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Date Published: October 9, 2026
London, 1816. Someone is killing vampires and their Hosts, leaving brutalized bodies on display in the heart of London. Makoto Morinaga, minore and lead hunter for the Baron of Colbourne, must find and stop the madman. Yet the mission is in peril almost from the moment it starts. In despair over loving his master’s Host, he breaks his oath and finds himself bound through Compulsion to the last person he would choose as his Host -- the flamboyant young man who has spent years pining over their master. Makoto can ill afford this appalling distraction while he hunts for a monstrous killer.
Will Carter is an experienced Host who has offered up body and blood to vampires since reaching his majority. He spent years learning the duties of the Colbourne Host, only to have his dreams crumble when his master finds a man more perfect than Will. In his frustration, he taunts Colbourne’s lead hunter into committing a forbidden act. His punishment? Being bound to the last person he would ever wish to hold his contract -- Makoto Morinaga, a man whose body he knows well, but whose heart is a dark mystery and whose stoicism grates on Will’s every nerve.
An unexpected emotional connection heats their hearts even as their Host bond heats their bodies. Just as they begin to find common ground, the madman strikes again. Finding the madman’s lair might end the violence, but the price might destroy them both.
WARNING: Adult content, including references to physical violence and torture which may be triggers for some readers.
Blood. Thickening blood, smoking and bubbling to a slow boil. The fire above it flickered in the shadows of the darkened alley. Postnato watched as the demon and its unholy servant writhed on the cobbles in purifying flame. Glee and eager satisfaction suffused him as he and his brother awaited the lethal culmination of their night’s work for the Inquisitio Sanguinis.
The demon’s mouth had pulled back from those inhuman fangs in a satisfying rictus of pain. The foul beast still struggled to free itself, despite sharpened stakes piercing shoulder and thigh, pinning it against the bloodied earth. The agonized contortions of the monster’s corrupt human slave had ceased, becoming the involuntary spasms of approaching death.
“Revertere ad inferos, Daemon,” Postnato whispered, condemning the beast to hell with a sneer. “Ad dominum tuum infernalis!”
Yes, back to Hell with you, back to your infernal master, he thought savagely.
The creature’s demonic struggles strengthened at the words, the frantic actions accompanied by a harsh croak of anguish. The renewal of its futile struggles only served to drive the stakes deeper into its flesh, and to fan the flames consuming it.
Postnato resumed his silence as Antenato raised a cautioning finger to his lips. He subsided with difficulty, impatient for the inhuman beast to surrender its last breath.
After another quarter hour, during which the human half of their quarry had become nothing but a flickering corpse-light, the demon gave a final shudder, slackening in approaching death at last.
With a grunt of satisfaction, Postnato bent for one of the buckets at his feet, waiting to douse the remaining flames after his brother had completed one more task, tearing a final, hoarse screech of pain along with the fangs from the dying beast. Antenato held his prize aloft, eyes aglow as their quarry expired. At this sign, Postnato heaved the contents of both pails over the corpses, smothering the fires with rotting offal gleaned from the butcher’s slop midden. The smoldering ruins sent up an instant reek, and he smiled in unison with his brother. This had not been their sacred mission, but chance had given them a demon and now there was one less to walk the earth.
Now to find the leader of these abominations.
* * *
Autumn grew up loving history, mythology, and all things Japanese, not necessarily in that order. This eclectic love affair has bled over into her writing, and her stories are always well spiced with the taste of Japan, strange mythological beasties, or the lords and ladies of the ton. Sometimes all three, leading to dark desires and forbidden loves.
And after all, dangerous passions should lead to uninhibited love.
