Covet

This is all wrong, a voice at the back of my mind moaned. He should be here, leaning against the doors, as perfect-looking as a catalog model. He should be reaching out to hold my thermos of tea, made fresh by Nanna, while I struggled to think straight.

But I didn’t have my usual cup of tea from Nanna. And I was alone.

Inside, I stopped, too aware that I was the only person in the dark, empty building. I scowled. I had been just fine before Tristan came along. I’d been in this building alone countless times and had never felt lonely.

I had to get used to being on my own again.

I trudged across the foyer, flicked all four light switches up in one swipe, then continued up the stairs, my footsteps echoing in the half-lit stairwell, every step seeming to whisper, “Alone. Alone. Alone.”

Gritting my teeth, I pulled open the upstairs hallway door and entered the pitch-black third-floor hall. The door slammed shut behind me, making my shoulders hunch up.

I pushed onward, my eyes adjusting quickly to the dark. I unlocked the dance room doors and turned on the lights. And froze as I was confronted by another crime scene. Right there by the stereo, Tristan and I had sat on the floor, sharing pizza in the semi-darkness for our first date. And then we’d danced together, a silly waltz to make me laugh, then a slow dance until I’d melted into our first kiss since the fourth grade.

Right there in that dance room was where I’d also first unknowingly drained him of energy.

Enough. I shook myself, breaking free of the paralyzing memories and guilt. I had a job to do.

A familiar ache welled up in my chest and stomach, and this time it wasn’t from the memories. Oh no. Only one person caused this sensation.

I was no longer alone.

I whirled around and sucked in a breath. “Tristan!”

He lounged in the hallway’s entrance, leaning one broad shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. He stared at me, his green eyes the color of a deep pine forest today. “Good morning, Savannah.”

I gulped. So wrong for my heart to leap at the sound of my name spoken in that deep, rumbling voice. So wrong of my feet to want to take off running toward him.

“We need to talk,” he said, his tone like a brush of his fingertips across my cheek.

I struggled to make my body move toward the Charmers director’s office door. Routine. Focus on the morning routine.

I fought to keep my voice even. “What are you doing here? Didn’t your parents—”

“In spite of the local rumors, my parents don’t actually rule the world.”

Frowning, I got the office door unlocked. I walked inside, turned on the overhead lights, then headed for the closet door on shaky legs. “The Clann would disagree with that.”

Closet door unlocked, I reached inside for the jambox and Megavox case. And sucked in another sharp breath as Tristan cupped my upper arms, his big hands warm and gentle on my bare skin below the sleeves of my T-shirt. I nearly moaned at the contact.

“Sav, please stop for a minute and listen to me.”

Oh sweet lord. How was I supposed to withstand that soft, deep voice pleading with me? I closed my eyes and prayed for strength as everything inside me begged me to turn around and hug him.

“I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

His words were velvet-covered blows to my stomach. I couldn’t breathe.

“You have to know I never imagined anything like that would happen.”

“But it did,” I croaked, still facing the closet. “Because of us.” Because of me.

He pressed his forehead to the top of my head, his sigh warm in my hair. “We didn’t do that. The Clann did. I know how much you loved her. We tried to save her. You, me, your dad and mine, even Dr. Faulkner. She knew you loved her and were trying to help her.”

Bitter acid rose up as a sour taste at the back of my mouth. “She shouldn’t have even been there. And she wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t broken the rules. We never should have gotten involved with each other.”

“No, the Clann and the vamp council never should have barred us from seeing each other.”

Strength slowly seeped back into my body. “Keeping us away from each other was one of the few things they did right.”

“Savannah, I love you,” he whispered, his voice harsh, as if the words were torn from his lungs. “And I know you love me.”

I wouldn’t lie to him. I nodded.

“Then why can’t you see how this isn’t about whether to follow the rules or not? The rules are wrong. If ever two people were meant for each other, we’re it. We don’t have to let them control our lives. You and I determine our future, not them.”

I turned to face him then, needing to see if he was truly this delusional. Didn’t he get it? This wasn’t about what I wanted, or even what he wanted anymore.

