Ashes in the Sunlight

"She ordered a clingy werewolf. She got a cold, distant vampire. Lena, a freelance illustrator living alone in Los Angeles, impulse-buys a “warm, clingy type” werewolf companion from a website called MYTHIC COMPANIONS. What arrives is a man with ice-cold skin who avoids sunlight and never howls. The manual says there’s an adjustment period. She believes it. She names him Adrian. She draws him. She buys him a scarf. She wipes grape juice from the corner of his mouth. Every time his cold fingers brush her skin and his grey eyes hold hers a second too long, she falls a little further. She doesn’t know that every detail she’s recording in her notes——the cold skin, the dodging sunlight, the way dogs piss themselves around him——isn’t an adjustment period. It’s evidence. Then customer service tells her: wrong delivery. You received a vampire. The real werewolf is on his way. Lucas arrives——golden-haired, amber-eyed, body temperature running hot, exactly what she ordered. He chases squirrels, licks her face, rests his head on her shoulder. Adrian watches from the corner. He doesn’t say anything. His coffee goes cold. His book doesn’t turn a page. Two men under one roof. She thinks she’s keeping two misplaced pets. She doesn’t know they’re both working the same mission——get close to her, win her trust, deliver her to their families. Because she is the Saint’s Body. Her blood is what two worlds have been hunting for centuries. By the time she discovers the truth, both men have alrea"