Beasts of Shadows by K.A. Hart

Some schools demand excellence. Van Ritten demands blood.

Nari Harper was never supposed to leave California—let alone be conscripted into the Shadow Realm. But when she’s ripped from sunny Monterey and dumped on the mist-choked shores of Nowhere Island, she discovers the truth behind the world’s elite magical academies:
Van Ritten Institute doesn’t educate the gifted—it breaks them.

The price of failure? Death.
Thrown into a brutal “reception assessment” where ancient creatures hunt her for sport, Nari must outrun nightmares and confront powers she was never meant to unlock—visions, voices, and a bloodline tied to a dead god.

Her only allies?
A sardonic cousin she never knew existed.
A priestess-in-training with too many secrets.
And a wild-eyed girl who laughs too loudly to be trusted.

But someone at Van Ritten wants Nari dead—and they may know more about who she is than she does.
To survive the gods, monsters, and whatever dark fate is hunting her, Nari must stop pretending she’s ordinary.
Because here, power is earned in pain.
And Nari Harper bleeds with the best of them.