Chapter Five ~ A Time to Heal Pt. 1

Arowen rivenwood

She walked into his bar at forty-five and didn’t apologize for a single year of it. Nadia Thorne isn’t looking for forever. She’s looking for someone who can keep up — someone strong enough not to need fixing. Alex Vale, the vampire Reeve who rules the city’s nights, has spent a thousand years being worshiped, feared, and desired… and never once being *seen*. She doesn’t swoon. She studies him. And for the first time in centuries, he’s the one being hunted — by a woman, and by a hunger he thought he’d buried long ago. But Nadia wants something more than a dangerous romance. She believes the supernatural world can have real peace — and she’s willing to fight for it. She calls it the Crimson Accord: one treaty, every race, no more hiding. And she’ll build it even if she has to start in a vampire’s bar, beside a man who’s keeping secrets. Some bonds are earned. Some treaties are written in blood. And some queens rise when the moon turns red.