While Morganville, Texas, is often a troubled town, Claire Danvers and her friends are looking forward to coming home. But the Morganville they return to isn’t the one they know; it’s become a different place—a deadly one… Something drastic has happened in Morganville while Claire and her friends were away. The town looks cleaner and happier than they’ve ever seen it before, but when their incoming group is arrested and separated—vampires from humans—they realize that the changes definitely aren’t for the better. It seems that an organization called the Daylight Foundation has offered the population of Morganville something they’ve never had: hope of a vampire-free future. And while it sounds like salvation—even for the vampires themselves—the truth is far more sinister and deadly. Now, Claire, Shane and Eve need to find a way to break their friends out of Daylighter custody, before the vampires of Morganville meet their untimely end… Includes a teaser from Prince of Shadows: A Novel of Romeo and Juliet ! Praise for the Morganville Vampire series “Thrilling, sexy, and funny! These books are addictive. One of my very favorite vampire series.”—Richelle Mead, international bestselling author of the Vampire Academy series “Rachel Caine is a first-class storyteller.”—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series “Morganville, Texas, is my favorite town that I never want to visit…[A] spectacular series.”— Fiction Vixen “A gripping, original take on vampires.”— Kirkus Reviews “The element of surprise is rare in paranormal YA books these days and yet that’s what this series consistently delivers.”— All Things Urban Fantasy “A rousing horror thriller that adds a new dimension to the vampire mythos… An electrifying enthralling coming of age supernatural tale.”— Midwest Book Review Rachel Caine is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including the Weather Warden series, the Outcast Season series, the Revivalist series, and the New York Times bestselling Morganville Vampires series, including Bitter Blood, Black Dawn, Last Breath , and Bite Club .  She is also the author of Prince of Shadows , a new spin on the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet. She was born at White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and, until recently, carried on a secret identity in the corporate world as a communications executive. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas. ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof.***   Copyright © 2013  by  Roxanne Longstreet Conrad  INTRODUCTION   Morganville, Texas, isn’t like any other dusty small town. It’s got secrets. It’s a company town . . . and the company is vampires. If you stay, you work for them, signing special agreements for Protection and paying a tax in earnings or blood for the privilege of not being, y’know, eaten. It’s worked for a couple of centuries under the iron-in-velvet touch of the Founder, Amelie . . . but the past few years have been turmoil, trouble, and rebellion. Claire Danvers left to get away from it all, embarking on a special study program at MIT. But even if you can take the girl out of Morganville, you can’t take Morganville out of the girl—and she ran headlong into a menacing new enemy who knew way too much about vampires. The Daylight Foundation. Now Claire’s returning home with her housemates (Eve, Michael, and Shane) and her allies (her bipolar mad scientist boss, Myrnin; Amelie’s ex-second-in-command, Oliver; Claire’s new vampire friend, Jesse) and Dr. Anderson, a captive scientist who was once a Morganville native, now turned traitor. But home sure isn’t the way they left it. . . .   ONE   Claire stared at the creaking billboard that marked the town limits of Morganville, Texas, and thought, I ought to be crying. Her best friend, Eve, already was, in helpless, furious sobs. Claire held on to her and did all the sympathetic things right— murmured that it would be okay, patted her on the back, hugged her.  But although she said all the right things, she felt . . . empty. Dry as the sand that blew through the desert outside the police cruiser’s windows. They were sitting in the backseat, behind steel mesh, and the doors wouldn’t open from the inside. The cruiser was made like a taxi, but it most definitely wasn’t one since it took you only where you didn’t want to go. Namely, to jail.   And across from where their cruiser was parked, four limp vampire bodies were being loaded into two of the town’s ambulances— Strapped tightly to gurneys, in case the wood still buried in their hearts to keep them temporarily dead didn’t work. Claire identified the slack faces as they were rolled by: Oliver, once town Founder Amelie’s second-in-command, now disgraced and in exile. Jesse, the vamp who Claire knew the least wel