Covet (39 page)

“I haven’t lied to her. Maybe she just got the wrong idea. Kind of like I did about you.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about? I never lied to you.”

“What about all those times you said you loved me?”

Her breath caught and held. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. “I wasn’t lying.”

“Then why? Why break us up? Why throw it all away? Why didn’t you help me fight them?” I was hissing out the words without meaning to, all the anger I’d been pushing down for months rising up and out of me. I wanted to grab her, shake her, but I kept my hands clenched in fists at my sides.

“I did the right thing,” she snapped back at me. “I made a promise, to the council and the Clann, and I’ve kept it. I did what I had to in order to keep you safe. And someday you’ll thank me for it.”

“You really expect me to thank you for ripping out my heart and stomping all over it?”

“Yes, I do! Someday, when you’re not being stupid and hardheaded about it.”

“Stupid and hard—”

She held up a hand. We were standing so close it would have been easier for her to just rest the hand on my chest. I noticed she was careful not to touch me, though. “I really don’t want to argue with you anymore, Tristan. What’s done is done.”

“You know, I’m not too crazy about arguing with you all the time, either!”

“Then don’t!”

“You started it.”

“Who came into whose room and started this whole conversation?”

She had a point. “Well, how else can I get you to talk to me? You run out of English lit so fast I can’t even say two words to you.”

“Please. You have all the time in the world to shout anything you want to me without interruption for an hour and a half before I ever leave. English lit is nothing
but
having to sit through your monologing.”

“Believe me, I’d much rather hear your thoughts.” What I wouldn’t give to have her ability, to be able to hear her uncensored thoughts for a change.

She drew in a sharp breath, and as I watched, her eyes turned from green to silver-white. “Tristan, step away.”

“Or what? You’ll bite me?”

Unable to resist any longer, I stroked a fingertip along the curve of her cheek. Though her impossibly smooth and poreless skin was cold, strangely my finger felt warmer where it had touched her, as if my skin were having some kind of chemical reaction to the contact.

Her chin trembled. “Please. Don’t do this.”

I wanted to hold her, kiss her just one more time. But even that wouldn’t be enough. One kiss would only lead to more, and we were indoors away from the ground where I could draw replacement energy. The second she felt my energy level weakening, it would be all over. She’d go right back to blaming herself for what she couldn’t stop or change, and using that excuse to add to the walls between us.

Sighing, I stepped back toward the bedroom door, hating every inch of space that grew between us.

Someone knocked on the door, making Savannah jump.

Anne popped her head in. “Oh, sorry.” She started to duck back out.

“I was just leaving,” I muttered. I hesitated, waiting for Savannah to say something. To tell me not to go. To say she was wrong and we never should have broken up.

But she didn’t say anything at all.

Anne stared at us, her eyebrows raised.

“Have a fun party,” I told Savannah before leaving the room.

My steps were heavy as I slowly headed down the stairs. Every time I came to this house I left in defeat.

No matter what I said or did, no matter how jealous I managed to make her, no matter how much I argued with her, I couldn’t change Savannah’s mind. The fact that I’d convinced her to give us a chance once seemed like a miracle now. Because she loved me, there was nothing I could do to make her risk my life.

If it weren’t making both of us miserable, I could almost admire that unbreakable will of hers.

I reached the entrance area just as Emily stepped through the living room’s archway. She didn’t notice me at first, too busy laughing at something some guy at her side was saying. Trust Emily to find the only frat boy in the place to flirt with.

Finally she looked up and saw me. “Tristan, there you are! We’ve been looking all over for you.”

Sure she had.

Overhead, a movement of glitter caught my eye as Savannah stepped out onto the balcony with Anne. Savannah stopped there, returning my stare.

Emily followed my line of sight. “Uh-oh, time to go.”

“Call me,” the guy said as Emily and I left the party.

“That was the best party I’ve ever crashed!” Emily gushed as we crossed the lawn toward her car.

Yeah. Too bad we couldn’t stay longer.

* * *

At home, I’d just toed off my shoes in my bedroom and was getting ready to fall into bed when I heard a thud across the hall.

