Christmas Bites

Some doors open to shelter. This one opened to a nightmare with a pulse.

Isabel Long hadn't planned to spend Christmas Eve in a bar that smelled of old pine and lingering regrets.

She only wanted a place where no one would look too closely at the woman trying to outrun her own life. The dive was nearly empty, the lights low, the world outside swallowed by snow. Perfect. Forgettable.

Until he walked in.

The door slammed open on a gust of winter, and the stranger who staggered through it didn't belong to any world Isabel recognized. Too still beneath the exhaustion. Too sharp in the shadows. Too aware of her, as if he could hear the blood rushing through her veins.

Danger clung to him like frost. A tremor tightened low in her spine, begging her to run, while something far deeper whispered for her to stay.

But he wasn't there by chance.

And the moment their eyes met, Isabel understood that whatever he was—whatever he wanted—she'd already stepped into the gravity of it.

Snow piling high outside. A predator nursing old wounds inside. And Isabel, caught between fear and fascination, realizing the night wasn't offering her an escape at all.