Stargazer

Stargazer
Claudia Gray

The second novel in the internationally bestselling EVERNIGHT series – a vampire romance with a shocking twist.Evernight Academy is an exclusive boarding school for the most beautiful and dangerous students of all… and Bianca has always been told it’s her destiny to be just like them.But Bianca fell in love with Lucas – sworn enemy of her kind, and when his true identity was revealed he fled the school.Although they may be separated, Bianca and Lucas cannot give each other up. She will risk anything for the chance to see him again, even if that means coming face to face with the hunters of Black Cross or keeping secrets from those whom she loves the most.However, Bianca isn’t the only one keeping secrets and when Evernight is attacked by an evil force she discovers that the truth she thought she knew is only the beginning…

Stargazer

Claudia Gray

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#udf824397-db7f-58e9-a72d-01656ed3a523)

Title Page (#u93cddee4-70da-587a-b1bf-1dc5c57188ed)

Prologue (#u407f85ee-33d6-50e5-bcb4-84cd87f14209)

Chapter One (#u8a18c803-8945-5149-ae80-6df347e256c7)

Chapter Two (#udab5b1bd-db00-57db-9b07-6e48f1c3fe33)

Chapter Three (#ue89975a5-3ce5-5c11-9524-8b154104317c)

Chapter Four (#u2de74fd1-3788-5531-8f8f-b016bd7e9c47)

Chapter Five (#u1f06669e-014f-5939-b4dd-83c4884febe2)

Chapter Six (#ud9585005-fda3-59f6-9929-19943a8bc4f5)

Chapter Seven (#u1783457b-d156-5ab4-a7e4-548dd147e50d)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Claudia Gray (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ulink_59b834f4-c987-5c9b-8027-2d938c6efc7c)

FROST BEGAN TO CREEP UP THE WALLS.

Transfixed, I watched lines of frost lace their way across the stone of the north tower’s records room. The pattern swept up from the floor, covering the wall, even icing the ceiling with something flaky and white. A few small, silvery crystals of snow hung in the air.

It was all delicate and ethereal—and completely unnatural. The room’s chill cut deeper than my skin, down to my marrow. If only I hadn’t been alone. If somebody else could have been there to see it, I might have been able to believe it was real. I might have been able to believe I was safe.

The ice crackled so loudly, I jumped. As I watched, my eyes wide and breath coming in thin, quick gasps, the frost etching its way across the window obscured the view of the night sky outside, blocking the moonlight, but somehow I could still see. The room possessed its own light now. All the many lines of frost on the window broke this way and that, not at random but in an eerie pattern, creating a recognizable shape.

A face.

The frost man stared back at me. His dark, angry eyes were so detailed that it seemed as though he were looking back at me. The face in the frost was the most vivid image I’d ever seen.

Then the cold stabbed into my heart as I realized: He really was looking back at me.

Once, I hadn’t believed in ghosts—

Chapter One (#ulink_6fc3d142-a1b9-5518-a01f-fd3e306d5082)

AT MIDNIGHT, THE STORM ARRIVED.

Dark clouds scudded across the sky, blotting out the stars. The quickening wind chilled me as strands of my red hair blew across my forehead and cheeks. I pulled up the hood of my black raincoat and tucked my messenger bag beneath it.

Despite the gathering storm, the grounds of Evernight still weren’t completely dark. Nothing less than total darkness would do. Evernight Academy’s teachers could see in the night and hear through the wind. All vampires could.

Of course, at Evernight, the teachers weren’t the only vampires. When the school year began in a couple of days, the students would arrive, most of them as powerful, ancient, and undead as the professors.

I wasn’t powerful or ancient, and I was still very much alive. But I was a vampire, in a way—born to two vampires, destined to become one myself eventually, and with my own appetite for blood. I’d slipped past the teachers before, trusting in my own powers to help me, as well as some dumb luck. But tonight I waited for that darkness. I wanted as much cover as possible.

I guess I was nervous about my first burglary.

The word burglary makes it sound sort of cheap, like I was just going to barge into Mrs. Bethany’s carriage house and ransack the place for money or jewelry or something. I had more important reasons.