Mikhail Faustin is the prince of New York. His authority is absolute, his power unquestioned--and his heart is empty. The pain he carries inside leaves him with nothing to offer a mate. When he discovers that Alya Adad is not only his destined bride but also the source of his misery, his fate is sealed. He must claim the woman he despises most. Or die trying.

Alya Adad is the most powerful of her kind born in generations and a prince in her own right. She's accountable to no man, certainly not to her first lover, Mikhail. Now he has the gall to not only invade her territory, but threaten to take her by force--for a prophecy she doesn't believe in? She'll kill him first.

Their battle for the upper hand is no-holds-barred...until she discovers the one thing his pride didn't want her to know. That she still holds the key to his heart--and his innermost desires. And when a rival vampire clan strikes, letting her guard down is the only way to save him.

Author's note: Icy Mikhail, the eldest Faustin brother, appears in his brothers' stories, so I knew him pretty well when I began to write this book. I knew he carried secret hurts and had closed down his heart. I also knew that he deserved a woman as formidable as himself. That meant that unlike his brothers, he'd be paired with another vampire. But what happens when an alpha male meets an alpha female? Let's just say their path to happiness turned out to be so twisted and bloody that I didn't even know from one moment to the next if they were going to survive their courtship.