“I’ll leave the Clann,” he said, speaking fast now. “You know I never cared about being in it anyways. Then they can’t stop us. Their rules won’t apply to us anymore.”

“And break your parents’ hearts?” Oh lord, how badly I wanted it to be just him and me, free from the rules, free to be together. But then we’d be just like my parents, always on the run, always hiding. There was nowhere we could go to be together beyond the reach of the Clann or the vamp council. Even if he wasn’t in the Clann anymore, he’d still be a descendant. And I would still be a vampire.

His lips thinned. “They’ll get over it, trust me.”

“And the vampire council?”

“We’ll talk to them, convince them that our being together isn’t a danger to their peace treaty.”

“Tristan, you don’t get it. We’re not Romeo and Juliet. There’s a reason the Clann and the council hate and fear each other. We’re a danger to each other, whether you’re in the Clann or not. You could set me on fire with one snap of your fingers. And I could kill you just as easily. As long as vamps and descendants are each others’ biggest threats, they’re always going to be enemies. You and I will never get permission to be together.”

“Just because they have the power to kill each other doesn’t mean they have to. We can show them that, make them see that they can choose to coexist in peace. Don’t you see? You and me together…we’re the proof they need to make them believe it can be done.”

“Not everything’s a simple choice like that.”

“Sure it is. You could have bitten me a thousand times by now, but you never did. Right?”

“What about all the times I kissed you?”

He hesitated. “So you took a little energy. It was worth it.”

“It put you in danger. I put you in danger. I took a little bit of your life every time we kissed. That’s not a choice I can make, either. It’s automatic. There’s no way to turn that off.”

He scowled. “So we’ll keep working around it. You’re not a danger to me.”

He was an idiot. Or suicidal. How could he not see the truth, how impossible this whole situation was? No matter how much we loved each other, no amount of love or wishing would change the fact that I was a threat to his life every second we were alone together. Even now, right this second, he was in danger. And he refused to see it.

I would save him from himself and make him see.

I stepped closer to him and rose up on tiptoe, finally giving in to the need to press against him. He groaned, wrapped his arms around me, and ducked his head.

I kissed him, parting his lips, purposefully deepening the kiss past sweetness straight into mind-wrecking loss of control. His energy poured into me, a heady rush of power that sang through my veins like liquid lightning.

He moaned into my mouth, and even his breath was food. I didn’t even have to work for it. All I had to do to drain him was kiss him. There was no internal on and off switch, no controlling the flow of energy from him to me. I was an endless, bottomless cup that would take every drop of his life until he was gone. And there was nothing I could do to change that ability.

He staggered backward to the wall, pulling me with him. And still we kissed, his fingers spread wide over my back, mine threaded into the soft, unruly curls at the nape of his neck. His heart pounded against my chest, its rhythm slowly growing fainter.

I was killing him. And part of me didn’t want to stop.

His knees shook against my thighs then gave out. He slid down the wall to the floor.

Only then did I break off the kiss with a gasp and step away from him. He sat on the gray industrial carpeting, struggling for breath, and that struggle brought tears to my eyes.

“How do you feel?” I whispered.

“Wow,” he whispered, his eyes dazed.

My hands ached to reach out to him again, to pull him to his feet. To pull him closer for another kiss. “Can you stand up?”

He laughed, unaware that I was crumbling to pieces inside. “You’ll have to give me a couple of minutes to recover here.”

He’d just proven my point. And my biggest fear.

“How can you refuse to see how dangerous I am to you? How dangerous every vamp is to every descendant? You can’t even stand up after one kiss from me. If another vampire were here right now, would you have enough energy to protect yourself?”

He frowned, his eyes blinking fast as if to clear his vision. He was so stubborn. But I would save him, no matter what it took. I had to. I couldn’t live in a world without him in it, even if I couldn’t be with him.

I leaned closer to him until my lips hovered over the vein pulsing sluggishly at the side of his neck. I could hear his heartbeat, faint and slow like a low chord softly played on an unseen piano over and over. He could never know how precious that music would always be to me.

