Read an extract from Cursed City by Kate Golden

Welcome back to Harker Academy for Deviant Defense, where the line between hunter and hunted has never been thinner.

To rescue someone close to her, Viv Abbot must team up with Reid’s violent, unpredictable older brother, Deacon. Her uneasy truce with him offers Viv something Reid never could: the chance to embrace her darkness.

Viv’s mission takes her to the center of Astera’s seedy underbelly with none other than the White Stag as her guide. But when a bounty on Viv’s head puts those she cares about in danger, Viv will be forced to go to lengths she never dreamed in order to protect them.

With enemies closing in from all sides and a ticking clock on her life, Viv must save the Half City from destruction while surviving a betrayal that strikes at the heart of everything she’s fighting for. Because in a world where monsters wear familiar faces and temptation cuts deeper than any blade, making it through her second semester at Harker will take more than skill – it will take everything Viv has left to give. Who can she really trust in a city that thrives on lies?

READ AN EXTRACT FROM CURSED CITY

Deacon turns to me, one brow arched. “It’s now or never. Shall we, nemesis?”

I nod, blood thrumming, and turn to Ward, Elliot, and Sophia. “We go on three, okay? One—”

But Deacon ignores me and sails clean through the glass window, landing in a crouch in the aisle below. Ward follows, and Sophia and I exchange an aggravated eye roll. With no other options, we jump down after them and take off running.

The decrepit theater hums with chaos. Shocked Brood demons release their claws and scramble for their weapons. Sophia shoots arrows into limbs. Elliot carves through flesh with his sword. But I have a one‑track mind. I don’t care what Deacon said—I’m like Hound with a scent. I want to track down Finn.

I slice and dice my way through the fray, ducking stray punches and claws. A roaring werewolf barrels into my path and I launch myself at him, ready to slide my daggers into the soft fur of his neck, when Deacon tackles the beast out of my grasp. The two of them go careening through the worn theater seats, and I fall face-first onto the aisle floor.

“I had him,” I call, my chin burned from the dusty carpet. “You were in my way,” Deacon grunts back, now pinned beneath the were’s massive paws. Good boy, I think. Eat up.

But I should know better. Ward, in his werewolf form, is on the Brood’s were in seconds flat, tearing off an ear and sending uncanny canine whines throughout the theater. Deacon’s up a second later, ripping limbs and roaring bloody murder. When I finally make it out to the hallway, I scan for Finn but he’s nowhere to be found. My nifty new trick doesn’t sense him, either.

God damn it.

My back begins to ache and writhe with my fury. A coarse, grinding pain. I fight my way back inside, ignoring the sensation. When one vampire almost rips into Elliot’s neck, I stab him through with a broken‑off wooden armrest. At some point in the brawl I find myself back‑to‑back with Deacon. His fists whale on a thick‑necked demon, my silver meeting the curve of another’s claws. “Finn . . .” I grunt out between blows.

“Not here. Told you,” Deacon replies while delivering a solid punch. I can feel his massive lats moving against the aching scar down my back. “When will you learn to listen to those older and wiser than you?”

“I’m going after him,” I grunt, dodging a Brood’s spindly claw. “Maybe he’s out front.”

“Vivienne . . .” he growls.

Before I whirl to face him, I level one last blow, driving my dagger into the Brood demon’s sternum. He gurgles out a gory grunt and bursts into ash, and I’m shocked to find the rising pain in my scar withers away right along with him. Something to figure out later.

“Finn is our only chance to find your brother. If there’s a shot he was here, I have to take it. I have backup tonight that I might not have—”

Deacon spins to look at me, one enormous hand clasped around the entire head of the demon he was fighting. No body attached.

Blood is splattered on the side of Deacon’s face, painting his granite jaw in dripping red. But his eyes—they are alight. Sheer elation. It’s clear he doesn’t fight like this for his brother or for justice or even to win. He fights because he loves it. I’m sickened by both the realization and, far worse, what I might see of myself in him.

“You know,” he growls, stepping toward me, “the more you ignore every god damn thing I say, the more comfortable I get with debilitating madness.”

I snarl at him and he seethes right back, glacial eyes glued to mine. When I raise my daggers, his gaze flicks behind me, lightning quick. With ease, he drops his gory trophy and grabs my hips roughly, dragging me an inch to the right. Before I can ask what that was for, searing pain rips through my shoulder.

I stare down in horror at the silver arrowhead lodged in my skin. Deacon . . . Deacon just used me as a human shield.

Blood pours from the wound, bleeding into the fabric of my coat.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Deacon says with a shrug, wiping blood from his brow. “This is my favorite shirt.”

I can’t even think past the blaring pain and the nearly equal fury. He’s wearing a fucking plain white T-shirt. I’m going to have this scaffolding‑sized nuisance castrated.

Cursed City by Kate Golden is the second book in the Harker Academy Series publishing on 8 October 2026 in Hardback, Audio and Ebook.