Author Archives: Felicity Heaton

I have the hard task of choosing my favourite scenes from some of my books to share with you this weekend. It might sound like a lot of fun, but sometimes there is more than one scene that I really love in a book and choosing between them can be very tricky. Add to that the fact that I can’t choose a scene that gives something major about the plot away and it becomes doubly tricky!

My next favourite scene is from Heart of Darkness and again it was really difficult to choose between them. It’s a long scene this time, close to 6000 words, but it’s one that I really love and I think it shows Aleksandr in all his beauty.

Elise rubbed the sleep from her eyes and hurried down the dim corridor on the second floor. Was Aleksandr alright? The knock on her bedroom door had startled her but not as much as the request of the servant on the other side. The young male vampire had hastily relayed an order to join Aleksandr in his reception room and then quickly left. She couldn’t blame him for being nervous when the sun was up. Or had the trace of fear she had felt in him been because of Aleksandr? She raced down the stairs to the first floor and stopped near the bottom, cautiously peering around the wall to the entrance hall. The shutters were down, blocking out the noonday sun. The sound of footsteps broke the silence, heavy on the hardwood floor below. She glanced down at the immense man dressed head-to-toe in black fatigues. One of the day guards that her family employed. The werewolves had always been more than happy to protect her kind in return for an exorbitant amount of money. He looked up at her, golden eyes sharp and curious. Elise moved on, driven by curiosity herself.

Why was Aleksandr awake and why did he need to see her?

Red spots had stained his bandages. Perhaps he was hurting again, in too much pain to sleep. She hadn’t done a good enough job. He’d said that she had but she didn’t believe him. If she had done her job properly, he wouldn’t have bled again.

Elise cursed herself.

She should have allowed the medical staff to assist him. The thought that he might be in pain because of her twisted her stomach and made her feel sick. It had been foolish of her to try to keep him all to herself, to desire to return the favour and make him better, to look after him as he had her.

She slowed when she reached the double wooden doors to his rooms and then knocked without hesitation.

“Come.” His voice was heavy and quiet through the doors.

Elise opened them, slipped into the room, and closed them silently behind her. The fire was the only light in the dark red room. She moved forwards, wanting to see Aleksandr. He sat shirtless in the leather armchair with its back to her and the door. There were blood canisters and an empty glass on a small round wooden side table next to the armchair. It reassured her that he was feeding well, but she still wanted proof that his injuries were healing and that she hadn’t left him in pain. He had said the bleeding was his fault, and she had seen him grab his brother, but the guilt still lingered inside her, adding to her worry.

It wasn’t only that he was hurt. She feared that he had seen things in her blood.

He didn’t look at her as she came to stand beside him, with the small table between them and the red couch to her left. She smoothed down the loose black jogging bottoms and camisole, her hands shaking as she did so. Perhaps she should have dressed properly before coming to him. She had panicked when the servant had given her the message and had thrown on the first clothes she had found. Now she felt oddly naked around him, exposed even when she wasn’t.

She felt vulnerable without her uniform to protect her. Did she hide behind her duty so much that it had become her shield, her way of keeping people from getting too close to her?

Elise wrapped her arms across her chest. Aleksandr still didn’t look at her.

He stared at the flames, quiet and distant, the air around him heavy as though affected by the weight of his thoughts.

Not wanting to disturb him, she stepped back and turned to leave.

“Stay,” he whispered and she looked at him over her shoulder. He was still staring at the fire.

“What are my orders?” she said, trying to draw a reaction from him. His expression didn’t shift, not even to show the slightest sign of emotion.

“Orders? No orders.” He slowly turned his head and looked up into her eyes. There was such fatigue in his handsome face, and so much weariness in his grey eyes, but she couldn’t fathom his feelings. He was too old for her to read easily. “Sit a while. I need company.”

She didn’t have the heart to protest, not today, not when he looked so tired and lost. She could have considered his words to be an order but he’d made it clear that they weren’t. They were a request, and she granted him it, because he looked as though he genuinely needed the company.

Elise sat in the leather armchair opposite him, her rising nerves churning her stomach. The fire was warm against her legs but she pulled them up, placing her bare feet on the seat of the chair, and wrapped her arms around them. She didn’t want to be too close to the flames. Aleksandr didn’t seem to care about the danger it represented. He was staring into it again, his head propped up on his right hand, his long black trouser-clad legs crossed.

He said nothing.

