Page 27 of Awakened By Her Guardian

He’d certainly gotten his wish when he met Ana.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.

“You are for me too,” she said.

They weren’t in danger right now, and that made his wolf settle a bit. He’d always be alert and concerned that Ana was safe, but for the first time in days, there was peace in Northernmost. And he was going to enjoy every second of it.

Jack Frost stood over his 3D map of Northernmost and stared at the main building, where his brother was surely working on the ridiculous naughty and nice list. He knew all too well that children behaved better under the threat of no toys than just being good people year-round. He’d been the same way as a child.

At least until he figured out that being evil was more fun.

A knock at the door drew him from his musings.

Thale, who was currently his number two after Jack had lost his two previous ones to his brother, walked in. “You wanted to see me, boss?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, straightening. He reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and discovered it was empty. Crumpling the pack, he tossed it to Thale and said, “I’m going on a run tonight to siphon magic from a coven that thinks it can hide among humans in a busy city in South America. I need you to make sure there are plenty of empty cells for the ones I bring back.”

“You got it,” Thale said.

Jack mentally rolled his eyes. The male was a kiss-ass. But he was a hard worker, so that was a bonus.

“And get me some damn cigarettes.”

Jack was responsible for supplying magical replenishment to his followers, who were locked out of Northernmost and the Well of Magic by Santa, a meddling fire witch, and the goody-two-shoes Mother Nature. He replenished their magic by taking his own dark magic and giving it to them, which meant he had to siphon magic from good magic users and corrupt it. Sometimes he turned them into followers, sometimes he killed them. It was more fun to make them virtually human and let them loose in the world to cry over their lack of magic.

“On it,” Thale said, hustling from the office.

Jack turned and moved to his desk. He took a seat, rifled through his drawers, and found a stray cigarette. “Fucking finally.” Flipping open the lighter next to the crystal ashtray, he lit the cigarette, took a drag, and blew out a slow stream of smoke.

A portal appeared in the center of his room, and he sighed.

Fucking Nightmare.

The male, eyes blazing and purple-tinted magic floating around him, strode through the portal and placed his hands on the desk, leaning forward. “I want him dead and his family dead and that fucking female dead.”

“Are you talking about my brother?”

Nightmare slashed his hand through the air. “I’m talking about the wolf that meddled in the fight. I want to take out his pack.” The male was breathing hard like he’d run a marathon. “And I want to know where the hell you went!”

“When?”

Sometimes it was fun to be purposely obtuse.

Nightmare’s eyes flashed purple.

“In the middle of the battle! You left.”

Jack took another drag on the cigarette and held the smoke in his throat until it burned, then blew it out. Flicking the tip so the ash fell into the dish, he said, “First of all, I warned you that going after a female mated to a shifter was a bad idea. And second, once he broke through the magic we’d combined to hold her, there wasn’t anything I could do to combat her, the wolf, or the dream walkers. I wasn’t going to stick around and let Sandman try to take me out.”

“You could have given me a heads up.”

Nightmare sat heavily in the chair and ran a hand through his dark hair. “With your magic, I was so close to invading Ana’s mind. I could have used her to control all the dream walkers.”

Jack had thought Nightmare’s plan was decent enough, if he could have pulled it off. Imagine turning the dream walker against her own kind, leeching their good magic from them the way she could take it from Nightmare.

“You’re lucky she didn’t have a chance to take you out, because she sure as hell looked like she wanted to. But… I have some good news.”

“You’ll help me go after that bitch again?”