Content, Tropes & Kinks: 

• MM romance.
  
• Hot, queer vampires (technically our boys are both bi… as are all vampires, by the way).
  
• Old West gothic vibes.
  
• Broody black cat x murderous golden retriever.
  
• A pleasure Dom who will give you intimacy AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.
  
• Fated mates & found family.
  
• The universal fantasy of being whisked away from your humdrum life into a magical bloodthirsty existence.
  
• Yes, there’s blood & gore but it’s foreplay (see Potential Triggers section at right for more detail).
  
• One-sided idiot in love (the other knows what’s up from the jump).
  
• Filipino MC (from before it was the Philippines…).
  
• Short, thicc, tattooed king (who’s also a consent king – pre-safewords era).
  
• A pretty, leggy gunslinger with a snatched waist and a bad attitude.
  
• Pretty Woman but make it gay.
  
• No, the town is NOT called Opalite because of TS.
  
• Our MC may have been raised in a brothel but he’s still a sheltered beeb.
  
• A tarot card-wielding bestie in the brothel who has your back.
  
• “We all have a price.”
  
• That creepy/sexy feeling of being watched from the shadows.
  
• Yes, WE THE READERS recognize he’s a vampire, but this is pre-publication of Dracula in the American West. Cut our boy some slack.
  
• Max doesn’t like when others touch what’s his (but that’s part of the fun).
  
• Using Old West slumber party parlor tricks to conjure our future husbands.
  
• “There you are.”
  
• “May I come in?”
  
• Even vampires get hangry sometimes.
  
• Pretending to be a gentleman as your prey pretends to resist for about five seconds.
  
• “Are you wooing me, sir?!”
  
• Hesitantly choosing to believe in fate.
  
• A deep, unexplained disdain for faro (poker 4LYFE).
  
• Nothing sexier than critical reasoning.
  
• Our vampire is a cheeky lil devil with a very filthy (but era-appropriate) mouth.
  
• Era-accurate swearing (it pained the author, trust).
  
• Sensual oyster eating (no, that’s not a euphemism and yes, THIS was almost the author’s hard limit).
  
• Playful threats of murder. Just a smidge.
  
• Calling someone “pet” because you want to pamper them (and they blush so pretty when you do).
  
• A lil spin on the “Who did this to you?” trope.
  
• When he’s not a virgin but this is still his first time.
  
• “The only thing you should be thinking of is the pleasure you’re about to receive.”
  
• Men whimpering. Men begging.
  
• Men being unable to resist begging.
  
• An emotional support gun belt.
  
• When “I want to feast on you” is literal.
  
• A bit of a pain slut, hmm?
  
• When he gets on his knees to take off your boots and suck out your soul through your cock.
  
• Dead bodies are bad for business.
  
• A grand gesture involving Spanish doubloons.
  
• HE REALLY LIKES ME: TIME TO PANIC!
  
• Nothing scarier than an angry Irishwoman.
  
• We find out Max’s real name!
  
• Greek myth story time.
  
• Gambling as an acceptable courting display (cheating at gambling, to be exact).
  
• Pretty boys made prettier with makeup and sexy little underthings.
  
• Playing the gender bent hotwife just enough to get your boyfriend going.
  
• Ruh-roh, he cut himself in front of the vampire…
  
• Aaaand there’s a bit of knife-play.
  
• Mistaking vampirism for a blood kink (but still being 1000% on board).
  
• More dirty talk but make it discussing murder while frotting.
  
• Please, hurt me.
  
• Biting and blood drinking while fucking (no surprise).
  
• That undeniable urge to drink your vampire boyfriend’s blood.
  
• Ruh-roh, someone touched his mate and now there’s gonna be a massacre.
  
• Runnin’ from the law like sexy fugitives.
  
• “Show me who you are.”
  
• Altar. Fucking. (With more blood, and blood lube, because… vampires.)
  
• Let us be monsters together.

Potential Triggers (please also check list to the left and note this section may contain SPOILERS):

• A pet name of “pet” (yes, there’s a power dynamic, but our boy is into it).
  
• BLASPHEMY! (The leading swears at the time were Lord’s name in vain… plus, altar fucking.)
  
• Sex work (presented as a normal part of life/society, because it was/is and always has been).
  
• Mention of MC’s mother dying in childbirth (past) and an unidentified father.
  
• Lack of autonomy/options (both MCs – one in the present with abuse of power/blackmail by an employer and one in the past when he was forced to become a vampire against his will).
  
• Mind control/compulsion power used by MC (not on other MC).
  
• Colonization discussed (and lived through in the past) in an extremely negative light (Spanish occupation in the Philippines and Manifest Destiny displacing countless Native Americans in the U.S.). If you’re not gonna be cool with that, we’re not gonna be cool.
  
• Distancing oneself from one’s past/heritage (Dissociation) both to better assimilate and as a defense mechanism to PTSD. (We’ll get that boy in therapy eventually, I promise.)
  
• When intimacy (and full nudity) is way harder than a quick fuck in a back alleyway for our skittish gunslinger.
  
• Abandonment issues caused by (past) family deaths and the resulting hyper-independence.
  
• Brief (non-graphic) description of wounds (**cough**cough** bite marks) found on a dead body.
  
• A LOT of blood mentioned – and consumed – throughout the book (these are vampires after all).
  
• A moment of miscommunication (I know, I know…) but it’s NOT between the MCs and it’s cleared up quickly. (We should hope a 300-year-old man has learned how to communicate.)
  
• A small-town, sheltered MC trying his best not to make assumptions while also wanting to learn everything he can about his new boyfriend’s culture and heritage. (Listed as a TW because, while I tried my best to have Damon ask questions respectfully, and brought in a sensitivity reader with Max’s heritage, I know some may see the act of asking as triggering in itself.)
  
• Description of Tuli, a Filipino rite of passage that involves a unique version of circumcision. While there have since been reports of PTSD from this practice, this would not have been widely discussed at the time (and Max was given a choice and has not been negatively affected by it). DO NOT GOOGLE TULI, TRUST ME.
  
• Slightly careless (but era-accurate) attitude toward STDs (although Damon did make his previous partners wear “rubbers”).
  
• SPOILER ALERT: An MC stumbling upon a gruesome murder scene described in some detail (throats slit, puddles of blood) that involves an important side character’s death.
  
• A punch to the nose with a very satisfying cartilage crunch. 
  
• A serious moment of doubt from one MC about the other (don’t worry – it’s all for nothing).
  
• MORE SPOILERS: The same MC being falsely accused of murder (possibly set up) and then publicly hung for it (he doesn’t die thanks to the other MC swooping in like the angel of death, but it’s still fucked up).
  
• Brief, but fairly graphic violence/revenge against those who thought they could kill off a vampire’s mate. Let’s just say the bad guys get mangled and the bystanders get baptized in blood (FAFO, bitches).
  
• The unfortunate side effects of using compulsion powers (and the ensuing guilt that creates more emotional baggage for our MC to deal with another time).
  
• Slightly graphic description of the attack that left our one MC a vampire (broken bones mentioned – not the breaking itself), along with being forced to watch his hut burn with his family’s corpses inside.
  
• Ending Part One with one MC who still doesn’t know his own worth, and another who needs to reconnect with who he once was (good thing we have the rest of this tale to go in Parts Two and Three!)