Covet

And avoiding the temptation of getting back together with Tristan.

“The council wishes it,” was all he said.

Maybe the council wanted to continue to test me by making me stay here another two years?

“Well, at least I can still come visit you here on weekends, right?” I asked Mom.

“Hon, please try to understand, Nanna’s social security checks barely helped us make ends meet. Now that she’s gone, there’s no way I can continue to make the payments on this place.”

Dad scowled, and she rolled her eyes. “Yes, Michael, I know you’ve offered to help with that. But it wouldn’t be right now that we’re no longer married. I’m not your responsibility anymore, remember?”

She turned to face me again. “Besides, this place is too big for me to live in alone. I’d have to get fifty million cats just to keep me company.”

A reluctant smile bunched my cheeks and pushed the tears out of my eyes. I sniffed and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands. “That’d be attractive.”

She smiled. “Exactly.” She took a deep breath, then dropped the biggest bombshell of all. “But the main reason is, now that your grandma is gone, her magic has begun to fade. Within days it will be gone completely, depending on how strong each spell was and how recently she strengthened it. That includes the dampening wards here.” She didn’t quite meet my eyes as she said that last part.

Oh. She was talking about the bloodlust-dampening spells only Nanna had known how to make, because she was the only descendant with magic abilities who had ever wanted to dampen a vampire’s bloodlust—mine, in this case—without actually repelling the vampire completely.

As a teenager Mom had chosen to let her abilities atrophy like an unused muscle. But that decision couldn’t erase her lineage. She was still a descendant with the Clann’s powerful blood running through her veins, the kind of blood that was almost irresistible to vampires.

Without the dampening wards on my home, I might begin to feel the bloodlust for my own mother. And now those wards were beginning to fade.

I shuddered. As much as I hated it, there was only one thing to do. “I guess we’d better start packing.”

CHAPTER 4

I should have tried to enjoy my last week in my childhood home. I also probably should have called my friends and mentioned that I would be moving in with my dad soon. But Mom had already called their parents to let them know about Nanna’s funeral, and the rest they would find out about once I was back at school next week.

Right now, I had zero desire to talk to anyone. Talking to my friends would mean lying about how Nanna really died and why I was moving in with my dad, and I was already crawling around under enough guilt as it was. While my best friend, Anne Albright, knew a little bit about the Clann’s abilities from helping Tristan ward off the algebra classmates I’d accidentally gaze dazed last year, she had no idea I was a dhampir, or even that vampires existed in the first place. My friends wouldn’t see it that way, but I knew without a doubt that the less they knew about the vampires and the Clann, the safer they would be.

As a result, the week passed quietly and much too quickly. Mom and I stayed busy packing up the house and putting it on the market. Mom had decided to sell the house and use the money for my college fund and to buy herself an RV so she could expand her sales territory. We’d thought, due to the lingering effects of the recession, that the house would take at least a few months to sell. But it found a new owner within days, to the surprise of Mom, me and the real estate agent. Apparently two companies had seen it on the internet the day the agent posted it and entered into a bidding war, driving the price up way higher than we’d set it. The winning bidder had also paid cash in full and skipped the usual house inspection so they could close within days instead of a month. Their only stipulation was that we vacate the premises as quickly as possible, apparently because they intended to put it on the rental market immediately.

All too soon, a stranger became the owner of our childhood home.

Later that week, we went to Tyler in Mom’s truck to do some serious RV shopping. Dad had tried to talk me out of going with Mom. But she’d insisted if I could be trusted to go to school with the Clann, then I could be trusted to go shopping with my own mother for the day. Dad had argued that going to school with descendants only put me in large classrooms with them, not tiny truck cabs. But Mom said that was ridiculous and she wasn’t discussing it any further with him.

Still, to be on the safe side, Mom took one of Nanna’s most recent dampening charms with her in her pocket, and for added measure I kept my window rolled down. Just in case.

Halfway to Tyler, I finally gave in to the curiosity that had been bugging me for days.

