"I'll page you when I'm ready to go," she told the daylight driver.

Lilith loved going to Dolce & Gabbana. Everything about the place, from the crystal doork.n.o.b to the gold ceiling .xtures to the pillows adorning the couches in the .tting room, was extravagant. Plus the fashions were a much-needed break from those dreadful uniforms she was forced to wear to school.

As Lilith entered the boutique, a couple of shoppers on the .oor stopped to stare at her, then began to excitedly whisper back and forth behind their hands. From the looks on their faces Lilith realized they had mistaken her for one of the glittery divas the designers were so popular with.

As she browsed the fragrance counter, Lilith noticed a bearded man in his thirties standing off to the side, openly watching her. Although she was accustomed to being ogled by older men, there was something different in the way he was staring at her.

Lilith turned to meet the stranger's gaze. "Why don't you take a picture?" she quipped. "It'll last longer."

Unlike most of the dirty old men she caught drool-ing over her, he didn't hastily look away, but instead smiled at her. "Perhaps I will, someday," he said, plac-ing a business card facedown on the gla.s.s countertop as he walked out of the shop. "Enjoy your shopping, my dear."

Lilith picked up the card and .ipped it over. Printed on the other side in raised letters were the words kristof: photographer, along with a phone number. With a .ash of excitement, she slipped it into her purse.

"Lili!"

Lilith looked up and saw Tanith walking toward her across the store's highly polished mosaic . oor. Her friend was dressed in a cherry-red Gucci dress, silver wedges, and a pair of Prada sungla.s.ses.

"I was starting to wonder if you'd forgotten me!" Tanith said as they clasped hands and air-kissed.

"Like that could ever happen!" Lilith chuckled as she slipped her arm through her friend's elbow. "So-have you had a chance to pick out anything yet?"

"I've got a lavender dress set aside, but I want you there when I try it on. Oh, and I saw this peac.o.c.k-blue c.o.c.ktail dress that would look perfect on you! It's super-short."

"What would I do without you looking out for me?" Lilith sighed.

"Hey, that's what friends are for, right?" Tanith replied.

"It seems weird that in a few years we won't be able to do this anymore," Lilith said wistfully.

"What? Go shopping together?" Tanith frowned.

"No," Lilith replied. "I mean this." She tapped the dressing room mirror, being careful not to accidentally damage its surface. Like all vampires, Lilith's neatly painted nails were exceptionally hard, like talons. "By the time we're twenty-.ve, we won't be able to see our re.ections. And neither will anyone else! That means no more shopping in places like this, you know."

"Yeah, it's a b.u.mmer," Tanith admitted. "But try not to think about it. There's no point in dwelling on things you can't change. I rarely look at mirrors as it is. Besides, there are always shops like Sister Midnight's. Still, you know what they say-use it before you lose it!" She laughed.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Lilith smiled weakly.

Tanith gave her friend a curious look. "You seem a bit low, Lili. Things okay with you and Jules?"

"They're good," Lilith replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm still feeling the effects of last night, I guess."

"I know! What was that guy on?" Tanith shook her head.

"Anyway, you and Sergei seem to be into it."

"He's fun, but we're just fooling around. He's promised to some girl back in the Old Country that he's never met. He's very s.e.xy, though." Tanith wiggled into the lavender shredded silk c.o.c.ktail dress. "How does it look?"

"That color really suits you," Lilith said, stepping out of her own clothes and slipping into the blue dress. "I didn't realize Sergei was already promised. Too bad. You make a cute couple." She ran her hands across her taut belly and over her hips as she turned .rst one way, then another, admiring how the low, tight-cut neckline highlighted her cleavage. "You were right: I do look perfect in this dress."

"All you need is a pair of s.e.xy shoes and you'll be set," Tanith said. "You know, Lili, you're pretty lucky-you and Jules actually have a chance to get to know each other before you're bound. For all Sergei knows, the girl he's promised to could look like an Orlock."

Lilith burst out laughing despite herself and quickly clapped her hands over her mouth. "You shouldn't say things like that, Tanith!" she said in mock reproach. "You know Exo is Jules's cousin!"

Xander Orlock, known as Exo to his friends and family, was Jules's .rst cousin. Exo's mother was Jules's father's beautiful younger sister, Juliana, who was the second wife of Count Boris Orlock, patriarch of one of the oldest and most powerful families in the world. The Orlocks were infamous for inbreeding to keep their bloodright, which went back to Urlok, one of the thirteen Founders, undiluted.

Having Juliana marry into the Orlocks had been a real coup for the de Lavals, even though all that inbreeding had resulted in the count being freakishly ugly.

