Rina Kent’s God of Wrath (2022) is a dark romance novel and the third installment in the interconnected standalone Legacy of Gods series. The series is a spin-off of the author’s popular Royal Elite books and focuses on the children of the original characters. A USA Today and international bestselling author, Kent is known for writing dark romances with morally ambiguous characters, and her work has gained significant popularity on social media platforms like TikTok. In God of Wrath, Cecily Knight, a university student, agrees to spy on a rival school’s notorious club, the Heathens. Her infiltration goes wrong when she attracts the attention of the club’s ruthless leader, Jeremy Volkov, who becomes obsessed with possessing her and unravels the secrets she keeps. The novel explores themes of The Duality of Public Persona and Private Desire, Violence as a Catalyst for Healing and Self-Discovery, and Negotiating Trust in a World Without Rules.

This guide refers to the 2025 Bloom Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual violence, rape, mental illness, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Cecily Knight, a student at Royal Elite University (REU), infiltrates an initiation for the Heathens, a notorious club at the rival King’s University (KU). She is gathering intelligence on the Heathens’ mansion’s layout on behalf of Landon King, the leader of REU’s Elites club. The initiation is a “predator and prey” game in the forest surrounding the Heathens’ mansion, where five masked founding members hunt recruits. Cecily witnesses their violent methods before she is discovered hiding by a member in an orange mask wielding a golf club. This man, later revealed to be the Heathens’ leader Jeremy Volkov, chases her through the woods.

Jeremy corners Cecily from the game. When he tries to unmask her, she slaps his hand away and—to distract him—tells him to have sex with her. Realizing she is from REU, he becomes suspicious of her presence, but Cecily manages to escape. She reports back to Landon, on whom she has had a crush for years, but he dismisses her as incapable of handling real danger. Frustrated, Cecily decides to prove him wrong by signing up for a private kink club to which she knows Landon belongs. She creates a profile for “primal play,” a form of consensual non-consent, specifying a partner with Landon’s exact physical attributes. The app immediately finds her a match.

Cecily later attends a party at the Heathens’ mansion with her friends Ava, Glyndon (Landon’s sister), and Annika (Jeremy’s sister). While outside in the forest, she is ambushed by her matched partner from the kink app. Jeremy, not Landon, accepted her match request. Believing the masked man is Landon, Cecily follows his command to run, beginning their primal play scene. He chases her, catches her, and brings her to orgasm. During the encounter, she realizes from his voice and his use of the pet name “Lisichka” that her partner is not Landon. When she glimpses his face, she recognizes him as Jeremy. He interrogates her about her presence at the initiation, and she admits to stealing an invitation, omitting Landon’s role. He tells her to come back when she is ready to properly have sex with him.

Soon after, Jeremy begins stalking Cecily and hacking her phone to learn more about her. He takes Cecily to a private, soundproof dining room in an exclusive club. He interrogates her about her kink limits, which are gagging and drugging, and her shame over her sexual preferences. To shatter her idealized image of Landon, he reveals a one-way mirror showing Landon engaged in violent, exhibitionist sex with a bound and gagged woman. The sight causes Cecily to vomit and enter a dissociative state. Jeremy recognizes her condition, as his mother used to struggle with it. He brings her out of it, but when she continues to defend Landon, Jeremy becomes angry and leaves abruptly.

After two weeks of silence, a drunk Cecily accidentally sends Jeremy a direct message on Instagram containing her chase fantasy, which she had intended for Landon. Jeremy appears in her dorm room, where he performs oral sex on her and has her perform oral sex on him. Despite her concerns, she withholds their safe word, “smoke,” which she created on the sex club app. The following day, he invites her to a cottage that he owns in the woods, where he engages her in primal play and has penetrative sex with her for the first time. After, when she is half-asleep, she intends to say that Landon is no longer on her mind; however, she only says Landon’s name before drifting off. Jealous, Jeremy leaves and doesn’t contact her for several days.

