Mercy

Alchemists tried to play god. They created the devil instead.

The isle of Nightcross sits just off the coast of mainland Europe, ruled by a vampire monarchy that keeps the humans on the island under their thumb and firmly in place, a society meant to feed its rulers and not much more. No one born on Nightcross is allowed to leave, but Mercy Vale is determined to escape. A skilled alchemist in her own right, she's looking for advanced medical care that might be available on the mainland, and she's running out of time to find it.

Enter Mordecai Thorne, the vampire son of a duke. He offers Mercy a deal: he will arrange transportation off the island for her, but only if she agrees to participate in the Selection, a brutal ritual that occurs every twenty years where human women of childbearing age are herded like cattle and presented to vampire lords as potential childbearers for their kin. The catch? Mordecai needs Mercy on the human side of the Selection not to claim her for himself, but to help him bring down the system entirely. Mercy only needs to survive long enough to make it through the Selection, and her freedom is all but guaranteed under the new regime he intends to bring to Nightcross, but survival is tricker than it seems.

Between the limited time that Mercy's disease affords her without medical care, rogue biological experiments escaping to plague the castle, and trying to keep the other women safe from the Selection itself, Mercy has her hands full. However, the closer she gets to freedom, the more she wonders if leaving Nightcross-- and Mordecai-- is really the right choice.