She took him using his arm as a good sign and took his silence as an opportunity to check the bandage. Someone had placed a new one on him and, judging by how untidy it was, they didn’t have medical knowledge. Had his brother helped him?

Without thinking, she frayed the ends of the strip of bandage around her right wrist, her gaze lingering on Aleksandr’s face. He was undeniably handsome, even when he was thinking so hard that there was a focused edge to his eyes, his dark eyebrows knitted tightly. His mussed dark hair told her that he had slept at some point. Why was it eluding him now?

Elise wanted to ask him what was on his mind so he would feel better for sharing it but it wasn’t her place to behave in such a way, and she feared where it might lead. Instead, she stayed with a safe question but one she wanted an answer to nonetheless.

“Are you in pain, Sir?”

He turned his frown on her and she held his gaze, unafraid of the darkness in his eyes. Her use of a rank for him had annoyed him. She had no right to call him Aleksandr. She had been far too friendly with him recently and had acted out of place. Someone of her rank didn’t belong with him, and they certainly didn’t have the right to act so familiarly around him.

He shook his head, his frown remaining in place. His gaze fell to her wrist and his frown disappeared.

“You worry about it.” He held his hand out to her. Elise placed her feet down on the rug, leaned forwards, and offered her wrist to him. He carefully unpinned the bandage and removed it. She shivered when his thumb grazed the two dark spots on her skin and ached at the memory of how it had felt to have him bite her. “You worried about it in the hall when my brother had arrived, and after in this very room when you came to enquire about my health. You worry too much, dearest Elise.”

Did she? She didn’t think that she did. He had bitten her and she knew that she had done a terrible job of keeping her thoughts and feelings hidden from him.

“I did see things in your blood,” he whispered, his thumb continuing to stroke her wrist, sending shiver after shiver racing up her arm. He looked deep into her eyes. “I saw nothing I can use against you, if that is what you fear.”

“I do not,” Elise lied with ease, not wanting him to see her weakness, and took her hand away from him. What had he seen? She desired to press him into telling her but knew it was pointless. He was already staring at the fire again, his expression becoming heavy once more. “You seem tired, Sir.”

“If there is anyone in this world worthy of calling me Aleksandr, it is you, Elise. I tire of your formality. I am not your commander in these long hours of day where sleep eludes me. I am a selfish man who woke you so I might not face the day alone.”

Elise drew her feet back up onto the chair and hugged her legs. Nothing but a man? He was more than a man, even when it was day, and the hour didn’t change her respect for him, or the fact that he was her commander. He wanted it to though. She could see that in his eyes. He wanted her to treat him as though he was only a man in need of company, something which she could give him. He didn’t want to be a prince or a commander to her. She knew what he wanted, and she was too afraid to give it to him. He couldn’t be her lover.

But he could be a man.

A friend for now at least.

“Why does sleep elude you?” She studied his face as he stared into the flames. They danced in his eyes, turning the grey golden, making him look like one of the werewolves even when she knew he wasn’t. The werewolves didn’t suffer the call of darkness as her kind did, as Aleksandr did.

“I have not had that dream in many years,” he whispered to the fire and pressed his fist against his lips. “It has not shaken me in decades.”

“Dream?” Elise lowered her feet again and leaned forwards, wanting him to see that she was here for him and would listen to anything he had to say if it would help him to find sleep again. He needed to rest and heal.

“Katya’s death.” He kept looking at the fire.

An ache settled in her chest, burning in her heart. Who was Katya? The way Aleksandr had said that name with so much pain but an edge of affection too, a spark of love in his eyes, hurt Elise. She looked away, trying to rearrange her jumbled feelings into some semblance of order. Katya. Who was this woman whom Aleksandr had loved?

She felt his eyes come to settle on her but refused to look at him when she was struggling with her emotions. Aleksandr was a prince, a vampire of the noblest bloodline, and handsome. She was under no illusion that he hadn’t been with many women in his life.

But the thought that he might have loved one of them, that he loved her still, made her want to leave the room, made her want to surrender any foolish hope she had of ever claiming Aleksandr’s heart, and made her want to cry.

“Elise?” he whispered and she blinked away her tears, hiding them from him. She started when his fingers grazed her cheek, a light caress that both warmed and chilled her heart.

Taking a deep breath, she brushed his hand away, switched off her feelings and looked at him.

