5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

T he sound of Christmas music and someone yelling woke Dylan up from a dream about a cold house and the sound of a car slowly coming closer. He could taste peppermint on his tongue as he woke up and, out of decades of muscle memory, tried to slap the clock radio he’d had on his bedside table as a little kid.

It wasn’t there.

Instead he hit his forearm off a metal pole, and he felt the jag of something sharp yank at his arm. He peeled his sticky eyes open and rolled his head to the side to blink at the IV drip plugged into a vein. For a moment he’d no idea what had happened, and then his brain reluctantly drip-fed him the context.

Blood on Alice’s face.

Wolves.

Broken glass on his lap.

Teeth in his arm.

The memory of pain woke up the real thing as a dull, hot ache in Dylan’s other arm. He gingerly turned his head to look at it. His forearm was heavily bandaged and strapped down with crooked strips of skin-toned tape. The yelling, and the Christmas music, came from outside.

Dylan grimaced as he tried to lift his arm. It felt like it weighed three times what it should, and his elbow was made of Jell-O, but his grandfather’s watch was still strapped to his wrist. He exhaled in… Relief? Disappointment? It could be either and Dylan definitely had too many painkillers in his system to work it out right now.

He let his arm drop back down onto the bed…

That was a mistake. Dylan bit his lip as he rode out the wet gouge of pain that fired from his wrist to his armpit. When it subsided, he raised his gaze to…not Somerset.

In place of Dylan’s walking “it’s complicated” relationship status, otherwise known as Somerset, the cheap plastic chair next to the bed was occupied by Somerset’s oldest brother and the head of North Pole security.

That was such a weird string of words that Dylan had to take a second to consider the choices that had led him here. When he was done, he braced his elbows on the bed and squirmed up into a sitting position, with the paper-thin pillows balled up behind his back.

“What happened?” he asked. Because he might have most of the memory—except where pain or blood loss blurred the details—but he didn’t know the version they’d given Jars.

Jars bent down and picked up a Starbucks cup from the floor. He took a drink and then balanced it on the arm of the chair. Dylan watched the process with the same fascination he would a bear with a salmon at the zoo. It was just so mundane for someone that Dylan had never seen outside the North Pole.

“You were in a car accident,” Jars said. He glanced at Dylan’s bandaged arm, and his mouth twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Apparently.”

Dylan nodded slowly and then said, “OK.” He waited to see what he was going to say next, but nothing came to him. His mind was so blank he could almost hear the echoes in there. After a long, tense moment of silence he managed to scrape together. “Wow.”

Irritation flashed over Jars’s face and then was gone. He took another drink of coffee and then leaned forward to set the cup on the overbed table.

“You don’t trust me,” he said

“You don’t like me. ”

Jars paused for a moment and raised an eyebrow. For a second Dylan didn’t know why, and then he replayed the last few moments and… Yeah, that explained the look. Dylan hadn’t meant for that to be an out-loud thought.

He was surprised when Jars answered him.

“My oath is to protect Santa and to serve Yule,” he said. “Nobody said I had to like it, or you.”

It was probably strange that that made Dylan more , not less, inclined to trust Jars. He resisted the urge. Somerset didn’t trust him, and he knew Jars better than anyone. Dylan had decided to follow Somerset’s lead in this twelve months ago, and he didn’t exactly have a fallback plan.

“No one said I had to trust you,” he pointed out.

“Yule did,” Jars said. He reached for his crutches, propped against the bottom of the bed, and levered himself up out of the chair. The muscles in his forearms, exposed by his pushed-back sleeves, stood out like cords as he put his weight on his hands. He looked down at Dylan. “But it doesn’t say I have to protect you from yourself. Whatever you did last year to get your seat on the Sleigh, I hope you enjoyed the ride. It doesn’t look like you’ll be back.”

He gave Dylan a stiff nod, turned with a squeak of his rubber crutch tips on the tiles, and headed out of the room. As the tall Yule Lad shouldered the door open, Dylan felt the air in the room shift. He could taste snow on his tongue, crisp and faintly floral .

Then the door closed behind Jars and it was gone—all Dylan could taste was dry spit and his own teeth—and the machines he was hooked up to started to beep urgently. A second later the door opened back up and one of the hospital’s nurse-practitioners stuck her head in. He knew her. A bit anyhow. She didn’t work the ER often, and that was the department Dylan interacted with the most. She was…neurology? Gwen something.

Her eyes flicked to the machines and then back to Dylan.

“Dylan,” she said, in the sort of very gentle voice that meant bad news was on the way. “You woke up. We’ve been worried.”

That was the sort of thing people said to patients who’d missed out on months. Dylan frowned, reached up to tug on his hair. If it turned out he had been in a coma, but hadn’t daydreamed all of this, he’d be annoyed. His hair didn’t feel any longer, though, and if he’d missed Christmas, he was sure Jars would have thrown that information in his face.

