Shadow & Flame Book One: The Companion

She was sold at auction. He'll never take what she doesn't give.Twenty-year-old Melodie Archer knows exactly what a girl with nowhere to go is worth. Betrayed by the one person she trusted, she ends the night in a torn red dress, bought for $122,000 by a wolf who means to collect.Then Demitri Markov throws the wolf into a wall.Five hundred years old, feared by the Council, and the last creature anyone expected to intervene, he pays the wolf triple and takes her home. What he wants from her is simple: a pint of blood a week, drawn by hand. In return she gets his protection, a home, and a fortune in an account only she can touch. Her door is never locked. Her no is always final. And he will never lay a hand on her unless she asks.Mel has learned that every kindness has a catch. She's still waiting for his.But Demitri is hiding something. Her blood tastes like nothing he has known in centuries, and he isn't the only one who noticed. Roman Kirov, the Alpha she was stolen from, wants her back, and he'll shatter the fragile peace between vampires and wolves to get her.On Hallow's Eve, at a masked ball full of the oldest predators alive, Mel turns twenty-one. And everything she believed about herself begins to burn.She was bought. Now, at last, she gets to choose.The Companion is Book One of the Shadow & Flame trilogy: a slow-burn, dark-premise paranormal romance with a vampire who waits to be asked, a heroine who learns her own worth, and a war just beginning to wake. Open-door romance for readers 18+. Please see the content note inside.