Snow Time for Love (3 page)

He looked down at her and smiled. “May I ask you any questions that arise?”

She nodded. “Of course, or Teebie or any of those who are running a business. Or you can ask Teal and Tony at the Meditation Centre.”

“Why are you here?” His question was very direct.

She swallowed. “To find a mate.” She wrinkled her nose and decided to be forthright. “I am a recall. I wasn’t able to find a mate amongst my own kind, but now that there are fey coming in, they think that it might be the missing component my beast is looking for.”

She walked him to the door of the Bright Soul, and she opened the door. “Good evening, Teebie. I have a new arrival for you.”

Teebie came forward and smiled. “Thank you, Nova. That dress is lovely. Did you get it at the store?”

Lovely?
Nova looked down and her dress had gone from a plain jersey shift to a silken beaded gown that rustled around her ankles.

Nova looked to Reygaer. “When did this happen?”

He bowed over her hand and pressed a cool kiss on her skin. “A beautiful woman deserves beautiful clothing. Before it covered you, now it suits you.”

Teebie grinned and blinked innocently. “Well, I guess you don’t need to change. Are you heading out for dinner?”

“I think I will be traditional and put on some shoes.” She wiggled her toes and scowled. She lifted the hem of her skirt and white leather slippers with beads covered her feet. “How did I not feel that?”

He grinned. “It must have been my fascinating conversation.”

Nova shrugged. “I am heading out then. Teebie will take care of you. Have a good evening, Reygaer.”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he nodded.

She swanned out in her beaded gown and headed for the café in search of a hamburger.

Nova was parked with a napkin tucked in her cleavage when Reygaer came in and made his way to her table.

There were no other folks in the café, so there wasn’t a lot of choice for a dinner companion.

“Please, have a seat.” She said it before he could ask her.

He grinned and sat, speaking softly to the server who came to take their order. His order made Nova smile. She would never have pegged him for a chicken fried steak aficionado.

“So, do you have any questions for me?” He raised his white eyebrows and smiled with his strangely black eyes taking in every inch of her.

“Why the glamour? You are out in the human world, so why hide?”

“Not everyone accepts the difference in skin tones. We draw more attention than the others do and that can give us a bit of a problem when it comes to seeking out a mate. Our own people are mostly spoken for, so we enter endless strings of affairs with humans that rarely bear fruit.”

“By fruit, you mean children.”

He shrugged. “We are a dying race. There is no getting around that. All we have left is to choose how we work for the next generations. If children can be had with shifters, we will be only too happy to share our lives with anyone who can give us a future.”

“That sounds...surprisingly fair. Life for a life. Actually, I do have a question. How old are you?”

His food arrived and he leaned back to let the server in. “One hundred and sixty-three.”

His lack of hesitation surprised her. “That is...wow.”

“How old are you?”

She cleared her throat. “Twenty-nine. All of my sisters have children, all of my friends have children, and I have failed at every attempt to get a mate of my own.”

“They are not all what you are.”

She smiled at his guess.

“No. My family are snow foxes. They are friendly, rambunctious and they love me very much, but I am bigger in all ways and a much taller human.”

“You seem just right to me.”

“I noticed that you are taller than the average human as well. I don’t meet many men who are six foot eight, not to mention those who are blue.”

“Frost fey are taller and broader than other species. We need it to maintain body heat.”

She smiled. “Do you have a beast you turn into when the impulse takes you?”

He grinned. “I do.”

“What is it?”

“You will have to wait until I know I am your chosen before I tell you. Eat your burger, Nova.”

She bit into the burger, but her mind was whirling with questions.
What was he?

After dinner, she skipped dessert and watched Reygaer indulge his sweet tooth. She had to admit that the pie looked good, but she wasn’t up for sweets after the transport.

When her dishes were whisked away and her coffee was cradled in her palms, she looked into his disturbing eyes and tried to see his beast by sheer force of will.

