Kassidy is young, alone and without a home - the perfect target for 'shadow-queen' Sai, an ancient vampire drunk on blood and blinded by egocentric fantasies. One fatal night brings them both together in a dark alleyway with no way out. Sai wants a pet: someone with her venom running through their veins who will dote on her and feed her visions of a world where she is master and they are a humble companion.
But fate disagrees with Sai's conceited plans. Fate sends Teddy, an esteemed member of the Hardy bloodline, to Kassidy's rescue. However, she has already been embraced by Sai's venom. Not enough to turn her into one of them, a vampire, but certainly enough to kickstart a terrifying half-transformation. The end result will be an agonising death.
A last-ditch effort to save Kassidy's young life leads to her veins being flooded with venom once again. This time, the venom is Teddy's and it causes a phenomenon the vampires of the Hardy bloodline have never experienced before: a 'half and half'. Two generations of the vampire curse now fill Kassidy's immortal body. Ancient Sai gives her incredible power, while Teddy's newer venom forces a rational mindset which the Hardy bloodline prizes. They live humanely, feed humanely and try to be 'civilised'.
Newly-dead Kassidy knows none of this. She wakes up horrified by what she's become. Terrified of the 'monsters' around her and ignorant of their peaceful ways, can she resist the alluring pull of her atavistic sire Sai? Or will chaotic clan wars and her inner turmoil send her back into the arms of the manipulative matriarch of the first bloodline?