Day 7: Michelle Dare | 25 Days of Christmas

On the seventh day of 25 Days of Christmas, Michelle Dare is giving us a sneak peek into her holiday YA PNR romance, A Very Avynwood Christmas. 

She is also giving 3 lucky winners the chance to win The Ariane Trilogy Box Set!

I’m one foot into the house when I notice how the holidays threw up everywhere. It’s two days before Christmas. Ari has been running around trying to get ready. Lots of decorating to do, or so she says.

Every year it’s worse. Ari has to outdo herself from the year before. Let’s not forget how we don’t host Christmas anything in our home. Everything is done in the pack house. Yet, she wants to make this place as festive as possible. I love her, but this is over the top.

Stepping into the formal living room, I take a moment to scan my surroundings. The mantel is covered in faux snow and there are two stockings hung. No fire is roaring. I have no doubt she didn’t want it to affect her decorations. There is a tall tree off to one side that, with the star on top, just touches the ceiling. It has white lights and every ornament is gold. It’s tastefully done, and if this were the only tree, it would be perfect. But as I walk to the dining room, I notice another tree in the corner. This one has multicolored lights and ornaments from her childhood. Upon closer inspection, I realize there are some from mine as well. She must have gotten them from Cassie.

Moving on to the kitchen, I find a third tree in the breakfast nook. Every tree is real. No fake ones in our place. The house smells like pine amplified. It’s fine by me. My wolf loves the scent and it calls to the most basic part of me. The forest, and everything to do with nature, is essential for my wolf.

After I make my way through the rest of the house, looking at the other decorations, I go upstairs. The banister has garland twined around it and little white lights wrapped with it. At the top of the stairs, I hear my mate singing a Christmas song and follow her voice.

I turn left, and after passing our hall bathroom, covered in Santa everything, I find Ari on the floor in our master bedroom with tinsel in her hair. She’s untangling a string of white lights and there are silver ornaments scattered around her. Not wanting to interrupt her, I merely lean on the doorframe and watch her.

No matter how much time goes by, Ari will always be the only one for me. My love for her grows every day. Yes, we fight as every couple does, but it never lasts. My mate and I can’t stand to be away from each other for long. The most we spend apart is when I go out on patrol, like I did tonight. The unmated males in the pack went out for a guys’ night, so I patrolled along with Wake, Desmond, Dante, and Cash.

“I know you’re standing there,” Ari says, without looking up.

“Of course you do. I wouldn’t expect any different.”

“Are you going to come over here and help me untangle this mess? Who put these away like this anyway?”

I chuckle. “I believe you did, little mouse. You got tired of taking down the decorations last year and by the end were throwing everything into boxes, not caring how they were stored.”

“Sounds about right,” she mutters. What I keep to myself is if she didn’t decorate so much, the cleanup at the end of the month would be a lot easier. I’m not a stupid wolf. I don’t say things like that aloud since I value certain parts of my body.

A kept secret. A life altered. A new journey. 

Ariane lived her life one book at a time. She would never have guessed those books were about to change everything.

They led her to Orion.

Tall, dark, with eyes only for her. The rest of the world ceased to exist when Orion was around. But during a fateful ash moon, he shifted into a wolf. Ari thought she was dreaming, but she’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

Fiction became reality. Fantasy was actually history. And soon, Ari would learn her role in it.

A pack war was on the horizon, and she was the only one who could stop it.

Nothing would ever be as it once was, because Ariane was now part of the Avynwood Pack.