“Mom, did you ever go to the Circle when you were in the Clann?”

She made a face as if she’d just smelled a skunk. “Unfortunately, I spent half my childhood there. Not only is it the place where all the major Clann gatherings are held, but it’s also a safe place where elders can take descendants to train, especially the kids who are having a tough time learning to control their abilities. They’ve got a bunch of safeguards around it to keep out v—” She glanced at me. “I mean, outsiders, and to prevent descendants from accidentally setting the trees on fire or blowing up anything beyond its border. And believe me, I probably tested those wards more than all the other descendants combined.”

“Then how did Dad and I get past the wards?”

“Your Clann blood will always allow you to enter the Circle. And if you were there and even thought that your dad should be allowed in, then the wards there wouldn’t stop him, either. That’s how the wards were set up, so we could pick and choose which allies to allow in during times of danger.”

“So all I had to do was think ‘let Dad in’ and it did? There’s no magic words that have to be said first?”

“Nope, not usually. Clann magic is mostly based on willpower and focused intention, not fancy words or magical candles and herbs.” She blew out a noisy breath between her lips, making a sound like a horse so I would smile. “When I was your age, I would have given anything if only our abilities required eye of newt and hair of dog to work. Then I wouldn’t have had so much trouble controlling them.”

“Why not just do a spell on yourself to get rid of your abilities?” It seemed obvious to me. There must be some catch.

She burst out laughing. “Oh hon, don’t you think I thought of that already? I tried a million times as a teen! But there are some things that are fundamental to our nature and can’t be stopped with just willpower. Remember how Nanna gave you those special daily teas to hold off your puberty so we could try to prevent your vamp side from developing as long as possible? Remember how well that worked in the end?”

Did I ever. My body had ended up going to war with itself last year and I’d nearly died until Nanna’s spell-laced teas flushed out of my system.

“But what about Nanna’s bloodlust-dampening spell? Doesn’t it affect the fundamental nature of vamps?”

“In a way, yes. See, the vamp wards work on your brainwaves by putting out a kind of targeted energy field that interferes with certain frequencies of thought. But that’s almost like creating a sonar signal set to a frequency our ears can’t pick up. That’s not affecting anything on a cellular level.

“The bloodlust, however, isn’t about your mind or emotions—it’s in a vamp’s genetic coding to crave blood. So the bloodlust-dampening spell has to work on that same DNA level. And that is some deep magic. It’s like nothing the Clann normally teaches descendants nowadays. Which is why Nanna had to turn to the old ways from our Irish ancestors to find a way to make the dampening spell. She said there’s a reason the Clann doesn’t use the old ways anymore, because they’re too dangerous. She even hinted that she had to make some sort of personal sacrifice every time for it to work. That’s why she refused to write down the process or teach it to anyone. She was afraid other descendants would be desperate enough to try the spell regardless of the consequences.”

I stared out at the highway ahead, both my mind and my heart racing. Dr. Faulkner had said Nanna died of heart complications, that her heart had years worth of scar tissue on it. But she’d never told us she was having health problems.

Could her heart disease have been connected to the bloodlust-dampening spells she’d done for my parents for years, and later on our own home so I could continue to live with her and Mom safely?

No. No, I was already at fault enough for the Clann imprisoning Nanna in the Circle. My vamp side couldn’t be even more of a cause for her heart failure. She’d died because she’d fought against the Clann too hard that day, and because of the high cholesterol foods she ate, because she never exercised, because her genes had predisposed her to heart disease.

And yet…it fit, didn’t it? If she were giving up part of her life or her health in some way in order to overcome the vamp’s basic craving for powerful Clann blood, she wouldn’t tell her daughter what Mom’s love for Dad had cost. And she definitely wouldn’t discuss it with her half vamp granddaughter.

Oh God. Nanna, what did you do to yourself?

I stared out my open window, biting my knuckles to keep from crying out loud as tears slid down my cheeks. The guilt, ever present in my gut, rose up to claw at my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I couldn’t break down, not here, not now, when Mom was so excited about picking out the RV she’d always wanted. I’d already taken so much from her. I couldn’t ruin this day, too.

