Cross Her Heart by Lexi Hodges

Here is a summary with spoilers for Cross Her Heart by Lexi Hodges

Bronwen is a vampire hunter, though her parents are not thrilled about it. While her father leads those hunts with trained groups, Bronwen likes to go alone to hunt them. One night, things go wrong when a vampire gets her, and she starts to feel marked and haunted by the vampire who bit her. On top of this, Bronwen is actually a siphoner, meaning she needs magic to feel alive; thus, the hunting of vampires.

Also living with Bronwen is her brother Adar, who has been gone for some time. Now that he’s back, he sees that Bronwen is lacking in some skills. He knows his sister goes out to hunt, but as he watches her train, he realizes she hasn’t been training well, so he starts working with her again. Adar feels like something is coming for her, and he wants her to be ready. Not only is Adar scared for her, but their father is as well. He worries that she will be taken by the darkness, and that she will take Adar with her.

Ever since Bronwen was bitten, she starts to have nightmares—the same man in them every time. They wake her almost every night. But her nightmares become a reality when she goes to the market with her mother and finds the green-eyed vampire, though he looks human. He confronts her, calling her by name and by her nickname, Winnie. He then introduces himself as August and tells her that she needs to follow him, or he will share her secret.

In a POV chapter from August, he has been dreaming about Winnie for some time too. He becomes obsessed—so much so that he changes his appearance and risks the daylight just so he can start following her to see what she is doing.

Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game. The two keep dreaming of each other. August stalks her constantly, and Bronwen uses her own blood at night to try and lure him in. During this game, a boy she likes to mess around with in town comes to visit and asks for her hand in marriage. She declines, and he is devastated.

Winnie is now focused on her new goal: to kill the first ever vampire, because then it would kill all other vampires and make her the hero of the village. While she does bait August into telling her about the first vampire, she gets her first lead—to a man named Ames Carrow.

August takes Winnie out to an old ritual site, where it is believed the original spell was cast. While there, Winnie can feel the magic, and she follows it. It leads her to a journal that she can’t read, but August kind of can. She steals the book from his hands and disappears, not wanting August to have the upper hand. But Winnie finds out she needs help very quickly. She goes to meet August in their usual spot, but this time August has three bound soldiers. She releases them, but they turn on her because August tells them that she is a witch. She is forced to reveal that she can’t use magic without a source, and that she has never killed a man before. August, glad he got the information out of her, helps her kill the men and then steals the journal back from her.

The next day, August and Winnie meet in the market. She demands the journal, and August says he will do so, but he wants a taste of her—and Winnie agrees. His sucking her blood turns into a passionate kiss when some onlookers come by, and the kiss affects both of them more than they expected. So much so that the next time they meet, they end up taking it even further—though not before Winnie stabs August. The two end up growing closer. August has already claimed he’d do many things for her and has basically admitted to falling for her. He proves it even more when Lowen, the man who has been pining after her, attacks her, and August helps kill him.

Winnie and August keep working on the journal together and figure out something neither of them expected. Ames Carrow is most likely the king in disguise. It breaks Winnie, because there is no way for her to kill the king, and also because she grew up being told to love him. August takes her out into town to try to distract her.

One night, Winnie goes out into the woods, and while August goads her into something, they run into vampires. August tries to get her out, but then one of the vampires reveals himself as August’s father. He wants to know about Winnie and insists on tasting her. August is forced to let him. He takes so much that she ends up passing out and wakes up in August’s house. She is upset that he would let that happen and insists on going home. After she has been healed, Adar comes home and starts accusing her of the death of Lowen and some other witches. She lies and says it wasn’t her. But she goes to August and tells him they need to be separated for a while so they don’t get caught.

Winnie and Adar are put in charge of the shop while their parents go out on a trading excursion. One day during the market, the bells ring—Joveryn King is there, and Winnie wants to make a move to kill him. But when she gets out and sees the Joveryn King, it’s August’s father, which means Ames Carrow is August’s father. She can’t even process that revelation, because all she sees behind Carrow are two bodies that have been hung—her parents. The king talks about a witch hunt and wants to know where the two children of the traitors are. Adar and Bronwen are forced to run away and seek shelter from the coven. The whole time riding away from town, all Bronwen can think of is taking revenge, as she was played and used by August—just as he said he would.

Bronwen then comes up with a plan, something that will take the pressure off the coven. She goes back to August’s house and sleeps with him, then takes all of his power away for her own revenge. When August wakes, he finds a magical barrier around him that won’t let him leave, but he watches as his father arrives to kill Bronwen. She lets it happen, but when Carrow gets close, she uses her power to grab his heart and kill him. August, finally able to move, feels betrayed and angered by what she did and tells her that she doesn’t know what she just unleashed. Bronwen tells him that now that he is king, he should just kill her. August doesn’t want that. He decides that if she made him king, she will be forced to be his queen.