132 Book(s) Related to reloj dile no cinco minutos

"Speak not a word to her. Let none of you lay your hands or eyes on her. She is mine to deal with. This is my only warning. Defy it, and the consequences will make you beg for death, yet death will not come."
MIRA
When Ken hurt me, I shattered.
But I never gave in. I refused to feel. I refused to love.
Then my father, who hates me, and my mother, too afraid to protect me, send me away.
I expected peace. What I got was the White Lion.
The mafia king of the continent. A legend soaked in blood.
He claims me with no mercy. Protects me with no kindness.
Says I belong to him. Proves it with every threat and every body he leaves behind.
I swore I would never surrender.
But how do you fight a devil who looks like salvation
and kisses like sin?
SCAR
After my mother died from my father’s recklessness, I made myself a promise.
No love. No women in the mafia. No weakness.
Then I saw Mira.
Too proud to beg. Too pure to touch.
I made her a game. A test. A punishment.
But now she is the obsession I never expected.

My father chose two vampires as marriage prospects for my sister and me.

One was an immensely powerful pureblood aristocrat.

The other was Cassian, crippled by a silver curse. Confined to a wheelchair, he was a laughingstock—wracked by phantom pains and constantly on the verge of madness.

In my past life, I chose Cassian.

I drained my own blood to ease his agonizing curse. I shielded him from the relentless mockery of the Vampire Court. I even gambled my life in werewolf territory to beg for his cure.

But he never seemed to get better.

I didn't care. I remember holding his hand and telling him, "It doesn't matter. No matter what happens to you, I will always stay by your side."

Until the accident. A pack of rogue werewolves ambushed us.

Cassian shoved me precisely into the path of their claws.

Just to shield my sister, Serena, from the fatal blow.

Silver claws completely shredded my throat.

Through my fading vision, I watched Cassian stand up from his wheelchair.

The terrifying aura of a Vampire Lord erupted from him, crushing the werewolves instantly. Countless night-thralls emerged from the shadows, dropping to their knees at his feet.

That was when I understood. He was never paralyzed, and he was never mad.

Because Serena hadn't chosen him, and because he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, he faked the illness to disgust me for years.

Then, he used my life to save his true love.

"I'm sorry for deceiving you. But I couldn't just watch Serena die."

"Elara... whatever I owe you, I'll repay in the next life."

In the bone-piercing cold, I took my last breath.

When I opened my eyes, I was back on the exact day my father forced us to make our choice.

My entire family betrayed me.

My husband Keith threatened divorce to force me into donating bone marrow to save my sister Berenice's life.

My parents slapped me across the face, screaming I owed her everything.

Thirty days in an underground lab, Keith wined and dined Berenice while I got steel needles driven through my spine daily.

When I begged Keith for help through the agony, he texted back: "Stop playing victim. Disgusting."

I died alone on day thirty. Keith arrived with divorce papers, ready for one final insult, but received a decomposing corpse crawling with maggots.

But when the truth came out, why did my loving family completely lose their minds?

My husband bought a necklace for the woman who killed my mother.

When I saw my foster sister Rebecca Rebecca wearing that emerald necklace with Aaron at the party, I knew history would repeat itself. Seven years ago, my mother lost everything the same way—her husband, her dignity, and finally her life.

I wouldn't follow in her footsteps.

So after slapping Rebecca across the face, I told everyone I was divorcing him and walked out with my suitcase.

Rebecca thought she'd won again. Aaron thought I was just being hysterical.

Neither of them saw it coming—

This time, I'd make them pay.

My family let me die. My fiancé watched. My sister smiled.
I was the real daughter, dragged from the orphanage to donate my bone marrow, then thrown away like garbage. When the monsters came for the imposter, they shielded her and left me to rot.
But death wasn’t the end. It was a deal.
I woke with a system tethered to my pulse—one that trades public admiration for the power to survive.​ And behind these hands are two identities they never suspected: the legend whose music they worship, and the ghost in the machine who owns their secrets.
They think I’m back to beg for love.
They’re wrong. I’m here to collect.
This time, I won’t just take back my music and my name. I’ll make them need me—right before I watch them lose everything.
They wanted me erased.
I’m about to become the only name that matters.

