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The Cardinal Code
Author: Avery Sterling
Publication date: August 4th 2025
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Vampires are real. Powerful, organized, and nearly untouchable, they move through society under the governance of the Cardinalis Order—an ancient system built to protect their kind and punish those who defy its laws.
Michael Chamberlain is one of them. A successful entrepreneur with a carefully buried past, he returns to The Hamptons to take over his father’s elite nightclub—and to secure a contracted blood source. Cold, controlled, and emotionally detached, Michael has long accepted the rules of his world. That is, until he meets Paislee Sullivan.
A determined college student working to fund her future, Paislee doesn’t know the truth about the Order—or that her presence at the nightclub is more dangerous than she realizes. When her path collides with Michael’s, she’s pulled into the shadows of a world built on power, secrecy, and blood.
As their attraction deepens, Paislee must navigate a society where consent is contractual, love is forbidden, and ignorance offers the only safety. But some connections can’t be denied—and breaking the rules could mean losing everything.
The Cardinal Code is a seductive and high-stakes romance set in a world where the elite don’t just run society—they feed on it.
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an excerpt
The cover was embossed with a gold crest—a bird with its wings outstretched.
She snapped the folder shut, but the substantialsum he was offering stuck with her. She shook her head, muttering, “The cost of my freedom.”
Life as she’d known it had just changed before her eyes. When she imagined what it would be like being Michael’s donor, it terrified her. But then she considered how that kind of money could improve her life and her family’s. It was all like some cruel joke.
Michael was offering her security. Comfort. A solution. All she had to do was allow him to take her blood.
Should it have been an easy yes? Maybe. But something in her gut twisted. Sharp and cold.
In the contract, she was addressed as little more than property. According to an authority she didn’trecognize, she’d belong to Michael. It wasn’t a job offer. It was a cage.
She couldn’t calm her shaking hands as she slid her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door. It hurt to think she was walking away from something that could’ve fixed so much.
But it wasn’t a gift. It was a transaction. And she wasn’t for sale.
She was close to the exit—and freedom—when Michael stopped her.
“Where are you going?” he asked, walking up behind her.
His shadow stretched across her, swallowing her presence beneath his. It loomed over her, pressing down on her like an unseen weight. She didn’t turn around; instead, she kept her gaze fixed on the door. “I’m going home,” she said.
“You’re rejecting my offer?” He sounded shocked, and she shook her head. Was he truly surprised? She squared her shoulders and spun around.
“I respectfully decline,” she said,
“Your situation is precarious. I don’t understand your hesitation. This solves both of our problems.”
Paislee shook her head, laughing bitterly. “If you were a human, you’d know exactly what the problem is.”
As far as she was concerned, the conversation was over. It was best to leave it be. She needed to go home.
She went for the door again when he spun her around.
“Paislee, stop.”
Avery Sterling’s love for the romance genre began in her teen years when she picked up her first novel. She was captivated by the sweeping scale of emotions brought about by the words. The experience catapulted her towards learning the art of wielding a breathtaking adventure, with a love that felt authentic. Wanting to inspire people with her own thoughts and words, she finished her first novel at sixteen. It was a step towards understanding the essence of what she wished to create.
Most of her youth was spent traveling, searching out the romance and beauty in her everchanging world. From the waves that crashed against the rocky shores of Downeast, Maine, to the warm breezes of the Caribbean, she discovered that love was universal, apparent in its grandest and simplest of forms. Her goal is to write novels an audience can relate to, one that conveys the truth and nature of love… with all that steamy romance.
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