That thought about seeing Jasper before dying—yep, death is certainly happening.
My thoughts digress to focus on the road.Ifthere’s a road, because the snowstorm I drove my poor dumb ass through suggests otherwise.
My car’s all-season tires are thin and pathetic against the negative forty-degree Celsius weather, couple feet of snow, and sheet of ice encasing the mountains. The couple thousand-dollar price tag on winter tires makes those an unaffordable luxury.
Like this vacation,I think to myself snidely.Should have used the money on tires, and then saved for a trip later. I’m an idiot who probably deserves to die.
Not like I’m leaving behind a stellar life.
The sun is a mere glow above the treelines, wrecking the already-terrible visibility of the road. My plan to reach the cabin before the sun sets won’t happen, based on the GPS’s estimated arrival time being another thirty minutes.
Regardless, my hands clench tighter while my foot presses harder on the gas to speed up. The road coils around the landscapes, so any speed I manage to climb to is immediately decelerated before ending up in a snowbank.
Snow falls heavier than my weak wipers are keeping up with, but without any other choice, I plough on. My white-knuckled driving and rigid spine—and the fact I’m barely breathing—is everything opposite of a relaxing holiday.
Why the hell did I not come here during summer, like the rest of the world does?
Tears prod at the corner of my eyes, because instead of the thin-walled freezing apartment which, for the most part, is safe, I’m in some backwater valley of buttfuck nowhere, trying and failing to doonefun thing in life. To make one Christmas wish come true for childhood me—one place in a long list to visit.
Crying isn’t allowed, because tears will make seeing the already impossible roads worse.
Let’s not tempt death more than I already am.
The tourist websites mention Rockies’wildlife as a selling feature, but there’s yet to be a wolf, bear, or moose the entire drive. Not even a deer, and those live all over the place.
So, when the massive—and I mean fuckingmassive—moose steps out from the dead forest to my right, the fact that it isn’t hibernating becomes my first thought. Then I realize I know shit all about moose, which freaks me out because I don’t entirely know what to do: speed up and keep going or stop for it.
It pauses by the curb, and while slowing to take a picture seems like a nice keepsake, risking its wrath or even my car’s well-being over having to brake and then start again isn’t worth it, so with a bit of speed, I push on to leave the innocent animal’s home in peace.
Instead of the nearly non-existent tread of my tires gripping snow and propelling me forward, my stupid rear-wheel drive gets into a fight with the endless ice. It’s a battle lost when my tires spin without traction, resulting in a loud squealing noise—which causes the moose to dart forward, a blur in the corner of my vision.
Oh fuck!“Come on, come on, you piece of shit!” I stomp the gas, right as a flash of black appears beside me.
There’s a large thud of metal, a crunch as the animal rams into my vehicle, and things blur. The car spins off the road—is the sky now the ground or is everything just white?
White…and black.
CHAPTER 2
Lucian
The metallic scentof blood pierces the winter air. It’s as striking as the first footstep after snowfall. Sudden and abrupt and foreign to the land.
Prey.
But it’s more thanjustblood.
A fruity scent mingles with metal, permeating the frostiness of the mountain’s wintery scent that’s been the environment for close to two months now. The stillness of the earth becomes even more desolate when the scent races through me, like fire igniting my veins—heat felt for the first time since my death.
Human.
My fangs instantly extend and jab into my bottom lip, readying to feed. Hunger turns my eyes from black to red until the snow and woods are encased in a crimson haze.
Merry fucking Christmas to me.
The control I’ve been clinging to for the past century shreds into flakes more delicate than the blustery snow thrashing my face as I dart through the forest.
It’s been a while since a human’s been this far north. Winter in the Rockies means unforgivable weather, so mortals don’t often travel out here this time of year. Unfortunately, my foodhas to come from animals or from a local resident within one of the many small mountain towns. In the summer, campers often go missing, so adding another to the authorities’ ever-growing list is simple.
