The White City, 1893: In turn-of-the-century Chicago, with the World's Fair bringing bustle and excitement to her home city, sixteen-year-old Emily Wheiler should be reveling in her youthful beauty and the excitement around her. But her whole life changed when her mother died, leaving her to be the Lady of Wheiler House. Her father, a powerful bank president, is at the center of an important social hub for the booming young city, and he needs Emily to do everything her mother would have – to be a good hostess and make sure the mansion runs smoothly. As Emily uneasily tries to replace her mother, she also longs for more… for love and a life of her own. When a handsome young man notices her at one of her father's parties, it seems that her hopes may finally be coming true. Until her father forbids her to see him – or any other man – and starts revealing a darkly violent side that even he can't understand. At last, afraid for her life and with nowhere to turn, Emily is Marked by a vampyre and brought to the Chicago House of Night, where she begins a magickal new life that should allow the wounds from her past to heal. But as she gains strength, and a powerful new name, she carries a dark need to wreak vengeance on the man she trusted most. From victim to High Priestess, beautiful young woman to powerful seductress, Neferet's journey begins in NEFERET'S CURSE...from authors P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. #1 New York Times & #1 USA Today bestselling author P.C. CAST has more than 30 million books in print worldwide. She was born in the Midwest and after her tour in the USAF, she taught high school for 15 years before retiring to write full time. PC is a member of the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. Her novels have been awarded the prestigious: Oklahoma Book Award, YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, Booksellers' Best, and many, many more. Ms. Cast lives in Oregon near her fabulous daughter, her adorable pack of dogs, her crazy Maine Coon, and a bunch of horses. Kristin Cast is a #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today bestselling author who teams with her mother to write the wildly successful HOUSE OF NIGHT series. She has editorial credits, a thriving t-shirt line, and a passion for all things paranormal. When away from her writing desk, Kristin loves going on adventures with her friends, family, and significant other, playing with her dogs (Grace Kelly and Hobbs the Tiny Dragon), and is obsessed with her baby. Neferet's Curse By P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast St. Martin's Press Copyright © 2013 P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-250-00025-5 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Acknowledgments, 1. January 15th, 1893, 2. April 15th, 1893, 3. April 19th, 1893, 4. April 27th, 1893, 5. May 1st, 1893, 6. May 8th, 1893, Dear Readers, Also by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast, About the Authors, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 January 15th, 1893 Emily Wheiler's Journal Entry: the first This is not a diary. I loathe the very thought of compiling my thoughts and actions in a locked book, secreted away as if they were precious jewels. I know my thoughts are not precious jewels. I have begun to suspect my thoughts are quite mad. That is why I feel compelled to record them. It could be that in the re-reading, sometime in the future, I will discover why these horrible things have befallen me. Or, I will discover that I have, indeed, lost my mind. If that be the case, then this will serve as a record of the onset of my paranoia and madness so as to lay the foundation to discover a cure. Do I want to be cured? Perhaps that is a question that would be best set aside for now. First, let me begin when everything changed. It was not on this, the first date of my journal. It was two and one half months ago, on the first day of November, in the year eighteen ninety-two. That was the morning my mother died. Even here in the silent pages of this journal I hesitate to recall that terrible morning. My mother died in a tide of blood, which surged from within her following the birth of the small, lifeless body of my brother, Barrett, named after Father. It seemed to me then, as it does today, that Mother simply gave up when she saw that Barrett would not draw breath. It was as if even the life force that sustained her could not bear the loss of her precious only son. Or was the full truth that she could not bear to face Father after the loss of his precious, only son? That question would not have entered my mind before that morning. Until the morning my mother died, the questions that most often entered my mind were focused on how I might persuade Mother to allow me to purchase another one of the new cycling costumes that were all the rage, or how I could make my hair look exactly like a Gibson girl. If I had thought of Father before the morning Mother died, it was as most of my girlfriends thought of their fathers—as a distant and so