“You look like you are trying to peel back my soul.” He smiled and finished his lemon meringue.

She blinked and pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I have a few ideas, but they probably weren’t as interesting as my thoughts. So, what do you do after a good meal at the Crossroads?”

Nova sighed. “I normally head over to the Crossed Star and have a glass of pomegranate cordial while watching others dance and occasionally dancing myself.”

“Shall we?”

Nova nodded in resignation. “I may as well get you used to the way things work around here for when your match shows up. It is a role I have engaged in frequently.”

She rose to her feet and he did the same.

The server came to the table and Nova moved her charm over the small flat plate that they extended.

“See you, Molly.”

“Night, Nova. Have fun.”

Nova rolled her eyes and took Reygaer’s arm as they left.

“So, what did you do there?”

“I swiped the charm over the payment plate. You use it at every spot that isn’t the bed and breakfast. The charm will change shapes with you if you do actually shift shapes.” She mentally smirked as she threw in the bit of doubt. She had learned that shifters displayed themselves quickly if you pricked their ego.

“You will have to wait and see. First, we should see if you can keep up with me on a dance floor.” He winked and led her into the Crossed Star.

A few more arrivals must have come in since Reygaer arrived. The Crossed Star was humming with activity and music. The music continued, but the activity stopped as Reygaer walked in with her.

He paused and she smiled. “Hiya, Chuck.” She waved at the fanged bartender as she hauled the elf to the dance floor.

As they passed, Chuck called out, “Evening, Nova.”

She squared off against Reygaer and looked up at him. “Did you want to drink or dance?”

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against him, his body was delightfully cool. Her palm was snug in his, and he shivered as they started to move to the music.

“You seem to know quite a few of the regulars here.” He pulled her close and whispered it in her ear as they swayed gracefully on the dance floor.

“I was here for quite a while. When you spend nearly a month here, you get to know people.”

“What do you do in the human world?”

She shrugged. “I work for my family’s greenhouse. I do the books and keep the boilers running.”

He whispered in her ear. “You are a mechanic?”

She shivered at the cool air caressing her and brushing against her neck. “Heating and cooling specialist. I had an apprenticeship out of high school but never did more with it than getting my certification and working for my family.”

“You have a large family?”

She nodded. “Three sisters and two brothers, all married and all working for the greenhouse and the family, with their families.”

They swayed around the dance floor and others joined them. The novelty of his appearance had worn off. Shifters adapted quickly.

When the song ended, she tried to back away, but he pulled her in again. She wasn’t used to being manhandled. Few, if any, men would dare.

“I wish to get a drink.”

“And I wish for one more dance. You are my host and my guide. It behoves you to make me feel comfortable.”

She couldn’t understand why he was so insistent until he turned slightly and she saw the three other elves who were entering the Crossed Star. She must have been dazed, indeed, because there was no way she should have missed that blinding light again.

Only one out of the three was staring her way, the other two converged on a woman sitting in a booth on her own. The small flash from her wristband indicated that she was in the same situation as Nova. She was here for
them
. Or at least one of them.

The elf who was watching her had golden skin and thick lines around his eyes giving him an exotic look. He had tawny hair and a lazy, predatory grace that she found fascinating. She blinked rapidly and scowled.

“Reygaer, if I kick an elf in the nuts, will he lose his grip on his glamour?”

“And possibly his lunch, why? Mine is down.”

She nodded and leaned back to smile brightly, “But his isn’t and it is irritating me.”

He released her. “Please, do what you must.”

Nova stepped away from him and stalked toward the newcomer. He bowed low and looked up at her with a flirtatious gaze.

“Lady, I am delighted to meet you. May I know your name?”

Before he could rise, she gave him an uppercut that flipped him backward, a follow-up punch to his junk cracked his glamour, and when he landed with a thud, she was looking at an exceptionally handsome man with a dazed and pained look on his face.

