When it comes to a wild and seductive nightlife, Savannah has bite. Older than the United States and wealthy beyond his years, playboy William Cuyler Thorne is a vampire with a nice long undead life—one that includes a steady stream of admirers, a consistent supply of rejuvenating blood, and, best of all, a cover as one of Savannah’s most prominent pillars of society. But all good things must end. Now an ancient enemy has come for William from across the seas. It is his sire, Reedrek, the vampire who created him. And Reedrek will stop at nothing until all that is precious to William—his beautiful mistress, his stable of willing female victims, his glorious estates, and his good-ol’-boy vampire sidekick, Jack—is within his voracious grasp. But William has an arsenal of his own—one that is enhanced by the power of voodoo. And when these two bloodsuckers meet, there will be hell to pay. Raven Hart is the author of  The Vampire's Seduction , The Vampire's Secret ,  The Vampire's Kiss,  The Vampire's Betrayal , and  The Vampire's Revenge . She lives and loves in the South. Savannah, Georgia 2005 a.d. Letter from William, a Vampire My name is William Cuyler Thorne. I have been a soldier, a scholar, a wastrel, and a womanizer. But most important, I suppose, is the fact that among the many things I have been, I remain an unwavering killer of men. A predator. Oh, I’ve taken my share of women as well, in temper and in pity, in hunger or merely in petulance. I have kissed the lips of some of the most beautiful courtesans on the planet before turning to baser needs. But always the blue blood of my savage ancestry, which runs so coolly through my veins, calls out for heat and for life. For sustenance. I am a blood drinker. I have walked the earth for five hundred years, plus or minus a decade. For two hundred of those years I was bound by kinship to hunt with my sire—a degenerate savage who deserved a righteous staking. I remember what it was to be human, a time so long ago that I feel the vibration of mortal pain like the desperate tug of a rope falling into a bottomless grave. The tug no longer gives me pause. I am immortal, blessed, and cursed. In the beginning of my undeath I fed as a soldier and since have watched men uncounted meet their doom. In my bloodlust I am a nightwalker, armed with flesh-tearing teeth like the Roman war dogs and with the sharp talons of the carrion crows who circle the battlefield. I kill the weakest and find life among the dying, feeding on the wreck of man’s foolish predilection for conquest. The English and French fed me for nearly two centuries with their petty bickering; but then I set my sights on America and a bloody revolution of men wresting a country from other men. Being part Scots and part English in my parentage I should have preferred the “Redcoats,” as my rebellious New World neighbors called them. But I found the blood of the revolutionaries a wilder vintage, more vital and sustaining. No, I am not an avenger or a bringer of justice. Nor am I the sadistic killer I was created to be. I am merely the last spectral face dying soldiers see on the darkened battlefield before facing oblivion. In the winter of 1778 I arrived in Savannah, a fading flower of a city. I carried with me a welcome supply of gold and the implied support of my newly chosen British surname—Thorne. The Brits had captured the city earlier that year and I had no reason to dispute them. There was plenty of bloodshed to go around. I have remained in the vicinity of Savannah for many reasons, including other murderous wars, but I see no need to broadcast my motives. Let’s just say that the city and its darker hugger-muggery suit me. As winter suits me. Summer in these southern climes arrives with a glorious pressing heat that breeds bloodlust even in the mortal heart. Human nature being what it is, I find a steady, gourmand source in their casual bloodshed. Passions rise and humans die. There is something to be said for the term “red-blooded Americans,”and I sense their fury like a shark tracks a drop of blood in the outgoing tide. And so I’ve given up the wandering life of a war dog, and now I reside in this city near the sea. The sharks and I are brothers. They fear nothing and cruise the watery darkness like silent sentinels waiting for the scent of the abandoned and dying, the flashing shock of hopelessness to draw them in for the kill. I live a gentleman’s life, attending evening social events, smoking cigars and drinking port in private gambling dens or exclusive bordellos, and walking the dark streets to feed my destiny. I own all I wish to own of my adopted city. My “ancestral” home—since I am in effect my own ancestor—is centered on one city block on Houghton Square. The entire block belongs to me, along with a row of businesses bordered by the river. I find enterprise a mostly pleasant diversion to occupy my mind, while the riverfront assures private access to a dock near