The Konungr Takes a Mate

Summer Donovan closes up The Gin Room with vodka on her hands and rent on her mind, just another underpaid night in Manhattan. The alley behind the bar is supposed to be a shortcut to the subway—until the growls start. Too big for strays. Too coordinated for strays. The city’s steam and neon blur as she runs, chased by hulking shapes that move like shadows with teeth.

She bursts through an unmarked door and straight into a world New Yorkers walk past every day and never see: a fortress hidden in plain sight, ruled by a man with eyes like winter and a smile that shows a little too much fang.

Fenrir North has worn a thousand faces over a thousand years, but the monster underneath never changes. Wolf shifter. Vampire. Konungr of a tribe of blood-drinkers and beasts who nest in the bones of the city. On the eve of his people’s two-week summer hibernation, when he should be sinking into darkness, he finally scents the one thing he thought time had stolen from him—a mate.

Summer smells like gin, sweat, and terrified disbelief when he tells her what he is. What she is to him. The bond is there, fierce and undeniable, thrumming under her skin like a second heartbeat… and it paints a target on her back.

Someone else has been following her. Counting her steps. Learning her patterns.

Before Fenrir can mark her as his and chain his hunger to her touch, Summer vanishes from his guarded building. As the hibernation window closes and blood rage claws up his spine, the Konungr has a brutal choice: tear his city apart to find one stubborn human bartender, or let the beast he’s held in check for a millennium finally break loose.

MONSTERS OF NEW YORK is a shared-world paranormal romance series where the monsters own the night—and sometimes the only thing standing between this city and its predators is the fragile, furious bond of a heart that refuses to run.