STILL BEATING

Synopsis

Two hundred years ago, Vanda Dester drove a consecrated stake through the heart of the woman he loved. He watched Iana Zainab burn. Then he buried her and spent the next two centuries believing the monster, and his heart, were finally dead. He was wrong. Iana is alive. She has no memory of being the vampire queen whose name once terrified the Carpathian clans. No memory of the blood on her hands. No memory of the man who killed her. Now she tends a bar in Dublin, living quietly as a human, until ancient vampires begin turning up dead, drained by something that feeds on their kind. The Bloodlord has returned. And he wants Iana. Because her blood holds the key to an immortality powerful enough to create a new dynasty of monsters. There is only one person who knows how to stop him. The hunter who once killed her. When Vanda finds Iana alive behind the bar, he should reach for his weapon. Instead, he reaches for the cross he swore he would never wear again. To survive, they must become allies. To trust each other, Vanda must face the truth he has spent two centuries running from: he didn’t kill Iana because he stopped loving her. He killed her because he loved her enough to destroy the woman she had become. And as Iana’s forgotten memories begin to return, so do the powers she was stripped of. Soon, she must face the most terrifying question of all. What if the monster inside her was never truly gone? The Bloodlord wants her blood. Vanda wants to save her. And Iana must decide whether she is willing to become a monster again to destroy one. Because this time, when the hunter takes her in his arms, he won’t be the one holding the stake.