Ida has had her eye on Dromer for years, but the restrictions against shifters and elves having relationships have kept them on a business level. If she can't have him, she didn't want anyone.

When she returns home one day to find that her parents have arranged her mating with a swan shifter she doesn't know, she does the only thing she can. She runs.

Dromer used to take solace in the weekly appearance of Ida in his diner as a client. In between his other customers, they would exchange pleasantries and crack jokes. It was a harmless flirtation that managed to wedge itself into his psyche.

When her family told her it was inappropriate, it left a gap in both their lives that closed with a wave of hope the day she ran and ended up in the Crossroads.