“You okay, hon?” Mom said. “You got awful quiet there all of a sudden.”

I cleared my throat, grateful the wind had dried the tears on my cheeks almost as soon as they fell, and forced a smile into my voice. “Sure! Just looking forward to seeing which RV you pick out.”

“So what’s with all the Clann questions today?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “You know, just…thinking about things.”

“Missing your Nanna?” Her murmur was low and heavy with sympathy, nearly causing more tears to spill from my eyes.

I nodded. Closing my eyes, I tried to make my mind go blank. And yet flashes of that day in the Circle still managed to slip through…all those descendants watching Nanna die, watching me fall apart, listening to us as Mr. Coleman offered his condolences.

There had been something odd in Mr. Coleman’s tone, a strange little catch as he’d almost said Mom’s first name.

Desperate to change the subject, I blurted out the question, “Did you know Sam Coleman very well?”

“He was the future leader when I was growing up. Of course I knew who he was.”

That didn’t really answer my question. Safely dry-eyed now, I risked a glance her way. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard her tanned knuckles had turned white.

“He mentioned you,” I said. “You know, when Dad and I were at the Circle.”

She didn’t look at me.

The seconds ticked by.

“Mom?”

She sighed. “I dated Sam Coleman when we were in high school.”

Whoa, totally not the answer I’d expected. “Was it…serious?”

“Serious enough that he asked me to marry him at the beginning of our senior year.”

“But you didn’t because…you met my dad?”

She shook her head. “I told Sam I couldn’t marry him months before I ever met your father. I didn’t even want to be in the Clann, much less married to its future leader, no matter how much I cared for Sam. So we broke up.”

“And then you met Dad and ran off with him.”

She nodded.

“Did you really love Dad? Or was it just because he was a vampire?”

She looked at me then. “Oh Savannah. Not everything’s so cut and dried. I think, looking back now, that it was probably a little of everything. Michael was so handsome, and dangerous, and yet so polite and protective of me. It was easy to fall for him. The fact that loving him finally gave me the perfect way out of the Clann just added to my feelings for him.”

“I thought anyone who wanted out of the Clann could leave anytime.” She made it sound like some kind of gang or something.

“They can…if they don’t have a mother like mine. Mom was determined to keep me in the Clann as long as she could. She always thought I’d change my feelings about our abilities, that I’d come around eventually and take up my training again.”

“But then the Clann found out about you and Dad and kicked you out.”

“Yes. Unfortunately my plan backfired a little. I never thought they’d blame Mom for my choices and kick her out, too.”

I was starting to get why she’d run away from Jacksonville with Dad for years and come back only because of me. And why she’d chosen a sales rep job that kept her on the road so much of the year.

She wasn’t just running away from Jacksonville or the Clann here, or avoiding causing me to feel the bloodlust around her. She was trying to run away from Sam Coleman and her past, too.

I couldn’t blame her for that. If I thought leaving Jacksonville would really help me forget all my mistakes, I would run away from home so far and so fast and to heck with what the vamp council wanted.

Unfortunately I wasn’t as good at living in denial as Mom was. No matter how far away from this town I ever managed to get, I would never escape the reflection in my mirror or the memories of the choices I had made.

But if running away made Mom happy, then that was what she should do. At the very least, she’d be safer away from the Clann headquarters. And from me and Dad.

It was a relief to arrive at the RV dealership. Normally Mom was a real pain to shop with because she tended to fall in love with everything in sight and become unable to choose. But this time Mom had done her research ahead of time and was surprisingly decisive about what she wanted in her new home on wheels. She test drove only two before she settled on a sleek travel trailer that could be pulled behind her truck so she could leave the trailer at campgrounds while she went into the fields and woods delivering chemicals and safety equipment to forestry clients.

She wore a triumphant smile as she signed the paperwork then towed it home. As she showed off the long-awaited trailer’s updated interior features to Dad, her voice glowing with pride and excitement, I realized I was just the tiniest bit jealous of her.