Xie Yijin hated me more than anyone in this world.

He called me vicious as a scorpion, said I schemed about everything, stole all that belonged to Lin Wanwan, and destroyed the one he held dearest.

Xie Yijin shielded Lin Wanwan tightly behind him.
The eyes that once looked at me with such tenderness were now frozen over with unmelting ice.
He pointed straight at me, every word cutting like a blade:

"Shen Zhiyi, why don’t you just die?!"

I froze in place, my fingertips ice-cold.
Unconsciously, I still clutched that crumpled, yellowed candy wrapper.

He had given it to me when he was seven years old,
saying that when I grew up, he would marry me
and buy me candies for the rest of my life.

But now…
he only wanted me dead.

My boyfriend Tyler, his childhood sweetheart Chelsea, and I went on a road trip through the Australian Outback in the Northern Territory.

A few scrawny, yellow-coated dogs lingered by the roadside. Chelsea insisted on getting out to feed them.

I warned her they were dingoes, vicious predators that ruled this desert.

Her eyes welled up and she called me heartless. Tyler jumped in too, saying I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, that I didn't get what it was like for regular people, that I couldn't even spare a couple of hot dogs.

She forced the door open and ran out. The pack lunged at her. Her screams tore through the air. Tyler cowered in the car, shaking.

I was the only one who got out to help her.

Chelsea scrambled back into the car, but Tyler slammed the door shut and locked it.

I never forgot his face pressed against the window, terrified and selfish. I never forgot the despair of feeling fangs rip through my throat.

After I died, the two of them flew back to the States and posted a sobbing video, claiming I was the one who'd insisted on getting out to take pictures and set the dogs off.

The online hate came for my family, all of it, all at once. My parents, both with weak hearts, collapsed under the stress. Neither one made it.

My whole family, destroyed because I couldn't stop caring for one second.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day the trip started.

When the dismissal bell rings, the night resets.
I'm Zoe, a high school sophomore living on campus, isolated by my entire family and the whole school. My "crime"? I reported my own little brother for campus violence.
The first time, I died in the dark by the track. The second time, shut inside the equipment room. But every time I opened my eyes, I was dragged back to the exact same starting point. Only the number on my arm—the countdown of how many lives I had left—dropped by one.
The man in the black mask always seemed to know exactly where I’d run and where I’d hide. But what truly sent shivers down my spine was this: every single time, my mother stood just a few steps away, quietly watching me take my last breath.
Once the number hits zero, there is no coming back. What do I have to do to survive this night?

Two women have gone missing in two weeks: the first, found dead, was slashed and dumped in a back alley in Boston. The second was discovered by a child in a Swan Boat Ride. As fear intensifies, Hunter, the head of the FBI Behavioral Unit, calls his star criminal profiler, Tracy Wrenn, to help on the case. Even though she had plans to become engaged that evening, Tracy quickly cancels her plans and rushes to Boston to help. A beautiful, young professor of criminal psychology, Tracy has become renowned for her success at cracking cases no one else can. With her unusual insights and unique point of view, she is relentless at probing the inner minds of murderers. When a third woman goes missing, and when Tracy finds herself in danger, everything intensifies. In a shocking turn of events, Tracy finds out more not only about the killer, but about herself--and learns that nothing is what is seems.Book #2 in The Killing Game will be released soon.

"Only one life jacket left!" a crewman shouted as the cruise ship sank.
My husband, Captain Harrison, looked torn between me—his pregnant wife—and Emma, his first love.
Last time, he gave me the jacket, intending to die with Emma. But he survived, and she drowned. To avenge her, he smothered our newborn. "You stole her life," he snarled. I killed him for my baby, bleeding out beside him.
Waking to the deafening sirens, I realize I’ve been reborn. This time, who will get that final life jacket?

