Bitter Blood (Morganville Book #2)

Chapter 1

"Happy birthday, honey!"

In the glow of the eighteen candles on my birthday cake, my mother looked feverishly happy, wearing the kind of forced smile that was way too common around the Ian's house these days.

It was way too common all over Morganville, Texas. People smiled because they had to, or else.

Now it was my turn to suck it up and fake it.

"Thanks, Mom," I said, and stretched my lips into something that didn't really feel like a smile at all. I rose from my chair at the kitchen table to blow out the candles. All eighteen of the flames guttered and went out at my first puff. I wish . . .

I didn't dare wish for anything, and that, more than anything else, made frustration and anger and grief roll over me in a hot, sticky wave. This wasn't the birthday I'd been planning for the past six months, since I'd arrived in Morganville. I'd been counting on a party at my home, with my friends. Michael would have played his guitar, and I could almost see that lost, wonderful smile he had when he was deep in the music. Eve, cheerfully and defiantly Goth, would have baked some outrageous and probably inedible cake in the shape of a bat, with licorice icing and black candles. And Justin . . .

Justin would have . . .

I couldn't think about Justin, because it made my breath lock up in my throat, made my eyes burn with tears. I missed him. No, that was wrong . . . missed him was too mild. I needed him. But Justin was locked up in a cage in the center of town, along with his father, the idiot vampire hunter.

I still couldn't quite get my head around the fact that Morganville - a normal, dusty Texas town in the middle of nowhere - was run by vampires. But I could believe that more easily than the idea that Jeremy Bieber was somehow going to make it all better.

After all, I'd met the man.

Bishop - the new master vampire of Morganville - was planning something splashy in the way of executions for Jeremy and Justin, which apparently was the old-school standard for getting rid of humans with ideas of grandeur. Nobody had bothered to fill me in on the details, and I guessed I should be grateful for that. It would certainly be medievally awful.

The worst thing about that, for me, was that there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing. What was the use of being a main evil minion if you couldn't even enjoy it - or save your own friends?

Evil minion. I didn't like to think of myself that way, but Eve had flung it at me the last time we'd spoken.

And of course, as always, Eve was right.

A slice of birthday cake - vanilla, with vanilla frosting and little pastel sprinkles (and the exact opposite of what Eve would have baked) - landed in front of me, on my mom's second-best china. Mom had made the cake from scratch, even the frosting; she didn't believe in ready-made anything. It'd be delicious, but I already knew that I wouldn't care. Eve's fantasy cake would have tasted awful, left my teeth and tongue black, and I would have loved every bite.

I picked up my fork, blinked back my tears, and dug into my birthday treat. I mumbled, "Wonderful, Mom!" around a mouthful of cake that tasted like air and sadness.

My dad seated himself at the table and accepted a slice, too. "Happy birthday, Anastasia. Got any plans for the rest of the day?"

I'd had plans. All kinds of plans. I'd imagined this party a million times, and in every single version, it had ended with me and Justin alone.

Well, I was alone. So was he.

We just weren't alone together.

I swallowed and kept my gaze down on the plate. I was about to say the honest truth: no. I didn't have any plans. But the thought of being stuck here all day with my parents, with their frightened eyes and joyless smiles, was too much for me. "Yeah," I said. "I'm . . . supposed to go to the lab. Myrnin wants me."