At least one of us had her freedom.

The funeral on Saturday was even harder to endure than I’d expected. I couldn’t look at Nanna’s body, lying in the open casket at the church where she’d played the piano every Sunday, couldn’t let myself think about her death or its possible causes, couldn’t look at my mother who, despite all her excitement over her new home, was sobbing and clearly brokenhearted at having to say a final goodbye to her mother. When the new pianist played Nanna’s favorite, “In the Garden,” it was all I could do not to join my mother in sobbing.

The preacher’s words were a blur both at the church and at the burial site in the Larissa Cemetery outside town, where all our family were buried. Even though it was only April, it was already hot enough to make everyone sweat under the glaring sun. The heat baked the mounds of carnations covering the casket, pushing their sweet perfume out into the air. I tried not to breathe deeply, but the stench of those flowers of death seeped inside me, clinging to the lining of my throat and lungs.

I knew I would hate the smell of those flowers for the rest of my life, however long that turned out to be.

After the preacher’s final words were delivered, Mom spoke to all of Nanna’s many friends while I gave Anne, Carrie and Michelle each a quick hug of thanks for coming. As soon as I saw my friends, I realized how much I’d both missed them and dreaded seeing them again. But for that day at least, none of them seemed to expect me to explain anything, which was a relief. Then my parents and I returned to Nanna’s home to change and finish the last of the packing.

Dad had already found a house in town. It was a decrepit, crumbling two-story that might have once been a Victorian. The house looked like something the Addams family might live in. Worse than its appearance was its location, though…it was right across the railroad tracks from the Tomato Bowl, where the local high school and junior high football and soccer games were held. The only upside was that I wouldn’t have a long walk after the home football games next year.

Dad said he’d chosen the house because it was the perfect renovation project to showcase his historical restoration company’s abilities. I hoped they worked fast. Really fast. At least money would be no object. According to him, one of the advantages of being an ancient vampire with the ability to read human minds and actually live through several centuries of history was that he’d gotten really good at picking stocks.

On Sunday, Mom and I said a long, silent and teary goodbye to our home and each other. Then Dad and I moved in to our new home in progress, and Mom moved into her travel trailer and hit the road. True to his word, Dad had the movers set up my old bed in the new house. At least I wouldn’t feel weird sleeping in an unfamiliar bed tonight, just a strange and dusty room surrounded by boxes of my things. I’d washed all my clothing before boxing it up, though, so I would have clean clothes until the washer and dryer were delivered and hooked up sometime next week.

Now if I could only get used to all the creaks and groans of my new home.

Nighttime, when I had nothing to distract me while I waited to fall asleep, was the worst. Even as little kids, Tristan and I had used our built-in abilities as descendants to psychically reach out and connect our minds in our dreams. We’d dream connected so often, especially during our recent months of dating, that it felt weird not to dream about him now. Another habit I was struggling to get used to breaking.

It would be so easy to close my eyes and reach out to him with my mind. To meet him like the hundreds of times I had before, always in the moonlight, usually in an imaginary version of the backyard behind his house or the Circle in the Coleman family woods. To see him smile, feel his fingers lace through mine, his lips against mine…

I lay there in my old bed in my new bedroom in the dark, watching the pine trees in the backyard sway in a breeze as if they were dancing. Dancing like Tristan and I used to do with our arms wrapped around each other as if we were two trees that had grown intertwined, never to be pulled apart. I had been so stupid, so naive to think he and I could make it last in spite of all the people and beliefs and fears against us.

Stifling a groan, I curled into a ball and pressed my pillow over my head, wishing I could press the memories out of my mind.

* * *

The alarm went off way too soon the next morning. Between fighting nightmares of Nanna and memories of Tristan, I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Groaning, I slapped the clock’s off button. Ugh, time to get ready for Charmers practice before school.

The thought made me freeze. Would Tristan be there?

