Chapter 6
Pixie and Hunter used corridors and stairwells to make their way far below Northernmost. The stone walls were rough and she could feel a hum of old magic in the walls and knew that the magical protections around Northernmost extended far below to keep everyone safe.
They reached a massive wooden door that was open and walked into a chamber that was unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
The tethered portal stood in the center of the chamber, an arched structure made of smooth, pale stone. The surface was covered with glowing silver runes. In the center of the arch was a swirling mist, like a storm cloud that flickered with tiny bursts of golden light.
“Holy crap,” Pixie said.
Tooth Fairy chuckled. “This portal is magically bound to this location. You can go anywhere with this portal, but it will always bring you back here.”
Pixie reached out and touched one of the runes, finding it warm like the sun. “This is incredible,” she said. “How does it work?”
“We’re going to give you a magical tattoo,” Santa said. “On your wrist. It will allow you to use the portal to leave and return.”
“Awesome,” she said.
“Let’s get you that tattoo so you can try it out,” Tooth Fairy said. “Then I have one more piece of good news before I head home to the island.”
Pixie extended her right arm, palm up, and pushed back the sleeve of her tunic.
Tooth Fairy put her hand on her wrist and Santa put his just above hers.
They spoke a spell together, and her arm heated as golden magic slipped into her skin.
When they lifted their hands, a tattoo was visible on her wrist. It looked like a pair of fairy wings woven with swirls of golden sunlight.
“This is your key,” Tooth Fairy said. “To activate the tethered portal, you place your hand on the stone arch. Use your magic the way you would with a normal portal and focus on your first location in the ledger, and it will safely open an invisible portal. You’ll keep your shadow magic around yourself so you’re entirely invisible.
Once you step away from the portal, it will close.
To move along the collection route, you will open regular portals.
Once you’re ready to return to Northernmost, touch your fingers to the tattoo and concentrate your magic on going home, and the tethered portal will bring you here. ”
“This is amazing,” she said. “Thank you both so much.”
She and Tooth Fairy tested it together so that in case something went awry, she wasn’t alone.
Pixie activated the tethered portal, which Santa had created for this purpose from a stone doorway in another room of the subbasement.
She and Tooth Fairy went to the island and then returned to Northernmost.
“It works perfectly,” Pixie said.
“Excellent,” Santa said. “Now, let’s get out of the subbasement. We’ve got another surprise.”
They closed the door to the chamber and walked through the maze of corridors and stairwells to the ground level, walking through the dining hall and stopping at a set of windows that overlooked other, smaller buildings.
“I wanted to talk to you about the teeth collection,” Tooth Fairy said.
“I would need to bring them back to the island.”
“While you’re collecting in Pennsylvania, yes. But once you take over the territory at the top of the world, it doesn’t make sense to travel like that, so you can build a fairy garden here.”
“I can?”
“Indeed,” Santa said. He pointed to one of the buildings. “That’s a garden shed. Beyond it are greenhouses that are tended by elves. There is space for another greenhouse that you can use to build a fairy garden.”
“You’ll have to use your magic to enchant the ground,” Tooth Fairy said, “but we will share the seeds from our main fairy garden, and you can tend to one up here yourself. Then you won’t have to come to the island at the end of every shift to put the teeth away.
You can return the magic to the world from here. ”
“Oh, that sounds amazing,” she said, staring through the window and imagining the garden. “I can’t wait.”
“We’ll get started on building the greenhouse for you,” Santa said. “When it’s ready for planting, any help you need is yours.”
“Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, I feel like everyone is doing all this extra stuff just for me.”
“You’re worth it,” Hunter said confidently.
“I agree,” said Tooth Fairy. “Keeping you safe from Frost is the top priority, but you’re also one of my tooth fairies, and I want you to have a wonderful life with your truemate and be able to keep doing the job that you love. I would do anything for my fairies, trust me.”
She hugged Tooth Fairy, her eyes stinging with tears. “Thank you.”
“I’ll let you know when you can start taking over the collection up here and I’ll get you a new ledger too. In the meantime, I’m going home to have some tea and put my feet up. This has been quite an exciting day.”
Santa said, “I’ll walk you to the Portal. You two enjoy the day. I think both of you are on the night shift, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” Hunter said.
They said goodbye to the most powerful warlock and the most powerful fairy, and then she turned to face him.
“I’m starving. I know we were making some sexy suggestions earlier, but my stomach has been growling for a half hour.”
He grinned. “Mine too. Let’s go eat, and then we’ll see where the day takes us. We’ve got about twelve hours until our shifts start.”
“Plenty of time for pretty much anything,” she mused.
* * *
After eating a delicious lunch at the dining hall and meeting several of the other Guardians, including two wolves—Declan and Gabriel—and a snow leopard named Maverick, they headed to his apartment.
She had a text from her mom saying how happy she was for them and how excited she was to hear about the job she’d be taking once her current assignment was finished.
“Do you know why you were assigned to Pennsylvania?” Hunter asked as he shut the door to the apartment and sat to unlace his boots.
“Nope. She said that she had to pull several tooth fairies off their assignments to help her with a project, and she had to retool territories and move people around to make it all work.”
“Did you ever have a place you worked that you hated?”
