Snowkiss

Royal Claws Book 1
***Standalone***

Natalie Barsotti is on a mission. She wants to prove the existence of shifters in a small community. Getting a job as a nurse in Winterland, Alaska, is only the first part of her plan. If only a certain mayor wasn’t so irresistible and so damn grumpy, it would make her operation so much easier.

Tucker Kearney is a simple wolf shifter. All he wants is to watch over his community of Winterland and stop the disappearances happening all around Alaska. The last thing he wants is a mate. He has reasons for keeping Natalie at arm's length. Even if she is his mate. Even if he desperately wants her.

No matter how hard they try, Natalie and Tucker can’t seem to stay away from each other. But there are more dangerous things than the past lurking in the wildlands. It might destroy them before they even begin…

Reader's Note: This is an ice-melting new series that is sure to heat up your nights. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Natalie

The bone-deep rumble of the airplane couldn’t be drowned out. The loud, whooshing noise was damn near deafening, and when the tiny aircraft dipped in the sky, Natalie could hear death coming.

Okay, so maybe she was being a tad dramatic.

There was no way to know for sure if the bucking little airplane would crash. It just felt like that because the plane was tiny, and the strong Alaskan winds were not. Tiny, that is. The craft kept jarring to the left despite the pilot’s death-grip hold on the controls. It would have been way better for her sanity if she couldn’t see the pilot struggling, but the plane seated only a handful of people. She was practically sitting on his lap.

Though that wouldn’t ease her stress.

Even in her jeans, thick cotton knit sweater, winter jacket, and scarf, she was cold. Were planes even supposed to be cold?

You’re a California woman, born and raised. Of course, you’re freezing in Alaska.

Damn. Her mind wasn’t being too kind to her. Ever since she had enacted her plan, her head had been reeling with all kinds of thoughts. They ranged from you need to do this, to you are fucking insane for doing this.

At that precise moment, Natalie was firmly on the what the fuck am I doing? team. Who knew, maybe by the time they landed in Point Hope, she would feel better about the whole thing. Because landing would mean she had survived the flight from Anchorage to the fly-in-only community at the western tip of the coldest state. It wasn’t her final destination, but she would deal with that later.

Natalie could have looked out of the small window, but then she would have seen the endless white landscape below. She loved the beach and wine country. She needed the sunshine to breathe, just like a fragile little flower. She loved green landscapes and going for hikes in the mountains.

Just not snow-covered mountains.

Tugging at her coat, she silently reminded herself why this was so important. She had a mission. She couldn’t let sub-zero temperatures in a fucking frozen wilderness deter her from her goal. She squared her shoulders, closed her eyes, and focused on her breathing.

I am not in a death trap that will plummet to the ground. I am not going to die in Alaska. I am going to get what I came here for, and then I will spend a full month on the warm sandy beaches until I turn into a strip of human bacon from all the sunshine.

There. That was a plan.

“You’re gonna want to brace for landing,” the pilot shouted over the droning noise of the plane.

“What?” she asked, panicked.

The old pilot, with his frizzy white hair and bushy beard, didn’t answer. Either because he was deaf thanks to his plane, or because they were going to die, and he wanted to crash in relative silence, without a screaming Cali woman losing her shit.

It’s a good thing I love you so much, Nana.

She repeated the thought over and over as the plane dropped. When the wheels popped out from the compartment under her feet, Natalie gripped the armrests so tightly, it was a minor miracle she hadn’t broken a nail. Or a finger. Or a hand. She invoked her grandmother’s spirit in hopes of getting some of the older woman’s strength from beyond the grave.

When the wheels hit the runway, the entire plane jolted. Natalie gasped, cinching down even harder on the poor, defenseless armrests.

“I don’t want to die,” she squeaked.

Hopefully, the pilot said nothing in return because he was too focused on the task of landing the plane without killing anyone. Natalie didn’t ease her grip or slow her breathing until the plane putted to a blissfully welcome stop.

