[ This appears to be a romance novel, entitled "Wyld Hunt." On the cover, Sashay Silfda Eistria AAA Absolute Dagger Zero Slaughtervodka Resounding Aria of Dawn and Hope hold each other close while looking out through a mountain snowstorm. ]

“Hoooooope. You look really cold.”

She cracked one eye open, slightly, from where she sat curled up against one of the cabin’s drafty walls. “I’m fine. I don’t really feel it, honestly. Dead woman, you know.”

Mostly true, anyway. Not that it was really pleasant, but it hardly got to her the way it would if she were living flesh. Just made her a bit achy, rather than shivery.

“Wouldn’t it feel better to get away from the draft, though? There’s no reason to hold yourself back from something that’d make you feel better.” Sashay wandered over to sit facing her, knees curled up in front of their chest, and grinned. “After all, if I was going to hunt you, in this small of a space, keeping your back to the wall wouldn’t save you.”

Hope snorted. “Please. I hardly need an advantage, anyway…” She couldn’t quite meet their eyes, though.

“Are you scared?”

She wrenched her gaze up to meet theirs, finally, to give a definitive no, of course not. But their expression is surprisingly soft, and she realizes—oh. She is. Just of something else entirely.

Or maybe, from the way Sashay doesn’t seem surprised when she leans forward to kiss them, that was what they had meant in the first place.

***

Shifter pack outcast Sashay once vowed never submit to another—but now, on the margins of society with their instincts muted by their exile, they’ve been collared by the pack that rules what was once their home territory. Freedom is on offer, but at a price—to venture into the snowy mountains, tracking the fugitive vampire Hope, who they can trade to the local vampire court for territory concessions. Though Sashay despises being treated like a mutt and called to heel, it’s easy enough to follow Hope’s scent—and they’re deeply curious as to what this other hunter is like.

Hope has always been on her own, hunting her own kind. When a shifter of all creatures comes looking to hunt her down, their fight is interrupted by another shifter looking to snatch the capture and ensure Sashay’s continued servitude—and in banding together to survive, Hope realizes that she might have, for the first time, found a kindred spirit. Vampires and shifters have always been at odds, but after long days and nights spent together in close quarters, hiding from those who would betray them, she realizes that she can no longer deny her own attraction.

Can a vampire and a shifter form a pack of their own? And can they forge those bonds before it’s too late for either of them?