He sat with his hand outstretched to her, an edge of pain in his stormy eyes. He was still a moment, and then curled the hand she had swept aside into a fist and withdrew into his chair, the hurt in his expression increasing. He had wanted to comfort her and she had pushed him away, even when she had been craving the contact between them and the reassurance.

“You seem to take offence at the sound of my sister’s name,” he said in a quiet voice and Elise felt like a fool. “Do not worry so much. There is room in my dark heart for you both.”

She blushed, her cheeks burning hotter than if the sun had touched her. Room in his heart? Her gaze leapt from the flames to his, wanting to search it for the truth behind those low spoken words, but he looked away from her, staring back into the fire.

“Ekatarina Nemov.” She needed to be sure that they were talking about the same person and that his sister’s death was the reason he was so upset.

“Katya to myself and my brother, Vasiliy.” Aleksandr was quiet a moment and then sighed. “I wish he had not come. He is too much like her. When I see him, I cannot help seeing her too.”

Elise waited for him to continue. She didn’t know the full story behind his sister’s death. Over the centuries it had become legend more than anything else and Aleksandr had begun to slip into legend with it. But he was here now, sitting in front of her, a man so vulnerable and in so much visible pain that she wondered what burden his heart bore because of his sister’s death.

“My sister was younger than me,” he whispered in a broken voice. The golden light of the fire warmed his features but all she could feel in him was cold and hurt. “She was beautiful, kind, kept away from the violence of our species because she was female. She had never killed.”

He looked at her now, his grey eyes open and earnest, as though beseeching her to hear his words and know the truth in them.

“It had been her duty to maintain the peace and be seen as the example for our people to follow… delicate and like a human… not a beast inside. Not like me.”

Elise didn’t think he was a beast. Not yet. She moved forwards, perched on the edge of her seat. She wanted to reach across to him, to take his hand again and hold it, to comfort him.

“I was taught to fight, in case need arose, and had learned to kill. I had the skill to protect my people in war if needed, but I failed to protect her.” Aleksandr looked away again, at the fire, tears lining his eyes. They were gone when he blinked, erased as easily as his emotions. She couldn’t feel his hurt now, couldn’t sense anything from him.

“What happened to her?”

“There was a raid on the palace. I tried to get to her but I was not fast enough. The hunter killed my sister and fled. She was defenceless, Elise. He slaughtered her maids and the guards that protected her. He butchered my sister.” Aleksandr closed his eyes and clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles burned white. A wave of anger washed over Elise and her brow furrowed when she felt the sharp raw pain that laced it. “I could not save my sister and my heart could not rest until I had avenged her.”

“You hunted him.” It wasn’t a question. The answer was in his eyes when they met hers. Violence echoed in their depths. He had looked that way when he had killed the hunters in the city.

“I soaked my hands in blood and left my family so my actions did not taint their ideals or their name.”

In that moment, Elise felt as though she was looking at a different person. Not the Aleksandr she knew but the one that she feared. He was so distant as he looked at her, and as he spoke, and she was afraid that he was seeking his death and that the duty he’d undertaken weighed too heavily on him.

He had bloodied his hands and he was paying the price for it. His need to avenge his sister was turning him into a beast. How many more times could he kill before he succumbed to the darkness within him and devolved into the demon their ancestors had been? How close to the edge of the abyss was he now?

How could so noble a man have lost himself to the dark urges living within them all?

Elise knew of his time as their heir prince and that he had been a good man, one worthy of leading their people into a new era of peace. He had been strong, and had upheld the ideals of his family, preaching pacifism over violence and setting an example. The example he had become now was a cautionary tale to all vampires. Follow the rules of the monarchy or face the future Aleksandr had chosen. How could he do this to himself?

Wasn’t he afraid of what his future held for him?

Aleksandr sighed and looked into the fire again, his gaze distant and thoughtful. She didn’t press him to speak to her because she couldn’t find her voice when she wanted to ask him things that might hurt or anger him. She wanted to know more about his sister and what had driven him to forsake his family and lead a life of danger and darkness. She wanted him to show his eyes to her so she could see the truth in them and see once and for all that he was treading the fine line between humanity and depravity.

She wanted to take his hand and promise him that she would find a way to fix him, to redeem him and stop him from slipping into the endless black within his heart and soul.

It was ridiculous to think she could do such a thing, but she wanted it with all of her heart. She would find a way to save him. He didn’t deserve to become evil, not when he had only been doing something honourable and beautiful in trying to avenge his sister’s needless horrible death.

