Charm

Charm, a young adult paranormal romance in the Crave series, is set at Katmere Academy, a boarding school in Alaska for vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural beings. It follows Grace Foster, a student who believes she is human, and Hudson Vega, a vampire prince whom everyone considers a sociopathic killer.

Grace awakens in pitch darkness. The last thing she recalls is walking down a hallway at Katmere with Jaxon Vega before his older brother Hudson appeared with a sword. A sarcastic British voice in her head instructs her to turn on a light, revealing a large furnished loft. Hudson materializes and insists they are trapped inside Grace's mind. Grace, who has been warned that Hudson is a sociopathic mass murderer, refuses to believe him.

Grace flees through the door into darkness, but a fire-breathing dragon attacks. Hudson rescues her, sustaining severe burns. Grace tends his wounds, which respond unusually well to her touch. Hudson reveals that the kitchen is stocked with Grace's favorite foods and contains no blood, evidence that her subconscious created the space. He pulls Grace into one of her memories of Coronado Beach in San Diego. When Hudson eats a cookie without getting sick, Grace realizes the experience cannot be real, since vampires are unable to eat human food. The memory dissolves, and Grace accepts that her subconscious has trapped them both.

Grace suggests that showing Hudson what love looks like through her memories could convince her mind to release them. Hudson is deeply offended and retaliates by blasting loud music and eating all her Pop-Tarts. Grace divides the room with duct tape, claiming the kitchen and bookshelves. She discovers locked leather journals that open at her touch. The earliest entries, dated 1835, are written by a child who vows to protect his little brother Jaxon and dreams of being a better king than his cruel father, Cyrus. Over the following months, Grace reads chronologically, learning that Hudson was imprisoned in underground crypts for most of his life and beaten to force his powers to develop. A pivotal entry reveals that Hudson deliberately sabotaged demonstrations of his mind-control abilities, performing at only twenty percent capacity to prevent his father from using him as a weapon. Grace realizes everything she was told about Hudson is wrong and throws her arms around him in remorse.

Hudson begins to lean in for a kiss, but the dragon crashes through the roof and destroys the lair. They flee into darkness. Flames engulf Grace, but she is unharmed, though neither understands why. Dawn breaks for the first time, revealing a landscape tinted entirely purple. Hudson can no longer read Grace's thoughts and feels hunger for the first time in over a year, confirming they have left her mind.

They reach a remote farm where a purple-skinned girl named Tiola brings them to her parents. The family explains they are in the Shadow Realm, called Noromar, and that the barrier between worlds opens only once every thousand years. A small shadow creature called an umbra, whom they name Smokey, bonds fiercely with Hudson. When a contact betrays them to the Shadow Queen, Noromar's ruling monarch, the family gives them supplies and directions over the mountains to Adarie, the only village safe from the queen.

Hudson carries Grace at supernatural speed for hundreds of miles, but his refusal to feed for over two years leaves him dangerously weak. In a mountain cave, Grace cuts her finger and insists he feed from her wrist. The experience floods them both with overwhelming shared emotions. Afterward, Grace names her favorite memory as dancing with Jaxon under the aurora borealis, and Hudson, heartbroken, pulls away.

They enter Adarie by posing as members of a traveling troubadour group. Mayor Souil, an eccentric old human man who claims to have been mayor for two hundred years, welcomes them and casually mentions he is a "time wizard." Grace is fired from her bakery job on the first day, while Hudson thrives as a third-grade teacher.

During the Starfall Festival, Noromar's rare three days of darkness, Hudson and Grace share their first kiss atop the clock tower. The dragon from the lair returns with a larger companion and attacks. Grace instinctively transforms, growing wings, horns, and a body of stone, discovering she is a gargoyle, immune to dragon fire. She kills the smaller dragon mid-flight. Smokey, who followed them from the farm, throws herself between dragon fire and Hudson to save his life but is incinerated. Souil reveals the dragons are "time dragons," created by the God of Time whenever someone tears a rift between realms. He pressures Grace and Hudson to kill the surviving dragon when it returns. Hudson notes that Souil looks younger afterward and grows suspicious.

Over the following months, Grace trains in her gargoyle forms while she and Hudson deepen their relationship. Hudson purchases a Shadow Promise ring, forged with shadow magic, the oldest and most unbreakable magic in existence, and vows to love Grace "until the sun grows cold and the stars grow old."

When the second Starfall arrives, they kill the returning dragon. Souil absorbs its essence, growing younger and more powerful. He murders Orebon, one of the troubadours, freezes everyone in time except Grace, and reveals his true plan. A thousand years ago, he tried to save his dying daughter by traveling back in time. His attempt summoned the dragons. He built Adarie to lure otherworlders whose arrivals would generate more time dragons, needing two dragons' power to reset time and cross the barrier home. Nyaz, the local innkeeper, reveals that the Shadow Realm's inhabitants were banished into shadows by a vengeful god, and that resetting time could erase Noromar from existence.

Grace touches a gargoyle statue in the town square and enters a shared mental space, meeting Artelya, a gargoyle warrior frozen for nearly a thousand years. Artelya came to Noromar with Souil and froze herself with a time dragon called Asuga to deny him the power he needed. She proposes releasing Asuga so Grace can kill it, theorizing that a third dragon's power will overload and destroy Souil. Artelya addresses Grace as "my queen" before sacrificing herself.

In the final battle, the released dragon breaks free and the Shadow Queen's army breaches Adarie's gates. Hudson fights through waves of shadow creatures and hurls the Shadow Queen over the city wall. He scales the clock tower, is launched toward the dragon by an ally, and drives a church steeple through its skull as dawn burns his skin. Grace tackles Souil moments before he escapes. The dead dragon's time magic slams into his chest, overloading him, and he explodes.

The time magic re-forms and arrows toward Grace. She opens her arms, willing to sacrifice herself, but Hudson interposes himself and takes the blow. The world goes black. Grace wakes in the lair, back inside her mind, where Hudson has no physical body in the outside world. He confirms he remembers everything; the Shadow Promise ring preserved their bond and memories across the reset. He shows her a spell book that can restore his physical form, asking her consent to use his mind-control powers for one step. She agrees.

In an epilogue set during the fall semester of college, Grace's full memories of the Shadow Realm return when Hudson repeats his vow. She is overwhelmed with guilt for months spent not remembering him. Hudson reassures her that he never stopped loving her. Grace tells him she loves every part of him and reveals her belief that Smokey was not killed but sent back in time and may still be alive. They prepare to return to the Shadow Realm to find Smokey and rescue a friend named Mekhi.