Seventeen-year-old Olivia Brown is abducted on her way home from a night out and wakes up to find herself imprisoned by a vampiric race in a dark city bathed in eternal night. Hernando, a handsome half-human slave, reveals what is intended for her-they want her blood for the upcoming festival. Together they escape, and find friends and allies in unexpected places.
Joining a resistance cell, they help plot a revolution and fall in love. Their group plans to take control of the Portal, a teleportation device that links Earth to the world of BloodDark. Getting into the City of Night is a challenge. A narrow window of opportunity opens-but what awaits them in the caverns located deep beneath the city?
“This wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
Olivia Brown knew talking to herself looked and sounded weird, but it kept her from freaking out. Besides, her one-sided conversation would scare off any dubious types lurking in the darkness, because who’d want to mess around with a lone psycho who talked to herself?
I know I wouldn’t. Keep it up, Ollie girl.
She tugged her denim jacket together, shivering as another early spring breeze hit her full-on and threatened to knock her off her feet. Her thin coat and tank tee, which had been more than warm enough on the dance floor and in Brittany’s car, provided no protection walking the flat streets of a Midwestern town in this weather. She’d swept her long, brownish-black braids into a ponytail earlier in the evening, and the bitter wind now chafed the café-au-lait skin of her neck. If she didn’t get home soon, she’d freeze to death.
Why in the world did she ever trust Brittany? Yeah, sure Britt had gotten them into the club, and they’d gotten to hear Olivia’s favorite local band, Los Bad Boys, but Britt had ditched her to hook up with some frat brother from the local college and the chance of scoring free beer and more.
Olivia gritted her teeth. This was the last stunt Britt would ever pull on her. She’d take Britt off her Twitter account as soon as she got home… if she ever got home.
Olivia wouldn’t kid herself. She was far from stupid, in spite of her sometimes head-in-the-cloud ways. She realized what all could go wrong for a seventeen-year-old girl walking home alone through the worst part of town after midnight.
Her parents were going to kill her—if someone else didn’t beat them to it first.
A crash of metal behind had her jumping and her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “What the—”
Olivia spun around, fists raised, ready to fight. An orange tabby meowed a sad, cold cry as it jumped from a garbage can lid to the top of a low shed. She lowered her hands and placed them on her heart. It thumped faster and stronger than the driving drumbeats of Los Bad Boys’ super-gorgeous drummer. Olivia warmed at the thought of seeing him in person and getting his autograph on her shirt. She vowed to never wash it again. Maybe it had been worth lying to her family and sneaking over to the other side of town to see them play. She started toward home again, quickening her pace.
“Time to make tracks like you, Mr. Cat. Wish I had your fur coat to keep warm.”
Doing a half-jog, half-run, it took her ten minutes to reach and cross the railroad tracks, leaving behind the rundown section of her small town where most of the nightclubs and drinking establishments resided. Only two more miles until she greeted her quiet, well-lit neighborhood… Olivia ran full-out, but within a block a stitch in her side slowed her progress.
“I’ve…gotta get in shape… Bikini season will be here soon enough.”
She leaned on her knees and took large gulps of the arctic air into her lungs until it felt as if they’d burst. “I’ll walk the rest of the way. There are even sidewalks and more cop patrols on this side of the tracks.”
Humming one of the band’s better tunes, she shoved her chilled hands into her jeans pockets. After briskly strolling several tree-lined blocks of renovated late-Victorian-era homes, she’d forgotten how angry Britt had made her earlier in the evening. She made a mental note to call her friend before anyone knew she’d returned home and coordinate the cover story they’d both have to give their parents, since it would be obvious that Olivia hadn’t spent the night at Britt’s and vice versa.
She frowned. Their parents were always treating them like children instead of the mature young adults they were. It was a double insult to Britt since she had turned legal age in October. Olivia promised herself that in June when she turned eighteen, she’d return the favor and borrow her mom’s car and take Britt—and possibly Jace and Alexa—over to the club to rock out with Los Bad Boys.
“Almost home.” She smiled upon reaching the corner of her street.