I glanced out through my open door in time to see my sister closing hers and throwing a quick glance in the direction of our parents’ room.

Emily was definitely up to something.

I darted out in time to beat her to the top of the stairs. “Hey sis. I thought you’d be headed back to your dorm by now.”

“Shh,” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder at our parents’ closed door again.

Oh, naughty, naughty sister.

“Sneaking out?” I grinned.

“I’m not sneaking out,” she said, still keeping her voice at a whisper. “I’m headed to a friend’s house. Mom knows.”

Liar. “Girl friend or guy friend?”

Her face went carefully blank. “Why would you ask that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the short skirt you’re wearing, or the extra makeup and perfume? You sure it’s not another Halloween party you’re off to instead?”

She hesitated a fraction of a section, then rolled her eyes, pressed a finger to her lips in warning to be quiet, then waved me after her down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Leaning a hip against the island, she crossed her arms and scowled at me. “Fine, you caught me. Happy? I’m going to a party. But don’t tell Mom or Dad or they’ll kill me, okay?”

I let the silence grow, pretending to consider it while I moved past her to the fridge and dug through the shelves full of plastic containers in search of leftovers.

Finally I sighed loudly. “Okay. But you’ll owe me one. Why all the secrecy, though? You’re in college now. So what if you go to a party? Why not just tell them the truth?”

“Mom was acting weird after we got home. She said Aunt Cynthia called her while Dad and her were out getting ice cream. Aunt Cynthia said she thought she and Uncle James were being stalked or something. Said they both kept feeling like they were being watched wherever they went. They were wondering if anything like that was going on with any other descendants. So now Mom’s doing her whole overprotective thing. It was her idea that I stay here tonight so I wouldn’t have to walk across the campus in the dark.”

Aunt Cynthia was Mom’s sister. We went to visit Uncle James, Aunt Cynthia and their two kids Kristie and Katie in New York City every year, usually for New Year’s Eve.

I spotted a clear plastic container full of shrimp etouffee. Mom had been experimenting with her book of Paula Deen recipes again. I stuck the container into the microwave and hit the auto reheat button. “Huh. Aunt Cynthia’s not usually the paranoid type. Did Mom say anything more specific?”

“No.” Circling the island, Emily stopped the microwave, opened one corner of the container’s red lid, then restarted the microwave. “Anyways, I’ll be home long before they wake up, so don’t wait up, okay?”

“Have fun. Call me if you need a safe ride home.”

“Thanks, little brother. But I don’t plan on drinking tonight. Which means I’ll probably wind up as everyone else’s designated driver.” She stopped the microwave two seconds before it could ding, covering her tracks as always in case our parents heard us down here and came to investigate.

“Keep the top down. They can barf over the side instead of on the floorboards,” I joked, grabbing a spoon to stir my now steaming food.

“Gross. But good idea.” Nose wrinkled in disgust, she grinned and waggled her fingers over her shoulder as she snuck out the kitchen door to the garage. A minute later, the garage door creaked its way up. I grinned, imagining my sister silently cursing the noise as she tried to make her getaway.

I grabbed a can of soda and the food, burning my fingertips on the container’s hot bottom, and ran up to my room to wolf down my snack while watching an old episode of
South Park
.

But something was wrong, and for a change it wasn’t just my relationship with Savannah.

Something about that whole conversation with Emily seemed…off. Her smile after being caught had been a little too sheepish. And she’d totally dodged answering the question of whether her friend was male or female. And then there was that hesitation and the way her eyes had flashed before her confession, and how she’d neatly brought up family gossip as a distraction.

She was lying.

I’d seen her do it to our parents too many times to mistake it tonight. But why would she lie to me? She’d never lied to me, at least not that I knew about.

I’d have to see what clues I could get out of her tomorrow over breakfast.

* * *

By the time I made it downstairs the next morning, Emily had already gone back to college. Mom said Emily had claimed she had a ton of homework and studying to catch up on.

Yeah right. She knew I was on to her and was running off to hide out at school.

I tried calling her a couple of times later in the weekend, but apparently she wasn’t taking any calls from suspicious brothers.