“What do you think while you look at me with such intent, Elise?” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Only that it is a noble thing you have done and that your people are grateful that you have chosen to protect us and have put us before even your own safety.”

He scoffed and waved her away. “Noble? Everyone believes me to be that way. I do not think it very noble to choose to bloody my hands, and I am no longer fit for the crown or to lead my people.”

“I still believe you are noble, Aleksandr.”

His eyes widened. Was the disbelief in their grey depths because she had used his name or because of what she had said? She did believe that he was noble. No other man she knew would do such a thing for a blood relative.

“You still think like a prince in your heart,” she said and he frowned now, his eyes darkening with it. “Do not deny it, because I have seen it is true. You say that you hunt with vengeance on your mind but you go after other vampire hunters too, ones not related to the man who killed your sister. That is noble, and you do it with the intention of protecting those weaker than you.”

He looked away from her, as though ashamed to hear her words about him. He deserved praise for what he had done and the sacrifices he made, even if he didn’t think he did. He needed to hear that he helped his people, made their world a safer place to live in and saved many from having to resort to violence.

The monarchy, his family, had chosen their path to saving their people and Aleksandr had chosen his. Both of them did so to protect their kin from the darkness and the hunters.

“You are noble, Aleksandr. I will say it however many times it takes for you to believe it.”

He rubbed his shoulder and she watched his hand, following his fingers and checking to see whether the wounds were aggravating him. He didn’t look as though he was in pain.

She glanced at the blood canister and glass on the side table and then back at him, her gaze catching on his bare stomach and the mark above his right hip. No matter what he thought, he was still worthy of the name of Nemov. He still protected their kind.

“Would you do something for me, Elise… something which would help me?” he whispered and she dragged her eyes up to meet his. He looked uncertain and then held her gaze. “You may say no if you wish.”

She didn’t even know what he was going to ask her so she was hardly going to say no outright. There was a nervous edge to his expression. It was strange to see such a strong person so vulnerable. What did he want to ask that made him look this way?

“Speak,” she said, wanting to hear what it was he had to ask of her.

He hesitated a moment, looking around the room, and then held her gaze again.

“Will you come to me?” He held his left hand out to her and her eyes fell there. “Allow me to hold you… only for a while… I only need to hold you.”

Nerves skittered over her skin and her heart fluttered against her ribs. She couldn’t see how it would help him and she wasn’t sure if she trusted him to only hold her as he’d said. He kept his hand outstretched to her and she stared at it, feeling as though he was reaching for more than just her hand.

He was reaching for her heart and she was afraid that he would take it if she went to him, and she would never feel again when he left her.

Just as he was about to take his hand back, Elise placed hers into it and bravely stood on trembling legs. She swallowed, her throat and mouth dry. It was insane of her to do this, to place herself into his arms, but he needed her and she couldn’t deny him. She wanted to comfort him and ease his pain. She wanted to take away his nightmare and give him peace.

She needed to.

Her heartbeat quickened when he drew her towards him and leaned back into the chair. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and then eyed his lap. The look in Aleksandr’s beautiful grey eyes stilled her heart. There was so much affection in them now and no trace of the pain or the loneliness that had been there before. Seeing the effect she had on him bolstered her courage and she sat on his left thigh, facing the fire, and curled her legs around so her calves rested against his shins. He looked at her as though she was an angel for coming to him, a merciful creature to have given him this moment he so clearly needed with her.

She wasn’t afraid when he placed his left arm around her waist and held her side. It warmed her to feel his hand against her, his thumb lightly brushing her skin through the black camisole.

“No one will disturb us.” He continued to look up at her, into her eyes, so close that she could easily kiss him if she wanted to.

And she did want to.

But this moment wasn’t about such things.

She was here to offer him comfort only, to give him the reassurance he craved and to give him back his strength.

“I just need to hold you for a while, if that is alright with you?” he whispered and Elise nodded.

She swallowed again when he drew her close and rested his head against her chest and her shoulder. His breath was soft against her chest, his arm gentle around her waist. He sighed and she felt him relax, sensed the calm that washed through him and chased away his pain. This close to him, skin-on-skin, it was easier for her to sense his feelings, especially when he was letting her as she knew he was. He had opened his heart to her, allowing her to catch a glimmer of his emotions. He feared his dreams of his sister. The pain he felt was strong, buried deep in his heart, and Elise wanted to make it disappear for him even when she knew that was impossible.

