The Golden Nightmare- Damon Salvatore-

"Before Katherine Pierce tore the Salvatore brothers apart, there was Alessandra Romanov."

Turned in 1350 by Klaus Mikaelson himself, Alessandra was never just another vampire. She was the immortal shadow of the Russian dynasty, a master strategist, and a living legend known across Europe as L'incubo d'oro-The Golden Nightmare.

In the summer of 1864, seeking a peaceful reprieve from centuries of bloodshed, she arrived in a quiet Virginia town called Mystic Falls. What she found wasn't quiet solitude, but Damon Salvatore-a human boy with dark eyes, wild dreams, and a soft heart. For one fleeting summer, she was just Alessandra, and he was her best friend.

Until Katherine Pierce grew jealous.

Left with a wooden stake half a centimeter from her heart and buried alive in dirt while Damon wept for a woman who betrayed him, Alessandra survived. But when her descendants were executed in 1918, something inside her snapped for good. She flipped her humanity switch to off and vanished into the shadows.

Now, in present-day Mystic Falls, Damon Salvatore is a ruthless vampire hunting for a way to save Katherine from a tomb. But he's about to discover two unthinkable truths: Katherine was never in that tomb... and the girl he mourned for a century is back, devoid of humanity, and holding every dark secret he ever swore to keep.