Daniel had been a mercenary longer than his soul could take. On that final job, looking down at the face of an angel whose death he'd been responsible for, he knew he was done. And although he hadn't pulled the trigger on the bullets that took her life, he felt like he had. He'd buried her in a hidden grave in the Canadian woods so no one would desecrate her lovely body. From the mission site in Vancouver, he'd headed north to the most inhospitable place he could think of to try to find peace that he knew he didn't deserve. But after a year of dreams, her face was as vivid as it had been that day. There would be no peace for a guilty man.
Eillia had been killed and buried. Buried by someone who did not know she was vampire...that bullets would not kill her forever. But beheading would, which is how her centuries long love affair with Hamid ended in an attack a year ago. She didn't know how to pick up the pieces of her life without him. All she wanted was to crawl back in a hole like the one she'd crawled out of that day. And she had. Lost, in pain, she'd gone north and buried herself in the land of the midnight sun until darkness came and she thought that maybe she might be able to think about living her life again. All she had with her from her old life was a tattered flak jacket that someone had wrapped around her head when they buried her. It had smelled of earth and man and she thought that whoever had done it had cared about the body they laid to rest that night. But she had no idea who it was.
Fate brought them together on that awful night. It brought them together a year later in a frozen land that was as stunning as it was brutal. Daniel spends most of his time working when the hard weather allows it, and drinking when it doesn't. Eillia has spent most of the sunlit summer in bed alone and lonely. Longest days...longer nights.
Now, winter extremes bring them together. He won't believe it can be her...she's dead, he knows that. She won't know why he knows her. Or why his scent is so familiar. Is it possible to overcome such a tragic history? Find out how it plays out above the Arctic circle for a vampire and a human who should never have met at all.
This is the third in the Bestselling series "The Firsts." Â Daniel and Eillia's story begins at the end of Forbidden Days, if you'd like to see where they started.