The Handler

"The house is fixable," Soren tells himself. The man in the cellar is another matter entirely. Exiled from his pack for being too gentle, twenty-eight-year-old wolf shifter Soren Vael arrives at crumbling Blackthorn House expecting dust, disaster, and a mountain of restoration work—not a centuries-old vampire with amber eyes, razor-sharp opinions, and a legally binding right to remain in the basement. Idris Mor has guarded Blackthorn's secrets since 1823, watching generations come and go while the outside world changes without him. Precise, ancient, and emotionally barricaded, he has no interest in trusting the new owner of the estate—until Soren proves maddeningly competent, unexpectedly kind, and dangerously difficult to keep at a distance. As Soren rebuilds the decaying Victorian mansion room by room, he uncovers more than failing plaster and hidden passageways. Blackthorn stands at the center of a territorial supernatural conflict, and the local pack circling its boundaries would love nothing more than to claim the land—and destroy what Idris has protected for centuries. Between moonlit repairs, buried histories, and slow-burning attraction, Soren and Idris must decide whether Blackthorn can become more than a haunted inheritance. But when old grief, ancient enemies, and the fear of wanting something lasting threaten everything they've built, can a broken house truly become a home—and can two men shaped by exile and loneliness risk loving each other before history tears them apart?