The Ground That Devours Us

The world ended ten years ago.

Vampires showed up, took over, and turned the whole planet into their personal all-you-can-drink buffet. The president? Bloodsucker. The government? Bloodsuckers. My social life? Absolutely nonexistent.

But hey, at least I had one thing going for me--slayer training. My twin sister, Ripley, and I were about to go pro, officially joining the ranks of the last people on earth who actually do something about the whole ＂undead overlords＂ situation.

And then X had to show up. The vampire boogeyman. The worst of the worst. And instead of killing Ripley, like any decent monster would, he turned her. Now she’s technically a vamp, but something tells me my sister is still in there. Which means I can’t slay her.

What can I do? Break every rule. Lie to my friends. Strike a deal with the most dangerous vampire on the planet: X will protect Ripley from everyone else who wants her dead--like, really dead--until I can snag the cure for vampirism. The catch? Risking my own head to help him free his good-for-nothing BFF from the very slayers who taught me everything.

If I want Ripley back, I’m going to have to play nice with the thing that ruined my life. And the worst part?

I think he’s enjoying this.

Kalla Harris has wanted to be an author since she was eight years old and her third-grade teacher assigned a creative writing prompt to the class on a random Monday morning. A prompt that should have only been one composition notebook page but instead Kalla wrote an entire book, much to the surprise of her classmates, who said incredulously, ＂You mean you enjoy writing?＂

And, oh, she did. Very much.

Now as an adult, Kalla has traded in her composition notebooks for a computer, but she’s still as madly in love with storytelling as the day she wrote her very first The End--although now her books are much darker and have a lot of kissing. When she’s not writing, Kalla can usually be found perfecting her latest batch of mac and cheese, watching repeats of The Vampire Diaries (hi, Damon!), or working through her seemingly never-ending TBR. She lives in the Upstate of South Carolina with her husband and talkative cat, Cece.