She knelt next to him and threaded her fingers through his hair. “You are here to meet shifters who depend on their senses to find their mate. Using a glamour is just going to irritate them, and then, they won’t trust you. I have given you this introduction to the new world you have entered as a polite warning. No one here will judge you for what you did as long as you don’t do it again.”

She dropped his head. “And my name is Nova.”

She got to her feet and returned to Reygaer, dusting her hands off as she walked.

Chuck poured the newcomer a drink and handed it to him with the admonition, “She could have used her claws to fire the point home.”

Reygaer took her back to their spot on the polished floor, and they started to sway again.

He waited a moment and said, “So, that could have been my greeting?”

“You dropped your glamour right away. I will tell Teal and Tony to warn the fey. There is nothing that confuses our senses like smelling one thing and seeing another. It is why I steer clear of soy. It tastes like protein but it isn’t meat.”

He was amused and her words made him snicker out loud. “So, I am meat to you?”

“No, you are a dance partner and my charge until you find the woman you are meant to be with.”

“And what if you are that woman?”

She looked at him through her lashes, “My beast will have to decide, and while she is loving the cool feeling of your body, I am not sure that your beast form and hers will match. I have to ask, how do they know which fey to send?”

“Seers.” He pressed his hand to her lower back, and his eyes grew heavy lidded with pleasure. “The seers see an animal that will connect to our lives. In my path, they saw a white tiger; also, the other three were probably exposed to a white tiger in their visions but not as the primary beast.”

“So, on the off chance, they gather everyone who has the same beast in their vision and send them here at the same time?”

He nodded as if it was the most reasonable thing. “That is correct.”

“So, if I hadn’t said yes...”

“I would be waiting until you did or waiting until another white tiger entered the Crossroads who was willing to take a chance on the fey.”

She took a deep breath and held it as she pressed her lips to Reygaer’s. Cool, like everything else about him, he waited a moment as she got the nerve to deepen the kiss.

There was no place safer than the Crossed Star for a first kiss. If anything got out of hand, Chuck or Spike would step in.

As they kissed in the middle of the dance floor, Nova felt a building of her beast’s energy under her skin. The pressure increased until she felt the flow of fey magic into her mouth. The combination of shifter and fey magic mingled, and a blast of power shot out in a circle from the union of their lips.

Nova leaned back in his embrace, and the shock she felt was echoed in his face.

Applause broke out wildly from the shifters. The three fey looked a little confused.

Her victim moved over to them and asked, “What was that?”

The shadows in the corner of the bar moved and parted, allowing a graceful woman with long midnight hair and brilliant green eyes to become visible. “It was a meeting of equal and opposite.”

A man came out of the shadows behind her, as striking as his companion was beautiful.

Dira and Mak stood side by side, and from the far corner, an elder fey stepped forward.

Nova looked from one to the other. “You were watching?”

Dira smiled. “You are the strongest possible match we could find. If this is going to work, we had to prove it quickly.”

Reygaer bowed to the senior fey approaching.

The man had long white hair and a pathway of wrinkles around his eyes, but those eyes were clear and bright with hope.

“Rise, Lord Frostwind. I am surprised you volunteered for this but gratified by the progress you are making.”

“Thank you, High Lord West.”

“You are welcome. Will you introduce me?”

Reygaer blinked and a deep purple stained his cheeks. “Of course. High Lord West of the People of the Echo, this is Nova Spalding of the shifters, my intended bride.”

Nova looked at the older elf and gave a graceful curtsey that apparently surprised him.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Welcome to the new heartbeat of your life.”

Nova quirked her lips. “It isn’t certain because we have been determined equal, nor because he declares me his intended. This isn’t over until we prove that our beasts are compatible or that our bodies are. Shifters don’t take anything on faith or destiny. We prove our paths. Once I have Lord Frostwind naked, I will believe the seers.”

Dira was howling with laughter and holding on to Mak.