The memory of how sweet and good his blood had tasted filled me with such an incredible ache that I was momentarily frozen.

I pushed the memory away. Just more proof that I was a danger to him every second we were together.

I pressed a shaky kiss to the side of his cheek instead, breathing in his crisp scent, feeling the rasp of stubble from a few whiskers he’d missed shaving this morning in front of his ear.

“No matter how much I love you, no matter how much I wish I could change what I am, I can’t. And neither can you. Sometimes love doesn’t conquer all. Sometimes we just have to let go. The Clann and the council, they just want to keep us safe from each other. Listen to them. Help me keep my promise to them. Let this go.”

Let me go.

Help me find a way to let you go.

Help me rip out my own heart here, I might as well have said.

CHAPTER 5

TRISTAN

Red strands of her hair tickled my cheeks, their lavender scent filling my nose and adding to the buzz in my head. Did she have any idea how much she wrecked my mind, my control? How much I’d missed even the scent of her perfume all last week? How, even now, without any power to stop her or protect myself, I was still happier than I’d ever been?

When I was around her, my world made sense. I knew who I was. I’d never known what I’d wanted out of life before her, other than to play pro football. I’d drifted through each day, doing exactly what my parents expected of me. I’d dated other girls. A lot of them. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, they’d all made me feel the same…nothing more than casual friendship. They were great to hang out with, but none had ever made me wonder what they were thinking or doing when we were apart. I never wondered how they were getting along with their parents. I never worried that no one else recognized how amazing they truly were. I didn’t miss them when I couldn’t talk to them, and I hadn’t been torn to pieces when I stopped dating them.

I’d never needed any girl like I needed Savannah.

Sluggish as my thoughts had become, I heard the goodbye in her voice, in her words, saw it in her tear-filled eyes. She was letting me go.

I had to stop her.

She turned away, dragging a sleeve across her cheeks as she left the office and headed down the hallway toward the back stairs that led to the stage.

I struggled to my feet. My legs didn’t want to work, but I forced them to move. I caught up with her halfway down the hall. “Turn me.”

She stopped so suddenly I had to grab the wall to keep from running over her. She looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes pale silver now and round with shock. Then she was on the move again. “I can’t.”

“Think about it, Sav. If I was a vamp, we wouldn’t have any problems, would we? You couldn’t drain me, and the vamps and Clann wouldn’t have to worry about protecting their peace treaty.” And my parents wouldn’t have an excuse to keep us apart anymore, either.

“There’s a reason I’m the first known dhampir of our kinds, Tristan. Descendants’ bodies reject vamp blood. Every descendant who has ever attempted to turn died.”

“So they claim. But when’s the last time anyone actually tried it? I’m willing to risk it. There’s got to be a spell to help the process or—”

“No way. I’m not risking your life.” Backstage now in the pitch black of the wings, I heard her set down the portable sound system with a thud. Metal clanged as she opened the fuse box on the wall, probably using her vamp eyesight to see in the dark. The stage lights came on.

“I could find another vampire to help me.”

“No, you can’t. Everyone knows who you are. No vamp would go against the council like that.” She slammed the fuse box door shut, the sound echoing in the empty wings. Then she took the portable sound system out to the front corner of the stage, crouching down in the shadows beyond the reach of the overhead stage lights in order to set up the music in the jambox.

I squatted in the shadows beside her as I always did during sound system setup, our knees touching, her arm brushing mine as she worked. In the beginning last fall, I’d done it to try to get her to recognize her feelings for me. That had been before she’d known even kissing me could be a problem. Back when all I’d needed to do was get her to admit she was falling for me.

Now we knew what we felt for each other, and it still wasn’t enough. Not as long as my parents, the Clann and the vamp council were determined to keep us apart.

“What if I got everyone to change their minds about us?” I had no idea how I could pull that off. But there had to be a way.

She looked at me, her still watery eyes filled with a flash of hope that squeezed my insides like a vise. “How?”

I didn’t have an answer yet. But I would, no matter what it took. “I’ll find a way.”

