by Mari Mancusi
Praise for
the Blood Coven Vampire Novels
“You’ll get bitten and love it.”
—Rachel Caine, New York Times bestselling author
Night School
“An action-packed story with appealing characters, dark humor, and a new spin on both the worlds of the undead and the fae. Though primarily targeted to a YA audience, this novel will appeal to adult fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight novels.”
—Library Journal
“Another thrilling installment to Rayne and Sunny’s story!”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Fifth of the Blood Coven Vampire series takes a darker turn … [an] engaging young adult urban fantasy. It is entertaining watching the twins mature through this fast-paced series that packs enough twists and humor to hold readers’ attention to the last page.”
—Monsters and Critics
“This book has it all! Vampires, vampire slayers, and faeries, what more could you ask for? … A fast-paced book from start to finish. I can’t wait to read more about Sunny and Rayne’s adventures. This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys paranormal fiction and a good story.”
—Night Owl Reviews
Bad Blood
“A vampire book so worth reading, with dark humor, distinctive voice, and a protagonist clever enough to get herself out of trouble … A great ride.”
—Ellen Hopkins,
New York Times bestselling author
“Mancusi writes with a wicked sense of humor and keeps readers turning the pages, eager for more.”
—Novel Reads
Girls That Growl
“An amusing teenage vampire tale starring a fascinating high school student … Young adults will enjoy growling alongside this vampire slayer who has no time left for homework.”
—Midwest Book Review
“A fast-paced and entertaining read.”
—LoveVampires
“A refreshing new vampire story, Girls That Growl is different from all of those other vampire stories … a very original plot.”
—Flamingnet
Stake That
“A fast-paced story line … both humorous and hip … A top read!”
—LoveVampires
“Rayne is a fascinating protagonist … readers will want to stake out Mari Mancusi’s fun homage to Buffy.”
—The Best Reviews
Boys That Bite
“A wonderfully original blend of vampire/love/adventure drama which teens will find refreshingly different.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Liberal doses of humor keep things interesting … and the surprise ending will leave readers bloodthirsty for the next installment of the twins’ misadventures with the undead. A ghoulishly fun read.”
—School Library Journal
“A tongue-in-cheek young teen tale starring two distinct, likable twins, the vampire between them, and a coven of terrific support characters who bring humor and suspense to the mix … Filled with humor and action … insightfully fun.”
—The Best Reviews
Berkley titles by Mari Mancusi
SOUL BOUND
BLOOD TIES
NIGHT SCHOOL
BAD BLOOD
GIRLS THAT GROWL
STAKE THAT
BOYS THAT BITE
SOUL BOUND
MARI MANCUSI
BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2012 by Marianne Mancusi Beach.
Excerpt from Blood Forever copyright © 2012 by Marianne Mancusi Beach.
Cover design by SDG Concepts, LLC. Cover photo by Shutterstock.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / March 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mancusi, Marianne.
Soul bound / Mari Mancusi. — Berkley trade pbk. ed.
p. cm. — (A blood coven vampire novel ; 7)
Summary: When Rayne is chosen to track down her twin sister, Sunny, and Sunny’s vampire boyfriend, Magnus, for what will mean certain death at the hands of the Vampire Consortium, she and her boyfriend, Jareth, go deep beneath New York City and through the Gates of the Underworld in hopes of saving them.
ISBN: 978-1-101-57711-0
[1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Twins—Fiction. 3. Sisters—Fiction. 4. Hell—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M312178Sou 2012
[Fic]—dc23 2011045746
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
* * *
ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON
Table of Contents
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Epilogue
Rayne McDonald
Las Vegas, Nevada
Queen Shrinking Violet
Cinderella’s Castle
Light Court, Fairyland
Tir na nÓg, Ireland
Dear Mom,
How’s Fairyland these days? I’m guessing it’s pretty sweet—you being queen and all. I mean, it has to beat the whole nine-to-five gig you had back in Massachusetts, right? And let’s just say the replica of Cinderella’s castle that you now call home completely trumps our old three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath. BTW, I totally call dibs on the tower bedroom when I come to visit this summ
er, k?
So… not to get all mushy or anything, but I miss you tons. I mean, staying at our stepmom Heather’s place in Vegas is fine, I guess. She bought the condo next to hers and did a little renovation so we all have our own bedrooms now. And I love being able to teach Stormy everything there is to know about video games. Seriously, my half sister is so smart. Guess we know who she takes after, right?
Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing you this letter, especially since we just signed off of Skype a few minutes ago. Well, Mom, I think it’s time to come clean. There’s still so much you don’t know about what happened to Sunny and me in the last year and it’s my New Year’s resolution to be more honest with people. I’m sorry we kept you in the dark for so long, but let’s face it—if you had known what we were up to, you’d have totally flipped, right? Though, um, now that we know what you’ve been keeping in the fairy ancestry closet all these years, I don’t think you’re one to talk.
So here goes nothing. And please, I beg of you as your firstborn daughter (by seven minutes—woo-hoo!) read all the way through and spare us any judgment, okay? We always claimed you were the “cool mom” to all our friends, so try to live up to your rep.
It all started back in the spring. When I met these really cool vampires at the local underage dance place, Club Fang, and they recruited me into their vampire-in-training program. I know, I know—you’re not happy with me becoming a vampire. But, Mom, it’s my life, right? And think about it for a moment: eternal life, riches beyond belief, a hot blood mate to call your own. There really aren’t a lot of downsides to the gig.
In any case, I started my training—taking courses, achieving my certification, getting on the waiting list for my very own blood mate. (It’s a very complicated process, you see, involving DNA matching and blood testing for ultimate compatibility.) I was on the road to becoming a creature of the night—and totally psyched.
But then something terrible happened. On the night I was meant to be bitten by my new blood mate, the stupid vampire (Magnus) accidentally bit Sunny instead. I know, right? I suppose it was an honest mistake. I mean, even you can’t tell us apart sometimes and you gave birth to us. So how could we expect some random vampire to make out the differences in the dark?
Sunny was so not happy, as you can imagine. She hadn’t even heard of vampires up until then. (She always was the Goody Two-shoes of the family!) And now she finds out she’s going to be morphing into one a week before prom! Needless to say, I got the brunt of the blame, even though, I’d like to—again—point out it was Magnus who made the actual mistake.
Luckily for everyone involved, Magnus was able to make it all work out. The two of them located the only thing able to cure new vampires—the Holy Grail—and bang, boom—Sunny’s human again, just in time for prom. (Okay, it was a little more complicated than that, but you get the picture.) In addition, she’s suddenly head over heels for Magnus, the Master of the Blood Coven, and they start the interspecies dating thing.
Things didn’t go so fairy tale for me. At least at first. Not only did I lose my chance to become a vampire, but our drama teacher, Mr. Teifert, suddenly informs me that I’m destined to become the next vampire slayer. Yes, the girl voted most likely to go vamp has now been charged with slaying them for a living. Bleh!
Luckily, as you know, Slayer Inc. is usually a pretty upstanding organization. They only ask us to slay the bad vamps, not the upstanding ones who play by the Vampire Consortium rules. For my first assignment, I teamed up with Jareth, the Blood Coven general, to infiltrate a seedy blood bar and stop its owner from spreading a nasty blood virus. Jareth wasn’t so happy at first to be teamed up with a slayer—after all, his whole family was killed by slayers back in the day. But in the end, he came around. We saved the day and fell in love. And I finally got my wish, too! Remember that day last spring when I was completely dying of a mysterious illness? And remember how I was miraculously cured? Well, wonder no more. That was the day I became a vampire! And thanks to a weird mutation due to the blood virus in my veins, I became one of the very few vampires not allergic to the sun. Which is useful in carrying out my Slayer Inc. duties.
Anyway, you pretty much know the rest. How you and Dad sprung the news that we’re not mortals at all, but actually fairy princesses and how we had to hide out at Riverdale Academy, a school for slayers, while the two of you went off to talk the Light Court into letting us live “normal” lives. (Ha-ha! If only you knew!)
Unfortunately, Riverdale had some deadly secrets of its own—namely, a fringe group of slayers called the Alphas, who were determined to take over the world. They captured me and planned to drain my fairy/vampire blood to create a powerful hybrid army of “vamshees” (their word, not mine). If it wasn’t for Sunny’s bravery during a showdown in Tokyo, I’m pretty sure I’d be dead—and they’d be in charge. You’d be proud of her, Mom. Really proud.
