Searching for Parker, facing the loss of her parents, watching Sarita slip toward death, Holly can't take much more. Byron and the other vampires at Rule the Night aren't in much better shape than she is as her nightmarish dreams of joining Parker in bloodthirst haunt her daily. Their greatest fear is that Parker is already dead. Did Charles find him and kill him or did the Assembly execute him for his bloodthirst according to their own rules? They will go to any lengths to finally destroy Charles and find out what happened to Parker. His fate, though, is the last thing they could have expected. And the truth about Charles shocks them all and reveals an enemy they never knew existed.