“Mr. Coleman, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Daniels called out as she entered the theater through the audience area doors. “I don’t believe you’re supposed to be helping us anymore.”

Great, just what I needed. “That’s a misunderstanding—”

“I don’t think so. I spoke with your parents last week. Their intentions were very clear.” Mrs. Daniels took her usual seat in the back row.

Savannah quickly wiped her face dry then went back to working on the sound system. Obviously she would be no help here.

I jumped off the stage and strode up the aisle to Mrs. Daniels’s row. The woman’s gaze was every bit as frosty as Savannah’s when she was trying to shut someone out.

“Ma’am, I still want to help out with the team,” I insisted, trying my most charming smile on her. It always worked on the teachers and the ladies in the front office.

One blond eyebrow arched. “No one stays on the team in any capacity without their parents’ consent, not even volunteers on the stage crew. School rules. You’ll have to take it up with your parents if you want to help us out again. Until then, I’ll have to ask you to go to the front office, where you’ve been reassigned as an office aide for your first periods from now on.” She flipped a page on her clipboard, silently dismissing me.

Great. Now how was I supposed to talk to Savannah, be with her at all, without the Clann seeing? The only class we had together was history every other day with Mr. Smythe, Dylan Williams and the Brat Twins…four descendants who would be extra vigilant in spying on us now.

I glanced back at Savannah. Her shoulders hunched in response, but she refused to look up.

Fine. Savannah had made herself clear. Until I found a way to change the rules, she wouldn’t see me, and there would be no point in arguing with Mrs. Daniels.

But Savannah was wrong if she thought I’d given up on us. I would find a way to change the rules. Somehow.

SAVANNAH

My friends fell silent as I joined them at our usual table in the cafeteria on my first day back at school. I wasn’t hungry, but I’d skipped breakfast, so I’d grabbed a bag of chips and a Coke. And tried to ignore the ache that being within a hundred yards of Tristan always caused. Usually he sat outside at a tree during lunch. Today he was sitting by his sister at the Clann table and staring at me.

In the silence, my chip bag cracked like a gunshot as I tore it open. But I’d pulled too hard. The bag ripped in half, exploding harvest-cheddar-flavored chips all over my lap and the table in front of me.

I sighed. “Good thing I wasn’t hungry.”

“Sav…” Anne began, and I cringed at the hesitant sympathy in her voice. I knew what was coming. Most of the Charmers and Mrs. Daniels had all used that same tone of voice to offer their condolences about my grandmother earlier this morning.

I looked up, found all three of my friends staring at me with drawn, sympathetic faces. I held up a hand. “I know y’all are probably worried about me. And I appreciate it, really I do. But I’m okay. Honest.”

They nodded too quickly and too hard.

Desperate to change the subject, I pasted on a smile and looked at Michelle. “So what’s the latest gossip? Did I miss anything good last week?”

Michelle opened her mouth, then bit her lower lip. “Um, actually, all the hottest gossip has been about Tristan and…you.”

Oh no, we were not going there. “Okay, then I’ve got some news. I moved in with my dad last week.”

“What the heck?” Anne gasped. “But how…I mean, I thought he lived in another state. Will you have to transfer?”

“Nope,” I told her. “He bought that old Victorian place across the railroad tracks. You know, the one you can see from the Tomato Bowl? He’s fixing it up as a local showcase house for his renovation company.”

All three pairs of eyes widened.

“Oh, Sav, that’s terrible,” Michelle whispered, as if I’d just stated that I had some incurable disease. “Everyone knows that house is haunted.”

“And extremely unsafe,” Carrie added. “No one’s lived in it for decades. It must be in terrible condition. Probably filled with lead plumbing and asbestos, too.”

“Well, it does need a lot of work,” I replied, making a mental note to get some bottled water to keep at the house. “But that’s my dad’s specialty. His business’s whole focus is on renovating historical homes and restoring them to their former glory. So he’ll probably have it all fixed up in no time.” I hoped.

“Have you seen any ghosts yet?” Anne asked before taking a long chug of her soda.

