“I’m a ‘bride’, but…I don’t want to be a wife.”

This is a world where people are born into a hierarchical society that resembles the animal kingdom, with a veneer of human civilization. Regardless of sex or gender, there are two categories: ‘husbands’, those who enter rut, and ‘wives’, those who enter heat. At the age of 18, an unpaired ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ are forcibly assigned together, forming a pair known as a ‘family’. They have one year to marry, mate, and produce offspring, or they are both executed.

Optimistic and naïve Melissa Brideman has just begun attending her new school, where she meets both suitors and seducers, abusers and harassers. While navigating the tempestuous waters of the elite academy, she meets Fuyuko Asaka: the brooding female “prince” of the school, who rejects everyone, yet takes a peculiar interest in seducing Melissa—and Mabel Charron: the kind, maternal headmaster’s daughter, whose sweet demeanor belies a frightening obsession—all while struggling to bond with her older brother, Oleander, having been finally reunited with him after a childhood apart.

At the same time, there are lingering rumors and suspicions, regarding the brutal murder of a ‘bride’ from one year ago, an incident that Melissa ends up getting ensnared in.

As a ‘bride’, Melissa hasn’t been assigned to a ‘groom’ yet, and she yearns for an innocent romance. But even if she found someone of her own accord, her dreams are sure to be dashed, as one cannot choose their own partner. Can animalistic instincts be resisted, in exchange for true love? Or is there something darker that awaits her?