Chapter Five
Rein It In, Ryatt
Ryatt
It’s her.
It’s really her.
I’m frozen in place as I watch half of my soul walk away for the second time today. Something I plan to remedy, immediately.
I take a step towards her and stop. What am I doing?
I can’t just follow her, surely she’ll think I’m some weird stalker and not the nice guy she’s thought of so far.
I mean, what am I going to say? “Oh hey, so it’s crazy but I’m a reindeer shifter, one of the Princes of Sugarplum, and yeah you’re my fated mate.
Can you come home with me?” If I want to be thrown into a human jail, I’m sure that would be a quite route there.
Definitely pepper sprayed as she screams about how I’m a freak.
My body shudders as I cringe at the thought.
Holly is never going to accept me as a reindeer, she’s only fallen for the handsome glamour I’ve shown her.
Just like every other woman I’ve met, they never see beyond it, never see the man beneath it.
Or should I say the reindeer beneath. I’m more than my looks, just like I know she’s more than the insecurities I sense coming from her.
“Rein it in, Ryatt,” I mutter to myself under my breath. Aurielle, our beautiful Goddess of Light and Wonder, may have a wicked sense of humor, but she didn’t have to make this complicated. A human mate? Come on! The only thing I’ve got going for me right now is her love for Christmas.
The air hums with the feeling of desperation, indulgence, and a bit of sorrow.
The humans claim this is the best time of year, but between the sale signs, bright and large, hanging all over everything in this large, box store, I honestly think they say it with gritted teeth and not true excitement.
Somewhere above me, “Jingle Bell Rock” is playing for at least the fifth time since I’ve been in the store, and some lady is standing a few feet away holding practically two identical dish sets and debating something.
It’s bogging her down. You can tell by the slump of her shoulders and the deep sighs she keeps heaving every few seconds.
I feel for her, this store alone is bringing down my mood.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by all this consumerism, bright lights, loud sights, and try to manage it without being overwhelmed.
Back home, Christmas isn’t something you sell—it’s something you feel.
Warmth, magic, connection. Here it feels…
loud. Manufactured. Like someone packaged joy and slapped a price tag on it.
My head shakes as I turn back to where Holly went.
I can’t fix everyone’s Christmas woes, but I can fix one person’s.
With a new purpose, I stride in the direction all the parents with children dressed in their best outfits are funneling.
If I had to guess, fake Santa is this way, and so is my beautiful mate.
All the parents are sniping at their children about keeping their outfits clean, not touching anything, and, of course, to be on their best behavior.
Holly’s lyrical voice cuts through the noise—bright and warm and so full of genuine Christmas spirit that my chest goes tight. It shouldn’t hit me the way it does. I don’t even know her, not really, but something deep inside me reacts like it’s been waiting for her voice specifically.
Just watching her with the children—patient, smiling, gently scooping tiny humans into her arms as if it’s the most natural thing in the world—stirs something in me I can’t name.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing like fate shouting in my ear.
Just… a pull. A warmth. A feeling that stands out in a city built on noise.
There’s a softness to her, the kind I haven’t seen in Midtown. The kind that makes the air around her feel different. Lighter. Real.
I don’t know what that means yet, but I know one thing with absolute certainty: I want to find out.
Holly is trying to get this stupid fake Santa to even pretend he’s happy to be here, but he can’t even bother to smile.
His damn beard is crooked! Crooked and clearly a fake.
His rounded belly is clearly stuffing or some kind of pillow, because it’s oddly shaped.
I thought the window display version of him and Mrs. Claus was bad enough—but this? This is downright atrocious.
I rub my temples, the pulse of an impending migraine thrums against my skull.
It’s too loud, too bright in here. Exhaling slowly, my head rolls back as I stare at the stained, off-color ceiling tiles.
I can’t help but ask the question plaguing me.
“Aurielle, what lesson are you trying to teach me? Patience? Humility? Because if it’s endurance you could have pushed me in front of the gingerbread union instead of this.
” I gesture my hand around the chaos ensuing around me.
Something between a fake ho-ho-ho and possibly a cough comes from the ridiculous impersonation sitting there pretending to be the greatest man I know. Whoever that is couldn’t stand in the shadows of the big man, as Holly called him.
