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      About the Author

      JENNIFER ARMINTROUT was born in 1980. She has been obsessed with vampires ever since the age of four and her first crush was on Vincent Price. Raised in an enormous Roman Catholic family, Jennifer attributes her interest in the macabre to viewing too many funerals at a formative age. Jennifer lives in Michigan with her husband and children.

      Visit her at

      www.jenniferarmintrout.com jenniferarmintrout.blogspot.com

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      JArmintrout

      Also by Jennifer Armintrout

      BLOOD TIES BOOK ONE:

      THE TURNING

      BLOOD TIES BOOK TWO:

      POSSESSION

      BLOOD TIES BOOK THREE:

      ASHES TO ASHES

      BLOOD TIES BOOK FOUR:

      ALL SOULS’ NIGHT

      This book is dedicated to Rob Riddle,

      my former roommate whose wok I destroyed, and Oliver, his Cabbage Patch doll who had a licence to drive a submarine.

      One

      If there was one power a vampire could really use, Graf McDonald figured it would have to be internal GPS. Steering his car—a black 1974 De Tomaso Pantera L, a total snatch magnet—with one hand, he jabbed at the tiny screen of his TomTom GPS thingie and said words his mother would have made him eat soap for speaking.

      His BlackBerry vibrated against the leather of the passenger seat, seconds before Lady Gaga blared from its tiny speaker. He ripped the GPS from its suction cup base and took it in his left hand, steering with his knees while he answered the phone with his right. That was another thing vampires could use. Extra limbs, to be utilized whenever they willed it.

      “Sophia,” he said into the phone as he pounded on the TomTom screen. “What do you want?”

      “Darling!” Sophia called everyone darling. It was her thing. “You’re on your way, yes?”

      Of all the traits that got Graf all hot and bothered about his sire, the way she would end questions with the answer she wanted to hear was in the top five, at least. He couldn’t help but smile to himself at that. “Slight delay. This stupid GPS thing isn’t working.”

      “Oh, no, no!” Sophia clucked her tongue, and even that sound had an Italian accent. “Darling, you’re not going to miss my party, no?”

      Graf flicked his gaze to the windshield, to the straight road that hadn’t changed since the last time he’d bothered to look at it. “Not if I can help it.”

      “Well, where are you?” she asked earnestly.

      “I’ll be honest with you, Soph. I have no fucking clue where I am.” He braced himself for the reprimand that was sure to come.

      “Graf, your language! You sound like a peasant.” She sighed. “You have my address, yes?”

      “Yes, I have your address. I programmed it into the thing.”

      Fucking technology. Usually, he loved it. The internet, thank God for that. High-definition television, yes, yes, yes. Little weaselly devices that pretend like they’re going to help you and then stab you in the back? Those could suck his big, fat—

      “Honestly, I do not know how you have such difficulty with directions. Get on the highway and go toward Washington, D.C. It is not difficult!” Sophia pouted over the line. “Do that!”

      “Well, I would, pumpkin butt, but I dropped the damned TomTom in the parking lot at Denny’s, and now it’s all in Spanish and I can’t get back to the map screen.” He took a deep breath and propped the phone against his shoulder as he fished for the cigarettes in his jacket on the seat beside him.

      “I do not understand you, you men,” Sophia said, sure to lean on the word enough to let him know she meant it as an insult. “You know, I only turn women now, yes? Because they are not as … vulgar and stupid. I do not wish to hurt your feelings, sweet Graf, but it is true, it is just my opinion. Now, why do you not find a place to pull over and ask for directions, and then you hurry here. Okay, good boy. Bye-bye!”

      As always, she hung up without a chance for rebuttal. He tossed the phone back onto the seat, threw the TomTom on the passenger side floor, and lit a cigarette. When he looked up at the road, the biggest deer he’d ever seen stared back at him.

      With a shout, he jerked the wheel and veered onto the shoulder, narrowly missing the animal. Tall grass and a ditch loomed just past the shoulder, aching to chew up his paint job and destroy his aftermarket ground lighting. Unacceptable. He fought to get the car under control on the gravel shoulder, and brought it to a stop in the center of the road.

      Very few things got Graf’s adrenaline pumping the way a threat to his car did, and he leaned over the steering wheel, his heart—which usually didn’t beat—pounding in his chest.

      “Christ,” he muttered, easing the gearshift back to First. Okay, maybe Sophia was right. It was time to swallow his pride, ask for help, and keep his eyes on the road.

      The trouble was, he reflected as he slowly rolled down the road, scanning the fields on either side for more white-tailed devil creatures, there didn’t seem to be anyplace to stop; he’d passed plenty of farms, lots of little ranch houses with decks, aboveground pools, and absolutely no shade trees in the lawns, but nothing that would indicate a town was nearby. He’d passed a grain elevator, but it had been abandoned. When he tried to remember the last time he’d seen anything that promised civilization lay ahead, he had to reach at least