“How long was I out for?” he asked.

“Just overnight,” Gwen said as she came into the room. She pulled a penlight out of her pocket and flicked it on. She played the beam across Dylan’s eyes as he tried not to squint. “Do you remember what happened?”

Dylan shook his head. “No,” he said. “Where’s Alice?”

The question made her hesitate for a moment. She recovered quickly and flicked the flashlight off so she could drop it back into her pocket. “That’s—”

“What we all want to know,” someone interrupted from the doorway. Dylan didn’t recognize the voice. When he looked over, he didn’t recognize the face either. Not until Gwen went to shoo her out and the tall, grim-faced woman bundled up in a snow-damp jacket and beanie flashed her badge to forestall the objection. “Detective Asma Lund. Mr. Hollie and I have met before.”

“I’ve already told you what happened,” Dylan said. Most of it… Enough.

Asma Lund knew about the otherworld and the creatures that came from it. She knew that Dylan knew too, but not how he was part of it. Dylan wasn’t about to try and explain.

Goblins and ghouls were one thing, but asking someone to believe in Santa was different. When was that going to work outside of a Hallmark Christmas movie?

Dylan bent over to grab a spare pair of jeans from the bottom of his locker. Dizziness washed over him, and he had to brace his hand against the edge of the door to steady himself. He closed his eyes briefly as he waited for it to pass and then scrambled clumsily into his jeans.

“If you leave, you know it’s against medical advice,” Lund said. She stood with her back turned as she pulled her gloves off with her teeth. “And some people might think it makes you look like you have something to hide.”

Dylan snorted as he pulled denim up over his cold backside. “Then they haven’t seen me in a hospital gown.”

Speaking of which…

He stripped it off, the papery fabric noisy as it crumpled in his hands, and looked down as he buttoned up his fly. His fingers were stiff, still numb from the painkillers. It was harder than usual, but easier than it should have been .

Skin split, blood running down his arm like water, and pain ran hot and liquid through Dylan. Teeth scraped meat and nerves away from the bone, and the cold had sunk into his marrow…

Dylan tightened his mouth and swallowed the bile the memory had conjured up. He cleared his throat and flexed his fingers. They all responded with a full range of motion. That would have been a good result after surgery, not just being patched up and bandaged. He curled his fingers into his palm until it hurt, but==

“You might want to think about that attitude,” Lund said as she turned around to face him. “Two women are missing, and right now you’re the only lead we’ve got. That makes me the only friend you’ve got.”

Dylan grabbed the hospital-issued Belling Memorial hoodie that had been in his locker for over a year. He pulled it on, the sleeve tight around his bandaged forearm, and zipped it up.

“Last year you sold me out to the Wolves,” Dylan pointed out.

Lund didn’t look amused.

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” She reached down and pulled the hem of her sweater up to show her stomach. The scar ran vertically up from under her jeans, curved around her belly button, and was still pink and raw looking after twelve months. Lund waited a beat and then yanked the fabric back down. “I already paid the price for that. Now it’s time they did the same.”

What happened to Lund hadn’t been Dylan’s fault. Apparently that didn’t stop him feeling guilty about it, though. That didn’t seem fair. He sat down heavily on one of the bench seats, the cold of the tiles seeping into his bare feet, and looked up at Lund.

“And I don’t have anything else to tell you,” he said. “I don’t know why the wolves are back or why they took my partner and our patient.”

“If you did, would you tell me?” Lund asked.

“Yes,” Dylan said quickly. He would. Maybe it would have been after he told Somerset, but he’d have told her. “Alice is my friend. Irene was our responsibility. I’ll take whatever help I can get if it gets them both home safe for Christmas.”

Lund considered that. She finally nodded. “OK. You keep me in the loop of what’s happening on Somerset’s side of the fence, and I’ll do my best to keep your face off the evening news. Deal?”

She raised her dark, bar-straight eyebrows expectantly and waited. Dylan let her as he weighed up his options. It didn’t take long, to be fair. He didn’t have many .

“I’ll do what I can,” Dylan hedged. “Somerset doesn’t always tell me everything.”

Make that Somerset didn’t tell Dylan anything that he didn’t have to. There was apparently a lot that Dylan was safer not knowing, and the Yule Lads rarely bothered to ask if he was willing to take the risk.

One day Dylan was going to look into what all the different Santas that came before him had died of. He was sure “frustration” would be a contributing factor.

Lund pulled her gloves back out of her pocket and put them on. She laced her fingers together and flexed them to bed the fabric into place.