The last thing I did before I died was lick dew off a rusted pipe.
Ninety days earlier, my fiancé Bastien promised he'd come back for me. He said three months in the Sahara would teach me not to be jealous of Posey—the girl I'd pulled from a refugee camp and raised as my own sister.
He didn't know the water ran out in the first week. He didn't know bandits broke my bones. He didn't care enough to find out.
While I lay dying on a rotting bed with a shattered leg, he was in Manhattan, sliding a pink diamond onto Posey's finger.
I died alone. But I didn't stay gone.
My soul followed a stolen necklace across the ocean, right back to his penthouse—just in time for the engagement party, the champagne toast, and the moment my body arrived at the door.

Five years ago, Eric took the fall for his fiancée’s brother and was thrown into the notorious Saint Paul Mountain Women’s Prison.

Little did the world know, this hell on earth became his ultimate training ground.

Enduring brutal training under seven legendary masters, he emerged as a supreme martial artist and a divine healer, eventually taking over as the prison’s absolute warden.

But when he steps out, his world shatters: his three general brothers were ambushed and killed in action, his grandfather is on his deathbed, and his family empire has been reduced to ruins by wolves.

Now, the King of Saint Paul Mountain has returned to the city.

To those who betrayed his family and brought shame to his name—prepare to pay a hundredfold!

My family's company went bankrupt, and my father was critically ill.

I dropped out of school and worked multiple jobs every day.

Debt collectors beat me and broke my ribs, but I couldn't afford painkillers.

Every penny I earned went to expensive medicine, all to save my father.

Until I saw my father, who should have been bedridden on oxygen, holding a champagne glass at a hotel banquet hall.

His words pierced through, "Five years, the punishment she earned."

The bankruptcy was fiction. The illness, theater.

All orchestrated because his stepdaughter suffered from depression, and I was her entertainment.

When the doctor finally spoke to me, "Days. You have only days."

I laughed.

The dying one had never been my father.

It had always been me.

My daughter was murdered on her eleventh birthday during a brutal snuff livestream on the dark web.

The chat was flooded with the sick revelry and obscene tips of twisted buyers.

"Break her legs a little more."
"I want to hear her cry out."

Lying in a pool of blood, my daughter cried out in sheer despair: "Mom... save me... it hurts so much..."

Watching my daughter take her last breath amid violent convulsions, I clawed at my own fingers until they were torn and bloody.

The police told me it was her elegant ballet instructor, Serena, who had sent her to hell. And the one who helped Serena cover her tracks was my husband, David.

In my utter despair, I swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been thrown back to the very day I was supposed to take my daughter to her ballet class.

Sitting in the passenger seat, dressed in her ballet tutu, my daughter looked at me with eyes full of anticipation.

"Hurry up, Mom. Ms. Serena said we're rehearsing the solo for Swan Lake today."

The blood in my veins instantly ran cold.

They told me the baby was gone, but they didn't tell me my heart was being carved out, too.

I woke up on the operating table, paralyzed. Through my blurred vision, I saw my beloved husband, Marco, trembling with excitement as he held my medical chart.

"Her blood is perfect," he whispered. "It is a perfect match for Isabella. We can proceed with the transplant now."

"Finally. It wasn't in vain that I brought her back." My revered father let out a sigh of relief. "If it weren't for this day, how would someone who wandered outside for so many years be qualified to step into this house again?"

When my husband said "I love you," he actually meant "Your heart is perfect for the woman I truly love."

I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.

I could only watch helplessly as the silver scalpel pierced toward my chest, while my sister, Isabella, lay on the operating table next to me, smiling in her sleep.

I was never a long-lost daughter, nor was I a beloved wife.

I was just a mobile blood bank waiting to be slaughtered.

Introduction: Three years ago, to pay for my sister's medical treatment, I willingly took on the role of a servant to the wealthy heiress Daisy, becoming a smuggling criminal and struggling to survive amidst humiliation. Daisy's family, with their cruel hearts, took advantage of the impending apocalyptic cold wave to murder both my sister and me. Reborn, I am determined to rewrite our fate. When hunters who revel in harming unarmed civilians besiege our shelter, I raise my gun—in this apocalyptic cold wave, anyone who dares to harm my sister will die!

