Sixteen-year-old Song Liena is just one of the many peasants in the empire until the discovery of her unexpected magic upends her world. She's ripped from her family and forced to join the hundreds of elite magic-wielders fighting to graduate from the empires rigorous Academy with their lives and honor intact.

Princess Isabelle Louise was raised for one thing: to secure a marriage alliance for the good of her people. All her hopes for a kind husband are dashed when the dark and dangerous Prince of the Fae comes seeking a human princess for his bride. Suddenly married and thrust into a world of vicious magic and lethal bargains, Isabelle discovers too late the secret her bridegroom concealed from her: that she is the key to his plan to usurp the throne. And now she is the object of the High King's wrath.

By night, they fight in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse. By day, they are friendly next-door neighbors. Neither of them know that their alter egos are archenemies. I’ve spent my life training in the family business of slaying vampires, but I’m tired of all the death. I want to prove we slayers can help society, not just break it. I start my new life by joining the Magiford supernatural task force, which exists to protect humans and supernaturals from harmful magic.

It is said that the Neverseen King comes for a bride every hundred years. I thought it was only legend—until he came for me. I am one of twelve assassins forced to compete for the hand of our unseen king, who I'm beginning to doubt is even human at all. Why he needs a bride, much less one who wields a blade isn't any of my business. All I'm trying to do is get out of here with my life and my heart intact. I don't want to care about the mysteries I begin uncovering about the king, about why he never shows his face, about his palace that turns into a nightmare after dusk.

I can turn into a housecat. It’s a fun magic, except in a world filled with vampires and werewolves, it doesn’t exactly make me a powerhouse. Instead, the supernatural community has classified me as an outcast, which means one thing: picking on me is open season all day, every day. The local fae are the worst of all, and it’s during one of their regular “capture the cat-girl” sessions that I shift into my cat form and meet HIM for the first time.