Chapter 5
Jack Frost returned from his trip around the world, spreading misery and winter wherever he felt like it, and this year he was particularly proud of himself for the problems he was causing right this moment in Northernmost. It had taken a lot of magic to do what he did, but damn, he’d had a blast.
It wasn’t often that Jack was tickled by an idea, but he’d been grinning the entire time. And the best part was that no one in Northernmost realized what he was doing until it was too late to stop him.
After a quick stop in Russia to steal the magic from some witches so he could get back to his lair, he finished replenishing his magic with the good magic users he’d captured over the last few months and then replenished the magic of his evil followers.
Since they couldn’t replenish their magic at the Well because they were evil, Jack had to do it himself.
And while it was tedious, he needed minions to do his bidding after all.
Now that he was back to full power, it was time to create the weapon he’d discovered while perusing an ancient warlock burial site in Iceland. Among the tombs and decaying gravestones, he’d found a library and a tome, which gave him everything he needed to carry out his plan.
Azure walked into his office with a crystal jar. “I found it.”
“Good. Let’s go down to the cells. I need iron.”
“Iron?”
“Yes, the weapon that will take out my brother needs frozen iron that has been exposed to an eternity of winter.”
“But the cells have only been here for a few decades.”
“An eternity in magic is different than in the physical realm,” he pointed out.
He took the crystal jar and looked through the cut glass to the swirling darkness inside.
The heart of a dying star. No easy feat to get, but Azure was resourceful and Jack was powerful and the two were a potent combination.
As they headed down to the cells, which were now empty after Jack had utilized every creature for his own purposes, he smiled to himself.
This was his year, he was sure of it.
With his newfound knowledge and a powerful weapon, he was going to take out his brother and secure the Well of Magic for himself. Once he had control of the Well, the world would turn to darkness and he’d be the leader, the most powerful warlock in the world.
Taking out his brother wouldn’t bring back all Jack had lost, but it sure as hell would go a long way to righting the wrongs done to him by his brother.
Count your days, brother. They’ll be your last.
* * *
Hunter walked with Pixie back to her parents’ home, where Winter was waiting with her brothers. She’d packed an overnight bag, but neither of them was sure what Santa would say about her need to do her job and leave Northernmost every night for her shift.
While she said goodbye to her family, he used his cell to call the security room and let them know she was going to open a portal to Northernmost for them from the island instead of needing pickup in Arctic Springs.
“It’s not going to work,” Sebastian, one of the wolf shifters, said.
“What’s not going to work?”
“The portal. Early this morning, Jack Frost focused his magic on the Portal and froze it.”
“Like literally?”
“Yep. His magic was powerful enough to actually freeze the bones of the Portal and seep underground. It’s unusable for the time being. We’re trying to thaw it.”
“Is Emberlin using her fire magic?” Sebastian’s mate was a phoenix witch with both healing and fire magic.
“She can’t. Her magic is too strong and was singeing the bones. Santa thinks it’ll take another day to thaw it safely so the Portal isn’t damaged.”
“Hold on,” Pixie said. “Did you say Frost froze the Portal?”
“Yep,” Sebastian said. “It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Santa said he did it just to be a pain in the ass.”
“I wonder if we could help,” Pixie said. “Let me go talk to Tooth Fairy.”
As he watched his mate walk away, he told Sebastian he’d call him back in a few. While he waited for his gorgeous mate to return, he stayed on the front porch with his brother, and they enjoyed the sunshine.
“This place is wild,” Winter said. “It’s so damn warm here.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “I like where our clan lives, but you can’t really beat tropical weather and the ocean views.”
Pixie called his name and waved him and Winter over.
Standing next to a large garden full of incredible looking flowers that he’d never seen before was the most powerful fairy in the world: Tooth Fairy.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said, shaking their hands.
“Pixie told me what Frost did, and I reached out to Santa. Pixie, you and your mate and his brother gather the sun-vines from the garden. Pull them out with the roots intact, as many as you can gather. I’m going to call for all available fairies. Let’s meet in ten minutes!”
Pixie took them into the garden and showed them the sun-vines.
The thick vines were topped with large flowers the color of the sunrise.
She showed them how to pull them from the ground and keep the roots intact.