"Exo's not that bad-looking, in a Mr. Spock kinda way, I guess," Tanith said with a shrug. "I was thinking more along the lines of his dad or that older brother of his."

"Brrr!" Lilith feigned a shudder. "Don't bring him up! Just thinking about Klaus creeps me out. I'm glad that the Orlocks are only going to be related to me by marriage, not blood."

As they returned to prowl the boutique's racks for more clothes, Lilith saw Melinda walking toward them with Carmen in tow.

"Let's shop!"

It was a half hour after closing by the time the quartet .nished picking and choosing, their platinum credit cards guaranteeing the store manager's willingness to hang around to lock up after them. The setting sun glinted off their custom gold foil shopping bags as they gathered on the sidewalk in front of the boutique.

"What next?" Melinda asked.

"We could go back to my place for a few drinks," Tanith suggested. "My parents are leaving for Brazil tonight."

"That's a great idea!" Lilith grinned.

Melinda said, "Why don't we walk?"

"Sounds good to me," Lilith agreed. "I'll send my driver home and call Jules so he and the boys will know to hook up with us at Tanith's. We can double up and take a couple of cars to the Village. This is going to be fun!"

The girls chatted among themselves as they strolled in the gathering twilight. As the quartet moved past the opulent stores along Madison Avenue, every head turned to watch them go by. Lilith and her friends pretended not to notice the attention. Some of the humans out walking that evening stared because they thought the four incredibly beautiful, expensively dressed young women were fashion models or Hollywood starlets. Others stared out of l.u.s.t. But a handful stared because they sensed the truth behind the mask and were unable to look away, like birds hypnotized by the sway of the cobra's dance.

When Tanith was a little girl, she used to tell people that she lived across the street from the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park. Now she preferred to give Jimmy Choo's as a reference point. Hardly glanc-ing at the fabulous shoes in the window, the friends turned down Sixty-third to Fifth Avenue.

Three undead servants were standing in the hallway, loaded down with luggage, when the elevator opened on Tanith's penthouse .oor. As the girls stepped off, the servants .led onto the waiting elevator without saying a word.

"d.a.m.n it!" Tanith groaned. "They're still here!"

"Not for much longer," her father said dryly as he exited their apartment. With his wavy dark hair and heavily lidded eyes, Dorian Graves looked like he had just walked off the cover of a gothic romance novel. He gave Tanith a peck on the cheek. "Be a good girl and promise not to burn the house to the ground while we're gone, will you?"

"Only if you promise to bring me back something sparkly."

"Don't I always?" He chuckled. "Well, I'm afraid I must be going. Your mother is already downstairs. We'll be back late next week. So long, young ladies," he said, acknowledging his daughter's friends with a gentlemanly nod as he stepped inside the elevator.

"Well, that's over with," Tanith said with a sigh of relief as the elevator doors shut behind her father. "Feel free to make yourselves comfortable."

"Don't mind if I do." Lilith grinned as she tossed her shopping bags on the .oor, shucked off her heels, and wiggled her pedicured toes in the plush carpet. Tanith made her way to the formal bar in the corner, where her father kept the good stuff. She opened up the refrigerator and took out a bag of A neg laced with Napoleon brandy while Carmen and Melly kicked back on the leather sofa. Tanith poured the blood into four crystal snifters and handed them out to her friends.

"To us," Lilith said, holding her gla.s.s merrily aloft.

"To us," Tanith, Carmen, and Melinda echoed, lifting their gla.s.ses in a toast.

"To the vampire princesses of New York City! Long may we reign!"

Chapter 3.

"So, where are we slumming tonight?" Melinda asked as she bounced a quarter off the coffee table, narrowly missing the Waterford Crystal juice gla.s.s set at its center.

"Washington Square Park," Jules explained as he tossed the coin with an expert .ip of his . ngers, bounc ing it into the empty gla.s.s. "All right!" He grinned. He studied the others for a long moment, as if it was a matter of life or death, before pointing at Lilith. "Lili has to take a shot."

"Like you'd have to twist my arm otherwise." Lilith laughed as she picked up the shot of tequila-laced O poz. "Here's blood in your eye," she said, knocking back the drink with a toss of her head.

"Okay, since I made the bounce that time, I get to go "How much longer before we can leave?" Lilith asked, getting bored. After last night, she was eager to be on the hunt.

Jules paused to glance at his watch. "I guess it's late enough. We could leave now, since it'll take a little while to get down there. I know a new club we can hit later."