“No.” I laughed. “It is a little spooky though. Dad says it gets so noisy at night because all the wood and plumbing expands or contracts or something with the change in temperature from day to night. My room has a great view, though, and it’s about four times the size of my old one. So everyone will finally have plenty of room for our sleepovers.”

I smiled and looked around, expecting them to at least get excited about that. Instead, everyone was suddenly very busy eating or gathering up their trash.

They were freaked out by my new home, and they hadn’t even seen the inside yet.

I thought about the houses they all lived in…Carrie’s brick lakeside home, Anne’s pristine modern brick home in town by Buckner Park. Even Michelle’s house, while not always the tidiest because of all her little brothers and sisters, was fairly new.

And now they thought they’d get lead poisoning if they came over to my house.

I snagged a chip from my lap and chomped on it in silence. Then I felt it…the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end, like someone was staring at me.

Slowly I looked over my shoulder.

Tristan.

My lungs tightened, refusing to expand. Would he come over, insist on arguing with me again about things I had no power to change, make another scene in front of the Clann kids?

But he only sat there staring, his jaw set, his eyes that shade of dark emerald they always turned when he was angry or upset.

Maybe he’d finally started to see the reality of our situation.

My head said I should be relieved.

But all I felt was the aching need to cry.

TRISTAN

I tried to find that old confidence inside me that I was right and somehow I’d find a way to change the minds of the vamp council and my parents. But my parents refused to talk to me about it, my mother even going so far as to threaten to take away my truck keys and ground me if I said Savannah’s name one more time in her presence. And I had no way to directly contact the vamp council.

By Friday night, as I sat in the high school theater while the Charmers performed their Spring Show onstage, I knew there was only one solution to all of this.

I had to become a vampire.

I had no way to convince the Clann or the council to change their rules. But if I became a vamp, then there wouldn’t be any danger in being with Savannah. They’d have to leave us alone.

Savannah would never turn me herself, even if I tried to make her lose control of the bloodlust. She believed the myth that vampire blood killed descendants. I’d have to convince another vamp to do the deed. But who? I knew only one vampire. Her dad. And I had no idea how to convince Mr. Colbert to turn me, or even where they lived.

I knew someone who might know their new address, though. And she was in the phone book. I slipped out of the theater to make the call. Thankfully she answered.

“Hey, Michelle, it’s Tristan Coleman. From first period office aide—”

A loud squeak made me hold the phone away from my ear. What the heck?

“Michelle? Are you still there?” I asked, wondering if her phone had died.

“Yep! I’m here,” she breathed.

Okay. “I know it’s weird for me to call you like this, but I was hoping you could do me a huge favor. Do you know Savannah’s new address? I need to talk to her father.”

“Say no more,” she said, her voice rising with each word. “I always thought you two would make the perfect couple.”

That made two of us.

“They bought that old haunted house across the tracks from the Tomato Bowl. You know, the green-and-white Victorian?”

“Yeah, I know the one you’re talking about.” I was already headed down the ramp to my truck in the back parking lot. “Thanks, Michelle.”

“You know, Savannah’s been really sad this week. Everyone says it’s because you two were secretly dating and then broke up, but she won’t talk about it at all. Did you dump her?”

“No. It was the other way around actually.”

Silence. Finally she said, “Well, I hope you get back together.”

“I’m sure trying.”

“Good luck!”

I thanked her, then ended the call, got in my truck and headed across town, trying to plan what in the world I could possibly say to convince her dad to turn me when I couldn’t even convince his daughter.

At the house, I parked by the curb, turned off the engine, then sat for a few minutes listening to the ticking of my truck’s engine as it cooled down.

Was I doing the right thing? Or should I do what everyone else wanted and let her go?

I closed my eyes, and as always Savannah’s face was right there in my mind waiting for me. I had a thousand memories of her…as a sweet little girl with flowers in her hair giving me the softest of kisses on the playground in the fourth grade… dressed as a breathtaking angel dancing barefoot with me in the leaves outside this year’s masq ball.... She feared she would lose control and kill me, but all I knew was the innocent, loving side of her. Everyone wanted me to see her as some kind of monster. But I didn’t know how to do that.