The Darkness Between Breath and Love
A Horror Romance Novella
Alyssa Bailey isn't the kind of college girl who lives for beach parties or frat houses. She's a scholarship-free striver, buried in books and working part-time to pay the rent, desperate to claw her way out of her family's small farm life. Her world is predictable-until the night she leaves the campus library early for the first time.
A sudden, violent storm drives her through empty streets, and for the first time she feels it: the unmistakable sense of eyes on her back, of breath just behind her ear. By the time she reaches her apartment, soaked to the skin, something has already begun to change. A strange scent-boozy sweetness like dark vanilla bourbon, smooth yet edged with spice-hangs in the hall outside her door. That night, Alyssa dreams of a faceless man spinning her across a darkened ballroom, whispering her name.
The next morning, he's real.
Ashton Brooks arrives on campus as the temporary librarian, charming, disarming, and too perfect to be believable. With eyes as dark as obsidian and a scent that matches the one from her dreams, Ashton feels like a promise and a threat rolled into one. He appears wherever Alyssa goes. He knows things he shouldn't. He ignites feelings she's never allowed herself to feel-desire, vulnerability, a bone-deep pull she can't escape.
But shadows coil tighter around them. Whispered warnings follow Alyssa into her sleep. The air grows colder. Her sense of reality frays. Old folklore books hint at something far older and darker than campus gossip-stories of princes who ruled through terror, of creatures who feed on life and memory. And every time Alyssa tries to pull away, Ashton draws her back with a dangerous magnetism she can't resist.
Caught between attraction and terror, Alyssa must uncover the truth behind Ashton's secrets before the line between dream and waking collapses. Because in this game of seduction and survival, surrendering to the darkness may cost her not only her future, but her soul.
Perfect for fans of Crimson Peak, Interview with the Vampire, and dark academia love stories, The Darkness Between Breath and Love is a slow-burn horror romance where gothic atmosphere, psychological suspense, and irresistible chemistry collide. Readers will find:
A fiercely determined heroine struggling to escape her past
A mysterious stranger with a scent like dark vanilla bourbon and a taste for secrets
A richly detailed campus setting full of hidden archives, eerie corridors, and a storm-lashed city
Propulsive horror elements-haunting dreams, ancient folklore, and whispers that won't stop
A forbidden romance that simmers into obsession and tests the boundary between life and death
This is the kind of book that creeps under your skin: lush, suspenseful, romantic, and terrifying in equal measure. As Alyssa's world unravels, readers will be torn between rooting for her freedom and fearing what she'll discover when she finally learns who-or what-Ashton really is.
If you love stories that blend gothic horror with irresistible romance, characters you can't stop thinking about, and twists that leave you breathless, The Darkness Between Breath and Love will keep you turning pages late into the night.
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