“When you think that life cannot get better, Blake Pierce comes up with another masterpiece of thriller and mystery! This book is full of twists and the end brings a surprising revelation. I strongly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that enjoys a very well written thriller.”--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Almost Gone) LEFT TO DIE is book #1 in a new FBI thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews. FBI special agent Adele Sharp is a German-and-French raised American with triple citizenship—and an invaluable asset in bringing criminals to justice as they cross American and European borders.When a serial killer case spanning three U.S. states goes cold, Adele returns to San Francisco and to the man she hopes to marry. But after a shocking twist, a new lead surfaces and Adele is dispatched to Paris, to lead an international manhunt.Adele returns to the Europe of her childhood, where familiar Parisian streets, old friends from the DGSI and her estranged father reignite her dormant obsession with solving her own mother’s murder. All the while she must hunt down the diabolical killer, must enter the dark canals of his psychotic mind to know where he will strike next—and save the next victim before it’s too late.An action-packed mystery series of international intrigue and riveting suspense, LEFT TO DIE will have you turning pages late into the night.Books #2 and #3 in the series – LEFT TO RUN and LEFT TO HIDE – are also available for preorder!

My name is Michael Carson. On the surface, I'm a small-time analyst in Dallas, but nobody knows that I'm the sole heir to a multi-billion dollar financial empire.

The father's factory was on the verge of bankruptcy, but his wife transferred the money to her mother to open a beauty clinic, saying, "Your dad's lousy factory should have gone out of business long ago."

Her father suffered a heart attack and urgently needed surgery. She then said, "He's over sixty years old, is it worth it?"

I tolerated it. Until she discovered my true identity, she immediately turned on me, threatening divorce and taking half of my assets.

At that moment, I understood—some people don't deserve kindness.

I dialed the family number I hadn't contacted in five years.

They will never forget what happened next.

At Holy Oak High, being the Top Flyer isn't just a crown.
It’s a ticket to the upper class.
Girls would pay any price to stand at the top of that pyramid.
But I didn't understand that the spotlight hid a man-eating abyss until I had to put on that blood-stained uniform.
Listen. Do you hear that scratching sound coming from inside the locker?

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"They are already gone! Harper, you can't keep living in the past. You have to live on for their sake!"

After fainting from yet another high fever and being rushed to the hospital, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

The doctor said I had a month left, at most.

I refused their advice to find a bone marrow match. Clutching my family's belongings, I decided to go back to our old estate in the suburbs for one last look.

While I was walking in a daze, a little boy running wildly crashed hard into my legs.

A male voice that had haunted my dreams for years rang out from behind me. "Alistair, if you keep running off, what will you do if Mommy and Daddy don't want you anymore?"

In an instant, it felt like I had been plunged into freezing water. I froze in place.

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

I bled to death on a cold hospital bed, my unborn child gone, all because I took a shift for my coworker.
Heaven granted me a second chance. I opened my eyes, sitting safely at my office desk. Before I could shake off the nightmare, Vanessa clicked her heels toward me.
"Claire, can you cover for me at the investor party tonight? It’s my anniversary with my boyfriend."
In my past life, I agreed, only to be locked in a private room by monsters and tortured to death. This time, I looked her in the eye. "No."
Vanessa was stunned. Because of my refusal, she missed the crucial meeting and was mercilessly fired by the director.
I thought I had escaped hell and saved her life too. But when I got home to my loving husband, I realized the true nightmare had just begun...

