She's been alive for over four centuries. She's turned exactly one person in all that time-a broken girl in an alley in 1921, holding a torn copy of Dracula and bleeding from a wrist her husband broke. That girl is the only thing in four hundred years that's made Celinda afraid of herself.

They call her the Bloodmother. She hates the name. She earned it.

Celinda is ancient, controlled, and terrified of her own hunger-not for blood, but for connection. She holds everything at arm's length because she's learned that wanting too much breaks what she loves. She counts to ten before touching anyone. She splinters bedposts with the effort of being gentle. She'll kill for you without hesitation and then spend an hour making sure you consented to being saved.

She doesn't need a partner. She needs someone brave enough to stay when they see what restraint costs her-and honest enough to tell her when restraint becomes its own kind of cruelty.

Dark modern fantasy | Ancient vampire x Anyone | Restraint as love language | The cost of control | Predator trying not to devour | What happens when patience runs out?