Bite of the Winter Rose

Freya hates everything the vampire lord represents: centuries of conquest, the draining of human villages, the cold arrogance in his silver eyes. Nikolai, who has not felt warmth since the night he was turned eight hundred years ago, is equally contemptuous of the fragile human who dares glare at him. Yet the Winter Rose demands life to grow: sunlight through glass, fresh blood willingly given, and, most dangerously, genuine emotion.

As months pass in the hothouse beneath the palace, forced proximity erodes hostility. Freya sees cracks in Nikolai’s immortal armor: nightmares of the sun he can never touch again, guilt over the monster he became. Nikolai watches Freya sing to her plants, laugh defiantly at his threats, and bleed for the rose without hesitation. Attraction ignites, forbidden and fierce. Every petal that unfurls brings them closer to the moment one of them must cease to exist as they are: either Nikolai becomes human and dies with Freya of old age, or the cure fails and Freya remains prisoner forever. In a kingdom built on ice, two hearts burn dangerously bright, racing toward a bloom that promises either salvation or annihilation.