Later, Landon secretly uses Cecily’s intel to help the rival club at KU, the Serpents, start a fire at the Heathens’ mansion. Jeremy is injured in the blaze, which is publicly blamed on the Serpents. Wracked with guilt, Cecily goes to the mansion to check on him and sees another woman, Maya, coming to check on him. Jeremy later learns from his guard that Cecily came to the mansion. While Cecily is out with her friends and Landon—her crush now abandoned that she realizes how cruel he is—Jeremy arrives and coerces her into returning to the cottage with him.

After arguing while he makes her dinner, he makes her play a game of Russian roulette. He forces her to confess the source of the trauma that makes her disassociate: Her ex-boyfriend, Jonah, drugged and attempted to assault her in high school. They have sex after, Jeremy reveals the gun was never loaded; he only wanted to understand her better. This begins a routine where Cecily comes to his secluded cottage every night for primal play and rough sex.

One day, after coffee with Jeremy’s sister Annika, Cecily finds Maya hanging around Jeremy claiming she’ll marry him. Jeremy doesn’t contradict her, though Annika shows outright distaste for Maya. Feeling jealous and hurt, Cecily ignores Jeremy’s texts and goes to a club with Ava. At the club, she is harassed by men, one of whom uses the same predatory line as her ex, triggering a traumatic response. Jeremy appears, violently intervenes, and takes Cecily to a private room where they have angry, possessive sex.

Their relationship is put on pause when Jeremy and Annika return home to convince their father that Annika should be allowed to date Creighton, a member of Annika and Cecily’s friend group. Jeremy is disapproving, as Creighton is Landon’s cousin. Conflict happens amid the trip, and Annika and Creighton break up. Unaware of what occurred and friends with him since childhood, Cecily and the others take Creighton’s side. Jeremy distances himself from Cecily, calling her disloyal. When Cecily tries to put Annika in contact with Creighton, feeling guilty, Creighton takes Annika to a private island, further upsetting Jeremy. Cecily eventually gives Jeremy their location, and their relationship resumes.

Gradually, Cecily learns more about Jeremy’s violent streaks as a prince to the Mafia group to which his father belongs. At the animal shelter where Cecily volunteers, Landon reveals to her that Jeremy was responsible for the KU football players who bullied her being suspended and injured, as well as for her ex-boyfriend Jonah turning himself in for past crimes and being tortured in prison. This unsettles her, though she continues their relationship, including introducing him to her parents. Her overprotective father dislikes him. Annika and Creighton return to university and reconcile, and Cecily and Jeremy make their relationship public.

However, after Jeremy jealously confronts her for speaking to Landon, who she refuses to help again in his rivalry with the Heathens, Cecily confesses to Jeremy that she spied for Landon at the initiation. Enraged and feeling betrayed, Jeremy accuses her of being a spy all along and nearly chokes her. Filled with self-loathing, he ends their relationship. Later, drunk and alone, he’s discovered watching footage of Cecily by his father, who’s visiting. His father convinces him that Cecily is likely trustworthy and worth pursuing.

Meanwhile, Cecily ends up at the animal shelter, heartbroken, where she is confronted by her colleague, Zayn, who went to high school with her. He reveals he was Jonah’s accomplice during her assault. He drugs and attacks her, causing her to become paralyzed. Jeremy, who has been tracking her, arrives and kills Zayn, saving her. Cecily recovers in the hospital, supported by her family and friends. She confronts Jeremy outside her room and invokes her safe word, “smoke,” to officially end their dynamic, hurt by his inability to trust her initially.

Jeremy relentlessly pursues Cecily for two months over the summer. He follows her to London, ingratiates himself with her family, and watches her from afar. His guard, Ilya, devises a plan to reunite them by lying to Cecily that Jeremy is dying. Cecily rushes to the airport, where she and Jeremy confess their love for each other and reconcile.

Two weeks later, Cecily travels to New York with Jeremy and settles into life with his family, including his mother, Lia. She is welcomed into the family and feels secure in their relationship. One month later, at a new Heathens’ initiation, Cecily participates as Jeremy’s willing “prey” in a hunt designed as a form of their primal play. He catches her, and they have sex in the forest. Jeremy declares that she is his forever and that he intends to marry her.