Almost to Die For: A Vampire Princess Novel (Vampire Princess of St. Paul)

171 Pages·2010·0.79 MB·English

by  Hallaway Tate

Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four

About the Author
Praise for the Novels of Tate Hallaway
“[Hallaway’s] concise writing style, vivid descriptions, and innovative plot all blend together to
provide the reader with a great new look into the love life of witches, vampires, and the undead.”
—Armchair Interviews

“What’s not to adore? . . . Tate Hallaway has a wonderful gift, Garnet is a gem of a heroine, and Tall,
Dark & Dead is enthralling from the first page.”
—MaryJanice Davidson, New York Times bestselling author of Undead and Unworthy

“Tate Hallaway kept me on the edge of my seat . . . a thoroughly enjoyable read!”
—Julie Kenner, USA Today bestselling author of Demon Ex Machina

“Curl up on the couch and settle in—Tall, Dark & Dead is a great way to pass an evening.”
—Lynsay Sands, New York Times bestselling author of Tall, Dark & Hungry

“Will appeal to readers of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series.”
—Booklist

“This paranormal romance overflows with danger, excitement, and mayhem; however, whenever
things become too stressful, a healthy dose of irony or comedy shows up to ease the way. Tate
Hallaway has an amazing talent for storytelling.”
—Huntress Book Reviews

“Funny and captivating . . . in the style of the Sookie Stackhouse series [with] an intrepid and
expressive heroine. . . . Look out, fans of the paranormal, there’s a new supernatural heroine in town.
. . . Tate Hallaway is an author to watch!”
—Romance Reviews Today

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First published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, August 2010
Copyright © Lyda Morehouse, 2010 All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Hallaway, Tate.
Almost to die for: a vampire princess novel/Tate Hallaway. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-45882-2
1. Teenage girls—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. 3. Witches—Fiction. 4. Chick lit. I. Title.
PS3608.A54825A79 2010
813’.6—dc22 2010010401

Set in Minion

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For Shawn and Mason
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my editor, Anne Sowards, for her vision for this series, and my
tireless agent, Martha Millard, for making it happen. I also need to specially
thank those who read the book in process, the Wyrdsmiths—Bill Henry, Doug
Hulick, Kelly McCullough, and Sean M. Murphy, but particularly my friend and
mentor Eleanor Arnason, who kept me company in my dark hours, and Naomi
Kritzer, a great and true friend, who read the whole thing and made it so very
much better.
My family gets a mention as well. Shawn Rounds, of course, who not only
supported me with many there, theres but also acts as my first-run copy editor
and plot maven extraordinaire. My son, Mason, who is a great sounding board
for the cool vampire and witchy stuff, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you quite
seriously: he figured out the plot.
To the staff at Amore Coffee in St. Paul, who supplied me with much-needed
caffeine and who patiently listened to me whine about deadlines and the writer’s
life, I must also give a huge thanks.
And, of course, my parents, Rita and Mort Morehouse, without whom none of
this, quite literally, would be possible.
One
Guess what? Today was my sixteenth birthday. Pretty cool, huh? Sure, if by
“cool” you mean worst day ever . . . and it was only noon.
I sat in Stassen High School’s cafeteria staring at “tuna surprise.” Let me tell
you: it was a surprise all right. I was surprised it passed the health code. It was
gray, for crying out loud. Food should not be gray.
Also, my birthday might be tolerable if I lived somewhere exciting, but no, I’d
be turning sixteen in nowheresville: St. Paul, Minnesota.
I pushed the glutinous mush around its little container. At least the potatoes
looked edible. My stomach growled, so I poked a forkful into my mouth. I
sighed. What I really wanted was my turkey sandwich, or at least someone I
could joke around with about the whole stupid situation.
But no. I was sitting alone.
Bea was supposed to be here. Sometime in middle school we had made a
solemn blood vow. We’d always sit together at lunch so neither of us would ever
have to look like that sad, lonely loser.
Hello—yes, that’d be me! Loser in corner number one.
On my birthday, no less.
Bea—Beatrice Theodora Braithwaite to her mother—was my kind-of sort-of
best friend. She was the only person in school with a more arcane name than I.
Get a load of this: Anastasija Ramses Parker. Yeah. You can see why most
people just call me Ana.
Anyway, Bea and I, we’ve known each other since second grade. That’s a lot
of history. It’s hard not to be close to someone you borrowed your first tampon
from, giggled your way through puppy-love crushes with, and survived that god-
awful middle school sex education with. Though, honestly, I don’t always like
her. We’re pretty different. Bea has diva tendencies, and I lean toward being a
bookish shrinking violet. But we’ve been kind of thrown together by fate
because she’s the only other True Witch at school.
It’s a secret, but real magic exists. True Witches can make shit happen. Not