Chapter 1
Ella
Iglaredthroughthewindshield at the wet globs of snow pelting the glass, and ignored the GPS as it told me in ever-increasingly urgent tones to turn around. I’d made the last-minute decision to make a detour to Darlington, and it was too late now to go back.
Forging full steam ahead was the better option anyway; the snow was coming down a lot harder than forecasted. When I started my drive, the forecast had claimed mild flurries. But by thetime I’d gotten onto the interstate, they’d changed the forecast to snow, snow, and more snow. I wasn’t sure my lemon of a car would survive the storm. Hell, I hadn’t even been sure this piece of crap would make it back home to begin with.
Another reason to stop by Darlington was that there was no annoying husband to tell me no. Well, technically, Blake was my ex-husband now. The divorce papers were signed, and I could finally tell everyone that I’d lost two hundred pounds of dead weight. Too bad the whole process had left me running on nothing but fumes and spite. I was exhausted, and the last thing I wanted was for my family to dig into the nightmare that had been my life for the past year.
And that was exactly what was going to happen the moment I set foot into my childhood home. Mom would fuss over me, and my brothers would gloat about how they’d known that Blake was an asshat all along. So yeah, that was the third reason I’d decided to make a detour to the now world-famous magical metropolis.
Darlington had once been protected by a millennia-old spell that hid magic and monsters from human eyes. Then The Wall fell, and the world had a minor meltdown. Turns out, everything that went bump in the night was real. It wasn’t just the shifters, gargoyles, minotaurs, and other monsters either. There was a whole subset of humans who had magic. And surprise, surprise: they’d been hiding in plain sight all along.
Being a lone wolf shifter, Blake had known of Darlington’s existence the whole time, but I hadn’t. Every year, since the fall of The Wall, I’d suggested visiting Darlington on our way to see my family for the holiday season since their farm, my childhood home, was surprisingly close to the once-secret city. It was now aworld-famous destination, and I’d kept seeing videos on my feed about it. But he’d shut it down every time, claiming there was nothing good there. Eventually, I'd found out that he’d pissed some people off there and couldn’t go back.
Well, Blake was out of my life now, and that meant I was going to go wherever the hell I wanted.
My stomach sank when the front dash suddenly lit up in a colorful display of lights, and the engine stuttered.
“What now?” I huffed.
I coasted to the shoulder, muttering a string of curses that would’ve made my sailor grandpa proud. Just as I cleared the road, the engine gave one last cough and died.
I took several slow breaths to calm myself before grabbing my phone and checking the screen. I still had a good chunk of battery life left, but only a single bar of signal that kept flashing on and off.
I tried calling roadside assistance anyway, but the call failed.
“Ugh! Stupid, useless phone.”
Simply amazing. I was stranded in a snowstorm with nothing but a half-empty thermos of crappy coffee and a trunk full of clothes that didn’t fit since I’d lost so much weight from the stress.
Outside, the snow thickened. What had been a gentle flurry was slowly turning into a full-blown blizzard, and I was stuckup shit’s creek without a paddle. I stared at the snow piling on my windshield and debated the dumbest idea I’d had all day: I could walk the rest of the way to Darlington. I had boots packed somewhere. Then, once I was somewhere safe, like a motel, I could call for a tow for my vehicle.
I was an independent woman. I could do it.
I almost changed my mind the moment I cracked the door and the cold seeped in. I had to be crazy to think I could trek it. My coat was more fashion than function, and while it had been enough to get me from my daily driver to the grocery store door, it wasn’t meant for impromptu outdoor adventures like this.
But what choice did I really have? I could freeze to death trying to find help. Or I could freeze to death sitting here waiting for a miracle. I was no damsel in distress. I’d proven that in the divorce courts, and I was going to prove that now.
I twisted around to rummage in the back seat for a flashlight. I didn’t need it just yet, but I wanted to be extra ready, just in case.
The knocking at my window had me stifling a scream.
I whipped around, heart pounding, and found a giant mountain of a man standing right next to my car. I swore he wasn’t there just a moment ago. I looked across the street and saw a big pickup truck parked on the shoulder.
The guy was built like a lumberjack and had the plaid shirt to boot. The red flannel fabric stuck out of his unbuttoned jacket. He had shoulders so broad and arms so thick I wondered where he’d managed to find a jacket to fit in the first place. He hadn’tskipped leg day either from what I could see out of my window; somehow, I doubted that his impressive physique was built at a gym.
His face was a perfect mix of chiseled and rugged, and wisps of his nearly white hair framed a perfect jaw line. The guy looked like a sexy metro-lumberjack-model on a stick. I didn’t really have a type, since I hadn’t dated since my re-entry into singledom, but if I did, he’d be it.
But it was his eyes that caught my attention and had my stomach dropping. They glowed an other-worldly silver-blue.
I’d recognize that kind of glow anywhere. Shifter.
Sigh. I guess he wasn’t my type after all. I’d just escaped one overgrown mutt with control issues, and I wasn’t planning on dealing with another. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I was stranded at the side of the road and needed help, and he didn’t look like an axe murderer. What did axe murderers look like anyway?
“You okay in there?” he asked, his voice muffled through the glass.
I cracked the window an inch. “Define okay.” I squinted at him through the thickening snow, still gripping my flashlight like it would save me should Big, Broad, and Handsome end up being an axe murderer after all.