Not even the death of the hunter that he sought or the achievement of his vengeance would erase the hurt Aleksandr felt when he thought about his sister. The way that he had spoken of her, with so much affection and so much pain, made that clear. He would never forgive the hunter’s bloodline for what it had done to her. Elise could understand his feelings, felt a similar way about someone she had lost. That pain would never go away. It would haunt her for the rest of her life and she had to live with it.

He sighed again and his head became heavy against her shoulder. He wasn’t sleeping but it felt as though he might be. He was a dead weight on her chest but Elise didn’t mind. She was only glad that she was making him feel better.

It was strange to be this close to him and not have him try something with her. A fragment of her heart had been convinced that he would attempt to touch her or kiss her. She started to relax too, glad that he wasn’t going to push her into doing anything. She was too weak for him. If he kissed her, she wouldn’t be able to resist him, no matter how much sense told her to. Her heart would always overrule her head.

Aleksandr’s breathing slowed, becoming deep and gentle. She liked the feel of him against her, holding her close and sharing a quiet moment with her.

Elise placed her arms around him and stroked the bandages covering his right shoulder and arm. She placed her hand against his back, trying to sense whether he was healing again now.

“Do not worry so much,” he sighed against her skin and raised his right hand and caught hold of her left. He brought it away from his shoulder and, for a moment, she feared he was going to kiss it but then he held it against his chest, over his heart. “You are disturbing me with it.”

She didn’t mean to. It was difficult to control her emotions when they were in each other’s arms, as though they were lovers. Aleksandr wanted them to be that. She was tempted to probe his feelings for her and see what they were, but resisted and pushed away her worry instead. He would be able to sense her feelings clearly, far more easily than she could sense his. To him, it would be as though he was feeling everything that she was. His age granted him such power over her, one that he would always hold because of the difference in their years. If she lived to be his age, he would still be able to sense things more easily than her. His power would never stop growing stronger.

He sighed when she touched his neck with her right hand and before she could stop herself, she was stroking the soft short hair at the back of his head to soothe him.

The flames mesmerised her along with the feel of his hair beneath her fingers and his arm around her waist. It was quiet and peaceful, and she wasn’t afraid. She felt so incredibly comfortable with him and a part of her wished it wouldn’t end.

It was nice to have such a strong man need her and rely on her. It made her feel strong too.

She liked how he held her, and how he felt against her, and that he genuinely seemed to need her. She ran her fingers through his hair and cradled his head to her, wishing he could find in her arms the sleep that eluded him. She would watch over him and keep the bad dreams away if she could. She would make them stay away forever.

Elise lowered her lips and barely stopped herself from kissing the top of his head. She breathed him in instead, taking his warm scent down into her lungs and holding it there. There was power in his scent, strength that she had sensed the moment they had met. He had let her defeat him then and she wasn’t sure why. She had never thought to ask him and now didn’t seem like the right time.

She sighed, tilted her head to one side, and rested her right cheek on her fingers where they held the top of his head. He moaned softly and held her closer. Elise smiled and stared into the fire, losing track of the minutes as they held each other.

Just as she was beginning to have to fight off the urge to fall asleep, Aleksandr stirred and released her. She blinked several times and focused her drowsy senses.

“I am sorry, I have kept you here all day,” he said in a gravelly voice that betrayed his fatigue.

Elise shrugged and then rubbed her eyes. She looked down at his right hand where it rested over her left knee. It was strange how quickly she had grown used to being so intimate with him. She had been ready to sleep this way, curled up on his lap and in his arms. It had felt like the safest place in the world.

“Thank you.” He reached up and swept the backs of his right fingers across her cheek, a slight frown marring his brow. “You are tired. Sleep. I will take a different guard tonight.”

Those words forced any shred of tiredness from her. “I don’t understand. You said we were off duty tonight. You’re not hunting?”

He nodded. “I must.”

The thought of him going into the city with the other females in his guard tightened her insides.

“I’m not tired,” she said so fast that it was almost one word. “It is my duty to guard you.”

“That will not do. You are tired.” He stroked her face and smiled at her, his grey eyes brightening with it. “You forget I can see straight through you.”

She hadn’t forgotten, just as she hadn’t forgotten that he had seen things in her blood too, things that he wouldn’t tell her about. Did he know her feelings for him and her fears? She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to know them or not. If he did, would he treat her differently, would he be more careful with the heart that he was stealing from her?

