Prologue

Greenthorn Indoctrination Center, Vampire Tribal Lands

Ophelia sat on a hard plastic chair, clenching a mangled pamphlet between her sweaty palms. The silence in the stark, cream and beige waiting room was beyond oppressive. She’d been there since six that morning, and the hour hand on the clock above the frosted glass door had made almost a full circuit.

She riffled her hair. The wait was fucking ridiculous. What the hell was going on back there? All her forms had been completed, every legal requirement satisfied. She’d even taken the intro course to their bullshit religious instruction and been blessed by one of their preoti. This part should’ve gone faster, especially after her more-than-generous donation to the cause.

Fucking bloodsuckers.

God, she just wanted to burst through that stupid door and get this over with. Damn it. No. Breathe. She struggled to bite back her temper. Be contrite, Phe. Try to channel fucking worthiness. She snorted. Like that was hard. She was a hell of a lot farther up the food chain than the rest of the losers that’d shown up to volunteer.

Throughout the day, seats filled with indigents and the dying had slowly emptied to the right and left of her until only herself and two other people were in the room.

One of them was laid out on a hospital gurney. Bags of saline and lord knew what else hung from an IV stand beside him. The other, a woman and presumably the infirm man’s caregiver, slowly flicked through her tablet. By the way she was chewing her lower lip and shifting in her seat, whatever she was reading was juicy.

Ophelia scowled, hooking the long, jagged bangs of her pixie cut behind an ear. What the woman should be doing was reading up on how to properly care for the soon-to-be-corpse’s colostomy. Even across the room, the stench of shit was eye-watering.

What a cunty little campfire scout, all prepared for the wait. Ophelia flicked her nails and picked at the black gel tips, begrudgingly admitting that she’d been too confident she’d be one of the first volunteers called and hadn’t thought about how to pass the time. Normys looking to join the vampiric tribes and subscribe to their fucked-up religion were usually either vagrants, on death’s door, or some special kind of desperate.

Ophelia was a very healthy twenty-nine, a rising star in the litigation world, and fell squarely into the last category.

She was also positive that her soon-to-be-husband would completely lose his shit if he knew she was here, and every second that ticked past increased the probability of him figuring out where she was. Ophelia wiped her sweaty palms against her thighs, all too clearly imagining him bursting through the door, full-on gargoyle.

Her eyes flicked to the clock. These assholes needed to hurry the fuck up.

The bullshit work conference she’d invented wasn’t going to hold up to close scrutiny, but it was the best she could do on short notice. The approval for her to join the tribes had come through almost immediately, and she needed that goddamned virus.

She slowly exhaled and flipped open the mangled pamphlet for the umpteenth time, smoothing it over her bespoke, tailored slacks, glad her phone had died after the first few hours, nixing any temptation to call Deo and come clean about what she was doing.

Fuck around and find out never went over well with him, but that—and his abs—were one of the many reasons she was head over heels for the guy. No one else had ever cared enough to call her on her shit. She chewed a nail, knowing exactly what he would say about all this, but screw him. He wouldn’t understand. How could he? He was a supe and she wasn’t. This needed to happen. She could feel it in her bones. It was the next step.

She couldn’t lose him, couldn’t think about him with someone else after the fact, and her mortality guaranteed that was gonna happen.

Yeah, over her undead body.

Her gaze dropped to the pamphlet. Rereading it was stupid. At this point, she could recite it verbatim.

“Vampirism is a sacred gift.”

Ophelia didn’t quite snort, but damn, that line got her every time. Bit of a stretch there. Though, she had to admit, the tribes had a killer marketing team. She did snort at that, running a hand over her face. God, she’d been here too long, but Vampiric Syndrome wasn’t a gift, sacred or otherwise. It was caused by a virus carried by gravers, a rare species of centipede from the eastern continent that fed on dead bodies.

Gotta love nature, right? Gross, but nothing special. Well, unless they chowed down on someone that hadn’t quite passed into the hereafter. That was unfortunate, and probably unpleasant if said undead were a supe, but if one had the questionable honor of being born a normy like her?

Hello, vampire.

Ophelia put a hand to her churning stomach. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to ingesting one of the fucking things, but if the Victorians could down tapeworms to drop a pound or seventeen, how bad could this be? Granted, tapeworms didn’t have twelve rows of razor-sharp teeth, but…

Fucking A. Who was she trying to kid? It was gonna be horrible.

God, stop being such a pussy. To be with Deo forever, she’d chase the fucking thing with a shot of broken glass if that’s what it took.

