"Beauty and the beast like you've never imagined!" ― New York Times bestselling author Pintip Dunn KEEPER OF THE BEES is a tale of two teens who are both beautiful and beastly, and whose pasts are entangled in surprising and heartbreaking ways. Dresden is cursed. His chest houses a hive of bees that he can’t stop from stinging people with psychosis-inducing venom. His face is a shifting montage of all the people who have died because of those stings. And he has been this way for centuries―since he was eighteen and magic flowed through his homeland, corrupting its people. He follows harbingers of death, so at least his curse only affects those about to die anyway. But when he arrives in a Midwest town marked for death, he encounters Essie, a seventeen-year-old girl who suffers from debilitating delusions and hallucinations. His bees want to sting her on sight. But Essie doesn’t see a monster when she looks at Dresden. Essie is fascinated and delighted by his changing features. Risking his own life, he holds back his bees and spares her. What starts out as a simple act of mercy ends up unraveling Dresden’s solitary life and Essie’s tormented one. Their impossible romance might even be powerful enough to unravel a centuries-old curse. Each book in the Black Bird of the Gallows series is STANDALONE: * Cleaner of Bones (Prequel) * Black Bird of the Gallows * Keeper of the Bees "Beauty and the beast like you've never imagined!" ― New York Times bestselling author Pintip Dunn "Haunting and beautifully told." ― New York Times bestselling author Wendy Higgins Meg Kassel is an award-winning author of fantasy and speculative books for young adults. A graduate of Parson's School of Design, she's always been creating stories, whether with visuals or words. She worked as a graphic designer, a waitress, a tour guide and a farm hand. Meg is a New Jersey native who now lives in a log house in the Maine woods with her husband and daughter. She has always been fascinated and inspired by the fantastic, the creepy, and the futuristic. When she's not writing, Meg is reading, hanging out with her family, hoarding peanut butter cups, or playing video games. Keeper of the Bees By Meg Kassel, Liz Pelletier Entangled Publishing, LLC Copyright © 2018 Meg Kassel All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-64063-408-4 CHAPTER 1 Dresden the target I can't tell you how many cities, towns, villages I have passed through. I stopped caring about their names long ago. I can tell you that this town is flat and dusty and utterly uninteresting. It's somewhere in the Midwest, surrounded by miles of farmland. It's a mystery why people live here, although most of the places I visit are worse. Not that it matters. This town is marked. Harbingers of death have chosen to settle here for a time, which means in less than a month a good number of residents will be dead, and I will have moved on. The park I walk through is thickly wooded, divided by winding footpaths. The trees offer shade from the blazing summer sun, but no one is here. They are all indoors, bodies by their air-conditioner vents, eyes on their televisions, and minds on absolutely nothing at all. I suppose I am fortunate that I don't feel the heat. Or the cold. Or anything. Yes. So terribly fortunate. I keep a slow pace, waiting for the sense, the knowing that a dark, unsettled person is nearby. Inside my chest, a hive of bees roils, restless with their long confinement. Soon, I think to them. Very soon. The bees can read my emotions well. They should, considering how long we've been bound together. We've grown ancient, the bees and I — unchanging relics of an era long erased from history. Finally, I sense it, a prickling on the skin and a sharpening of my senses. A familiar surge of anticipation quickens my breath. There is a person nearby who interests my bees. I can feel my target as a human can feel the rain on their face. I walk faster. The bees hum louder. They pile into my sinuses, clog my throat. I pull in a great, sharp breath, sending them tumbling back into my chest. Control yourselves! my thoughts snarl, not that the bees understand the exact words. Not that they would care if they could. I find myself in a well-tended, perfectly square clearing. It's a playground, complete with slides, swings, and a colorful jungle gym. It's deserted except for a teenage girl. Pale hair hangs around her face, unbrushed. She sways idly in a swing, wearing jean shorts and a flimsy top. Her bare feet scratch up the dusty ground. She holds an animated conversation with her kneecaps. I lean against one of the few trees lining this parched square of earth and watch her. She's different from the people my bees usually prefer, who are full of hatred and savagery and wrath. Their anger hits me like needles, blades. Sharp tacks driven deep. This girl, however, does not have a dark mind. She looks to be around seventeen. Not much younger than I was, when I was human. Her e