The Reindeer Gives Thanks (Reindeer Holidays Book 6) Read online

  The Reindeer Gives Thanks

  By E A Price

  Copyright ©2019 by Elizabeth Ann Price

  All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No reindeers… reindeer… reindeers… - well, whichever the plural is (I’ve heard it both ways), none of them were hurt during the making of this story. Except Burke… but nobody minded too much about that.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Malachi Jones tugged at his tie. Damn starchy collar itched like hell; thing felt like it was choking him.

  He glanced over to where his sister, Carrie was standing with the alpha’s mother. The woman had an arm around her shoulders and a gentle, sympathetic look on her face. It was a look his grandma had worn whenever he came around. Course, now she couldn’t, and he felt terrible that he hadn’t taken more time to be with her. The woman had just wanted to get to know her grandkids, but he hadn’t cared. Thank Dasher and Dancer that she had Carrie.

  Carrie caught his eye and smiled gratefully. Hell, his baby sister felt like she had to be thankful that he bothered to show up for his grandma’s funeral. Was he such an ass that even his own sister hadn’t expected him to come? Yeah, maybe he was, because after the eighth slap to the back from an older herd member followed by an ‘ah, jeez,’ he was thinking about escaping.

  He nodded to her and made his way out onto the porch. He stared into the garden, at the younger herd members who were – like him – tugging at their stiff clothing, eager to be free. The younger boys had pulled off their ties while the girls had loosened their hair braids. They were taking turns on the tire swing. He was tempted to join them, but a reserve held him back.

  Mal hadn’t grown up here. This wasn’t really his herd. He was a reindeer shifter, taking after his reindeer mother rather than his wolf shifter father, but he had never been part of a herd. This had once been his mother’s herd, but she took off when she was eighteen to be with his father. In spite of her less than pleasant life with him, she stuck with him, giving birth to Mal and then Carrie. Occasionally his mom had brought them round to their grandparents, begging for money, but that was it.

  Their father had been a drunk, pissing away all the money they had on booze, and then trying to beat more money out of Mal and their mom until he passed out.

  When Mal was seventeen, and their father tried to hurt Carrie, he got the hell out of there, taking Carrie and his mom with him and finding a sanctuary of a kind with their grandparents in the herd. But their mom – pining for her horrific mate – just ran on back to him. Luckily, not even their dumbass father was willing to risk the wrath of the reindeer herd to get him or Carrie back.

  When he finally turned eighteen, Mal tried to find his parents, but it was too late. His dad had met a couple of bullets while trying to rob a donut shop. Presumably he had been drunk at the time – so drunk he thought it was a good idea, and too drunk to notice the two cops sitting in the shop at the time. His mom, probably whacked out her mind on the pain medication his dad procured for her, took a swan dive off the apartment building.

  It was at that point that Mal applied to join the hunters – shifters who worked for the council of shifters in finding shifters who had broken the law and bringing them to the council for sentencing.

  It seemed like a good fit – given all the rage inside him. He felt guilt for his mother, but mostly he regretted he hadn’t taken Carrie away from their parents years ago. Their family home life had been appalling at best. Their father seemed always to be trying to prove that shifters – with their high tolerance – really could drink themselves to death, while their mother was next to useless. When their dad took off on a bender, she would take to her bed with several bottles of pils, and they wouldn’t see her for days. They rarely had any money, and their parents didn’t seem to care much whether either of their children went to school. Mal didn’t bother much, but he got Carrie there. When they were out of food, he made sure they got some, whatever way he had to, and in spite of the rough neighborhood they lived in, he made sure no one messed with them. He may have had a juvenile record a mile long, but his little sister didn’t go hungry.

  Carrie fell into a life in the herd with ease, but Mal couldn’t. He was too much like his father he thought bitterly. He had been thrown out of his wolf pack because he couldn’t stand to take orders from his alpha. Mal was the same. He didn’t want to listen to some old reindeer bull telling him what to do, so with Carrie settled, he joined the hunters – a job where a college degree wasn’t required, and a bad attitude was seen as a boon. Since then, hunting had been his life, and he was damn good at it.

  His inner reindeer let out a low growl as he spotted a group of elderly female herd members making their way towards him with looks of condolences on their faces. They looked like cheek pinchers, so he decided to skedaddle.

  Not wanting to go back into the main throng and undergo more back-slaps, he made his way to the garage. There was no food in there, so it was a safe bet that it was free of reindeer shifters. Though it would have been a losing bet, because on his way in he collided with a young woman.

  “Oh!”

  He caught the bag of ice she was carrying

  “I’m so sorry, Malachi,” she gushed. His reindeer chuffed quietly as her expression quickly became sympathetic. He wasn’t irritated by her showing him sympathy – quite the opposite.

