CHAPTER 1
JESSA
The headlightsof my ancient pickup slice through the falling snow like twin knives, carving a path through the darkness that feels too thin, too fragile. My hands grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary as I navigate the winding forest road home, the wipers struggling against the thickening flakes that seem determined to bury the world tonight.
God, I’m tired.
Twelve hours of coaxing medication down the throat of a stubborn red-tailed hawk will do that to a person. Add in the three raccoon kits who decided today was the perfect day to stage a jailbreak from their enclosure, and I’m running on fumes and spite. The wildlife rehab center feels like a second home most days, but tonight I’m craving the solitude of my cabin. Plus, a hot shower, leftover chili, and maybe a glass of wine that doesn’t taste like it came from a box.
The radio crackles with static, the local station barely reaching this far into the mountains. I twist the dial, searching for something other than the white noise that seems to echo thesnowfall, but all I get is fragments of Christmas carols bleeding through the interference.Silent night, holy night…
“Right,” I mutter, clicking it off. “Because what this evening needs is more atmosphere.”
The truck’s heater wheezes like an old dog, barely keeping the windshield clear. I should have replaced the damn thing years ago, but between student loans and the center’s constantly tight budget, my personal vehicle maintenance ranks somewhere below buying groceries and slightly above getting a root canal.
The snow thickens, each flake catching in the headlight beams like tiny ghosts. I slow down, squinting through the windshield. The familiar landmarks—the split oak, the rusted mailbox that’s been listing to one side since a storm three summers ago—blur together in the white haze. This stretch of road winds through state forest land, miles from the nearest neighbor, and cell service is about as reliable as my truck’s heater.
My fingers drum against the steering wheel, a nervous habit I picked up somewhere between graduate school and the realization that I’d chosen a career that pays in emotional fulfillment rather than actual money. Not that I regret it. There’s something about coaxing a wounded creature back to health, about being the bridge between the wild world and safety, that feeds something deep in my chest.
Even if it means driving home alone through a snowstorm, exhausted and slightly nauseous from too much coffee and not enough actual food.
The curve ahead appears suddenly through the snow, sharper than I remember. I ease off the gas, letting the truck crawl around the bend, and that’s when I see him.
The stag stands directly in the road, impossibly still, impossibly present. Not the way deer usually freeze in headlights—startled, ready to bolt—but as if he’s been waiting. As if this moment was always meant to happen.
I slam on the brakes, and the truck slides on the slick asphalt, fishtailing slightly before coming to a stop maybe ten feet from where he stands. My heart hammers against my ribs, adrenaline flooding my system with the sharp clarity that comes from almost killing something beautiful.
But he doesn’t move.
He’s massive, bigger than any reindeer I’ve ever seen. His coat gleams silver-white in the headlights, pristine as fresh snow, and his antlers—Jesus, his antlers—spread wide and branched like winter trees, each point catching the light and throwing it back with an almost metallic gleam. There’s something wrong with the proportions, something my brain keeps trying to process and reject. He’s too large, too perfect, toopresent.
And his eyes…
His eyes are gold. Not the reflected green-gold of a typical deer, but actual gold, warm and liquid and impossibly intelligent. They hold mine through the windshield with an intensity that makes my breath catch, makes something low in my belly tighten with a sensation I can’t name.
I should lay on the horn. I should rev the engine, make him move, because sitting here staring at a deer in the middle of a snowstorm is exactly how people end up as cautionary tales. But I can’t. Something in those golden eyes pins me in place, makes my mouth go dry and my pulse skip like a skipped stone.
The snow falls around him, but none of it seems to stick to his coat. The flakes dance and swirl, caught in some invisible current, and for a moment—just a moment—I swear I see light rippling along his fur, a faint luminescence that has nothing to do with my headlights.
My hands shake as I reach for the door handle. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’m planning to do, only that I need to?—
A horn blares behind me, sharp and jarring, and the spell breaks. I jerk around to see headlights approaching fast, some idiot in a lifted truck who apparently thinks four-wheel drive makes him invincible in weather like this. When I whip back around, the road is empty.
The stag is gone.
No tracks in the snow where he stood. No sign he was ever there except for the memory of those impossible golden eyes burned into my retinas and the way my heart still pounds like I’ve been running.
The truck behind me honks again, and I shift into drive, my hands trembling as I pull forward. In the rearview mirror, I watch the other vehicle speed past without slowing, red taillights disappearing into the storm like angry eyes.
The rest of the drive home passes in a blur. I navigate the familiar turns on autopilot, my mind replaying those few moments over and over. His size. The way the snow seemed to avoid his coat. The intelligence in his gaze, as if he’d been lookingintome rather than at me.
By the time I pull into my driveway, I’ve almost convinced myself it was a trick of the light, exhaustion playing games with my perception.Almost. The smart part of my brain—the partthat earned a master’s degree in wildlife biology, that knows the difference between a reindeer and an elk, between normal and impossible—insists I imagined the whole thing.
But the rest of me, the part that still believes in Christmas morning magic and wishes on shooting stars, knows better.
My cabin sits dark and welcoming at the end of the narrow drive, windows glowing yellow once I flip on the porch light. It’s small—just two bedrooms, a kitchen barely big enough for one person, and a living room dominated by a stone fireplace—but it’s mine. Paid for with inheritance money from a grandmother who understood the value of independence, even if she never understood why I wanted to live alone in the mountains, tending to wounded animals instead of finding a nice man and settling down.
I grab my bag from the passenger seat and make a run for the front door, snow immediately soaking through my jacket. The key sticks in the lock, warped from too many temperature changes, and I have to jiggle it while cursing under my breath. When it finally gives, I practically fall through the doorway, stamping snow off my boots and shaking it from my hair.
