Isolde is a reclusive cellist marked for death by a religious hunter guild that believes her music summons demons; her only refuge is a decaying opera house where an unseen predator watches her play.

When the guild finally storms her sanctuary, the vampire Severin descends to butcher them and carries her down into a warded catacomb fortress beneath the city.

There he keeps her as his protected muse, feeding only on rival males so his hunger never turns on her, while Isolde is drawn ever deeper into a devotion that blurs captivity and worship.

The book follows their escalating bond as the guild keeps sending zealots into the dark and Isolde decides whether the cage he built is a prison or a throne.

Tropes: possessive/obsessive hero, captivity romance, human heroine and monster hero, vampire, dark protector, touch-her-and-you-die, morally black hero, forced proximity, watcher/stalker to lover, fated obsession, beauty-tames-the-beast, she-is-his-only-weakness