“Fair enough,” she said. “There’s only so much I can do to keep the spotlight off you, anyhow. The COO of Demre and Hill didn’t exactly help your case when he told us that Irene tried to refuse treatment rather than let you anywhere near her.”

“She changed her mind.”

“You talked her into it, and now she’s missing.” Lund paused for a moment and then scrunched her nose up. “It doesn’t look good. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’m about the only one. So if I was you? I’d tell Somerset that if he wants to protect you, he should tell you the full story. Before something else incriminating turns up and my co-workers and I have to piece it all together ourselves. Have a good day, Mr. Hollie.”

She dipped her chin in a mock polite nod and left, zipping her coat up as she went out the door.

As the door swung shut again behind her, Dylan scrubbed both hands over his face and up into his hair. His fingers tangled in the dark curls and pulled them back from his temples. He took a deep breath and let it out raggedly, then turned to grab an old pair of Vans from the back of his locker.

Sure, Dylan thought as he pulled the shoes on, he could try that. Why not?

The cab dropped Dylan off at the Just-as-High with a warning from the driver that it wasn’t open yet.

That was OK. One of the perks of being the owner’s…boss? boyfriend? burden? whatever they were…was that you got a key. Dylan ignored the Closed sign on the main doors and let himself into the bar. The wind picked up as he fumbled with the lock and blew him and a handful of candy wrappers into the hall. Dylan tripped down the step, and the door slammed behind him, loud enough to make him jump.

It felt pointed.

Dylan couldn’t be sure it wasn’t.

Magic was weird that way, and he wasn’t used to it yet. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be used to it.

Behind the bar, Gull glanced up from his bag in surprise, a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. The lanky bartender relaxed when he recognized Dylan. He shoved the snack into his mouth and wiped his hand on his jeans, just out of sight under the counter.

“Hey, Dylan,” Gull said. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

That was a sore spot. It was nothing to do with Gull, though, so Dylan tried to keep his feelings off his face. He did that a lot with Gull anyhow. It was…hard, sometimes to know more about who Gull was— what Gull was—than Gull did.

“Yeah, well, I guess things have been quiet around here, then,” Dylan said as he walked over. “Not a bad thing.”

Gull pulled a face like he didn’t entirely agree. He held the bag out and rustled it expectantly.

“Want some?” he asked.

Experience had taught Dylan to be cautious. All the fairy stories said not to accept hospitality from the fey. What they left out was that it wasn’t anything to do with magic; the food was just bad. Yule Lads would eat anything, even ones who didn’t remember who they were.

Dylan hesitated. Before he could refuse, his stomach rumbled loudly to remind him a man couldn’t live on vending machine granola bars alone.

“Is it just popcorn?” he checked.

Gull looked confused. “Yeah,” he said and tilted the bag back toward him to look in. “Popcorn. Some pickles. A bit of curry powder…”

Yeah. That sounded about right. He should have gone with his first instincts.

Dylan pulled his hand back. “I’ll grab something from the kitchen. Later,” he said. “Is Somerset in?”

“Yeah,” Gull said. He tilted his head toward the door on the other side of the bar and raised a rusty red eyebrow. “He’s in the office. Want me to let him know you’re looking for him? ”

“No need,” Dylan said as he turned to head that way. “He’ll work it out.”

He’d got as far the pool table when a quick “Hey” from behind him made him look back. Gull scrubbed one hand through his hair and frowned.

“You OK?” he asked. “The boss was pretty worried about you last night.”

Dylan could believe that. Sort of. The question was whether he’d been more concerned about Dylan or Santa. Despite what the Yule Lads thought, they weren’t the same.

Yule obviously got that from the way it had left him hanging last night.

“I’ll live,” Dylan reassured Gull. He lifted his arm slightly, the sleeve of the hoodie tight around the tape-and-gauze dressing on his forearm. “I might even be able to play piano again, which is great, because I never knew how before.”

The joke didn’t deserve much. It got a laugh anyhow. The flash of amusement distracted Gull from his concern, and he waved Dylan off as he turned back to his popcorn and stock take.

The sign on the door said Staff Only. Dylan ignored it as he pushed the door open and walked on through.

Behind the battered desk, Somerset dropped his phone and pulled a knife from under the desk. The Yule Boy in the desk opposite him scrambled to his feet and turned around, the brutally practical curve of his hook already in one hand.

“Busy?” Dylan asked.

Ket made the hook disappear again. He frowned as he glanced over his shoulder at Somerset. “I thought ,” he said pointedly, “we’d agreed that we were going to keep our distance from him until this was over.”

Dylan scowled. “Agreed” was a strong word. He would have said he was “told,” but he’d already discussed that with Somerset. It hadn’t gotten him anywhere.

Somerset put the knife down. He pushed his chair back from the desk and reached down to pick up his phone. Frost-blue eyes stayed focused on Dylan as Somerset lifted the phone to his ear.

