Covet (9 page)

“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.

I couldn’t give up on her. Not yet. Not if there was one last shot at making everything right again.

I got out of my truck and walked across the front yard, still clueless as to what the heck I would say to her dad. The front porch creaked as I stepped onto it. I paused, my pulse pounding. Was I nervous about the creepy house, or talking to her dad?

Both, I decided, but kept going anyway. The loud whine of a saw started somewhere deep inside the house, and I froze at the front door. A chain saw? Oh man, this was like every horror movie I’d ever seen come straight to life. Still, I went ahead and knocked. A vampire would hear me even over the saw.

The noise stopped, and too soon, the door opened.

The only time I’d seen Savannah’s father was on the return trip from the vamp council’s headquarters in Paris. Mr. Colbert had appeared every inch the vampire then in a polished suit, his emotionless face set like carved marble.

Tonight, he wore a button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and jeans, both covered in dirt and sawdust. He seemed nothing more than an average guy hard at work on his house.

And I’d come to ask him to turn me into a vampire.

Mr. Colbert didn’t seem surprised that I was there. But he didn’t invite me inside, either. “Hello again, Tristan. How may I help you this evening? Savannah is not home.”

“I know that, sir. That’s why I’m here now. I need your help.”

He stared at me, unmoving. I’d hoped we could have this talk inside. Not that it would have been any easier there. I cleared my throat.

“I love Savannah. And this isn’t some teenage hormone thing, either. I’ve loved her since we were kids. I’ve never felt anything even close to this with anyone else. And I know she loves me, too.”

My heart pounded harder. It didn’t help that he could probably hear it. My hands turned hot and damp. I shoved them inside my front jeans pockets.

“You know the promises she has made.” He wasn’t asking me.

I nodded anyway. “The council and the Clann are afraid she’ll kill me and break the treaty. Savannah’s afraid of that, too. But I think there’s another option.”

A single thick black eyebrow rose in silent question. The way he was able to stand so still was more than a little unnerving.

If I was successful tonight, would I be able to freeze like that, too?

“You could make me a vampire.”

Seconds ticked by. A breeze kicked up, making the trees rustle behind me. The wind wasn’t strong enough to dry the sweat running down my back, though.

Finally, Mr. Colbert stepped away from the door. “Come inside.”

Was that his way of agreeing to turn me?

Heart racing, I entered the house, my every step making the hardwood floors creak and groan. He shut the door behind me then led the way to a dark maroon leather couch in the room to the right. Sawdust made the floor slippery and the air smell like pine, and tools lay all over the place.

He gestured toward the couch, and we sat at opposite ends, angled to face each other.

As soon as I was seated, he asked, “You are really willing to give up your humanity for my daughter?”

I didn’t hesitate. At least this much I was sure about. “Yes, sir.”

He studied my face. “You seem confident. But perhaps that is because you do not know what being a vampire is truly like. Shall I tell you?”

Less sure I wanted to hear this, I forced a nod. Might as well find out the gory details of what I was getting into. Though part of me would rather find out later once I was turned and couldn’t be tempted to chicken out.

“We vampires are an evolved species,” he began. “Things that were once dire problems, such as daylight, are no longer threats to us. It may seem that we are the perfect beings, able to walk among humans, appearing relatively normal, with only fire, staking or decapitation to worry about. We are immortals. No sickness will ever harm us, and we will never age past the point in life at which each of us is turned. We are able to read the minds of fellow vampires and humans, but not descendants. We gain great speed, strength and agility.”

He paused, letting silence fill the room so long I was forced to reply. “Doesn’t sound like being a vampire is all that tough so far.”

His silver gaze, a more intense version of Savannah’s, locked onto me. “Yes, it would seem so. But within hours of first awakening as a vampire, you feel a thirst that is like nothing you could ever imagine. It is the bloodlust clawing at your very insides, the craving for human blood, and any human’s blood will do. In the first few weeks, many vampires accidentally kill even their loved ones because of this blinding thirst.”

Okay, not so great to be a vamp in the beginning. “But it goes away, right?”

“The bloodlust lessens after a while. But it never completely goes away. And being around someone like yourself with such powerful, magic-laced blood in your veins presents special challenges. That power calls to even the oldest of vampires as strongly as if we have just been turned. Even at my age of over three hundred years, I find it difficult to be around a descendant for long.”

I shifted uneasily, making the couch creak. “But you can do it. I mean, you married Sav’s mom. And you were around a bunch of descendants in the woods a couple weeks ago and you were okay.”