She was definitely up to something. The question was what?

SAVANNAH

After Tristan left my bedroom, I went downstairs and made the required rounds through Dad’s party, smiling and pretending I was having a great time. But the minute the guests began to leave, I headed right for the kitchen fridge then my room, blood-laced juice in hand.

It was the first time I actually appreciated the escape that the blood memories offered.

The next day, Dad let me sleep in, deciding we could go car shopping on Sunday instead. After forcing my body through a half hour of tai chi and a shower, Dad let me take his car over to the Junior Livestock Barn at the edge of town to help the other Charmers get everything ready for our annual masq ball fund-raiser for that night. Since I would only get dirty and no one cared what I wore anyways, I’d decided to go as my own scary self this year and wear my Charmers windsuit. Somehow the thought of putting on last night’s fairy costume and fixing my hair in a bun again didn’t seem like a lot of fun.

At the huge barn, I threw myself into scrubbing the corrugated metal walls and cement floors free of dust and cobwebs, refusing to think about how a certain boy dressed in plastic shining armor had once caught me as I fell off the rickety ladder. We spent several hours decorating and setting up folding tables for the desserts the Charmers had brought to be given out as prizes for costumes and musical chairs. It took another hour to unload and prepare all the snacks, candy and sodas I would be supervising the sale of in the concession stand all night.

And then all too soon it was time to open the front door and let the dancers in.

When Tristan and Bethany arrived, I made sure I was too busy stirring a Crockpot full of cheese sauce to look up. I didn’t need to see how perfectly matched their costumes would be, or how happy Bethany probably looked on his arm.

Later Carrie, Michelle and Anne showed up and stopped by the concession stand to say hello. By the looks of their wildly varying costumes, Carrie and Anne had managed to talk Michelle out of her idea for them to all dress alike.

“Why don’t you two go on in and I’ll catch up?” Anne suggested to the girls, and they took off for the dance room. Anne turned back to me. “Look, about our argument the other night…I didn’t get a chance to apologize at your party last night, what with a certain Clann boy showing up and all, but I wanted to say I’m sorry. Maybe you’re right, and this whole thing with Ron does have me a little too weirded out.”

“Have you called him yet?” I asked.

Her gaze darted from one side of the snack lineup to the other, like she was pretending to shop. But I knew her better than that. She was avoiding making eye contact.

“Anne,” I said on a sigh.

“I’m working on what I’m going to say, okay?”

My, but someone was feeling snippy tonight. Because she knew I was right. “Fine. But when you do call him and he does take you back right away, remember, I told you so.”

She snorted. “Yeah, well, just remember what you promised if he doesn’t.”

A hog hunt. “Never going to happen. Now hurry up and call him already.”

She drummed her fingers on the countertop. “Aw, why bother when he’ll probably show up here tonight anyways? I can just talk to him then.”

“Unless you chicken out again,” I murmured with a smile.

“I’m not chicken,” Anne muttered.

The front door opened to admit a new arrival. It was Ron.

“I’d better go find the girls,” Anne said, turning the other way and pretending she hadn’t seen him.

I made chicken sounds at her as she all but ran into the dance room. She didn’t look back during her escape.

Ron sauntered up to the counter, dressed as a giant black cat, swinging his fake tail like a propeller. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had decided to go as themselves tonight. “What bee flew up her butt?”

I choked down the laughter. “Oh, she’ll probably tell you about it later.”

“Hmm, maybe I should go hunt her down and say hi.”

“What a great idea! Tell me how it goes, and good luck.”

He headed for the doorway that connected the foyer with the larger back room, waving a paw goodbye over his shoulder.

I fell into a rhythm then of taking orders and dishing them out to the customers. The work was a good distraction, keeping me on my toes and moving without thinking about anything personal for a few blessed hours.

Until Bethany showed up to work her shift at the concession stand.

The room behind the open window was small, made even harder to move around in by the folding table full of food and the numerous stacks of sodas and ice chests full of drinks. She was avoiding making eye contact with me tonight for some reason, but that was just fine by me since I didn’t know what to say to her, either.