Chapter Frost: Prologue

It’s a sad truth that most relationships are doomed.

Once, I’d thought mine would be an exception, that I’d found . That unlike most other bright loves, mine would burn forever.

Andrew was a human—unlike me. I was born fae, but I stayed as far away from the rest of them as I could. Most fae were violent, capricious, and arrogant. Andrew, on the other hand, made me wildflower crowns and wrote me poems about sycamore trees.

His beauty drew me in first: blue eyes flecked with gold, and wavy chestnut hair. When he smiled, his lips crinkled at the corners in a way that always made me want to kiss him. Andrew’s smell was like home, soap and black tea.

But that wasn’t what had made me fall in love. It was his kindness.

When I had a long week, he made me tea or cocktails, and I’d fall asleep with my head on his chest. With Andrew, I could actually feel safe. He was human, and I was fae, but that never seemed to matter between us.

He’d always listened to me, texted back right away, asked me about my day. He had a dachshund named Ralphie, and he drove his mom to her doctor’s appointments. On Sundays, we hung out in his tidy suburban condo and read the same books over coffee.

He truly believed that nothing was more important than love. That it should be celebrated. He told me I was his soulmate.

Unlike the others of my kind, Andrew made me feel safe. Secure.

Together, we’d planned a future. The gist of it was this: I’d help support him by paying his mortgage while he finished his MBA. Once he was earning money, we’d work on my dream: opening a cocktail bar named “Chloe’s”

after my mom. Andrew would help me finance it. We’d live a joyous life together among the humans in a leafy suburb full of backyard barbecues and pillow forts with our kids. Trips to the beach in the summer. A human life.

Problem was, on the night of my twenty-sixth birthday, I learned it was all a lie.

And that was when I stopped believing in love entirely.