Page 25 of Christmas with a Chimera (Claw Haven)

CHAPTER ONE

L una glared out at the snow disdainfully.

“I’m going to drive off a cliff and die,” she announced to her empty car. “Play something fun at my funeral.”

Her phone’s loudspeaker crackled from the passenger seat. She paid for the best phone coverage, but the mountains surrounding the road made her think they didn’t actually mean full coverage.

“Luna Stack,” her fiancé said. “Putting the fun in funeral .”

There was an annoying slurping sound.

Luna narrowed her eyes. “Are you getting started without me?”

“Babe,” Hector said. “I’m not even on the plane yet. I don’t leave for another four hours. I’m still at the restaurant having drinks with your family. They say hi, by the way.”

“Hi,” Luna said sourly. “Is Dad having fun? I hope he’s having fun. I’m at a conference in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska, for his company.”

“You insisted ,” Hector reminded her. “He didn’t even want you to go!”

Luna ignored him, wiping a stray streak of lip gloss off her chin in the rearview mirror. “I’m gonna get stuck out here with nothing but bikinis and skirts for warmth. I packed for the beach, not this winter wonderland bullshit. Can you pass me to Dad?”

There were sounds of a scuffle.

Luna frowned. “Hector?”

Her brother’s voice echoed through the receiver. “Hi, Luna. Hector says you’re stranded in monster country. Don’t get eaten.”

“Monster country,” Luna repeated. “ Everywhere’s monster country, dipshit. Your best friend’s a vampire, Clancy.”

“I heard there are way more in those mountains,” came Clancy’s breathless voice. He sounded tipsy, which he shouldn’t have been, since he was still nineteen.

“Are Mom and Dad letting you drink?” Luna asked.

Clancy snorted. “I’m in college , Lu. I’ve been drunk before.”

“No, I know. I’m just surprised they let you after you puked in a potted plant at Mom’s birthday party.”

“I had food poisoning!”

“Yeah, from all the tequila,” Luna groaned. “Hector, be a dear and take the phone away from my idiot brother.”

“On it, Popsicle Princess,” Hector called.

Luna rolled her eyes. “I’m not frozen yet!”

There were more scuffling noises and a whine of protest from Clancy.

Luna peered out at the road. The snow was definitely getting thicker, and she had another hour before she reached the airport.

She had never driven in snow like this before, and every passing minute in this snowy hellscape only made her more convinced she was going to freeze to death in an icy wreck.

She poked at her phone, bringing up Google Maps. There was a town coming up, right? She wouldn’t actually get stranded in her car, slowly freezing into an heiress popsicle.

Google Maps dropped in and out of service, her little dot appearing and disappearing on the long stretch of road.

“Still can’t believe I’m the only one who had to go to this stupid conference,” Luna mumbled as she tapped hopefully at her glitchy phone.

Her dad’s voice echoed distantly through the crackling receiver. “You begged, honey. How was it? As boring as I told you?”

Luna sighed. It had been kind of boring. And the parts that hadn’t been boring, she couldn’t talk to her dad about.

Her dad let out a satisfied grunt. “What did I say? Stacks aren’t made for work, hon.”

“You’re the CEO of a major company, Dad!”

“So I can get my employees to do the work for me,” he replied. “I’ve done all the hard work in my youth. Now we can lie back and enjoy life.”

Luna grumbled under her breath. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the lavish lifestyle her dad provided her, all travel and parties and fun.

She just wondered sometimes what it would be like to…

do something. Hence begging to get sent to a boring company conference.

She was technically her dad’s employee, after all.

She had the degrees to qualify her for it and everything.

“I did have some interesting chats with the marketing team,” she said hopefully.

Her dad groaned. “Luna. Don’t start.”

“I’m not,” she said hastily. “I just—”

“I know you got those fancy degrees,” he continued patiently. “But let’s face it, hon. You’re not made to sit in an office and send emails about which logo makes people want to buy hand towels more. Stop bothering the marketing team with all your little social media ideas, alright?”

“Right,” Luna said bitterly. She actually had been about to tell her dad about logos.

She’d secretly been in touch with the marketing team for years.

They loved it when she “bothered” them. They asked her to bother them at least once a month, cc’ing her on email chains as they discussed their latest projects.

Her dad was happy with her work when he thought it was someone else’s, but every time she tried to bring it up, he told her to stick to what she was good at: having fun and throwing parties.

Which, admittedly, she was pretty great at.

But part of her longed to know what it would be like to do something else.

Something that didn’t end after one night or require cleanup in the morning.

Not that Luna ever stuck around for the cleanup.

The cleaning staff could take care of that.

She tweaked the windshield wiper controller desperately in the hope that there might be a secret faster setting if she held them at the right angle. No dice. The snow kept battering down, only allowing her glimpses of the white road in between gusts.