This is painful. I walk over to where the plastic reindeer stand, thumbing my finger against them as if it might stir them awake.
News flash, it doesn’t. They aren’t even anatomically correct.
They aren’t even the right height. This thing doesn’t even come up to my waist, and I’m not even that tall in my human form.
I’m only 6’ 2” in this form. In my reindeer form though, I’m easily 4’ tall at the top of my shoulder which towers over this stupid fake deer.
Not even taking into consideration that from the bottom of my hoof to the tip of my antler is six feet.
My dad in his reindeer form is even taller, if you could believe that.
We are designed to pull the sleigh, fly through the snowy nights, and maintain a serious amount of magic for twenty-four hours.
This guy, I pat the top of the hollow plastic back, looks like he couldn’t even pull a child’s sleigh with a toddler aboard it.
It’s a pity that kids think this is what we look like and they’ll never know what we really look like.
Stupid rules about how humans can’t handle the magic and blah, blah, blah.
I sigh, giving the fake reindeer one last sad pat. “You deserved better, buddy.”
That’s when I hear it—soft, delicate, and distinctly not part of the “Sleigh Bells Ring.” A single chime, almost whimsically, even a little mythical. Aurielle.
The sound threads through the chaos like liquid silver, weaving its way around each person until it finds me.
Like a lure, my body moves towards the sound as if I’m being pulled by an invisible force.
My chest tightens, as warmth spreads through my body as a mental image of Holly wrapped in my arms with snow falling softly around us fills my mind.
Her smile is tantalizing, her teeth biting down on her lower lip.
Tinking grows louder when my feet come to a stop in front of a display of pearly white ice skates hanging from a silver hook, the laces tied in perfect bows.
Right above them on a shelf are snow globes with an ice skating rink, tiny couples skating hand-in-hand, with a vintage sign reading Bryant Park Ice Rink—Open Until Midnight.
I tilt my head, a smile spreading across my face as I smirk. I look up towards the ceiling, not because Aurielle is in the sky, but out of a sort of habit. “Subtle, real subtle. You want me to ask her out, don’t you?”
A final, playful tink-tink-tink answers me when I grab the skates before fading into the crowd again. Alright, understood, Goddess.
I glance back toward Holly, who’s now wrangling the elves into formation for the next batch of Santa photos. One of them is texting, another is picking at the snow on her costume, and Santa is snoring in his chair. Is he actually ninety?
My jaw tightens. “This is painful to watch.”
That’s when I hear her voice again, closer this time, teasing and warm from behind me.
“You look personally offended,” Holly says as she walks over, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Did the elves commit a federal crime, or do you know one of them?” She glances between me and the display like she’s trying to figure out what on earth has short-circuited inside my brain.
I snort, barely resisting the urge to stomp a hoof like a pissed-off caribou. Get it together, Ryatt. No shifting in Macy’s. She will absolutely never date a man who behaves like livestock.
I try—genuinely try—to swallow my irritation.
But then the fake Santa picks his nose. Out. In public. With no shame. My eye twitches. A vein pulses in my forehead.
“Okay,” I mutter, “nope. Nope, I can’t let that slide.”
My finger shoots out before my brain can stop it. “Look at him!” I jab toward Santa’s wiggling finger. “This is what humans think Santa looks like? A— a nose-mining gremlin?”
Holly chokes on a laugh, and that only fuels me.
I stomp toward the fake reindeer. “And this? This is supposedly a reindeer? It’s the size of a Labrador! A small Labrador. If this thing had to pull a sleigh, the children wouldn’t get presents until Easter.”
My hand lands on the reindeer’s back and it wobbles like cardboard. The indignity ignites something primal in me.
“And her—!”
I whirl around to point at the elf scrolling her phone, but my dramatic arm sweep lands exactly at Holly’s face instead.
I freeze. She freezes.
Her eyes go wide, lips forming a perfect O as she slowly tucks her fingers beneath her hat like she’s bracing for impact.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
Shit… shit… shit.
I didn’t keep myself in check. Not only did I lose my shit on a fake Christmas display, but I sound awfully like someone who knows differently. Someone who would know exactly what a reindeer looks like.