  “Ah…”

  The pretty blonde had him at a loss. She knew his name; he didn’t know hers.

  She smiled slightly on seeing his blank look. “I’m Ariel, I…”

  “The alpha’s sister.” He nodded. Figured she would know his name. The girl had to be about eighteen, yet she seemed a hell of lot surer of herself than he did and he had a good ten years on her.

  “Yes.” She gestured to the ice. “Just getting more ice.”

  Mal grunted, and her brow dipped slightly before, tentatively, she placed a hand on his arm.

  “How are you doing?”

  He stiffened slightly, not very used to shows of affection - not growing up with his self-involved parents. Every so often Carrie would hug him, but it was something he tried to discourage.

  “I’m fine,” he replied shortly.

  Ariel nodded, but she didn’t believe him for a second. “I know this is a difficult time, but if there’s anything I can do to help just say the word.”

&
nbsp; She grasped the bag of ice, tugging it out of his reluctant hands. He hadn’t even realized he was crushing it. But rather than walking away, she merely dropped it to the ground and stepped closer to him.

  “Malachi,” she murmured.

  “Mal,” he automatically corrected. His heartbeat increased slightly as the heat from her body caressed his senses.

  Her hand gently stroked his arm. Emotions he didn’t even know he had caught in his throat and he let out a muffled sob.

  Ariel gently pulled him into a hug, rubbing her hands up and down his back as she murmured sweetness.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, thinking to push away from her, but she didn’t let him, merely held onto him. He felt too wretched to force the issue.

  She only allowed him to pull back so she could see his face. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  A small hand touched his cheek, caressing his rough stubble while wiping away the moisture. He grunted and thinking he didn’t like it, she tried to move her hand away, but he caught it, pressing it against his cheek, keeping it there, while his other hand held her in place by her waist. Bright blue eyes stared up at him with beautiful compassion, and he felt undone.

  His inner beast surged, and he kissed her - hungrily as if it were to be his last kiss and as if he would never have his fill of the perfect female in front of him. She gasped in surprise but quickly melted against him.

  All of his guilt and sadness washed away as her scent, her softness and loveliness enveloped his senses. He crushed her mercilessly against him as his arousal swelled. He wanted this female, needed her. She moaned against him and through the cloud of lust a tingle of sense managed to get through to him.

  Mal jerked back abruptly, releasing her and trying to regain his faculties. His beast growled in objection, but Mal couldn’t believe he had acted so foolishly. The hell was he thinking – the innocent, teenage sister of the alpha? She was not meant for him.

  Ariel blinked up at him in stunned surprise. Those swollen lips, the halo of golden hair and the hopeful look in her eyes almost had him swooping in for another kiss. “Malachi?”

  His fingers itched to take her in his arms, but no, he couldn’t. She was sweet and young, and he was taking advantage of her to make himself feel better. She deserved better than that, even if his beast had never wanted anything more than the creature standing in front of him.

  “Sorry,” he grunted before storming away.

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” she murmured after him.

  Chapter One

  Four years later

  Mal rolled his eyes as the blob of spit landed on the ground a couple of inches away from his foot. The crow shifter wasn’t taking his incarceration well, but given that he was literally behind bars, the only thing he could do was spit at Mal – and he just didn’t have the range to hit him.

  “Settle down,” rumbled Mal.

  The crow snapped at him to do something anatomically impossible. Mal shrugged; he’d had worse insults, but he’d be glad when the crow was out of his hair. Mal had been tracking him for a month before he finally caught up with him hiding out in a cave of all things. Mal managed to take him alive and brought him to the nearest hunter holding cells. Throughout the country, there were locations run by hunters, and containing holding cells. Now, he was waiting for other hunters to arrive and transport the crow to the council’s headquarters for sentencing. Ordinarily he might have just taken the bird by himself, but Mal had been tracking him without rest for three weeks, and frankly, he was sick of the sight of him.

  The crow was wanted for attacking several human women when they refused to date him. Ordinarily, the shifter council might just leave this kind of situation up to the human cops, but the crow had actually shifted in front of one of the girls – scaring the hell out of her, and jeopardizing all shifters everywhere. Covering that up had not been easy, and the council wanted to handle the situation, particularly given his species. Bird shifters were kind of wily – human prisons weren’t really built in mind to hold birds.

  Mal hoped his punishment was severe; one of the girls he attacked was still in a coma – it was unlikely she would recover, and another had her legs broken so badly she may never walk again. The bird was a monster and was looking at a life sentence. Sentences handed down by the council tended to be more severe than the human authorities were willing to dish out. Probably because the council knew how dangerous shifters really were and were not of the opinion that shifters – like the crow – were capable of learning their lesson.

  His phone buzzed, and he glanced over the screen.

  “Message from your girlfriend?” sneered the crow gleefully. “When I get out of here I am going to find her and show her what a real man is!”

