Immortal Dark

The first installment in the Immortal Dark trilogy is set in a hidden world where vampires, called dranaics, coexist with human families known as actis. Centuries ago, a figure called the Last Sage forged peace between the two species through the Three Binds: Vampires can only feed from roughly eighty designated families, their supernatural strength is diminished, and any vampire who turns a human must sacrifice their own life. This fragile system is maintained at Uxlay University, a secretive campus governed by Dean Faris, where human heirs inherit family houses, living entities that enforce singular laws bending reality within their borders.

Nineteen-year-old Kidan Adane is a self-described murderer awaiting trial and planning to die. A year earlier, her twin sister June vanished from their foster home, and Kidan became convinced a vampire took her. She tortured their foster mother, Mama Anoet, who confessed to betraying the twins' location to a vampire named Susenyos Sagad. The interrogation ended in a fire that killed Mama Anoet. Since then, Kidan has searched obsessively for Uxlay, unable to find the hidden campus. She carries a blue suicide pill in a butterfly bracelet, giving herself eight months to live.

Dean Faris appears to deliver critical news: Kidan's Aunt Silia, who fled Uxlay with the twins as children after their parents' deaths, has died. A will leaves everything to Susenyos, House Adane's sole remaining vampire. Kidan can contest the will only by enrolling and graduating Dranacti, a course on the philosophy of human-vampire coexistence. She agrees, bargaining for legal representation at her trial. Her true plan is to enter Uxlay, find June, and kill Susenyos. A journal from Silia warns that four houses have turned against the Adanes and encloses a fake poison that can disguise Kidan's scent to make vampires believe she is dying.

At Uxlay, Kidan learns that House Adane and House Faris are the only two Founding Houses, meaning they alone can set independent laws. All other houses share a universal law preventing outsiders from finding the campus. If Susenyos inherits Adane House and misuses its Founding power, the protective system could collapse. Kidan's first encounter with Susenyos occurs before she knows his identity: a young man in a garden whose hungry gaze reveals his vampire nature. Dean Faris introduces them, explaining that Susenyos must occupy Adane House alone for 28 consecutive days to inherit it. Kidan moves in to interrupt this countdown.

Their cohabitation is hostile from the start. Kidan finds June's butterfly bracelet hidden in Susenyos's drawer, but he seizes it and escapes through the window. She destroys his collection of East African artifacts in retaliation. At night, the house manifests her worst memories in the hallways, while Susenyos suffers in a glass-ceilinged observatory where his bloodlust becomes uncontrollable. Etete, the elderly cook, explains that the house echoes its inhabitants' minds and that mastering it requires conquering every room.

Kidan forms a study group to investigate the families her aunt warned against: Ramyn Ajtaf, who was poisoned as a child and seeks a life exchange to become a vampire before she dies; Slen Qaros, an emotionally guarded girl whose father is abusive; Yusef Umil, an artist whose father is imprisoned for killing his own dranaics; and GK, a devout young man raised in a monastery whose chain of finger bones rattles near Kidan, warning of death.

Kidan reads the house law inscribed in golden thread: If Susenyos endangers Adane House, the house steals something of equal value from him. She confronts Susenyos with Mama Anoet's recorded confession, but he denies involvement. Their escalating provocations lead Dean Faris to intervene, warning both against further aggression. When Kidan discovers that Susenyos does not react to her blood in the observatory, she deduces the law is already punishing him, stealing his immortality and making him human within that room. Furious at her discovery, he locks her in the wine cellar, but she negotiates a fragile truce, proposing they master the house together.

Ramyn is murdered, thrown from a tower with vampire bite marks on her throat. Kidan ingests Aunt Silia's fake poison to gain entry into the 13th, a secret society whose members include Tamol Ajtaf, Ramyn's eldest brother and heir to House Ajtaf, and Slen's father, Koril Qaros. The 13th want each house to set its own law rather than share universal protection. A visit to Yusef's father in prison reveals that the 13th need a controllable Adane heiress and that June is likely alive. Slen confesses that she joined the 13th to get her father arrested and orchestrated Ramyn's death through a loyal dranaic.

At Susenyos's hearing, where the 13th try to frame him for Ramyn's murder and collusion with Koril, Kidan reverses her testimony and defends him. She proposes a formal alliance: They may ask anything of each other within stated rules. He agrees and drinks her blood, creating a mental connection through which each glimpses the other's memories. During Cossia Day, a lawless holiday when vampires fight freely, Susenyos kills a dranaic who threatens to hand Kidan to a mysterious vampire faction called the Nefrasi. Kidan and Susenyos become physically intimate.

Susenyos goads Yusef into killing Rufeal Makary, a 13th member, after revealing how the group sabotaged Yusef and manipulated his father. Kidan, Slen, and Yusef form a pact of shared guilt. Through research, Kidan discovers that the Nefrasi are Susenyos's own court, forcibly turned into vampires centuries ago and then abandoned. She shoots him, and he confesses: The Nefrasi want a Last Sage artifact hidden within Adane House, a cracked mask called the Sun artifact that can break the Second Bind and restore vampires' full power. The house law protects the artifact, and any action risking it costs Susenyos more of his immortality.

When June sends a video message, Kidan's world collapses. June was never kidnapped. She chose to leave with the Nefrasi because they cured her parasomnia, a sleep disorder causing violent episodes, and offered her belonging. June asks about Mama Anoet, unaware Kidan killed her. The foundation of Kidan's quest disintegrates. She spirals toward her suicide pill, but Susenyos finds her and pulls her back.

After GK independently discovers his friends' murders and confronts them, Slen and Yusef kill him to prevent exposure. Kidan resolves to bring him back through a forbidden death transformation, which requires infusing vampire blood into a dead person's heart before it deteriorates. She leads her allies to confront the Nefrasi, led by Samson Sagad, Susenyos's former servant. Using a coded clue from Susenyos, Kidan offers Samson formal companionship, granting the Nefrasi legal entry into Uxlay. A young Nefrasi voluntarily dies to transform GK, who awakens furious at Kidan. Samson takes GK as leverage.

For the final Dranacti exam, Kidan grasps the course's darkest truth: The Last Sage's price to Demasus, the ancient vampire leader who accepted the Three Binds, was that humans must kill of their own free will to make their blood drinkable. Their murders were the mechanism that graduated them. At the companionship ceremony, Kidan binds herself to both Susenyos and Samson. She discovers that Susenyos has lost his immortality in every room, the law having punished him for helping her. He insists on staying. When June arrives alongside Samson, Kidan commands the house for the first time: Lights repair themselves, fear retreats, and power surges through her. She faces her twin, and the story continues in Eternal Ruin.