The Wolf of Christmas Present: Three Wolves for Christmas, #2

By Kristen Strassel

My parents fled the Sawtooth pack because was a mandate in place that demanded I be sold to the highest bidder. But now my parents are gone, so is that awful mandate, and the Sawtooth wolves have invited me to spend Christmas with them.

I don't want to the holiday alone, but I'm wary of facing a pack I don't feel like I belong to.

So I ask my best client, Bates Morgan, to come with me and pretend to be my mate. I never expected him to say yes, but he does. The sexy guitarist has hired me for many tattoos, but until now, we've kept things strictly business.

Once we arrive and get snowed into our hotel room, Bates makes it clear that he doesn't plan on faking anything.

This holiday season, the wolf of Christmas present gives me a gift that changes everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristen Strassel
• Release date: Dec 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215543467

Book preview

Chapter

One

Mia

Your boyfriend’s here. Heather, our shop receptionist, came into the back room and grinned at me. Looking fine as ever.

Bates isn’t my boyfriend. But the latter part of her assessment was true. The wolf was drop dead gorgeous, but on account of him being a musician, and a wolf, he was basically a walking red flag. A warning label that said trouble this way comes. He’s my best customer.

Heather grinned. He’s gonna run out of bare skin soon. 

That’s a good thing. I readied my station. "Please let him know I’ll be ready soon. See if he wants anything.

Sure. Heather turned away and said under her breath, but I think he wants you.

To drink, Heather. I popped my head out of my room. Offer him a drink. 

The last thing Bates Morgan needed to do was pine over a tattoo artist. He had to have women crawling all over him. That long dark hair, the leather jacket, that ass… okay, it wasn’t professional for me to be thinking about his ass. And I’d become known as one of the premiere supernatural specialist artists in tattooing. It was the only time I leaned into being a wolf. But not everyone understood how to keep ink in skin that underwent regular transformations. 

Starting Bates’ backpiece today was the distraction I needed to stop thinking about the email I’d received out of the blue from my old pack. Technically, Sawtooth was still my pack. But I was pretty much a wolf in name only. It was a box I checked on legal forms. But Cass was right, my mom had passed earlier this year and my dad—my mom’s true mate—couldn’t live without her and decided to follow her into the next realm. I’d been dreading the prospect of Christmas. A few friends had invited me to their place, but I’d turned them down. Somehow, it felt even lonelier to go celebrate someone else’s traditions. 

Which made Cass’ invitation that much more attractive, even if it was totally out of the blue. Her mate, Major, was my cousin, and I remembered playing with him and his brothers before we left. They were fun and rowdy and a little dangerous, and so wolf, but they always included me in their adventures. I missed them terribly when we first moved. After I got the email, I looked them up. Now they owned a motorcycle shop in Granger Falls, Idaho. 

That was a level of badassery I could get down with. 

But right now, Bates Morgan was waiting for me to start his tattoo.

Thanks for waiting. Ready to get started? I ignored Heather waggling her brows from behind the desk as Bates rose from his chair.

Of course, he seemed to be even more magnificent than usual today in his leather motorcycle jacket and dark skinny jeans. His long hair was a little wild, like he’d ridden an actual motorcycle here.

He might get along well with your cousins…

What was that? Great. This was a perfect time for me to start hearing voices in my head. 

Been looking forward to this appointment. He gave me his signature sexy grin, the one that had all the ladies at the bar gathered in front of him when he was on stage. This will be my favorite collaboration yet.

Bates and I had already worked on a full sleeve, and not only was he my best client, he was one of the most fun to work with because he would bring the coolest references. For this one, he brought in a retro table game, a grimoire, and a swatch of lace from his grandmother’s mating ceremony dress. This piece would be a full moon, ravens, a castle, and the most gorgeous gothic princess I’d ever illustrated.

Mine too. It was pretty much a dream piece to work on. I’ve laid out the transfers on the table if you want to okay them before we get going. We’ll work on outlining today. I want to give this piece as much detail and dimension as possible, so every time someone looks at it, they see something new.

Sounds amazing. He considered the transfers carefully. 

I’d laid them out so he could get an idea what would look like on his back. Of course, line art was only two dimensional. One of the reasons I loved tattooing was because using skin as a canvas breathed life into the work that wasn’t possible in any other medium.  

He whistled low. Damn, Mia. You’ve outdone yourself with this one. It’s like you got inside my head and drew exactly what I was picturing.

The two of you have a connection…

Bates furrowed his brow when I jumped. It was like someone was whispering in my ear. That better not happen when I was tattooing him.

You gave me great inspiration. I faked a smile because this voice thing was freaking me out. We were in the middle of downtown Minneapolis. Maybe