Alignment

He's killed three men in the few days she's known him. Yes, it was self-defense, but when he tried to kill her, it wasn't. Her peaceful mountain refuge has been invaded, her inexplicable nausea linked to his physical presence. She's captive in his house for her "protection," with a churning stomach, his bad attitude, and no safe way home. All that changed the night the stars aligned. Now he's talking about ancient bloodlines and celestial alignments... and other things she only believes because of what she's seen him do. He's heading out for revenge against the family who wronged him, and he needs her help. All she has to do is ingest one homemade dissolving tablet to allow him into her mind, to train her to be just like him. The answer would be a definite no if she had anything of her world left. If she hadn't fallen in love with him.

Liv's role in the war between the Bevans and the Moores is as solid as the motif carved in her protective amulet. The problem? She never volunteered. Her connection with Trey happened too fast. She can't trust in love built by magic. Trey's place in the war has shifted. No longer the target, he's just someone in the way. Not if he can help it. He's packed and ready to return to the Moore estate. This time, he can't bring Liv, but he can't leave her to battle Moore-trained assassins alone. Liv knows if Trey goes, the Moores will kill him. Trey knows their remote mountain home won't be safe until he's executed every Moore. And Liv has a secret that, if divulged, will propel Trey to the estate faster than his fifteen-year-old need for revenge. The Moores don't need Trey to come to them. They have a new strategy, an attack on the very thing Liv questions, the last thing Trey expects to be in their sights. Their love.

Sloane Bevan and two-week-old Trey are kidnapped by strangers who speak her rare language and know her family's secrets. She suspects these men are the ones who murdered her husband nine months ago. Now it's her son they want, to raise as one of them. To keep under their control. Imprisoned in the Moores' opulent estate, Sloane cultivates a plan using her family's ancient magic right under her captors' careful watch. Escape is one thing. Ensuring the Moores won't target her family again is another. What she doesn't count on is a battle against the Moore brothers: one after her life, one after her sanity, one after her sympathy, and one after her heart. All while her son is being honed into a vicious killer, and it's up to her to plant the seeds that will one day reverse the evil now growing inside him.

Trey returns from another visit to the Moore estate with nothing but more anger and less room in his head to stow it. Old coping mechanisms no longer work. Not with a newborn in the mix. And Liv, who's had enough. Liv has found what's missing: a memento of her past she's worked hard to forget. It unearths memories of a different man-a stable partner, a loving father. As it draws her in, Trey's new anger drives her away. Desperate to find Liv, Trey digs into his arsenal of magic for a dark power he's never used. He shouldn't use. He has to use. What he doesn't expect is who that power lures: a visitor, with answers for Liv, complications for Trey, and a claim on their daughter almost as threatening as the Moores'. And what that power creates: a weapon, perfectly crafted to target all who share his blood. A vulnerability placed upon their daughter. And the perfect way for the Moores to destroy them all.

Captive in the Moore estate, Sloane Bevan sees an image that evokes her grandmother's warning: When the moon aligns with the oak, a danger will come for you. To her family she's a warrior. To the Moores a destroyer. But she holds knowledge of magic the Moores lost, knowledge they want to extract before they kill her. Rex Moore is out of patience. He has trained his whole life to battle and end Sloane Bevan. Now she's in his house and his family has ordered him to wait. This is the first order he'll defy, the last order they'll give. Once he kills Sloane, the Bevans will fall, and he will claim his birthright as king. To end the age-old war between their families, one must destroy the other. Sloane and Rex understand their destiny, but no one predicted the larger battle they walk into. The mutual enemy they unveil. And the impossible allegiance necessary to survive it.