Amelia Hart was the kind of girl who could make the sun seem a little brighter, even on the coldest days. At just twenty years old, she carried the warmth of springtime in her smile and the sweetness of honey in her laughter. With soft chestnut hair that framed her delicate face and wide, trusting eyes the color of the summer sky, she moved through life with a rare innocence that made people stop and stare — and sometimes, worry.
Living in the sleepy town of Whitlock, tucked between snow-capped mountains and endless forests, Amelia had always felt a little different. While others longed for adventure beyond the village, Amelia found beauty in the smallest things — a fallen leaf, a handwritten letter, the way the frost painted crystal patterns on her window at dawn. She worked part-time at the town's tiny bookshop, stacking novels and fairy tales that she often lost herself in, dreaming of faraway lands and secret romances.
But Whitlock had its own secrets, whispered in the dark corners of the library and around dying fires. Tales of shadowy figures lurking in the woods. Of eyes that glowed red in the moonlight. Of a cursed soul — a man who was not quite a man — who had lived among them for centuries.
Amelia, with all her softness and dreams, never believed in monsters.
Not until the night she met him.
The night the winter winds howled louder than they ever had before, carrying with them a presence colder than death itself.
And in that frozen moment, when her blue eyes met his blood-red gaze across the snow, the world Amelia knew shattered like thin glass under heavy boots.
She didn't scream.
She didn't run.
And perhaps that was the very reason he chose her.
The vampire who had never loved.
The girl who was born to teach him how.