“Here we are,” the pilot announced in a decidedly gruff voice. He opened the door and motioned for her to head out first. Natalie grabbed her luggage, a duffel bag that once belonged to Nana. The pilot took it out of her hands and threw it out of the plane. She wanted to yell at him for his lack of concern for her belongings, but then she remembered that the small aircraft didn’t have stairs. She had to jump down, and she couldn’t do that with her hands full with a large bag.

Natalie took a deep breath, the overly cold air stinging her lungs. We’re off to a great start. As slowly and carefully as possible, she jumped out of the plane. The drop was only a couple of feet, but it was still nerve-racking, going against every self-preservation instinct she had.

Kind of like this whole damn trip.

She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder and waited for the pilot to join her. When he did, in nothing more than a fleece pullover, Natalie wanted to cry. Was he hardened to the freezing temperature, or was she that weak? There would be no answer. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him.

“Come,” he snapped, walking with determination toward the airport.

If you could call it that. The building was nothing more than an ugly gray cement box— without a window in sight. Natalie followed the pilot toward it, tucking her head down against a cold snap of wind. Her knit cap did precious little to protect her ears from the elements.

I chose to come here, she repeated to herself.

“Don’t stray too far,” the pilot shouted at her when he noticed she was falling behind. “People have been disappearing out there lately.” The statement sent an arctic blast through her already icy blood, and if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a wicked glint in the pilot’s eyes. 

Or maybe he was squinting against the wind. 

That was probably it.

“I should think no one could survive out here very long. It’s so cold.”

The pilot’s answer was a bark of laughter. “Are you kidding? This is downright balmy.” He continued to laugh as he opened the door, motioning for Natalie to be first through.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Natalie hopped in, desperate to feel a bit of warmth. It was all she could do not to kiss the ground. The pilot already thought she was nuts. She didn’t want to seem anymore unprepared for life in Alaska than she already was. Natalie rubbed her gloved hands across her thighs, trying to ease the pinching of her thawing skin. She eyed her luggage, wondering if she should slip on her snow pants.

Probably.

She didn’t know who she was meeting or how she would get to Winterland from this point. But she wasn’t going to face the subzero Alaskan weather without another few layers. Dropping to her knees, Natalie rifled through her luggage until she found her bright pink snow pants. They were a god-awful bubble gum color, but it was the only pair her size in the store. Kicking off her boots, she slid the pants on as quickly as possible, all with the aim of snugging her feet back into whatever warmth her footwear could afford.

How it was just as cold in the airport was beyond her.

“Natalie.”

The sound of her name sent her neck snapping around, nearly toppling her over.

“That’s me,” she grunted, pulling on her boots.

“You are literally the only person here. I kinda figured you were my passenger.”

Natalie looked up to see a man in his early thirties. He was handsome, even if not exactly her type. His smile was too wide, too easy. His thick beard covered in frost and snow wouldn’t have done a lot to make anybody a GQ model. Who would have thought that a young man, in the prime of his life, would choose to live in the seclusion of the frozen Alaskan desert?

Not that Natalie could ever consider herself an expert in the opposite sex. The occasional surf rat or beach bum she met on the beaches of Cali were fine for the odd tangle in the sheets. Still, none of them were exactly husband material. In fact, a husband would have been a far shot in the best of times. Not one of her past relationships with California men, or men in general, had left her clamoring for a relationship.

Thankfully, she was confident this snow-covered Alaskan bushman wouldn’t tempt her.

“I am Sawyer Agnor,” he said. “I’m your ride to Winterland.” He eyed her snow gear. “It’s fall. How the hell are you going to dress in the winter?”

Natalie shrugged. “Hopefully, by that time, I will be accustomed to the cold.”

Sawyer chuckled. “Whatever you say. Oh, man, Tucker is going to lose his shit when he sees you.” Without another word or explanation as to exactly what he meant by that little quip, Sawyer grabbed her duffel bag and swung it over his shoulder. He gave it a quick heft as if to gauge the weight, then turned and ambled to the door. Without sparing a second glance backward, he left the building, the door slamming behind him.

Why would Tucker be mad when he saw her? Tucker was the mayor of Winterland. The guy had put her through the wringer with a whole litany of phone interviews and emails before hiring her. He knew what he was getting— a nurse from California.

