Beyond the Darkness

Axle Travers never expected the biotech giant Lifeblood of America to be run by vampires—nor that a rogue military doctor would kidnap him and twist his DNA into something no longer fully human. A radical vaccine saved his life, granting power without the curse. But survival always leaves scars. Eight years later, Axle runs a PI firm in Asheville, chasing monsters in the shadows and burying the truth of what he's become. Then Haley—his first love and the woman he never stopped wanting—walks back into his life. Fresh from a failed marriage, caring for her dying mother, and reeling from a hurricane, she now faces something far worse: a stalker the police can't stop. Axle takes the case, but their fragile reconnection fractures when he discovers her stalker is no longer human. And the secrets behind his own transformation are rising, threatening to destroy everything he's built. To save Haley, Axle must decide whether to hide the monster inside him… or risk everything by revealing it, hoping their bond is strong enough to survive what waits beyond the darkness. Because in a world where monsters wear human faces, the most dangerous one may be the man she trusts with her life.