"Cool. I'll tell Tanith." Lilith strolled over to Tanith and Sergei, who lay sprawled on the carpet making out. She gave Tanith's hip a playful nudge with her bare foot. "C'mon, you two, give it a rest! It's time this party hit the streets."

Reluctantly Tanith pulled away from Sergei and smiled up at Lilith with hazy eyes. "I'm just getting warmed up."

"Do you think we'll be safe?" Sergei asked.

"Are you still obsessing about Van Helsings?" Lilith chuckled. "It's just a bogeyman story the adults use to try and scare us from having fun."

"I don't know about that . . . my grandfather was killed by Van Helsings," Sergei said.

"What's the matter, Sergei?" Tanith purred. "Afraid the big, bad vampire hunters are gonna get you too? C'mon-that happened, what? Seventy-.ve? A hundred years ago?"

"One hundred and twenty," he admitted.

"See? It's old news!" Lilith insisted. "When's the last time anyone heard of a Van Helsing staking anybody on the streets of New York? I don't mean one of the undead; I mean one of us?"

"Lilith's right," Tanith said with a smile. "There's no need to be worried. The worst thing that can happen is we run into New Bloods because it's open territory."

There was a pause as the friends exchanged glances to see if anyone was worried about going up against New Bloods-not that any one of them would dare to admit it. That would be like lions admitting they were intimidated by hyenas.

Old Blood families claim ancient bloodrights-the absolute control of legions of undead that brings great power and wealth. The bloodrights of the New Blood are seldom more than three or four generations old, making them less powerful and socially inferior. The reason for their rivalry is simple: greed.

It goes all the way back to the very beginning, when a hundred brothers were summoned to earth from the h.e.l.l of their birth. Brother killed brother as each fought to become supreme ruler of the human world. Stopping at nothing, they even drank the blood of their fallen kinsmen to increase their own powers.

They kept slaughtering one another until only thirteen were left alive. Realizing they were on the verge of extinction, the remaining brothers, the Founders, agreed to divide the world among themselves, scattering the vampire race to every corner of the globe.

As time pa.s.sed and their numbers gradually increased, brother once more began to envy brother, leading to rivalries and vendettas. Whenever a patriarch was killed by a rival, his survivors were given the choice of either becoming a va.s.sal of the one who killed their parent and usurped the family bloodright, or trying to rebuild their inheritance as New Bloods.

Most traded their freedom for protection. Those who chose to start over as New Bloods were made vulnerable to attacks from both humans and vampires. Because of this, New Bloods remained weak and of no real importance for thousands of years.

Then, six hundred years ago, Danton Gris coerced a number of New Blood families into forming the New Blood Alliance. They agreed to stop preying on one another and to come to one another's aid when attacked by Old Blood enemies. It wasn't long before va.s.sals abandoned their liege lords in droves, sparking a century-long war that was ended by the signing of the Sangfroid Treaty. Since then New Blood and Old had lived in grudging coexistence.

"What are we going to do if we run into . edglings like us down there?" Oliver asked, breaking the tense silence. "I hear newbies are dirty . ghters."

"I'd like to see someone try and start s.h.i.t with me," Lilith said with a haughty toss of her head.

"Have you ever tangled with a New Blood, Lilith?" Oliver asked.

"No," she replied. "Unless you want to count the Maledetto twins."

"That's not fair," Melinda said. "Bella and Bette's dad might be a newbie, but their mother's bloodright goes all the way back to Aeneas."

"Yeah, but only one of them is going to inherit it," Carmen replied.

"Hey, we can take them on," Jules said, tired of all the procrastination.

Lilith picked up his cue. "I'm up for tapping some fresh red. Who's with me on that?" She grinned as her friends raised their voices in a raucous cheer.

"That's what I thought."

Every vampire is taught from childhood that the easiest prey is the common prost.i.tute or drug dealer. Such humans are used to being approached by strangers. They're willing to go to secluded areas with little per-suasion. And when one of them disappears, who cares? True, sometimes individuals with specialized skills are needed, but the vast majority of undead who serve the true-born were once nothing more than criminals, wh.o.r.es, addicts, and pushers.

This was why, with all of Manhattan to choose from, Lilith and her friends were taking Jules's Mercedes and Tanith's Bentley to Washington Square Park in search of kicks.

"My father would spit blood if he knew I was out slumming." Lilith laughed. "I'm such a naughty girl."

"Naughty, yes-but also nice." Jules chuckled as he slid a hand up her skirt, caressing her upper thigh.

"I love slumming, don't you?" Lilith purred as she leaned her head against Jules's shoulder, shifting to allow his hand easier access. "It's so exciting. Luring a real, live victim gets me hot."