Chapter One
This summer, I’d become the queen of the vampires. When I’d killed the king, I got the royal title—and yeah, he’d been exceptionally awful, even for an evil vampire—but now I had a crown I didn’t want and a kingdom I didn’t know how to rule.
But even teen vampire queens had to finish high school, so that’s why I was striding down the halls of Golden West High.
It wasn’t all bad news, though.
It was the first day of my senior year. My best friend, Skyler, was back home; Vaughn, the guy I’d crushed on forever, was now my boyfriend; and I was learning to manage my allergy to the sun.
Since I was a striga vie—a vampire-witch hybrid—I didn’t turn to ash in the sun, like other vampires, but without my tonic, I did get violently ill, which was why I’d guzzled down a big glass of it right before school. The tonic, my granny’s recipe, was what staved off the worst of my vampire vulnerabilities, but it only managed the symptoms.
I still needed a cure.
I was getting better at taming the monster inside me, at least in public, but my fangs would descend involuntarily when I got angry or upset.
I had high hopes that today would be fang free. I might even go as far as to say it was going to be a great day. I would see Vaughn, who was finally back from Texas.
I hummed as I waited for him at the lockers. We hadn’t talked much while he was gone, but I knew he had been busy training. And a vampire queen constantly checking in on her boyfriend while he’s off learning how to be a vampire hunter? That would be as clingy as Saran Wrap.
The warning bell rang, but Vaughn still didn’t show up. My good mood deflated faster than a popped birthday balloon.
“What’s wrong?” Skyler asked, slamming her locker door shut.
I didn’t want to sound like I’d been just hanging around waiting for my boyfriend, even though I clearly had been.
“I miss sunshine and the water and spending the whole day at the beach,” I said as we started walking to class. “We live in California. Beach time is practically the law.”
“You miss Vaughn, huh?” my best friend asked.
“It feels like he’s been gone forever,” I said. No use trying to hide my worry now. “And it’s not like him to skip the first day.”
“He probably just overslept or something,” she said.
“Maybe,” I replied, but I wasn’t convinced.
“You should take the opportunity to remind Vaughn what he missed,” she replied. She wiggled her brows as we took our seats in the classroom.
“What’s with the eyebrows?”
“Just remind him what he left behind when he went to Texas.”
I flinched at the reminder that he had left me behind. I knew she wasn’t trying to hurt me, but the comment stung.
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” Again with the eyebrows. “Skyler,” I chided. So much had happened between Vaughn and me. We’d spent the summer chasing a vampire rock band—and it wasn’t to get their autographs—but somewhere during all the chaos, Vaughn and I had gone from friends to a couple.
Vaughn Sheridan was my boyfriend. The thought still brought a smile to my face.
“Senior year is looking up,” I said.
Class started before Skyler could respond to me, but Ms. Ferrell’s lecture on nineteenth-century poets was quickly interrupted when the classroom door opened. Principal Townsend stepped inside and cleared her throat.
“Sorry to disturb you, but we have two new students joining us today, Rose and Thorn…Assassin.” She paused. “Unusual last name.”
Someone in the back row choked on a laugh.
What the hell? Skyler mouthed to me.
My sentiments exactly. What were two vampire hunters doing at my high school?
Rose and Thorn were identical twins who, at first glance, looked nothing alike. Rose’s hair was pink, and Thorn’s was black. The blue highlights were new, though. Rose wore floral dresses and looked like woodland creatures would do her laundry, while Thorn preferred leggings and leather jackets and looked like she’d hunt and eat those woodland creatures for breakfast. Rose’s weapon of choice was poison, and Thorn’s was her pointy dagger.
I eyed her up and down as she strode across the room; I had no doubt the blade was concealed on her somewhere.
When Ms. Ferrell turned her back to us to write something on the board, Thorn glared at the guy at the desk in front of me until he got out of his seat, then took his place. He shot her a look that was part confused, part annoyed, before finding an empty desk in the back of the room.
“You are not enrolled here,” I hissed at her.
“My queen, I hate to contradict you, but yes, we are,” Rose whispered. She was sitting right behind me.
Queen. Whenever someone used that word to describe me, my body felt as though I’d guzzled about a thousand cups of coffee.
I wasn’t 100 percent certain whether the sisters were my friend or foe. They’d been helpful this summer, but I could never be too sure where their loyalties were.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“In English Literature?” Rose sounded confused.
“Why are you at my school?”
“We go where you go,” Thorn said. “Until further notice.”
“Why?”
“For your protection.”
Great. So now I had two bodyguards I hadn’t asked for.
I waited until Ms. Ferrell had turned her attention to the other side of the room before whispering, “You can’t kill anybody. Not unless you absolutely have to.”
Thorn frowned but nodded that she understood.
They didn’t work for me. They worked for the Paranormal Activities Committee, aka PAC. The PAC ruled over the supernatural world, or what Granny and her coven called the hidden world. They had oversight in every supernatural realm, including mine.
Why had the twins been ordered to stick so closely to me? Did they know something I didn’t? It wasn’t a reassuring thought, since I knew their entire job was exterminating vampires.
“We’re not only here to protect you,” Thorn said. “We’re also going to train you.”
“For what?”
“Survival,” she said.
I was embarrassed by the relief I felt, but if I was really in danger, whether it was because someone wanted to hurt me or because this was standard for any queen, I couldn’t think of anyone better to help than the twins.
