Longest Night (Nocturnal Creatures 1‪)‬

For when devil offers a winter rose,
If rose turns red, he'll bleed your soul.

In the realm of the Crimson Kingdom, the demon king descends from his dark, dangerous castle on Longest Night to take for himself a new wife. She must be unmarried and unmarred by men, a pure sacrifice for the devil.

Asha of the Gray is one of the few women in the kingdom whom no man will marry and whom no man has marred, though she has had to fight every day to keep herself unruined, with the kingdom brothels just across from where she begs for coin every day.

When the demon king gifts her a winter rose and chooses her as his bride, he marks her for death. But though his castle is dark and strange and the king himself monstrous, not all is as it seems, and death may be a more welcome alternative than anything the Crimson Kingdom offers an unwanted woman like her.