Julian Laurent is not like other vampires. He is yet to receive his racial mark from the Lord of Immortals and as a result, his time studying at the Damned Academy will not be easy. Not only will he have to deal with the scorn of the other vampires, angels, demons and half-bloods at the university, but he will also have to work things out with Mia, an ex-girlfriend he can’t even remember. Julian thinks he knows the full extent of his problems but he soon realizes that there is much more at stake. The subverts are hunting him and want to kill him, and there is a dangerous power growing inside him — the likes of which no one should have. Thanks to another vampire, Ray, he will soon discover what the racial mark really is: a tool used by the Immortal Lord Blake Night to keep the rest of the immortals under his power. Freeing the other students from the influence of the mark will not be at all easy, particularly since Julian feels that he is linked to Blake by some kind of invisible thread. The reality is worse than he could possibly imagine.