Ophelia blew out her cheeks and slumped, her tailbone throbbing from the hard plastic. It was a serious bummer she’d been inoculated for Vampiric Syndrome as a kid. Before the Purge, all you had to do was bang someone already infected to contract VS.

Which was what had kicked off the Purge, the development of the vaccine, was the reason all corpses were now cremated, and a whole host of other shit.

Including the tribes’ need for volunteers to maintain their population.

A shadow moved behind the frosted glass. Ophelia sat up as a brunette vamp with a severe bun and a nurse’s uniform straight out of the 1940s pushed through with a clipboard. A name tag at her breast read “Crake,” and the tatuaj around her eyes radiated to her temples like a spider’s web. The markings looked like a tattoo but weren’t. It was how the virus presented itself and was the basis for their fucked-up caste system.

“Ms. Diamondé?

It was about goddamn time. “Here,” Ophelia said, raising a finger before she stood. She wiped her palms on her slacks and grabbed her purse.

Nurse Crake tongued her cheek, her unnaturally red lips pressed together. She looked Ophelia up and down before checking off something on her clipboard and gesturing for her to follow.

The hallway beyond was as stark as the waiting room had been. White walls, sanitary molding, doors with stainless steel kickplates. All of those had bars dropped across them, moans and thumps coming from within. One of the long fluorescent bulbs flickered above.

“Birthdate?” the nurse asked, her dark eyes on the clipboard.

Something hit one of the doors as they passed, and Ophelia adjusted her purse higher onto her shoulder. “Uh, November third, 2015.”

“And you’re here because…?” The nurse flicked through a bunch of papers, and Ophelia caught a flash of her signature at the bottom of one of the many consent forms she’d signed.

She wet her lips. “Vampirism speaks to me,” she bullshitted, though it wasn’t totally a lie. The part where it extended one’s existence indefinitely was absolutely calling her name. The rest of it could fuck off, but if she had to eat a bug then drink blood to make that happen, so be it.

Nurse Crake glanced at her askance like she knew Ophelia was full of shit. Well, at least she wasn’t stupid. She stopped at a door and pushed it open, gesturing for Ophelia to go in.

The room beyond looked like every other doctor’s office she’d ever been in. Padded, papered table, crappy cream and blue wallpaper, a wheeled, stainless steel table, and a little laminate counter area with a tiny sink and canisters of swabs and cotton balls.

“Remove your clothes and put them and the rest of your belongings in here,” Nurse Crake said, handing over a clear plastic drawstring bag with Ophelia’s name scrawled on it. “There’s a gown on the table, ties in the back. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

The door clicked shut behind her, and Ophelia took a deep breath before beginning to undress. Her hands shook as she unbuttoned her slacks and wriggled out of them. Deo. Think about Deo. A visual of the mountainous, gruff blond man flashed across her mind’s eye. The way his stubble glinted on his square jaw, his intense turquoise eyes…

“It doesn’t matter how much time we have together, Phe. We’ll make the most of what we have, and I’ll love you until the end…”

But it did matter. She flicked a hand across her cheek. The thought of growing old while he stayed eternally young—there wasn’t a fucking chance she was going to subject him to mashing up her food and changing her diapers. And he would, damn him. No. This would take all of that off the table. It was the only way they could be together without her fucking mortality hanging over them like a shroud.

She tied the gown and sat on the table, paper crinkling beneath her. Her pulse raced. He was going to be so angry with her, but he’d get over it…right? He always did. And then they could be together forever. With her credentials, whatever tribe she was assigned to would give her a dispensation to work outside the tribal lands.

The mandatory tithe her position at the firm would provide all but guaranteed that. She’d done the research. Save for two she couldn’t track down, every volunteer since the Purge with a high-paying career had returned to their normy lives. Tithing was how the tribes were funded, and her salary was three times what the majority of them made.

Then why are you sweating so much?

Fuck. She raked a hand through her hair. Did it matter? Introspection was pointless and not her jam to begin with. For better or worse, this was happening.

A soft knock sounded at the door, and a moment later it was pushed open. A thin, dark-haired vamp in a lab coat came into the room with another, younger male and Nurse Crake behind them. She carried a stainless steel tray. A crimson velvet cloth covered whatever was on it. She set it by the padded table, then busied herself by the counter.

The dark-haired vamp flipped through her chart, pursing his lips, and pushed up his glasses. The tatuaj beneath them were the same webbed design as Nurse Crake’s and the other vampire’s. Guess there was a tribe of medics.