Ms. Ferrell ordered us to form into groups of four and work on a project about Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Rose, Thorn, Skyler, and I went to a back corner of the room and pushed our desks together. With the class allowed to talk now, it would lessen the chance of being overheard. I had more questions.
“How was vampire hunting in Texas?” I asked in a low voice. They’d been there with Vaughn over the summer. Maybe they knew why he wasn’t here today.
“Unexpected,” Rose said.
“Unexpected how?” I asked. When a frown crossed her face, I sat up straighter.
“We had to leave a week early,” Rose said. “I did not even get to have any barbecue while we were there.”
“Why did you have to leave?”
“To report to PAC headquarters,” she replied.
“Did Vaughn go with you?”
“No,” Rose said. “Haven’t you talked to him?”
I shook my head. “He isn’t back yet.”
“He did leave Texas when we did, though…” Thorn said. She and Rose exchanged a glance, which did absolutely nothing to calm me down.
Then Thorn clamped her lips shut and pretended to be fascinated by what Ms. Ferrell was writing on the blackboard. Unlike the twins, I needed to pass this class, so I actually paid attention to what the teacher was writing.
“Who can tell me who wrote this?” Ms. Ferrell asked.
I raised my hand. It was a quote from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Having a librarian for a grandmother came in handy.
Where was Vaughn? And where had he been while Rose and Thorn went to PAC headquarters? My stomach felt like it was full of shards of glass. I told myself I was overreacting, but I slid my phone out anyway. I kept one eye on Ms. Ferrell while I texted Vaughn.
He didn’t reply. I waited a few minutes…and still nothing.
When I realized Ms. Ferrell was looking my way, I pocketed my phone and pretended to be writing something down, but my mind raced. Why wasn’t he answering my texts?
“Where did Vaughn go when you guys left?” Skyler asked.
Rose shrugged. “He said he was going to head home.”
I frowned. What if something had happened to him?
Thorn gave me a long look. “Now that we’re back, we’ll begin your physical conditioning.” She started going over a long and tiresome-sounding workout regimen.
I exchanged a look with my best friend. My idea of exercise was a long walk on the beach. Thorn’s was an hour of burpees followed by a fifty-mile run.
Senior year was not looking so up anymore.
…
Skyler and I met for lunch, and since we were seniors, we could go off campus. In the parking lot, I held my parasol over my head to block the sun, feeling kind of foolish walking around with an open umbrella and no rain, but most people were eager to leave, so nobody seemed to be paying me any attention. Skyler drove, but she put the top up on her convertible once we were in her car.
“Thanks for this,” I said, gesturing to the roof as I rolled my window down to get some fresh air. “And that reminds me, time for my tonic.” I dug the Thermos out of my bag and took a sip before recapping it. The strong licorice taste still made me wince a little.
“We never decided where we’re eating,” Skyler said. “Anywhere but Chicken Clucks.”
Skyler’s dad owned the Chicken Clucks chain. She’d eaten enough there in her lifetime that I’m surprised she hadn’t turned into an actual chicken.
“Understood,” I said. “How about Janey’s? They have a drive-thru.” Janey’s was a diner at the pier, but the building had been there so long that it had its own tiny parking lot and could offer quick to-go service.
When we pulled into the drive-thru, there was a bright orange muscle car in front of us with its music blaring. The passengers were dancing in their seats to what my granny called “old-school country.”
“Is that Dolly Parton?” I asked.
The driver was wailing, “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,” at the top of his lungs. More masculine voices joined in, harmonizing faultlessly.
“They don’t sound too bad,” Skyler said.
I sucked in a breath. “You don’t think it’s The Drainers, do you?” The vampire band had disappeared after I’d killed the lead singer’s father, the vampire king, but I kept imagining I saw them everywhere. I don’t know, something in my gut told me it wasn’t over.
“It’s not The Drainers.” She sounded certain. “First of all, they’re in tune. Then there’s the more obvious issue.”
I slapped a hand over my forehead. “Sunlight.” The Drainers were vampires—of course sunlight was out for them. Also, unless someone was compelled, there was no way anyone would believe The Drainers sang that well.
“Connor used to sing that song to me,” Skyler said. Her ex. She’d been mentioning him more often ever since she’d snapped out of the hold that Travis, The Drainers’ lead singer, had on her.
I craned my neck to see who was in the other car, but it moved forward before I could get a good look.
Then the driver started honking the horn, followed by a deep voice shouting, “Skyler!” There was something familiar about the tone of his voice.
I raised my eyebrows. “Someone you know?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea.” She put her head out the window to see and then whipped it back seconds later.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Nobody.” Her lips were set in a straight line.
“Skyler, seriously,” I said.
“It’s Connor,” she said. “I only caught a glimpse, but it was enough to know.”
“Connor, really?” Her rat fink ex who’d abandoned her and broken her heart?
She nodded.
When it was our turn, Skyler rattled off our order like it was no big deal, but her voice shook when she said, “Thank you,” and handed the cashier her card.
“It’s already been taken care of,” he said. “The car in front of you paid for your food.”
“That asshole,” Skyler whispered. “What should I do?”
“Eat your food,” I advised. “Not like a Janey’s deluxe is enough to make up for what he did.”
Skyler waited until we were back in the school parking lot before taking a bite. “Okay, I’ll admit it,” she said. “Apology burgers are delicious.”
I had to agree. Part of me wondered if my boyfriend was doing something he’d need apology burgers for, but I had to believe Vaughn was better than that.