âI told you what I planned to do if I ever turned vampire. Itâs time to put that plan into effect.â
I raised my hand to touch Vanâs cheek. âWhen I looked at my sisters, it took all my control not to attack themâ¦and I donât know how long my control can last. Just say goodbye and let me walk away from you, please.â
âNot this risk-taker, honey.â He gave me a tight smile. âI told you two nights ago how I felt about you, Megan. Nothingâs changed for me.â He tipped my chin up so that my gaze couldnât avoid his.
I tried to smile, but the tears that had been brimming in my eyes splashed over. âI didnât plan to tell you like this, but I think Iâm falling â â
Kill him now while heâs vulnerable!
The terrible thought tore through my mind with such cold intensity that I reeled backwards. I could tell from his alarmed gaze that my horror was mirrored in my eyes.
Harper Allen, her husband and their menagerie of cats and dogs divide their time between a home in the country and a house in town. She grew up reading Stephen King, John D MacDonald and John Steinbeck, among others, and has them to blame for her lifelong passion for reading and writing.
To the members of the Syracuse,
New york, chapter of RWA
Dear Reader,
Sisters.
They fight with each other, dis each other and know each otherâs most secret weaknesses. But when the chips are down, theyâre there for each other. Thatâs usually the caseâ¦but what happens when your sister is under the power of an ancient curse that might turn her into a vampire? And what if you might be the sister whoâs about to turn vamp?
Personally, those are questions Iâve never had to face with my sis, but itâs one thatâs suddenly disrupted the lives of the fabulous Crosse tripletsâ¦and changed their pampered existence of shoe-shopping, dating and partying into a fight against the dark side with their lives and souls on the line. Enter Megan, Kat and Tashyaâs world of Manolos and cocktails, stakes and vampiresâ¦and learn for yourself just how binding the bonds of sisterhood can be.
Harper Allen
Itâs one of those questions that yank me back from the edge of sleep: was there any way things could have turned out differently? If Angelica Crosse had lived long enough to pass on to her daughters some of the knowledge that had been drummed into her from birth, would it have helped? Or if she hadnât wanted so badly to give the three of us the ordinary life sheâd been robbed of that sheâd left instructions in her will for Grammie and Popsie to have custody of us, would that have changed anything?
Problem is, once you start playing this game, thereâs no good place to stop, leaving a girl slathering on way too much Bobbi Brown concealer to hide the bags under her eyes when her alarm goes off in the morning. Or in my case, simply resigning myself to the possibility of needing my first mini-facelift before I hit the ripe old age of twenty-two. If Katherine and Natashya and I hadnât been triplets. If we hadnât gotten engaged when we did. If Grammie and Popsie hadnât raised us to be indulged, shop-till-we-drop princesses, ifâ
As I say, no good place to stop; and on those nights, when all this is going through my head and making it impossible for me to get back to sleep, I get the sinking feeling that everything that did happen probably would have happened anyway. Lance and Todd and Dean still would have gone to Deanâs stag party, the stripper who called herself Zena still would have shown up, and our cheating jerks of fiancés still would have said yes to getting down-and-dirty lap dances from her.
Which all added up to Kat and Tash and yours truly, Megan, being totally unprepared when the men we were supposed to walk down the aisle with turned into undead creeps and tried to kill us.
As Tash says, donât you just hate when that happens?
âMy point is, these days girls are supposed to get a wild and crazy send-off the night before their wedding, like guys do.â With a drama-queen toss of her curls as she entered the house, my sister Natashya flounced through the foyer into the living room and plopped herself onto a sofa. âYet here we are, home before midnight like a bunch of nuns or something, while Deanâs stag is probably just getting to the smoking cigars and watching X-rated DVDs stage. If I were you, Iâd be totally pissed, Megan.â
My other sister Katherine didnât pause in the entrance hall, either. âThe bratâs right for once, sweetie. As bachelorette parties go, yours blew bigtime,â she drawled over her shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen, leaving me to punch in the Crosse mansionâs security code. I donât know if itâs because Iâm technically the eldest of the three of us, beating Kat in the getting-born race by ten minutes and Tash by half an hour, but that task always falls to me.
âSomehow I donât think breaking out the Monte Cristos and popping