“Dad, I don’t know if I’m going to make my flight. Can you book me a new one if I get stuck here overnight?”

“Send me the details when you get out of the snow,” her dad said. “I have to go, your mother’s calling. They did something horrible to our mai tais.”

“A fate worse than death,” Luna said flatly. “I’ll just be here. Your only daughter. Suffering. Hope I don’t get trapped and have to start eating local townsfolk, Donner-style.”

Another burst of static. Luna cursed at the cliffs surrounding the roads.

“I hate Alaska,” she yelled uselessly at the flurrying snow. “Why are you like this?”

“Definitely yell at it more,” came Hector’s voice down the crackling line. “That’ll fix it. Hey, did you know Alaska’s covered in snow for six months of the year?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Luna hissed, longing for their heated pool at home in sunny California as she stared out at the street, which was slowly but surely whiting out. “Six months out of a year ? Who in their right mind would live here?”

“Eighty thousand people.”

“Idiots,” Luna declared.

The car swerved. Luna yelped, jerking the steering wheel as the car wobbled from side to side on the slippery road.

“Babe?” Another slurping sound. “Did you die?”

“I’m fine,” Luna said, slowing down to a crawl. “I’m— Oh, thank god, there’s a town.”

“Does it say abandon hope, all ye who enter, you’re about to get eaten by an orc ?”

“Ha, ha,” Luna said. “No. It says…”

She squinted through the snow. It was hard to see anything beyond her windshield, let alone the half-covered wooden sign on the side of the road.

The font was almost too swirly to read. Like the person designing it had gotten too excited about being fancy and forgotten that the point of road signs was for people to read them quickly and clearly as they careened past ten miles over the speed limit.

“ Claw Haven ,” Luna read out, “ for the monster who wants some peace and quiet. ”

Hector hummed. “Huh. Doesn’t sound very murdery. Maybe you won’t get eaten after all.”

“Nobody’s eating me,” Luna protested.

Her car swerved again. Luna straightened out with an embarrassingly fearful squeak.

“Hey,” Hector said, voice softening through the static.

“Worse comes to worst, you stay overnight in some crappy little town, then get the next flight out. I’ll meet you in the Bahamas.

You, me, some meetings I’m going to blow off, and mai tais made by someone with more than two hours of bartending experience. ”

Luna laughed shakily. “That bad, huh?”

“ So bad. I know your mom’s a drama queen, but this time, she’s right on the—”

The phone fuzzed out into static.

“Hector,” Luna said. “Babe?”

Nothing. The static grew louder and louder until Luna winced and stabbed the End Call button.

“Oookay,” she said. “This is fine. Just gotta find a motel. Do they have motels in towns this tiny? They have to. Right?”

Her phone sat in the drink holder, silent and useless on the subject of tiny-town motels, or any motels for that matter. A quick inspection showed that she had absolutely zero cell service.

“Great,” Luna muttered. She searched up motels Claw Haven .

No hits. But there was a place not far away.

Musgrove Inn. It had one four-star rating saying the service was good and they had a wide range of dietary options for the mer reviewer, who was used to eating human food when he traveled.

But the inn needed some touch-ups. Apparently, the owners had remodeled it themselves, and they were not professional contractors.

“As long as it’s got a roof, four walls and indoor heating, I’m down,” Luna declared.

She attached her phone to her dashboard holder and set off. It was only a few minutes away, but she wasn’t taking any chances in this weather.

She eyed the road as her glitchy dot crept closer and closer to the inn.

Her wheels kept skidding, which was even more alarming now that she had things to crash into.

She drove down a main road, catching glimpses of stores as she crawled past: a café, a bakery, a chocolate store, a florist and a cute little bookstore.

Claw Haven would probably be picturesque in the morning: a quaint town covered with snow.

But right now, it was a seething, hellish snowscape that Luna wanted nothing more than to escape.

Hopefully, the roads would be clear enough to drive tomorrow.

She didn’t want to be here any longer than she had to.

“Cliff Street,” Luna read aloud from her map. “Come on, Cliff Street.”

“ In one hundred feet, turn right ,” Google Maps said.

A tiny road sign glinted through the snow: Cliff Street .

Luna made a triumphant noise and turned.

Her car swerved again. Luna tried forcing it back into its lane, but it was too late. Her wheels locked, sending the car skidding helplessly off the road.

Luna yelled, pumping the brakes. Nothing worked. Her car pointed straight at a signpost. Welcome to Musgrove Inn.

“Wait!” Luna yelled as she barreled toward the sign. “Shit, wait!”

No use. Her car cracked into the signpost, breaking the wood in half before coming to a shuddering stop in the snowy parking lot.

“ You have reached your destination ,” Google Maps said calmly.

Copyright ? 2024 by Isabelle Taylor