Prologue: Young Adult Fantasy Novel
Constantine Grigorov thought that the merciless wind would freeze him to death. If he wasn’t dead already.
Technically dead. His white, waxy skin hadn’t felt an icy kiss of cold for centuries or a warmth of flickering fire, never to blush under a woman’s eyes or turn scarlet with a sip of fine wine. But his mind—oh, his mind was very much alive. He watched the woman standing in front of the window with a predatory caution, aware of every trifling detail of her slender silhouette. A strain of dark brown hair clung to her grey woolen coat, her pupils as wide as an infinite black hole. He looked longingly as her long, slim fingers twitched with a nervous anxiety. She didn’t move, though, her legs rooted in the damp floor were covered with rotten leaves.