In the second House of Night novel, Zoey is happy at the House of Night, but things start to change. At the first family visitation her parents come and she is excited to see her grandmother, but her parents are stiff and angry with her Change. Zoey's stepfather immediately begins an argument with Neferet and Neferet kicks them off school grounds. They vow never to return and Zoey sees such a difference in the parents' reactions to their fledgling vampyre children: her own parents' disgust, Stevie Rae's mother's undying love, Aphrodite's parents' verbal abuse each family dealt with their child's Change differently.
Returning to her dorm, Zoey witnesses Neferet scolding Aphrodite about her visions. Neferet invites Zoey to a private dinner where she explains Nyx has withdrawn the gift of visions from Aprhodite and she is no longer to be trusted. When Zoey comes across her later, Aphrodite is crying, claiming to have had a vision of Zoey's grandmother on a bridge as it collapses at a particular time. Unwilling to risk Sylvia's life, Zoey and her friends call in a bomb threat on the bridge, keeping people away from it. When the bridge collapses as Aphrodite's visions predicted Zoey begins to doubt Neferet.
When two young men she knew before being Marked are found murdered, Zoey begins to worry that something or someone is harming the people in her life. She has a dream of Neferet talking to supposedly dead fledglings about the murders and begins to suspect her. All the while Zoey is trying to balance her love life between the imprint with Heath and the attraction to dramatic Erik Night, but she catches the eye of resident Poet Laureate Loren Blake.
In her role as High Priestess of the Dark Sons and Daughters, Zoey reorganizes the system, but Neferet takes credit for her ideas and changes. Zoey is confused, her instincts and the awakening voice of Nyx in her head warn her not to trust Neferet, but Zoey is distracted from the problem of Aphrodite and Neferet when Stevie Rae's body rejects the change and she dies. Zoey is wracked with grief, but learns that Heath has disappeared too.
She uses the imprint to find Heath; he has been held captive by undead "red" fledglings, named for their red marks rather than the grey-blue of normal vampyres'. Zoey rescues Heath with her elemental affinities, but finds Stevie Rae among the undead fledglings. Neferet has taken the dying fledglings and returned them to life somehow, but what does she have in mind for these creatures who have lost their humanity? When she arrives back at the House of Night Neferet tries to erase the memories of the red fledglings, but Nyx returns the memories and Zoey tries to develop a plan to help Stevie Rae.
Betrayed develops the conflict between Neferet and Zoey, fledging out the meaning of Nyx's reminder: "Dark does not always equate evil, Light does not always bring good". The language and some mature content suggest an older readership--ninth grade or older.
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