"Moon Goddess," I prayed. "Please—save my baby. Save us both. I'll do anything."
The knife plunged into my chest. Pain exploded—white-hot, consuming. Blood poured over my skin.
The bond with Kael flared—bright and desperate—reaching for him one last time. But he didn’t come. He was with Clarissa, believing her lies, unaware of the child we created.
The second stab tore into my stomach.
“No,” I gasped. “The baby—please. Not my baby—”
They didn’t stop.
The blade fell again and again, until I felt nothing at all. Until the world faded to gray.
As my blood soaked the snow, my final thought was a curse:
Moon Goddess—if you care for me at all, give me one more chance. I’ll make them pay.
Aria Winters, an abused omega, learns her fated mate is Alpha Kael, bound to Luna Clarissa in a loveless political marriage. One forbidden night leaves Aria pregnant with the Alpha’s true heir.
When Clarissa learns the truth, she sends three assassins to kill Aria and her unborn child. Aria dies alone in the snow.
But the Moon Goddess offers a second chance. Time rewinds—Aria returns with her memories intact, and her wolf fully awakened.
In the love triangle, no longer a broken omega, she rises with power, purpose, and vengeance in her veins.
Rebirth to Be His Luna—not for love, but for vengeance.

I ranked first and snagged the most prestigious job offer in the city. Yet, not a single person congratulated me.
Because for the past twenty years, every top student who received this offer from the medical school "committed suicide" that very night.
Reporters blocked the school gates, grinning as they asked if I planned to jump off a building or swallow a bullet. My roommate grabbed my collar, screaming curses, wishing me dead.
Too bad they all completely miscalculated. I come from a filthy rich family, I’m perfectly sane, and top psychologists have signed off that I have zero suicidal tendencies. I have no reason to die.
So, I looked straight into the live cameras and declared: "If my body is found tomorrow morning, it’s not suicide. It’s murder!"
After all, for that final exam, I turned in a blank paper.

In my past life, my husband Pietro locked me in a dark basement and tortured me to death. My only crime? I couldn't get pregnant.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the family’s arranged marriage banquet.
Pietro was an illegitimate son, desperate to secure his status through marriage. In my previous life, he chose me—the Godfather's daughter. But this time, he publicly wrapped his arm around my ambitious stepsister, Livia.
Livia had always envied my status. She craved power and desperately wanted to be the Don's wife. Seeing them together, I knew instantly: Pietro had been reborn, too.
Don Ettore laid down the law: Whoever sired a son first would inherit Castel City.
My sister thought she had just been handed a crown.
But she didn't know the truth. The barren one... was Pietro.

I was diagnosed with hemophilia when I was ten years old.
At first, my parents were terrified. They watched me closely, rushed me to the hospital over every bruise, every nosebleed. I was the fragile one—the child who needed saving.

Then years passed.
They got used to it.
They got tired.

By the time my twin sister was graduating and my family was finally breathing again, I was about to turn eighteen.
And that night, while everyone believed I’d be fine like always, I bled to death.

In the year 2333, humanity has fallen and ruled by werewolves. Bellatrix Sinclair, an 18-year-old weapons prodigy that despises werewolves for destroying her family has been secretly planning to join the human rebellion.
However, she is forced into the Mate Selection Process and matched with Lazarus De Loughrey, the ruthless Werewolf King obsessed with claiming her.
He shouldn't want her and she should hate him but they cannot resist each other. It's a twisted connection, entirely physical because all I am is his slave.
My heart should belong to my best friend Emmett, a human. Atleast the guilt of betrayal wouldn't be eating away at my insides.


“Yes please.” She begs.
“Then fucking let me in.” I growled, this fury exploding with vengeance. I wanted to destroy her pussy.
It was maddening, it was sickening, it was barbaric.
But I never claimed to be saint.
“Here that baby, that’s the sound of your greedy pussy sucking on my cock. Give me more, drench me.”
“Lazarus.” She moans painfully, “Please let me come.”
I’m doused in gasoline and set alight, sweat coats my skin as I pound into her faster and harder. I’m definitely hurting her, “Wanna come?” I rasped, “Not until I say so.”
Pressing my lips onto hers, pushing my tongue into her mouth until I feel the sweetness of hers. The kiss is sloppy and filthy. She cries as I drive my cock into her, the intensity too much to handle, sweet tears sliding onto her cheeks.
“Fuck yes.” I smile sadistically, licking her tears. “Cry for me Ma Cherie.”
“Please, please let me come My King.” She pleads.
“Say it again.” Lightening shooting down my spine as she begged, “My King, please let me come. I’ll be good.”
I chuckled, “Try your luck to kill me Ma Cherie, I dare you.”

