyes widened.

“Let’s just say once bitten, twice shy shall we? I trusted one once and got my heart broken in return.”

Understanding filled his eyes, followed swiftly by anger. Pixies were flighty as fuck at times.

“Which one? One of ours? Cole?” He growled. “I’ll break his fucking kneecaps.”

She didn’t let go of his wrist even when he tried to pull away. Her shifter blood made her a lot stronger than her human form would suggest.

“Hold your horses, cowboy. It was none of the ones we have here.”

The last thing she wanted was Cole and Rhod getting involved. They recognized her of course, but the unwritten code of silence between those who’d left the Pole for whatever reason stood firm. They wouldn’t give her away. Besides, she wasn’t giving Darrick any excuse to go postal on Cole.

“Hmmm… fuck it, Rudi!” He snatched his hand away and backed off a step. Pure frustration glimmered in his eyes. “Just let me pound on one of them, for a little bit? Please?”

Within a heartbeat he went from worryingly direct and lethally dangerous to a guy she quite liked as a person. She socked him in the upper arm.

“Moron. Come on, let’s go grab a coffee before we get another call.”

They re-entered the building into the central processing area to find everyone watching the TV in the corner.

“Police have confirmed three dead at the Kingsbridge Plaza in a third armed robbery this week. Similar to previous attacks, the armed gang targeted the Santa’s Grotto in the center of the mall. Some of the animals used in the Grotto were killed in the attack…”

The scene switched from images of uniformed cops rushing around to the bloodstained grotto and the slumped forms of reindeer. She gasped, hand over her mouth as she realized the animals who had been killed were her kind. Well, full reindeer, not weres. They’d been gunned down while they stood helpless.

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