2. Jasper

2

Jasper

“ I need your help,” Jasper said to his friends, “to make this Christmas the best Christmas ever.”

They were all hanging out in hellhound shifter Caine’s front room, with a fire blazing in the fireplace and the credits for a kids’ cartoon playing on the TV.

The kids themselves were scattered around the furniture: Jasper’s daughter Ruby was playing under the table, determined to stay awake as long as the grown-ups, while Caine’s twins Lola and Hamish were fast asleep sprawled over him, pinning him to the sofa.

Every month when their mates had their book club, the guys got together for a pizza and movie night with the kids and, after the kids were asleep, a poker night for them. And tonight, same as every month, nobody was even sure where the poker stuff was, and they’d all been more invested in watching the cartoon than they would like to admit.

Jasper’s nephew Cole would normally be home with his dad while mom Opal was at book club, but Hank was out of town. Unimpressed by the cartoon on offer, he had disappeared in a pre-teen huff to do important pre-teen stuff in the kitchen… which probably meant Caine would be due an emergency grocery trip in the morning.

And Christmas was only a month away.

The knowledge itched under his skin. He wanted to fly home and dive into the plans he’d been making for this year—but it wasn’t that simple.

“Uh-huh.” Griffin shifter Hardwick was the grumpy, silent type, and his expression spoke far more eloquently than his grumbling. “That right?”

Griffin shifter. Jasper’s inner dragon shifted its wings uncomfortably, but Jasper didn’t need the warning. Griffins could tell when people were lying, but he wasn’t lying. “I want this year to be the best Christmas ever,” he repeated.

Hardwick’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.

Because Jasper was telling the truth.

Wasn’t he?

“Don’t you want every year to be the best Christmas ever?” Caine asked from somewhere beneath the two toddlers using him as a mattress.

“Of course. But this year is—” Jasper hesitated.

“Your, what, six-year anniversary?” Caine suggested. He counted under his breath. “You two got together the year before Meaghan and I met, right?”

On the other couch, pegasus shifter Jackson snapped his fingers. “And it’s your birthday! Dude, you’re sneakier than Olly. Forget Christmas—”

“That’s not what’s important!”

The others stared. One of the twins snuffled and wiggled in their sleep, and Caine’s stare snapped into a warning glare.

Jasper raised his hands. “Sorry. But forget my birthday. That’s not what’s important.”

Jasper looked around the group of friends. He’d spent most of his teenaged and adult life away from Pine Valley, traveling the world searching for his fated mate—and failing to find her until he gave up and returned home.

He’d always been outgoing—you had to be, when you were in a new town every couple of weeks—but now, for the first time in his life, he had more actual friends than he knew what to do with.

Caine and Fleance, the hellhound shifters who’d had to come to terms with their own curses, the same way he’d almost given up ever breaking his. Jackson, who’d only discovered later in life that he was a shifter—and whose life had turned upside down because of it. And Hardwick, whose ability to sense lies was so… fine, absolutely fine, because who was lying? Not him.

He spread his arms. “It’s Christmas, and… look, we all know how I get around Christmas, right? I’m the Christmas dragon! It’s the most magical time of the year. And this year I want to make sure it’s the most magical time of any year.”

Fleance rubbed his chin and frowned. “How much more magical can it get? There’s already the Christmas tree village with Santa in the town square, the combination sleigh-ride-and-Santa-letters thing, the best dressed house competition, the Christmas Eve choir… Do you need our help doing more, or less?”

Not less. Jasper’s chest tightened. He couldn’t do less Christmas.

“I can handle those,” Jasper said off-handedly, and Fleance’s eyebrows got lost somewhere in his long hair. “I was thinking we could add something to them, though. What if—”

He rattled off a few ideas.

The others stared at him.

“He’s lost it,” Hardwick deadpanned. “Honestly. You can’t think of anything else you’d rather be doing?”

Jasper’s mind went straight to his soulmate. His gorgeous, perfect Abigail, still sometimes as prickly as the day he’d met her and all the sweeter for it. All her life, Christmas had been a source of tension and unhappiness, not a time for celebration.

And his little girl. Ruby was old enough now to look forward to Christmas from the minute Halloween was over. And she didn’t have the same bittersweet relationship to it as he used to. She was a summer baby, and one of the best things in his life. Sharing the magic of the holidays with her made them more magical every year.

Which was why this had to be the best year ever. For them.

“Nope,” he said in confident response to Hardwick’s question. “Nothing. And stop squinting at me like that. We’ve got work to do.”

Jackson folded his arms. “We haven’t said yes, yet.”

Jasper waited. And just as he’d hoped, his friends stepped in.

“All right, Christmas dragon. You spend half your year making sure Christmas is incredible for everyone else in this town, we ought to step in and help out. What do you need?”