Betrayed by a Vampire

The last thing Paisley Kennedy expects on an ordinary Friday evening is her best friend's knife.

Charlotte has been her other half since childhood — sleepovers, mixtapes, a hundred shared promises. Then Charlotte drives a silver blade into her back and stands over her while she bleeds out on the grass. Seven minutes flatline in an ambulance bay. Seven minutes is exactly long enough for the Devil to come collecting.

His terms are simple: another chance, in exchange for revenge. Paisley wakes up undead, running on a stolen fragment of Lucifer's own soul, with a small purple dragon named Drcul on her shoulder and two immortal guardians assigned to teach her how to be what she is now — Mina, a succubus with a contract for every occasion, and Luca, who banters his way through Hell and mothers her anyway. There are rules. The revenge has a deadline. Don't get attached. She intends to keep every rule, and to be excellent at the job.

Because there is a list. The friend group — Riven, Stephan, Eugene, Faith — stood by, lied to the police, and lit candles at her funeral while planning the perfect getaway. One by one Paisley comes for them, and one by one they learn that the dead girl came back with receipts.

But Charlotte is not finished either. She has fallen into the hands of the Riders, four shadow auditors who police the arithmetic of souls, and they have made her an investment: eyes that see every ending before it happens, speed that arrives ahead of its own footsteps, and a crown forged out of Paisley's own murder. Their demand is simple. Paisley's throne — the fragment of the morning star inside her — delivered to a cathedral of salt in the fens of Hell, on the night of the new moon.

To survive that night, Paisley will need everything she has: a house full of werewolves who keep her secrets, a human neighbor who refuses to run, a sin-eater to starve, a wall built out of her own worst sins, eight bells to sing into their sleep, and a dragon small enough to overlook and old enough to bite straight through the thread of fate.

And there is Lucifer himself, who holds the sky shut while the audit comes due, plays cards with the pack, loses on purpose, and finally asks the question no contract has ever contained. On an ordinary December evening, under fairy lights, the Devil of Hell asks Paisley Kennedy to choose him — not as a king collecting tribute, but on her terms, in her own name.

She died a victim. She came back a monster with a grudge and a playlist. Now she has to decide what a queen keeps, what a queen forgives, and how much of herself the crown is allowed to cost.

A dark vampire romance about betrayal, blood bargains, and fine print — where revenge turns out to be the door, not the price.