“Not really hated, but I was assigned to a territory that also included ogres, and while I was taking a tooth from under a toddler ogre’s pillow, he rolled over and nearly smooshed me.”
He laughed. “Sounds like you almost lost a limb.”
“Definitely. Thankfully I was only there for two shifts because the other fairy assigned was on vacation. I was glad to get back to regular towns.”
“Do you ever see any other magical people? Like Sandman or his dream walkers out and about?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But they move just as fast as I do, so it’s pretty rare.”
He stared at her, his eyes simmering and a soft growl rumbling in his chest. He stalked to her and pulled her close.
“I feel so lucky to have found you, Pixie. It all feels like a fluke. You moved to a different territory out of the blue, I happened to be home visiting the clan, and then I just also happened to be outside when you took a header out of that bedroom window. But I know flukes aren’t real, but fate is.
We’re truemates, and we were brought together because it was the right time for us to meet. ”
“When you asked me earlier if things were moving too fast, I wanted to tell you how instantly at home I feel with you, how peaceful being around you makes me feel. We have our whole lives in front of us, but nothing feels rushed. It feels perfectly timed because, yeah, we were supposed to meet. It’s crazy, but it’s awesome as hell. ”
His eyes darkened and he lowered his head, brushing his lips against hers.
She tugged on his shirt, freeing it from where he’d tucked it in, and undid the buttons, her fingertips brushing against his smooth, warm skin.
He groaned, holding her close as he devoured her in a kiss that she could feel all the way to the center of her body.
He broke the kiss and gazed down at her, his eyes blazing to the amber of his polar bear.
Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the bed and laid her down.
He came down over top of her, caging her with his arms. She stroked her hands up his torso, feeling the warm skin and muscles. He sat up, pulled the shirt off, and dropped it to the floor. She was momentarily mesmerized by how stacked with muscle he was.
A bear of a man indeed.
He ducked back toward her for a kiss, settling to her side and resting his hand on her stomach. Fisting the material, he pulled upward and leaned over, brushing his lips across her stomach, making heat pool in her belly. She let out a soft sigh of need.
He scooted down the bed and hooked his fingers in her leggings. She sat up and pulled off her tunic while he divested her of the rest of her clothes. With a small smile curving the corner of his mouth, he slipped from the bed and stripped fully, giving her quite a show.
All rippling muscles and smooth skin and… holy crap, what a piece of equipment.
She let out a trembling breath as he climbed onto the bed and pushed her legs apart to make room for his broad shoulders.
He braced himself on one arm and touched the apex of her thighs with his fingertips, gently moving them up and down, barely grazing her skin.
She curled her toes and bit her lip, wanting to enjoy what he was doing but also wanting him to get down to business.
She wanted to tell him that she couldn’t wait to be his, but then he lowered his head and brushed his lips across her stomach and her whole body twitched.
He glanced up at her as he slowly worked two fingers inside her pussy, delving them in all the way and then out and circling her clit with the lightest pressure.
Holding her gaze, he pumped his fingers into her and lowered his head to lick her clit, circling the tight bud with firm, swift strokes.
She dropped back onto the bed with a moan and gripped the blanket with both fists.
Heat filled her as he fingered her and played with her clit, driving her to the height of pleasure.
Her body flushed and her stomach tightened as he found just the right spot on her clit to send her over the edge.
With a sharp cry of pleasure, she came, heat licking at her body like electricity.
He sucked his fingers into his mouth as his eyes bled to amber, and she’d never seen anything sexier.
He prowled up her body, kissing and licking his way to her breasts and her aching nipples before he kissed her neck, and she wanted him to mark her right there so badly.
He kissed her as he slowly pushed inside her, his thick, long cock filling her, stretching her just right. She wrapped her arms around him and hooked her ankles at his lower back, letting out a groaning sigh at how perfectly they fit together.
“Mine,” he said, more growl than word.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes!”
He pulled out just as slowly, and then he thrust forward. With each thrust forward, she could feel their connection as mates growing stronger. She dug her nails into his back as he took her hard and fast, throwing her head back to shout his name as heat coiled inside her.
Sliding his hand under her hips, he lifted her lower body from the bed and balanced on his knees, never missing a stroke as he changed the angle of their bodies. Every time he stroked into her, his pelvis rubbed her sensitive clit exactly how she needed to get to another height of pleasure.
“Come for me again, sweetheart,” he demanded through gritted teeth. “I want to feel you come around my cock.”
He pounded into her faster, harder, and her body went white-hot, the whole world dropping away as heat poured through her and she came a second time.
This time she shouted his name.
Because he was her mate and she was his.
He roared when he followed her into bliss, his cock thickening inside her and the heat of his come setting off aftershocks of pleasure for her. He shuddered with a growling purr and then he kissed her neck.
“Let me mark you,” he said hoarsely.
“Yes, I want that.”
She sank her fingers into his hair and tilted her head, barely even registering when he sank his fangs into her neck because she was so blissed out.
When he’d pulled his fangs free and tenderly licked the marks, he murmured, “Mine,” and eased from her body to drop to the bed next to her.
Breathing hard, her fingertips and toes tingling, she turned her head to look at him. “You’re mine too.” She reached for him, turning to her side and snuggling into his arms with a kiss. “Mate.”
“Sweet mate,” he said. “Beautiful fairy, sexy female. Best thing that ever happened to me.”