Nine months pregnant and about to give birth, my husband Zane locked me in the wine cellar.
All because his widowed business partner, Elena, was also giving birth today.
"You almost made Elena go into labor early. You need to think about what you've done."
Agonizing contractions wracked my body. I dropped to my knees, begging him, "Zane, please─the baby is coming now! He will die!"
He just shoved me down the cold stone steps, his eyes icy cold.
"Stop lying! Your due date isn't today. You'll do anything for attention, won't you?"
"Tonight, only Elena's safety matters. You'll stay here until you admit you were wrong!"
The heavy wooden door slammed shut, snuffing out the last bit of hope I had left.
Hours later, Zane was cradling Elena's newborn son, calling the maid.
"Elena had a boy. I couldn't be happier. Let my wife out—I'm willing to forgive her little tantrum today."
But on the other end of the phone, the maid was sobbing.
"Sir... your wife and the baby... they're already gone."

The year the gas swallowed the world, I helped design and build Dome City with my own hands, keeping the last survivors alive.

I thought I was protecting hope.

Then I stumbled onto the Council’s secret: the poison outside is fading—but they chose to hide it. Worse, they plan to manufacture and release more gas, locking everyone inside forever, under their rule.

Before I could expose the truth, the person I trusted most struck me from behind.

My girlfriend—Vera Walker.

She took my evidence, stripped my access, and traded me for a higher rank.

When I woke up, I was outside the Dome in toxic fog—my identity erased, my lungs burning, my vision slipping.

They dumped me like trash, certain I wouldn’t last the night.

They forgot one thing.

Dome City is my blueprint, my welds, my pipes—my work.

And I’m back.

I begged my mom for ten dollars, but she smashed my head with a frying pan instead.

The next day, my mother posted on a forum asking:
"Hi everyone. My eldest son lied about the end of the world just to get ten dollars. I want to ask, how can I sell him on the underground black market to pay off his younger brother's $20,000 debt?"

The moment I saw that post, any remaining love I had for them died instantly. I snapped my phone's SIM card in half.

What she didn’t know was that a world-ending acid flood would descend upon New York tomorrow.

I had begged so bitterly for that ten dollars just to trigger the Ten-Million-Fold Return System to build a three-billion-dollar Doomsday Ark.

Since she didn’t want it, I gave the throne of the Ark Queen to the female classmate who casually tossed me some charity.

"You were meant to be my death. Instead, you've become my damnation."
Aria Thornwell has spent three years as a healer in her town, attempting to forget the night her former fiancé publically humiliated her by selecting her affluent stepsister instead—taking Aria's family fortune with him. Now, she lives quietly, utilizing her skill to aid the underprivileged while her stepfamily flaunts their stolen fortune.

But on the winter solstice, everything changes. She's chosen as the ceremonial bride for the vampires' holy Winter Feast—a "honor" that guarantees death at daybreak following the Christmas Eve rite. Dragged to the Crimson Vale with five other human tributes, Aria is prepared to meet her fate with dignity.

Until she meets him.

Lord Sebastian Thorne, the ancient vampire who has presided over the Winter Feast for eight centuries, is meant to drain her at dawn following the binding ritual. It's tradition. It's law. It's survival—the ceremonial blood maintains the vampire realm for another year.

But as Sebastian's lips brush her throat in the ceremonial hall, something unbelievable happens. Her blood doesn't simply sustain him—it wakes something in him that's been dead for generations. And in a move that shocks the whole vampire court, he refuses to complete the rite.
"This one is mine," he proclaims, his old strength sweeping the hall. "Anyone who touches her answers to me."

Trapped in the Obsidian Palace as Sebastian's "protected bride," Aria discovers three frightening truths: Sebastian isn't protecting her out of mercy—he's dying from an ancient curse, and her blood is the only thing keeping him alive past Christmas; the vampire court will do anything to kill her and reinstate the ritual; and her "ordinary" healer's gift is actually a rare and dangerous power that vampire nobility has been hunting for generations.