Sadly, not everyone shares the sentiment. The power-hungry leader of the Vampire Consortium, Pyrus, was furious at Sunny and Magnus for going against his orders and infiltrating the Alphas without permission. (He wanted war, not a peaceful solution, so he could reinforce the Consortium’s dominance over the world.) Now he’s given orders to have them “brought to justice”—which I think is a fancy way of saying executed for treason. Sunny and Magnus had to escape in the dead of the night and I have no idea where they went.
I’m worried about them, Mom. Really worried. Please let me know if you hear anything…
With love, your daughter,
Rayne
1
Charles Teifert looks like your typical high school drama teacher. He’s got wild black hair, thick glasses, and appears to have the inability to button his shirts correctly. (And don’t even get me started on his wacky ties.) He walks around life with a slightly frazzled look on his often unshaven face. To the common passerby, he appears to have nothing more on his mind then how his students will perform on the opening night of the senior class production of Camelot.
Certainly no one meeting Charles Teifert for the first time would ever guess that beneath that carefully structured, stereotypical, nutty drama teacher facade lies one of the top protectors of our generation. But indeed Charles Teifert is that and more; he serves as vice president of Slayer Inc., an international conglomerate with a mission to keep the world safe from vampires, fairies, werewolves, and other supernatural beings. (Including, but not limited to, leprechauns, Sasquatch, and even jolly old Saint Nick, should he ever decide to start dropping bombs instead presents down his constituents’ chimneys.)
Charles Teifert is also my boss. He’s the one who first told me I was destined to become a vampire slayer last spring when his former star slayer, Bertha, had to retire to fat camp due to her inability to stop supersizing her McDonald’s French fries. I didn’t exactly welcome the guy with open arms at first, but somehow he managed to wear down my resistance and train me to use a stake to kick vampire (and other supernatural creature) ass. Since then we’ve had our ups and downs—can’t say I’ve always been an A+ pupil. (Heck, I’m lucky if half the time I deserve a C-!) But over time we’ve managed to develop a sort of grudging respect for one another.
In any case, today I’m meeting him at the back room of the L.A. Sports Club in Vegas. He promised me a little sparring before he heads back to Massachusetts, where he lives and teaches. But when I push open the door to the small yoga studio he told me to meet him at, I realize he’s not wearing his workout sweats, but rather a stiff, three-piece suit.
“Dude, what’s with the outfit?” I ask. “Doesn’t look like something you’d want to get blood on when I kick your butt!”
He doesn’t laugh at my joke. Instead, he motions to a set of nearby chairs. “Sit,” he instructs, without even saying hello.
Worry worms through my insides as I follow his instructions. “What’s going on?”
He pulls out a manila envelope from his briefcase. “The Consortium has sent out a request to Slayer In
c., an official commission from Pyrus himself.”
I make a face at the House Speaker’s name. “What does Mr. Tall, Dark, and Slimy want this time?” I query.
Again Teifert doesn’t laugh. “They’ve got a rogue vampire on the loose and are asking that Slayer Inc. track him down and deliver him for trial,” he explains. “And they’re offering a great deal of money to the slayer who does the job.”
“Money?” My eyes light up. “Are you saying I’ll actually get paid for this gig?” Usually I’m required to do Slayer Inc.’s dirty work all in the name of “destiny” instead of cold, hard cash. Could I really score an actual paycheck this time?
“If you were to bring in this vampire and his companion,” Teifert says carefully, “you’d get ten percent of the commission.” He looks down at his clipboard. “A sum of one million dollars.”
My eyes widen in excitement. One million dollars? Under the table? No taxes required? “Dude, I’ll take it!” I cry, grabbing for the envelope. But Teifert’s fingers lock on and refuse to let go. For an old guy, he’s still got a killer grip. “What?” I ask, making a face. “Don’t bogart my newfound fortune, man.”
“Maybe you should take a closer look before you start racking up any credit card bills,” he suggests in a strange voice that hints that he knows something I don’t.
“What?” I ask indignantly. “Don’t think I can handle the big bad this time? Come on, Teif, you know by now I’m super slayer. Able to stake evil vampires in a single bound.” I try again for the envelope.
Teifert raises it out of my reach. “Trust me when I say I would never doubt your abilities, my dear,” he says slowly. “I simply think you ought to look before you stake.”
I sigh loudly. “Well I’d be simply overjoyed to look, if you would let me see the envelope in question….”
He nods, finally tossing it in my direction. I grab it eagerly and rip it open. Two black-and-white photos fall into my lap.
“Okay, let’s see which naughty little vampires need a talking to this time arou—”