“You are tired too, Sir.” She quickly corrected herself when he glared at her. “Aleksandr.”

“We are far too intimate now for such formal terms.” He smiled, his hand falling to her knee again, a not so subtle reminder that she was still perched on his thigh. His gaze held hers. “Elise.”

She blushed at the way he’d whispered her name, saying it with such force and passion that her mind raced to imagine him speaking it against her skin between kisses and into her ear as he made love with her.

“You must rest. I have told the guard that we are off duty tonight and they are excited because of the ball our master is arranging for your brother and you… you must rest…” Elise placed her hand against his injured shoulder, looked at it and then back into his eyes. “You are not healed yet.”

Aleksandr took hold of her hand, curling his fingers around so their tips grazed her palm. His grip was strong but gentle. The hard look in his eyes softened and he nodded.

“I will rest, but only because you have asked me to.”

It shocked Elise that he would take such a command from her and she couldn’t make out whether he was being genuine and had accepted it to ease her mind, or whether he had done so only to get into her good book and make her surrender to him. She didn’t want it to be the latter. Couldn’t he see that she hated the thought of him making her weak like the other females? She had never been reliant on the males of her species and it wasn’t going to be any different now that Aleksandr was in her heart. She could take care of herself. She didn’t want to change. She didn’t want him to make her into something that she wasn’t and could never be.

“Come,” he said and she stood, leaving the comfort of his lap and quickly distancing herself. The look he gave her said that he’d noticed her change in attitude towards him.

He looked as though he was going to say something about it and then picked up his white shirt where it lay crumpled on the couch. He slipped his arms into it but didn’t bother to do up the buttons.

Elise wasn’t sure what to do. She considered apologising for hitting him before he had left for Budapest, but now wasn’t the right time. It would have to wait, and the longer it did the worse she felt about it.

She would return to the second floor, shower and dress, and think about everything before finding the right point at which to apologise to him. She couldn’t do it now, not when she was wrestling with her desire to kiss him. She couldn’t let that happen again, at least not until she was sure of a few things and could no longer resist the temptation.

Elise went to back towards the door but Aleksandr closed the gap between them and took hold of her shoulder. Her gaze immediately fell to his lips, taking in their sensual curves and she was unable to ignore her growing desire. Who was she kidding? If he tried to kiss her, she would be all over him.

“Get some sleep. The sun is only just setting. There is time before the ball.” His hand slipped from her shoulder.

Elise nodded and her gaze tracked him across the room. He went into his bedroom and closed the door.

Now she was confused. He had held her without trying anything, had shown a side of himself that she was sure no one else saw, and now he had left her in his reception room and had gone to bed alone.

What had happened to the Aleksandr who had pursued her relentlessly, who had let the entire world know that he wanted her, and who had kissed her in this room?

If it hadn’t been for the events of today, she would have been convinced that he didn’t want her anymore. But he did. His desire was unchanged, so what was different?

A quiet voice said that it was what he’d seen in her blood.

Elise stared at the dark wooden double doors, trying to sense him on the other side.

What had he seen?

She had half a mind to knock on the doors and demand to know. It wouldn’t get her anywhere though. He wasn’t going to tell her.

Elise went to the door that led onto the corridor, opened it, and paused. The moment she was dressed, she was going to come back and apologise for hitting him and she was going to find out why he was different.

She had to know.

Because the new Aleksandr had her falling for him faster than ever.

In fact, she was in love with him.

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Heart of Darkness
Felicity Heaton
A vampire prince on a four hundred year old mission to avenge his murdered sister…

Aleksandr Nemov won’t stop until the last of the vampire hunter’s progeny is wiped from the Earth. Each kill has stolen a piece of his humanity, pushing him towards the black abyss all vampires hold within their hearts. Now he is teetering on the edge, close to devolving into a beast, and time is running out as he tracks the last hunter to Prague. There he finds a beautiful woman who could be his one chance for salvation, but is it already too late for him?

A vampire guard who will do whatever it takes to protect those she loves…

Elise is dedicated to her duty. It’s the only thing she has left. All that changes when she meets Aleksandr in Prague and her master grants him permission to stay at her bloodline’s mansion. She knows all about Aleksandr but none of it prepares her for how she feels when the legendary prince’s hunt becomes one for her heart. Elise battles him with all of her strength but can she stop herself from falling for the handsome hunter? When he reveals the depth of the corruption in his soul, will she have the strength to face the pain in her past and do whatever it takes to save him?

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