Four years after escaping a Blood Moon masquerade, human biotech heiress Evelyn Hart spends one fully consensual night with Adrian Hale, a mysterious vampire driver who saves her from a forced blood-bond attempt. By dawn, he is gone. Four years later, Evelyn finds Adrian unloading synthetic plasma at Blackwater Night Market. A legal bloodline-resonance test proves he is the father of Ellie, Evelyn’s rare Dayborn daughter, and Evelyn demands an immediate civil marriage so he can never disappear again. She believes Adrian is only a poor, registered common-blood vampire. In truth, he is the exiled firstborn prince of House Sterling and the hidden commander of the Obsidian Guard. When Evelyn’s family calls Ellie a blood-tainted curse, a false purifier nearly kills the child with silverroot, and the Hawthorne blood-bank clan moves to seize Aurelia Biotech and its revolutionary synthetic-blood formula, Adrian is forced to reveal his power layer by layer. Between a Blood Moon gala, a three-night corporate wager, a forced-marking trap, and a battle in the Nocturne Accord Court, a marriage made for a child becomes a chosen family—while the murder of Adrian’s mother remains unsolved.
