The academy was a farm. The students were livestock. The woman who ran it fed on them for six hundred years, and the woman who destroyed her is Briar's mother.
Now Briar has an army, a bond that makes four bloodlines fight as one, and a fortress to take.
The vampire heir fights twelve of his kind alone. Four kneel. Eight attack. Three moves. Eight bodies. As I said.
The shifter heir lifts a collapsed wall with human hands. His arms shake. Students pour through. One of them whispers: Alpha.
The fae heir walks into a truth-curse chamber and powers it with his own confessions. The ward shatters around him.
The death mage walks through fire. His power doesn't extinguish the flames - it unmakes them. He comes out the other side with frost on his shoulders.
Behind the fortress walls: a mother and a monster. One of them might still be saved.
Briar kneels in the ashes of her mentor and looks at her own glowing hands. She absorbed four bloodlines. Grew stronger with each one.
She did what the monster did. The only difference is consent.
She hopes that's enough.
Book 4 in The Embermoon Chronicles. Dark why-choose paranormal romance. Cliffhanger ending.
War and battle Full power awakening Morally complex heroine Possessive mates in combat Sister alliance Why choose Found family solidified