Playlist
You can find the longer playlist to Nightwolf here on Spotify. For now, here are some key songs that influenced the book or set the right mood and tone. Enjoy!
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“Nightwolf” - Bohren and Der Club of Gore
“Nocturne” - Mark Lanegan Band
“Gatekeeper” - Torii Wolf
“Everybody Dies” - Billie Eilish
“A Drowning” - How to Destroy Angels
“Death’s Head Tattoo” - Mark Lanegan Band
“Death Bell” - Crosses (+++)
“Ten Billion Years” - Torii Wolf
“Cover Me” - Depeche Mode
“Too Late, All Gone” - How to Destroy Angels
“Stole” - Francesca Belmonte
“The Beginning of the End” - Crosses (+++)
“The Background World” - Nine Inch Nails
“Surprise, You’re Dead!” - Faith No More
“Lantern Room” - Torii Wolf
“NDA” - Billie Eilish
“Carnage” - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
“Shadows Crawl” - Torii Wolf
“Telepathy” - Crosses (+++)
“The Last Time” - Dave Gahan
“The Real Thing” - Faith No More
“Baby Says” - The Kills
“Dissolved Girl” - Massive Attack
“We’re in This Together” - Nine Inch Nails
“Spinning Song” - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
“Time” - Hans Zimmer
“The Epilogue” - Crosses (+++)
For my father, Sven Halle. The world feels empty without you in it. I love you, I miss you, I hope I continue to make you proud.
For my brother, Kris Halle. I hope you’re taking care of Papa up there. I love you.
Preface
Nightwolf is a friends-to-lovers vampire romance set in contemporary San Francisco. It’s a complete standalone and a spinoff of the much darker vampire romance Black Sunshine (and the very dark & bonkers sequel The Blood is Love). While you meet Amethyst and Wolf in those books, you do not need to read them in order to read Nightwolf.
HOWEVER, if you were planning on reading Black Sunshine, I suggest you do so before you read this one as there will be spoilers for that story. It’s currently available in KU on Amazon.
ALSO, there’s a short story focusing on how Wolf and Amethyst first met called “Dark Eyes,” and that’s also worth a read before Nightwolf. You can find it in the charity anthology Two More Days put together by Colleen Hoover. It is also in KU. It gives a little more context to the characters.
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Content Warning: contains lots of blood (obviously), foul language, sexual scenes of a graphic nature, and death of a loved one. Please note that I am not a medical professional and all the scenes that take place in the hospital have been gleaned from personal experience and may not be 100% accurate.
Prologue
Kingdom of Norway, 1696
The boy was afraid.
Despite sharing the small loft with his older brother, Asmund, and his sister Eira, their close proximity as they snored away in their beds did nothing to disperse the sense of heavy dread in the air, hanging above him like thunder clouds.
It felt like something was sitting on his chest, pressing down on his heart and lungs until he couldn’t get any air in, and when he opened his eyes to the darkness, he was certain he could see something perched on top of him, a creature black and winged and ominous.
Mara. He was warned about them, he just didn’t believe in them, these demon witches that came into your bed at night, bringing with them misfortune, death and bad dreams, whispering evil things and singing scary lullabies.
Mara.
Then, as his eyes adjusted to the thin moonlight coming through the window, he realized there was nothing there at all.
The boy took in a deep shaking breath, his lungs capable again, and then slowly sat up. The loft was cold, his labored breathing causing ice crystals to form in front of his eyes. Even though the fire from the central hearth below tended to die out in the middle of the night, the heat was usually trapped up top with them. He’d never felt cold like this before, not in September.
He looked to his brother and sister, sleeping in their narrow beds, the hay stuffing askew beneath the woolen blankets. In the dim light they looked peaceful, sleeping soundly, though their breath also froze in the air. Thirty years from now, when the boy turned thirty-five, he wouldn’t have to worry about temperatures hurting him, but for now, he was shivering.
Not just from the chill.
Because there was someone else in the loft with them.
One minute there was nothing there, the next a shadow appeared in front of the lone narrow window.
The figure of a man.
A man without a head.
The boy opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. Not even air. He could only stare wide-eyed at the headless figure blocking the light of the moon.
Yet, for all the raw terror that was pulsing through his body, there was also this heavy sense of grief and sadness. It radiated out from the headless figure like smoke and the boy could feel the grief sinking into his skin, altering him from the inside out.