He just raised his eyebrows. “I told you, you need more blood than the others did.”

“I know,” she grumbled. She unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle to her mouth. She paused, then recoiled sharply. Before she could take a sip, Mom, who was closest, leaped over a chair and knocked the bottle out of Solange’s hand. Solange blinked, her chair sliding across the wooden floor. The blood arced over the walls. It smelled wrong—too sharp, too acidic.

Mom’s mouth was grim, her nostrils flaring.

“Poison.”

Chapter 1

Lucy

I never would have thought I could have so much fun in a sweaty gym, running combat drills until I wanted to throw up.

In a Helios-Ra school, no less.

I mean, these were the guys who had previously devoted themselves to taking out my best friend and her entire family. Plus, they kind of acted like they thought they were superheroes. Not that I wouldn’t love my own theme song and cape.

Still. It was a matter of principle. Drake family good. Vampire hunters bad.

Except that right now a vampire hunter from Helios-Ra Academy was not only dating my best friend’s brother, she was also teaching me how to take out vampires. Not the Drakes, of course—but the Hel-Blar, who attacked anything human or vampire, and the other vampires who either wanted the royal throne for themselves or just didn’t want Helena Drake to have it. Whatever. They were going down. Preferably on the end of my very pointy, steel-tipped staff.

Hunter’s boot nearly clipped my jaw. I stumbled back out of reach, impressed. “Dude. You’re bendy.” Which didn’t seem entirely fair since I was the one who did yoga. Mom and I had a new compromise: for every nonorganic, non-fair-trade, non-dark-cocoa chocolate bar I ate, I had to do a round of sun salutations.

After the kind of summer I’d had, I was doing a lot of sun salutations.

Hunter attacked again, moving slower so I could see what she was doing and choose a counterattack. Then she repeated it and sped it up. I blocked her blow, the force reverberating through my bones and practically into my teeth. I followed the momentum, pushing against her arm. She didn’t drop her stake, but I knew she would have if she were a normal girl and not the valedictorian of Vampire Hunter High. She hated it when I called it that. She said it made them sound like a bad B movie.

Duh.

“That’s good,” Hunter said, panting. “Keep grinning at your attacker like that and they’ll think you’re way creepy. And mental.”

I grinned wider. “I totally love this. Who can I punch next?”

She stopped and laughed. Her long blond hair was tied back, and I was gratified to see the collar of her shirt was damp with sweat too. I didn’t want to be an easy mark. Ever. “About that. I know you like punching people in the nose, but it’s much more effective if you aim for the throat or the eyeballs. Even vampires can’t see where you are if they have no eyeballs.”

“Cool. And gross.”

“And you should get contact lenses.”

I blinked behind my dark-rimmed glasses. “Why? I hate sticking my fingers in my eyes.”

Hunter didn’t say anything. She just reached out and gripped my elbow, spinning me around with one jerk so that my back was facing her. Then she used her other hand and quickly, casually flicked my glasses right off my face. They slid across the shiny wooden floor. Everything went blurry.

“Show off,” I grumbled. Then I had to crouch down and feel around for my glasses, which was totally embarrassing. “All right,” I said, shoving them back onto my nose. The walls of mirrors reflected three of me, all looking disgruntled. Then I leaned on my staff and I suddenly looked like I belonged in a fantasy novel. I wished Solange would answer her damn phone so I could tell her about it. “You proved your point. In fact, I’m going to get laser eye surgery as soon as possible.”

“That’s usually what we do too,” Hunter admitted. “It’s just safer.” She tossed me a towel and we wiped our faces. I hurt all over and my lungs burned. And I still loved it. Next thing you knew, I’d be lifting weights and drinking protein shakes. And I’d know the difference between my quads and my glutes.

Clearly, growing up with vampires had caused irreparable psychological damage.

The campus stretched out around us, visible through the one wall of windows. There was a pond, lots of grass, and several Victorian-style houses and barns doubling as dormitories, teacher lodgings, and training areas, all grouped under the watchful eye of the Violet Hill mountains. According to Kieran, Solange’s boyfriend, the garages are full of motorcycles. I wondered if I could get someone to teach me how to ride one. Then I wouldn’t have to rely on Nicholas to take me to all the good vampire hideouts and the royal courts.

If I was ever allowed back in, of course.

They all seem to think I’m way delicate. I really don’t know where they get that from. When my parents came back from their annual visit to the ashram with my cousin Christabel in tow, Solange and Nicholas’s parents had felt the need to tell them everything.

Even though that was obviously the worst idea ever.

Dad took one look at the little scar on the back of my neck from when Solange and I were attacked by Hel-Blar vampires and he freaked right out. He now has an ulcer, which, apparently, is all my fault. But really it’s Helena and Liam’s fault for telling him in the first place. I never would have done anything that dumb.

Add in my mother’s bonding with me over Nicholas being my first “official” boyfriend (no one counts Julian, not even Mom, because he was a jerk) and her chasing me around the house with safe-sex pamphlets and dress designs for the prom. It’s October. Prom’s not until May. And, really, how do you take a young vampire to the prom? Nicholas won’t even sit in the same car with me because the smell of warm human blood is still too tempting. He just turned a little over a year ago, and it takes time to get all those appetites under control. I think of it like a case of perpetual PMS, where you just feel inside your bones that if you don’t get a hot fudge sundae right away, you might actually kill someone.