Runes of Blood and Ash

He was born to hunt monsters. She has been surviving them since 1700. Nicholas is a wolf shifter with a notoriously short fuse and a dark, volatile rage-the very trait that forced him to leave Giris' pack to roam the neon-drenched streets of Seoul as a lone hunter. His life is defined by a simple, lethal code: protect the territory and eliminate the vampires infecting the city.

Freya is a contradiction wrapped in ancient secrets. To the world, she is a striking K-pop idol bodyguard, and hides a 300-year-old Viking shield-maiden. Blessed with long life by a village seer only to be turned against her will by Sunoo of the Enhypen coven, she carries the heavy scars of her past. She proudly wears her Norse heritage-a Mjölnir necklace, runic beads in her long blonde hair, and tattoos of the goddess Freya tracing her skin. She has spent centuries hating the monster she became, relying only on her fierce warrior instincts to survive.

When Freya finds herself cornered by a ruthless wolf pack in the dark alleys of Seoul's neutral zone, she doesn't cower. She draws her blade, ready for a bloodbath. Nicholas lunges for the kill-but the moment his claws graze her skin, the impossible happens. An ancient, inescapable mate bond violently snaps into place.

By the shifters' most sacred, unbreakable law, a fated mate is strictly off-limits from any harm, even if that mate is a vampire leech. Furious and trapped by a destiny he never wanted, Nicholas is forced to commit ultimate treason against his own kind to shield her. As the pack calls for their heads and the Enhypen coven mobilizes for an all-out supernatural war, Nicholas and Freya are thrust into a high-stakes game of forced proximity. But as the dark, untamed fury inside Nicholas begins to mirror the ancient berserker battle-madness of Freya's homeland, a terrifying attraction awakens in their blood.