  Mal said nothing. Even his reindeer didn’t offer a flicker of interest at the pathetic bait. Mal had developed a lot of patience, and terrible insults rolled off him. But also, real men didn’t beat up women.

  “What’s she like?” taunted the crow.

  It was a text from his sister, asking him if he was coming home at the weekend. Since their grandmother’s death, he had actually been making an effort to spend more time with his sister. Hunters weren’t big on family; the lifestyle of a hunter was hardly conducive to a spouse and children, but visiting his sister at least once a month was the least he could do.

  “Brunette? Blonde? I like blondes,” he crowed.

  He texted back ‘ok.’ She replied with an emoji – she loved emojis - and told him there might be some kind of herd party to attend.

  His inner beast chuffed. He had been to one or two over the last few years, and the herd mates had been welcoming, but he wasn’t overly keen to get too attached to them. Certainly not too attached to one particular, young, blonde female herd member who always blushed when she saw him and whose smile gave him some funny, warm feelings.

  “When I get out of here…”

  Mal tuned him out and whipped a text back to Carrie, asking her what the party was for. He looked up as he heard footsteps coming his way, and nodded at the approaching hunters - Riker and Evans. Riker was an older wolf shifter who had been a hunter for more than two decades and who had ratcheted up more kills than most of the other hunters combined. He had trained Mal and was now training Evans – a young moose shifter that Mal had serious doubts about. He was big and brawny but cocky as hell, and apt to ignore the rules. He actually went around saying that ‘rules were made to be broken’ – which was ridiculous and a testament to the young man’s mental state. Rules are made specifically to be followed!

  “Mal,” rumbled Riker with a slight smile.

  “Riker.”

  Mal was one of the few people who Riker would deign to call a friend. Riker was tough and hard to impress. Mal was very much of the opinion that people who were dismissive of others and withholding of their approval weren’t worth the time. Except where Riker was concerned – he earned the privilege of being a little dickish by pure dint of his kick-ass hunting abilities. Few hunters hadn’t at one time or another been saved by Riker.

  Mal looked at Evans, took in the smug expression on his fat head, and then dismissed him. The male hadn’t actually managed a successful hunt yet and was nearly at the end of his probation. He hadn’t earned that smug expression, and given the unimpressed look on Riker’s face, he would figure that Riker wasn’t going to recommend he become a full hunter.

  “Here to transport him.”

  Riker inclined his head toward the crow shifter, who started spitting and yelling out obscenities. Riker didn’t even bat an eyelid, but Evans didn’t exactly take too kindly to being called a ‘streak of piss.’

  “What the hell did you just say to me?” snarled Evans.

  The crow started laughing, pleased that he had finally found someone easy to insult. Riker sighed almost imperceptibly as the two of them began exchanging insults, and Evans’ face slowly got redder.

  “Enough,” grumbled Riker, tossing handcuffs at Evans. “Get him r
eady. I’ll sign the paperwork.”

  Mal moved forward to help, but Evans, already pissed and embarrassed, snapped at him, “I got it.”

  Mal watched as Evans followed the usual protocols. Maybe Evans was improving. Mal’s phone buzzed, and he looked down to see the new text from Carrie.

  ‘I think Ariel’s mating somebody.’ It was followed by another emoji.

  He stilled. His inner reindeer stilled. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut – a feeling he knew all too well given the extensive training he had done with Riker. He had been waiting for this for four years, but now that it was here, he didn’t know how to handle it. He’d known of Ariel’s crush on him for years, but it was just that – a crush, something that started when she was just a kid and he made the mistake of kissing her. His reindeer huffed at the term ‘mistake,’ but it was apt. He had been waiting for her to move on, to find a male worthy of her, and now it appeared it had happened.

  He wasn’t sure how long he just stared at the text – it was probably only a few seconds – but the spell was quickly broken by the sounds of Evans choking.

  “Shit,” snarled Mal, and his reindeer hooted angrily. He pulled his weapon.

  The crow – despite being quite a lot smaller than Evans, had the giant moose shifter in a headlock and was holding Evans’ gun to his temple.

  “You’re going to let me out of here,” hissed the crow.

  “No,” gritted Mal, training his gun on the tiny sliver of the crow he could see from behind Evans’ bulk.

  “You don’t, and I’ll kill piss-streak here.”

  The ‘piss-streak’ in question gurgled and started turning purple.

  “Drop the weapon. Let him go,” ordered Mal calmly. This wasn’t his first rodeo. The crow was desperate, and not thinking clearly – but there was no way he was getting out of the building.

  “Drop your weapon!” howled the crow.

  Evans’ eyes bulged as Mal replied, “Not happening.”

  The crow sucked in a breath through his teeth. He let out a caw as they heard the slap of boots heading their way. Riker was on his way.