BELOVED OF AUREVANE

More than a century after a devastating three-year war between humanity and the vampire race, vampires are no longer creatures of myth.
They rule Aurevane, a vast vampire civilization occupying what was once Europe, separated from human territory by treaty, law, and blood.
Vampires are wealthy, ancient, politically sophisticated, brutally powerful-and dependent on humanity.
They need human blood to survive.
Humanity needs the vampires contained.
The peace is therefore less a friendship than a carefully maintained arrangement between two species that know exactly what the other is capable of.
Into this world comes Adéọlá Eso, an eighteen-year-old Nigerian orphan who needs money for university.
He signs a three-year contract as a Sanguine-a legally protected human whose blood is consumed by vampires.
He expects wealth, education, and perhaps a frightening experience or two.
He does not expect to become the most desired human in Aurevane.
And he certainly does not expect to become the Beloved of Athena Asino Vilky, the five-thousand-year-old heir to the vampire throne.
Athena knows what Adéọlá is to her the instant she tastes his blood.
Adéọlá does not.
Their bond begins as something biological.
It must eventually become something chosen.
But beneath their relationship lies something far older.
Adéọlá carries dormant blood inherited from one of the five beings who first walked the Earth as vampires.
His blood is waking.
And something beneath Africa is beginning to wake with it.