“You might want to follow,” the pilot snapped. “None of the three mayors of Winterland is particularly patient.”

“Three mayors?” she squeaked.

The pilot nodded.

“How problematic is Winterland if the village needs three mayors?”

“Just don’t piss them off. Especially not Tuck. He’s been ornery since he was a cub.” The man laughed dryly before disappearing through a door, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Natalie didn’t miss the pilot’s choice of words. How could the old man know that he had said precisely the right thing to perk her interest? He had said cub, surely not expecting her to know the coded language he was using. 

But she knew.

Or, at least, Natalie had a pretty solid hunch. Word was that Winterland was a safe haven for shifters of all stripes. She didn’t know if they were real or not, but she was going to find out if it was the last thing she did.

* * *

“You can’t be serious,” Natalie gasped when she joined Sawyer in the cold Alaskan air.

He stood by a snowmobile, goggles hiding his eyes and his head covered in a thick, shiny black helmet with a white fox painted on it. “This is the only way to get to Winterland. Unless you want to run.” He chuckled, leaving Natalie with the distinct impression that if he didn’t have to accompany a human to his village, he would have shifted into whatever animal he was and run through the frozen tundra to get to his small town.

What was he? Perhaps the snow fox painted on his helmet was a good guess, but she couldn’t be sure. She also couldn’t flat out ask. From everything Nana had told her, shifters were very reclusive and private about their matters.

That was why she couldn’t fuck this up.

If she held out any hope of learning their secrets, she was going to have to keep her head down and feign ignorance. Maybe by pretending not even to suspect their existence, she could catch a shifter in a slip. Then perhaps her nana would feel the pride of vindication. Then Natalie would know once and for all that the stories her grandmother had told at the end of her life weren't fantasies.

“I would prefer not to run,” Natalie finally said, trying to play his comment off like the joke it might have been. “I would much prefer to make the trek in an enclosed vehicle, if possible. It is freezing out here.”

Sawyer shrugged. “It’s actually not that cold. Wait for the wind to hit you. Then you might get a glimpse of what true cold is.” His smile was downright malevolent. He handed her a helmet and a pair of goggles. “You will need these.” He swung his legs over the snowmobile, and the machine roared to life. “Let’s go. If I’m late again, Tucker’s going to have my hide.”

Hide, huh? She made note of that. 

Not only that, but it was the second time in ten minutes that a fully grown man brought up Tucker’s temper. He hadn’t seemed all that prickly over the phone, but that didn’t mean anything. Obviously, Tucker was a hard man, and Natalie steeled herself against any encounters with the man in question. To say that he sounded unpleasant was an understatement.

Maybe that was why Winterland had three mayors— to balance out whatever intemperance one of them might display. He may have overseen her hiring, but was he her boss in actual practice? Everything she had heard made her hope not. With luck, there would be some intermediaries to buy her a bit of space.

Besides, why the hell was the mayor of Winterland hiring nurses in the first place? Shouldn’t that be the job of some medical official? Or at least someone with knowledge in the field. The question had seemed odd to her during the interview process, but now it stuck in her mind with an uneasy prominence.

Everything about this made her uneasy, from the icy cold that seemed to bother nobody but her, to the trio of mayors with a tyrant at the center, down to the burly escort sitting astride his snowmobile. The little hint of disappearances wasn’t a vote in Alaska’s favor either. All she wanted was to get back on that rickety little plane and head back for warmer climes.

Do it for Nana.

Natalie hopped onto the snowmobile and gripped the seat tightly. Thankfully, the seat was large enough to leave a decent amount of space between her and Sawyer. She didn’t know how things were in Winterland, but the last thing she wanted was to give any of the young men the idea that she was open and ready for business. 

She was on a mission to learn their secrets. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sawyer took off, and immediately, Natalie’s brain shut down. Not only because of the thundering of the machine beneath her but because the wind was sharp as a knife—even though every inch of her body was covered. The whirl of it kicked up snow, causing a tornado of white around them. Despite her goggles, Natalie squinted hard. She couldn’t see anything. She had no idea in which direction they were headed, and she felt certain she would never be able to find her way back to Point Hope on her own.

There went her escape plan.