Prologue: Natalie As a rogue, I had been to more vampire covens than any other vampire out there. I was the ultimate diplomat. I had the trust of every coven and that was something I’d valued for the past five hundred years. I’d never had any reason to fear entering a coven. I would be treated with the respect that was due a rogue. This time, however, I was terrified. I would have been a fool to think that I still had diplomatic immunity. Not with all the rumors running amok. Apparently, Derek and Sofia Novak, joint rulers of The Shade, had actually done it—they had found a cure to vampirism. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but if it was true, Derek and Sofia had just opened a Pandora’s Box of disaster. I doubted they were aware of the magnitude of trouble they’d caused. I took a deep breath as I made my way toward the staircase leading down to the basement floor of an old building in Amsterdam. Of all the vampire covens, The Underground was my least favorite. The coven inhabited a series of bunkers beneath the city, connected by old sewers and tunnels. The Underground was a testament to how unsafe the world had become for vampires. The hunters were always on our trail and it was becoming more and more difficult to hide from them. The Shade had