As they made piles of sun-vines, the fairies gathered around them, picking up the bundles.
When they’d pulled all the flowers from the garden, they met on the beach where the sun was shining and the salt breeze was warm.
“The thing to remember about Jack Frost,” Tooth Fairy said loudly, “is that his magic isn’t just snow and ice, but it’s literally his power. The one thing that snow and ice can’t withstand is the sun.”
There were at least twenty fairies with them, all holding bundles of sun-vines, and he and Winter were holding them too. Tooth Fairy opened a portal just outside Northernmost, facing the main entrance. As their group stepped out of the tropical warmth into the freezing cold, a collective gasp rose.
The Portal wasn’t just covered with a layer of ice and snow, it was positively buried under what appeared to be several feet of thick ice.
“That son of a biscuit,” Tooth Fairy seethed. “I don’t know how he managed to do this, but he must have used a lot of his magic to cause such problems. Never seen this before in my life!”
“Wow, we’re front and center to his madness,” Pixie said.
“He gets worse every December,” Hunter said.
At Tooth Fairy’s instruction, they laid their sun-vines in a half circle near the Portal. Beyond them, inside the magical perimeter of Northernmost, Santa and several Guardians and security team members stood watching.
Tooth Fairy recited a spell and the sun-vines began to glow like the afternoon sun. The fairies’ wings beat swiftly, blowing the heat from the blooms toward the Portal.
At first, it seemed like nothing was happening, and then there was a crack—a hairline fracture along one side of the Portal.
As the crack grew, more cracks and fissures appeared, like spiderwebs spreading across the thick ice.
There was a pulse of pure, golden light that made Hunter shield his eyes, followed by a sonic boom of shattering ice.
The Portal glowed as it was freed from the ice, and a cheer rose up from both sides. The sun-vines withered and died on the snow. Pixie explained that they’d done their job, and the fairies would harvest their seeds to plant more flowers.
The fairies entered Northernmost and replenished their magic if needed, then returned to the island, leaving only the Tooth Fairy, Hunter, Pixie, and her family.
Tooth Fairy and Santa spoke quietly while Pixie and Hunter said goodbye to her family, who headed through the Portal back to the island, asking her to keep them informed of what her plans were when it came to her living arrangements and work.
“I’m going to check in with the security team,” Winter said. “And then hit the hay. I’m supposed to be on second shift, so I want to get a bit of sleep before that happens.”
“Thanks for coming with me and helping out,” Hunter said. “See you later.”
“Pixie? Hunter?” Tooth Fairy said, motioning for them to join her where she was talking to Santa.
They walked over, hand in hand, and greeted Santa.
“The team told me that you had found your truemate, Hunter. Congratulations. It’s nice to meet you, Pixie,” Santa said.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Santa.”
“I understand that we have a bit of an issue with you needing to go on your route because there is a shortage of fairies for the area,” Santa said.
“Yes, I’ve been tasked with a new territory in Pennsylvania for the time being.”
“A few weeks,” Tooth Fairy said, giving a knowing look to Santa. “Just until things get back to normal.”
“Of course,” Santa said, stroking his beard thoughtfully, his gaze flicking between Pixie and Hunter. “With Frost being such a problem this time of year, I don’t like the idea of you traveling alone through portals every night.”
“I don’t either,” Hunter admitted. “But I can’t fly or open portals myself, so I can’t go with her.
Plus, I’m needed here. I can switch to the night shift so I can be there to get her safely through the Portal to come into and leave Northernmost, but that’s where my abilities end.
” His stomach twisted with unease. He had literally just met her hours before, but she was already ingrained in his heart and mind because they were mates.
It didn’t matter that they’d only just kissed, he didn’t want to be apart from her until Christmas Day and not have her with him.
He knew she had a job to do, but the thought of her traveling alone every night when Frost was out there made his bear restless.
Pixie squeezed Hunter’s hand. “It’s not ideal, but I have a duty to my territory. There are children who are counting on me.”
“We can’t neglect that, but we also can’t risk Frost catching on to your routine and interfering or harming you,” Santa said.
“What if she had a safe way to get back and forth each night? Something that’s not as risky as opening a portal directly in and out of Northernmost?” Hunter asked.
Tooth Fairy’s wings fluttered rapidly. “A tether,” she murmured.
