The Killing Rules
by Bree Despain· 2026
Seventeen-year-old Harper Westbrook isn’t afraid of monsters…she is one.
For the past three years, she’s been one of the Blood Bound—girls and women cursed with a bloodlust only satisfied by killing terrible men. Once every three months, she trades in her pom-poms for a lethal throwing axe. Her life is led by a strict set of rules to keep her dark secret as hidden as the bodies she buries.
And her number one rule? Stay away from Grayson Jones.
The boy she was totally falling for until the night her curse manifested, everything went horribly wrong, and she killed his father. It was self-defense. Or at least that’s what she keeps telling herself.
Grayson is an investigative reporter for their school paper, and he’ll stop at nothing to find the truth behind his father’s gruesome death.
As he follows new clues down darker and darker paths—to an unbelievable world of mythical beasts and the men who hunt them—Grayson doesn’t realize he’s on a collision course with Harper’s biggest secrets. Now, she must stop him before he exposes her family to the Hunters, even if it means risking her life and heart.
Because who could ever love a monster like her?
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Seventeen-year-old Harper Westbrook isn’t afraid of monsters…she is one. For the past three years, she’s been one of the Blood Bound—girls and women cursed with a bloodlust only satisfied by killing terrible men. Once every three months, she trades in her pom-poms for a lethal throwing axe. Her life is led by a strict set of rules to keep her dark secret as hidden as the bodies she buries. And her number one rule? Stay away from Grayson Jones. The boy she was totally falling for until the night her curse manifested, everything went horribly wrong, and she killed his father. It was self-defense. Or at least that’s what she keeps telling herself. Grayson is an investigative reporter for their school paper, and he’ll stop at nothing to find the truth behind his father’s gruesome death. As he follows new clues down darker and darker paths—to an unbelievable world of mythical beasts and the men who hunt them—Grayson doesn’t realize he’s on a collision course with Harper’s biggest secrets. Now, she must stop him before he exposes her family to the Hunters, even if it means risking her life and heart. Because who could ever love a monster like her?