“Ms. Diamondé,” the dark-haired vamp said. “I’m Doctor Wong, and this is my intern, Louis. He’ll be observing today, unless you have any objection?”

“Nope.” As long as they made her into a vampire, Ophelia didn’t care if they did it on stage and sold tickets.

“Wonderful.” He smiled, the tips of his pointed incisors gleaming. “I apologize for the wait, but in cases such as yours, we like to give the applicants time to fully consider their commitment to our cause.”

Seriously? That’d been some kind of test? Ophelia bit back a snarky retort, the paper drape crinkling beneath her. “Of course.” She smiled back, hoping it looked more genuine than it was. “Completely understandable. However, I am fully committed.”

The doctor nodded, and Nurse Crake took Ophelia’s arm, swabbing it to install a port for an IV. Ophelia winced at the pinch. The woman might not be particularly pleasant, but she was efficient.

“Well, then everything appears to be in order,” the doctor said, flipping through pages as the nurse sent a burst of frigid saline through the IV. Louis scanned the chart over the doctor’s shoulder, reading along with him and taking notes. “I see you’ve completed the first course of religious instruction as well. Highly commendable. Are we ready to proceed?” he asked Crake. At her nod, his eyes flicked to Ophelia.

She swallowed roughly, her mouth dry. “Please.”

Doctor Wong and Nurse Crake exchanged a glance.

“Then lie back to be secured,” the doctor said, reaching for a box of blue gloves on the counter. “The process doesn’t take very long, and as soon as we’ve finished here, you’ll be transported to the applicable tribe’s sect for recovery. That usually takes two to three days, and your reintroduction will be evaluated based on how well you adapt to reanimation.”

Ophelia nodded, fighting a sudden burst of anxiety. The wedding was in a week, and there wasn’t a chance in hell she was missing it. You can do this, Phe.

She lay back, and Nurse Crake moved to her side, pulling thick leather straps from the sides of the table. She buckled them around Ophelia’s torso and forehead, then pulled out others for her arms and wrists.

“For your safety.” Crake smiled, her grin much more predatory than the good doctor’s and about as legitimate as Ophelia’s had been. The nurse filled a hypodermic, then plinked it.

“Ah, what is your preferred orifice?” the doctor asked.

Ophelia started, her gaze fixed on the needle. “What is that?”

“A lethal injection,” he murmured, pushing up his glasses and still scanning her chart. “Where would you prefer the vessel to make entry? It’s not listed here.”

“I-I thought I had to eat it?” Ophelia stammered.

“Any hole will do,” the nurse murmured with a smirk, setting the needle aside to transition the end of the table flat and secure Ophelia’s legs. A slot opened beneath her rear and Crake yanked up the drape leaving Ophelia’s bare ass to dangle.

Her nether regions clenched. She hadn’t— “Mouth. Mouth is fine.”

The doctor grunted and reverently folded back the crimson cloth. He murmured something and made a solemn gesture before lifting a low jar that’d been nestled on a cushion.

Ophelia’s breath sped at the writhing contents, reconsidering all of her life choices. No. She could do this for Deo. For them, for their future.

The doctor shook the jar, sending the churning mass to the bottom before setting it back on the cushion and opening the lid. Decay laced the air. He picked up a pair of long, silver tweezers and plucked out a flailing insect. Its fanged maw gaped as it struggled, twisting and curling up on itself.

“Injection please.”

Nurse Crake jammed the needle into the IV’s port, and a horrible, searing burn sped up Ophelia’s arm. She whimpered at the rush of heat cresting over her, her heart stuttering. Its fluttering beat a mantra: For Deo, for Deo…for Deo…

The doctor held the irate centipede above her. “Waiting for pupil dilation…and open.”

Her lips refused to cooperate.

The doctor frowned and gripped her jaw—

The centipede fell from his grasp and hit Ophelia’s face with a cold, chitinous slap. She recoiled as it flipped, its tiny legs scrabbling to grip her skin. Its length conformed to the contour of her cheek and then skittered sinuously to her nostril. Her arms jerked against her restraints, her head unable to thrash, and a terrible lethargy stealing over her. Heart slowing, her vision grayed, fingers twitching, mind screaming: get it off, get it off, GET IT OFF!

It wriggled into her nasal cavity, clawing into her sinuses, and a garbled moan slipped from her lips. Blinding agony seared across her vision, and she screamed, sharp teeth feasting inside her skull. Her eyes watered. No, it was too hot for tears, the scent of copper thick, cloying the back of her throat. Her pores wept, her skin coated with a slick, sticky film, and the air redolent with the scent of blood.

