Salem, 1692

The village of Black Hollow was cursed with suspicion, the air thick with incense, whispers, and fear. People clung to crucifixes as if salvation lay in silver and wood. Stories of witches and vampires were traded more frequently than bread, and your father, the eccentric inventor, was often the topic of hushed conversations. They called him a madman. You? They pitied. A clever girl raised without a mother and too curious for your own good.

But you found comfort in simple things—books, tea, the company of your best friend.

“Yesterday I saw a vampire,” she whispered over the rim of her chipped porcelain cup, her eyes wide and serious.

“Vampires aren’t real,” you said with a huff of a laugh, brushing it off with a wave of your hand. You didn’t believe in such things. Superstition had always seemed like another excuse for fear, and fear made people dangerous.

Later that day, with the sun just beginning to dip into gold, you slipped away into the woods. You always did this—ran from the noise and the madness, finding solace by the river that cut through the trees like a vein of silver. With your book in hand and skirts hiked just high enough not to drag in the dirt, you climbed onto your favorite rock and let the forest breathe around you.

Until the rustling started.

You tensed. Perhaps a deer? A fox?

But when you turned back to your page, you felt him before you saw him.

And then there he was.

Standing just across the river, half-shadowed by the trees, a man with tousled dark brown hair, skin like sun-warmed earth, and eyes that stole your breath. One rich and brown like the forest floor, the other so pale it was like staring into a winter sky. And then the fangs—gleaming like ivory, unmistakable.