“Call off the dogs,” he said to whoever was on the other end, without giving them a chance to ask anything. “He’s here.”

There was a pause as Somerset listened. Then he shifted the phone back from his mouth and looked expectantly at Dylan.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

It felt like a trap, but Dylan didn’t think it was for him. He thought about it briefly and then answered, “Uber. ”

Somerset grimaced and repeated the word into the phone. The next bit of the conversation was loud enough that Dylan could hear the other end of the call. He didn’t really understand most of it, it was Icelandic, but from the few swear words he caught he figured he could guess the gist of it.

“Because it was your job to keep track of him,” Somerset told whoever it was shortly. He hung up and tossed the phone down on the desk. It landed on the thick layer of neglected invoices and order forms that covered it. Somerset left it there as he got up out of the chair, fastidiously adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, and pointedly didn’t look at Ket. “Do you have somewhere to be, brother?”

There was a hint of winter ice in Somerset’s voice. It rolled off Ket’s leather-clad shoulders like water off a duck’s back. He shrugged crookedly, visibly disinterested in the topic already.

“Not really,” he said.

Somerset’s nostrils flared as he took a deep, visibly annoyed breath.

“You need to spend less time with Stúfur,” Somerset said. “You used to be the smart one.”

Dylan looked at Ket

“I think he means–”

“What I mean,” Somerset cut in, his voice a low, rough growl that made the hair on the back of Dylan’s neck stand on end, “is go and do something fucking useful.”

“Oh,” Ket said. He unlocked the door and pushed himself up out of his slouch against the wall. “You should have just said that. Stúfur is already on Demre, so I’ll see what the word on the street is about Wolves.”

The dark man sketched a quick sort-of bow to Dylan and then let himself out. The door clicked shut behind him and…Dylan was alone with Somerset. The thought made Dylan take a quick, ragged breath as he shifted in place.

Guilt poked at him at how easy he was to distract. It wasn’t the time. There were wolves on the streets, and his friend was missing.

But…it had been weeks since Somerset managed to find time to come to Dylan’s bed. Long enough that for a second all Dylan wanted to do was crawl over the desk—bar paperwork and North Pole parchment crumpled under his knees—and kiss the stern off the Yule Lad’s mouth.

“You should have stayed at the hospital,” Somerset said, his voice starchy with disapproval .

Dylan supposed that he wasn’t even really surprised. Bodyguards weren’t keen on you going places without them, even if it was just going for pizza instead of catching a lift with a random stranger. It was the difference in their first impulses on finding themselves alone. Dylan saw an opportunity for sex, and Somerset for a dressing-down. It left Dylan a bit off balance.

Maybe absence only made the heart grow fonder if you were human?

Dylan cleared his throat and tried to think of a response as he scraped the dregs of his self-confidence together.

“I feel OK,” he said. It was true—more than it had been when he left the hospital, at least—and Dylan glanced down at his arm. He tightened his hand into a fist and watched the tendons in his wrist stand out against the dark strap of his watch. “Surprisingly so.”

“You’re welcome,” Somerset said.

He had a point. If he’d not gotten there when he did…

Dylan might not be 100 percent sold on being Santa…and apparently Yule had its reservations too. He wasn’t quite ready to trade a hand for his out. That didn’t mean he was going to be gracious about it.

“Yule appreciates your service,” Dylan said, his hurt feelings making the words snide…not that he’d really wanted them to be anything else.

The jab at what Dylan knew was a sore spot made Somerset’s expression darken and his eyes narrow. He stalked forward.

Dylan only realized he’d backed away when his shoulders hit the door. He might know he could trust Somerset, but the atavistic part of his brain in charge of being scared of things that went bump in the night wasn’t so sure.

“I didn’t—”

Somerset braced his hand on the door. His fingers were long and elegant under the calluses and scars of hard use, and the shadow they cast on the wood twisted as it sank into the grain. Dylan felt the magic against his eardrums, like air pressure. When he took a breath, it tasted like old stone and grease on his tongue.

Somerset’s own power, not the frost and peppermint tang of Yule. Until he broke the seal, the door wouldn’t open. They were not just alone, but in private.

The smart thing to do would be shut up. Of course, if Dylan was prone to making the smart choice, he’d have walked away from all of this a year ago. Back when it wouldn’t have hurt .

“Locked doors,” Dylan said as he tilted his head back to look up at Somerset. “Careful, people are going to get the wrong idea.”

“No,” Somerset said. He put his thumb under Dylan’s chin and tipped his head back. Something shadowy darkened his eyes as his gaze dropped to Dylan’s mouth. “They aren’t.”

He leaned down and claimed Dylan’s mouth in a hard, hungry kiss.