"You bear my mark now, little rose. On Christmas Day, you'll either become mine forever... or die screaming."
Lyra Thorne has spent three years as a registered blood donor in Nocturne Heights—selling her blood to live, seeing her dignity slip away drop by drop. She's invisible, useless, just another human commodity in a planet governed by eternal predators. But she bears it all for one reason: to pay for her younger sister's treatment, keeping the only family she has left alive.
Everything changes on the Winter Solstice, the most important night in vampire society.
Summoned to the Crimson Spire for the elite's old festival, Lyra expects another humiliating night of being treated like living animals. Instead, she falls into a restricted ceremonial room and disrupts something forbidden—Lord Kaelen Nightshade, the vampire prince, executing a blood rite meant exclusively for eternal brides.
One drop of her blood on antique stone. One instant of eye contact beneath the crimson moon. One mark scorching into her flesh like liquid fire.
The harm is done.
Kaelen is the most dreaded vampire in the city—ruthless, coldly attractive, and bound by laws older than human history. For ages, he's rejected every noble vampire brought to him, and vampire rule is absolute: he cannot marry a human as his wife. The inadvertent marking should be impossible. But the tie has awoken, scorching through both their veins, and it cannot be undone.
Now Lyra has twelve days till Christmas, when the mark will fully grow. If Kaelen claims her, she'll turn into an immortal—but the Vampire Council will murder them both for breaching holy law. If he rejects her, the imperfect relationship will eat her from inside, murdering her in the most torturous way conceivable.