I’d called Mrs. Daniels yesterday to let her know I’d be returning to practice today. I should have asked if Tristan would be there, too. Surely he wouldn’t. His parents would keep him as far away from me as possible. Maybe I’d get extra lucky and they had even pulled him out of the history class we shared every other day, too.

I tried to relax as I got ready for school. I’d considered microwaving a bowl of oatmeal in the kitchen in a feeble attempt to recreate Nanna’s cooking, but one look at the grubby mousetrap of a room and I changed my mind. Vampires couldn’t eat regular food, so Dad probably wouldn’t think to renovate in there for a while. There was no way I could choke down anything from that nasty, cobweb-draped dungeon until I cleaned it up. Besides, knowing my luck lately, if I tried to use the microwave I’d probably end up starting a house fire from the old wiring.

I should tell Dad I was leaving. But where was he? I followed the sound of hammering to the living room—then my feet skidded to a stop. My father had his head stuck inside the fireplace, his entire upper body swallowed within its cavernous darkness. Clouds of soot poofed out with each blow of his tools.

He was wearing…jeans? I’d never once seen him in anything but a suit.

“Uh, Dad?”

He ducked out of the fireplace. “Good morning, Savannah. Sleep well?”

Oh yeah, like a baby. “Um, you’re working on the fireplace yourself?”

“Yes. It just needs a little cleaning to remove the nests inside. Then it should work fine.”

I had a sudden vision of him trying to start a fire and blowing up the house. I cringed. “Shouldn’t you hire a professional?”

“I am more than qualified to serve as a chimney sweep, Savannah.”

Maybe he had a point. He was old enough that he’d probably been around when chimneys were invented. “I’ve got to go. Charmers practice.” I checked my watch. “Which I’m going to be late for if I don’t get moving.”

He nodded. “What time will you be home this evening?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got more practice after school.”

His dark eyebrows shot up, hiding themselves under the wavy black hair that had flopped out of its usual precisely combed style onto his forehead. “You do not know what time the after-school practice will end?” His tone sounded either suspicious or accusing, I couldn’t figure out which.

I stared at him. The man had had almost no involvement in my life for years. Now he’d decided to be a control freak just because I’d been forced to move in with him?

“Savannah, I am not your lackadaisical mother or grandmother. I will need to know your daily schedule with precise times at which to expect you home each day.”

Lackadaisical? Did anybody even use that word anymore? And besides, my mother and grandmother had raised me just fine. Just because I made one mistake that caused a huge mess…

Fine. I saw his point. “Usually I do know what time practice will end. But right now the Charmers are getting ready for our annual Spring Show in a week. So we’ll be practicing every morning before school starting at 6:45 a.m., and again after school until at least seven or eight o’clock. I never know when the evening practices will end exactly, because it depends on when each group of girls decides to quit for the day, and I have to stay until the last person leaves so I can lock up the building. So that’s really the best guess I can give you. Would you like me to call when practice ends each day?”

“Yes, please do. I programmed my number into your phone.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out my phone and tossed me the digital dog leash.

I dropped it into my blue leather Charmers duffel bag and turned toward the freedom of the front door.

“And Savannah?”

I stopped and looked back over my shoulder, trying very hard not to huff out a sigh of impatience. If he kept this up, I’d never get to practice on time.

“If you begin to feel strange in any way, do not wait to call me.” His tone was a stern warning.

Or else I might go on a killing spree before he could get to me and stop me? Yeesh. “Yes, Dad,” I muttered then made a hasty escape.

Annoyance continued to knot my stomach during the short drive across town to the school’s front parking lot.

As I walked across the dark campus, I remembered how scared I had been with the watchers there. Now that I was turning into a full vampire, I was the scariest thing imaginable here.

Shaking my head, I headed up the sports and arts building’s cement ramp toward its blue painted rows of doors and then had to stop as a sharp pain spiked through me.

For the first time in months, Tristan wasn’t waiting for me.

My steps became jerky as I forced my legs to move. I swallowed hard and searched for the right key to unlock the doors.