Pixie blinked. “A what now?”
“A magical link,” Tooth Fairy said. “Instead of using the main portal every night to come and go, you would have what is essentially your own private portal. It would be separate from our normal portal system. Instead of having to come here through the Portal, you would come in through a tethered portal inside Northernmost.”
“It’s like a hidden passage?” Hunter asked.
Santa nodded. Tooth Fairy said, “Yes! We can enchant a temporary portal that won’t be detectable by anyone. Pixie can use it to travel quickly between Northernmost and Pennsylvania, and it would only work for Pixie. No one else could use it.”
Hunter liked that idea a hell of a lot better than the Portal that they already knew Frost could track thanks to his magic, and he liked it far better than her not staying with him in Northernmost. “And it’ll be safe, right?”
“Absolutely,” Tooth Fairy said. “It will function like a back door, but only Pixie will have the ability to open it and use it.”
“So I will have this backdoor tether-thing until my time taking over Pennsylvania is finished?” Pixie asked.
“Yes. Then I have an idea,” Tooth Fairy said.
“Another one?” she asked, her brows high.
Tooth Fairy chuckled. “Yes. We don’t have anyone dedicated to collecting teeth at the top of the world here.
It’s more ad hoc, and sometimes we are racing against time to collect teeth before the children wake up.
After your tour of duty in Pennsylvania is finished, you could become the dedicated tooth fairy for the North Pole and surrounding areas.
Northernmost, Northern Canada, Alaska, there are some remote witch and warlock covens in the Arctic as well, plus Greenland, Finland, Russia…
all easily accessible by portal. You would still most likely be collecting between fifty and one hundred teeth a night, but many of these areas aren’t heavily populated so your time would be taken up with the portal traveling. ”
“Oh wow, that would be amazing,” Pixie said.
Hunter cleared his throat. “Can you give us a minute? I’d like to talk to Pixie in private.”
“Sure, of course,” Santa said. “We’ll get to work on the tethered portal. Meet us in the subbasement in twenty minutes.”
Hunter nodded, taking Pixie’s hand and shouldering her bag. He led her into the main building, his mind spinning as they made their way to his apartment.
“I want to make sure that things aren’t going too fast,” he said, setting her bag down.
“Which part?” she asked, taking a look around his apartment.
“They’re assuming that you want to live here. We haven’t had enough time together to really talk about anything. It’s all been rush-rush since we met.”
“True.” She rocked on her heels and hummed, her wings twitching. “Are you worried about me?”
“I’m worried that we’re being pushed into making decisions before we’ve even really gotten to know each other.
They’re talking about you changing everything after knowing me for less than twelve hours.
We’re truemates, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s more important for me to have my job here than for you to have yours and live on the island. I don’t want you to feel railroaded.”
She stared at him, her head tilted slightly.
Then she stepped close, her sweet floral scent making his bear want to come out to play.
“Hunter, you couldn’t possibly be more sweet.
I feel really lucky to have you in my life right now because you’re so caring and concerned for me.
The truth is that I can do my job anywhere.
It wasn’t like I spent time with particular kids and got to know them.
I sneak in and out at night and try not to get busted.
I can do my job anywhere. Your job is important too, and your job also helps keep me and my magic safe.
I don’t have to live on the island full-time to be fulfilled, and I don’t want you to give up your job.
” She looked thoughtful and then said, “I think I’m going to like being up here.
And I’ll miss my family, but I can drop in on them when I’m collecting teeth and visit, and they can come up here too.
The question is, are you okay with me storming into your life like this? I literally fell into your arms.”
He grinned. Sexy, sweet female.
He put his arm around her waist and drew her close with a soft growl. “I want you here. In Northernmost, in my apartment, in my bed. As long as you’re happy and safe, then I’m one happy bear.”
She stared up at him, her blue-green eyes sparkling. “I want to come home to you at the end of my shift. It’s really the only thing I care about.”
“I want that too.”
They’d both get to keep doing what they loved, but at the end of the night, they’d be with each other, and that’s what mattered most to him.
“Let’s go find Santa and Tooth Fairy and see about your tethered portal. And then I have another idea.”
Her eyes darkened, the blue turning navy and swirling with forest green.
“I can’t wait.”