Vampire Recluse MMC + Arranged Marriage + Wood Nymph FMC???
So, I recall so much of this book except for the characters’ names and the title. It has been driving me nuts trying to Google search for this thing, so I’ve come to Reddit for help. This is literally my very first post because I’m just trying to find this book. I read it in the last 3-5 years or so, but I’m not sure what the original published date is—however my best guess is that it’s not much older than 5-8 years old.
The book involves an MMC who is either a prince or a lord. I can’t really recall his exact status, but it is set in a time period with titles and estates and things like that. He very much lives on an estate. I don’t know that I’d call it a castle, because that led to no good keyword searches, but the main thing is that he is some sort of titled character.
The premise is that he went off to war, nearly died, and basically came back as a vampire, though I don’t think the book necessarily states “vampire” as much as he’s a strange other creature who needs blood to survive. He basically becomes a recluse, in the sense that no one has seen him or he’s just a mystery to most people, but he has a whole bunch of people who live on his estate and work for him. He may still train soldiers…
The war itself was between the citizens of this country and some magical-ish or just different people to the north. And if I’m remembering correctly, MMC’s estate is nearest that border.
The FMC has essentially been put into an arranged marriage by her father to the MMC. I think she has three brothers, and she has been treated terribly by her father pretty much her whole life. Her brothers are nice though. She is sent in a carriage to the MMC’s estate, but then the carriage is attacked. All of the people taking her in the carriage get killed by something on the road. Later, werewolves of a sort come and attack, and she barely survives inside the carriage.
Her brothers eventually come, I think to rescue her, but one of her brothers gets injured. So she literally takes a horse to go find help at the MMC’s estate. She is coming down the road and nearly runs into the MMC, who has seen the commotion or something and has come outside of his estate to investigate. She sees him covered up, because I think he can’t be seen in the sun or something like that. Essentially, he has some sort of cloth over his face. She runs to him and asks for his help, and there is some thing that happens between them that surprises him, but he is also entranced by her and her blood.
Anyway, he does eventually help and brings her to the estate. Then they slowly get close over time.
Eventually, he discovers that his father, who is essentially kind of the ruler of the country, has basically set up this marriage. He doesn’t know why. Then they come to find out that the FMC is from some sort of interesting lineage. It turns out that her mother, I think, was some sort of wood nymph.
Later in the story, sorry for spoilers, but I’m asking because I need help finding it, the MMC goes to free her mother, who has been captured by distant relatives of his for a very, very long time. She came from a much farther-off place, met the FMC’s father, and of course they fell in love. But he didn’t realize what she was, and then basically outed her, so she got captured.
At one point in the story, the FMC talks to a tree and swallows a seed or something like that. I know that sounds super random, but I’m just trying to put everything out there that I can remember from this book.
I read it so long ago and can’t remember the title. I can’t find it in my history or anything. I don’t have a digital copy, and I had to shut down my Amazon account a while ago, so I can’t find my purchase history, unfortunately. I’ve tried all those avenues, and now I’m just blankly searching the internet.
Please help!