The Christmas Eve Catastrophe
Christmas Eve in Paris was supposed to be a fairytale. The city lights reflected off the Seine like spilled champagne, and the air smelled of roasted chestnuts and expensive perfume.
For Elara, it smelled like betrayal.
She stood frozen in the hallway of the luxury hotel suite, her grip white-knuckled on the velvet box in her hand—a vintage watch she’d spent six months saving for. A gift for Marc.
But Marc didn’t need a watch. He was currently too busy losing track of time with the receptionist from his law firm.
Through the half-open door, the scene was a cliché that made Elara’s stomach turn. The scattered clothes. The half-empty bottle of wine she had bought. The way Marc whispered the same promises to this stranger that he had whispered to Elara only hours ago over dinner.
“Werewolves only exist in fantasy,”* her grandmother used to say, *“but monsters are very real.”
Elara didn’t scream. She didn’t throw the watch. She simply set the velvet box on the hallway table with a soft thud.
Marc’s head snapped up. His eyes went wide, panic instantly replacing passion. "Elara? Wait—babe, it’s not—"
She didn’t wait for the excuse. She turned on her heel and ran.
Three hours later, the glittering lights of Paris were a distant memory, replaced by the suffocating white void of a blizzard in the French Alps.
Elara’s rental car, a tiny hatchback that had no business being on a mountain road, shuddered against the wind. She gripped the steering wheel, tears finally hot and stinging in her eyes. She had nowhere to go. She couldn't go back to the apartment she shared with Marc. She couldn't face her family and tell them she’d been played for a fool.
So, she had driven toward the only place she could think of—a tiny, prepaid Airbnb cabin she had booked as a surprise for their New Year's trip. A surprise she was now going to enjoy alone.
If she didn't die first.
Thump.
The car hit a patch of black ice.
The world spun. Sky became snow, snow became trees. The car careened off the road, sliding down a shallow embankment before slamming into a snowdrift with a bone-jarring crunch.
Silence.
Elara gasped, checking her limbs. Shaken, but whole. She pushed the door open, fighting the weight of the snow, and stumbled out into the biting cold.
"Great," she muttered, her voice cracking. "Merry Christmas to me."
The GPS on her phone was dead. The road was empty. But through the swirling white chaos, she saw a flicker of light. Not her Airbnb—it was too large, too imposing. A massive timber chalet nestled against the cliffside, smoke curling from a stone chimney.
It looked like a fortress. It looked like salvation.
Elara wrapped her thin coat tighter around herself and trudged through the knee-deep snow. Her boots were soaked, her toes numb. By the time she reached the heavy oak door, she could barely feel her fingers.
She pounded on the wood. "Hello? Please! Is anyone there?"
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, the sound of heavy locks disengaging echoed from inside.
The door swung open, and Elara had to crane her neck back.
The man standing there was massive. That was the only word for him. He filled the doorway, blocking out the light, his shoulders broad enough to span the width of the frame. He was shirtless, despite the freezing temperature, his skin bronzed and scarred, rippling with muscle that looked coiled and tense.
But it was his face that stole the breath from her lungs. Sharp jawline, dark stubble, and eyes that glowed with an amber intensity that didn't look entirely human. He looked feral. Dangerous. Like a beast disturbed in his den.
Lucian Sauvage looked down at the shivering human on his doorstep.
His wolf, usually a dormant roar in the back of his mind during the hockey season, slammed against his ribs. It wasn't the cold that woke the beast. It was her.
She smelled like vanilla, winter rain, and... heartbreak.
The scent hit him like a physical blow, triggering an instinct he had spent years suppressing with pills and discipline.
Mate.
The word echoed in his skull, primal and undeniable.
Lucian gripped the doorframe, his claws threatening to extend and shred the wood. He glared at her, his voice a low, vibrating growl that seemed to come from the earth itself.
"You," he rasped, his French accent thick and rough. "You shouldn't be here."
Elara blinked, snowflakes catching on her eyelashes. She swayed, the adrenaline fading to leave only exhaustion. "My car... I crashed. Please."
She took a step forward, and her knees gave out.
She didn't hit the ground. Before she could fall, strong, searing-hot arms wrapped around her waist, hauling her up against a chest that felt like a furnace.
"I've got you," the monster whispered against her hair.
As the darkness took her, Elara had one last, delirious thought: Maybe Santa sent me a present after all.
