A Breathless Ruin

At Nocturne Frost University, winter doesn’t just settle in, it suffocates.

Librarian Calista Ravenna has built her life among the quiet stacks of the university library, burying her past beneath routine and restraint.
And Professor Alastair Ignatius has always been her one exception.

For five years, their connection has simmered beneath stolen glances and late-night conversations—forbidden, consuming, impossible to extinguish. He calls her his ruin. She calls him her solace. While Alastair has never hidden what he wants, Calista is determined to keep pretending the line between them hasn’t already blurred beyond recognition.
Until the campus begins to fracture.

When the first body is found, reality tilts, and Alastair remains Calista’s only constant. As paranoia coils through the halls, Calista’s carefully guarded world starts to collapse. And when fear turns inward, she’s forced to confront the one truth she’s spent years avoiding:
Loving him may destroy her.
But losing him would be worse.

A Breathless Ruin is a gothic romantic thriller novella about obsession, buried trauma, and the kind of love that refuses to loosen its grip—even when the world is closing in.