Nurse Crake licked her lips.

An unnatural numbness bloomed from the bridge of Ophelia’s nose, radiating from her eye sockets, and the rest of her body seized. Foam flecked her lips, her eyes rolling back into her head. A bright, white light shone down for a moment and was ripped away, along with any sense of peace she’d ever felt. Nothing was left but searing, burning, unrelenting pain.

Emotion dissolved beneath it, thoughts a murky haze, her body unresponsive. She was hollow, her mind a void. Empty.

“Very good. It’s taking well. Note the patient has entered rigor. Her sudden pallor coinciding with the sheen of blood-fever and the emergence of the tatuaj around her eyes, there and there…” the doctor said, pointing with his pen, his voice distant and tinny. A godawful cramp went through her body, and a horrific, spattering stench filled the air. “Bowels voided…” He frowned. “Someone didn’t fast as instructed.”

The urge to laugh burbled up Ophelia’s throat, spittle foaming from her mouth. Agony morphed into a bizarre euphoria, her limbs leaden and the feeling of an immense weight crushing down on her. Her heart, still.

Dead.

A wrenching shudder wracked her body as her heart spasmed, once, twice, then sluggishly began to beat again. She strained against the straps pinning her to the table, her chest heaving with the effort.

“Very good,” the doctor murmured.

The room came back into focus, sounds sharper than they should be. The flow of ink from the doctor’s pen as he wrote. Loose strands of Crake’s hair rubbing against one another. The slow scrape of Louis’s blink.

“What the fuck?” Ophelia gasped, her tongue thick and her eyes darting, colors far more vivid than they had been. Bright, everything was too damned bright.

“Welcome back, Ms. Diamondé. Disorientation is a normal side effect of transitioning,” the doctor said absently, busy making notes. “Rest assured, any increased sensitivities you may be experiencing will lessen over the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours as the virus continues the reanimation process.” He stabbed the pen against the clipboard, finished with whatever he was writing, and set it aside with a wide smile. “Now, let’s see where we’ll be sending you, shall we?”

Crake wheeled over a tray. The doctor snugged his gloves before taking a pair of hemostats from the nurse and dipping a wad of gauze into a yellow solution. He dragged it across Ophelia’s brow, then discarded it almost immediately for another, the tiny pad thick with gore.

Ophelia winced at the rough drag of it across her skin. Jesus Chri—

Agony flared through her skull, and she cried out. The doctor hummed above her and swapped out the gauze again. “You need to put a call in to Vesper,” he murmured.

“Vesper?” the nurse spat out behind him, incredulous. “Are you sure?”

“Mmm” he hummed again, swabbing. “The tatuaj are gifted as the Great One wills, and whom are we to judge which tribe she’s been deemed worthy of?”

“But—” Crake pushed forward, her eyes narrowing above pinched lips. “I’ll alert the court.” She scowled and left the room. Louis raced after her, his face white.

“What—what’s happening?” Ophelia lisped, her tongue fumbling against sharp incisors. A terrible thirst had overcome her, making it hard to think. She licked her parched lips, the acrid taste of her own sweat roiling her stomach. Vesper? She couldn’t remember a tribe called Vesper.

“Your transition may have very well just signed the death warrants of everyone who witnessed it,” the doctor said, snapping off his gloves. “Prince Kremlyn suffers no rivals for his concubine’s attentions.”

What? Ophelia’s mind raced. No. She couldn’t be a—Deo. The wedding. She’d left her engagement ring by the sink. That last fight they’d had. He’d think she abandoned him, that she’d run. “No, no. I-I’m not a concubine, I’m an attorney—”

“You are whatever the tatuaj has decreed,” the doctor said firmly, moving to the door. “Someone will be in to take you to seclusion. Whatever call to vampirism you felt, I very much hope it keeps you warm at the citadel. You won’t be leaving it.”

The door shut behind him with an ominous click, and Ophelia’s breath stuttered. The citadel? No, that was impossible. What had she done, what had she done? Oh, God—

Agony bloomed through her skull at the word, and she whimpered, tears tracking from the corners of her eyes. The awful reality of her actions crashed down around her, and an insatiable thirst gnawed at her hollowed insides.

The names of the women she couldn’t track down—the two who had disappeared—flitted through her mind, along with a very bad feeling that she’d be joining them.