Years after a brutal war left humanity subjugated by vampires, King Nathaniel Bryce seeks to find his Queen among one hundred human girls through an elaborate and expensive pageant. The prize? Immortality. Avery Crawford doesn't care about being immortal, and she certainly doesn't want to marry King Nathaniel, handsome as he may be. Unfortunately, everyone around her disagrees. Thrust unwillingly into the decadent and deadly contest, Avery must conquer challenges, enemies, and her own conflicted heart.

In a world where vampires rule, Sabine Ambrose wants nothing more than to become one. Disgraced and despondent from her failure to win the heart of the Northern Territories' King Nathaniel Bryce, she sets her sights on the New Orleans, the capital of the post-war South. There she meets Tristan, the prince with the target on his back. His jealous cousins seek to ruin him and enlist in Sabine's help to do so. Vain, selfish, and completely void of principle, Sabine agrees. But kindness has a way of melting ice-cold hearts, as she soon finds. Unbeknownst to her, a quiet war has brewed in the city for centuries. On one side is the unscrupulous and cutthroat Sinclair family, with vampire king Sheridan at its head. On the other side is an ancient enemy who threatens to unravel everything he's built in an effort to make him pay for old and brutal crime, and it intends to make Tristan the target for its revenge.