Covet (51 page)

And Emily had completely fallen for him.

Gowin hummed in surprise. “So it’s true then. You have learned to read everyone’s minds. Well, in that case…”

Join me or die,
he finished silently.

Oh crap. He could read my mind, too.

“You’re kidding, right?” I hissed as his grip around my throat tightened, cutting off more of my air. “Who do you think you are, Darth Vader?”

“Well, Caravass, I tried,” Gowin said to his maker. “But she’s well and truly joined the other side, it seems. She refuses to side with the vamps.”

“Not all vamps, just you, Gowin,” I croaked. “Why don’t you tell everyone here the truth and see how the sides line up then?”

I saw the answer in his mind. He’d already tried to convince Caravass, but the vamp leader had dismissed his ideas, preferring to keep the vamp race pure. Which was why Gowin felt he had to kill his sire tonight and take over the council for himself.

“Let her go, Gowin!” Tristan yelled.

Gowin turned us both so I could see Tristan standing on the throne’s hill above the crowd, his hands raised.

“Careful, or she dies!” Gowin said, his fingers at my throat curling into claws ready to rip.

Tristan dropped his hands, his face more afraid and ticked off than I’d ever seen it.

He wasn’t the only one. I was ready to tear Gowin’s head off myself. If I could just get free…

“Gowin, you cannot win this fight,” my dad called out.

“You’re a fool, Michael.” Gowin turned so he could see both Tristan and my dad. “You always were. Tonight, these descendants are going to pay for all the vamps they were arrogant and stupid enough to kill. Will you be on the winning side or not?”’

“There are no sides here tonight,” Dad answered. “Only many people seeking the truth.”

Wait. Nanna had said all I needed to do was focus on what I wanted and inject those intentions with my willpower.

Well, I had plenty of willpower tonight. And Gowin had taught me something new about magic and vamps.

Closing my eyes, I envisioned becoming a living flame, and that flame spreading over me, but not touching me, from head to toe.

TRISTAN

When I saw the fire engulf Savannah, I yelled out in panic, thinking someone had hit her with a spell. Then I saw the smile on her face through the flames.

That’s my girl,
I thought with a whoop of pride as Gowin instantly backed away from her.

“She’s using magic!” Gowin screamed. “There’s your proof, councilmen. She’s on their side!”

The vamp council must have believed him, because everything erupted into chaos then. Screams filled the air as Mr. Colbert went after Gowin while Gowin’s vamps led the council’s army in an attack on the descendants from two fronts.

I raced across the battle arena that the Circle had become, ducking spell after flying spell until I could reach Sav. She was crouched on the ground, the fire gone from around her now.

“Are you okay?” I shouted over the screams and roars of angry vamps and descendants, patting her shoulders and arms and cupping her cheeks to be sure she wasn’t burnt.

“I’m good! Just powering back up,” she yelled, both her palms pressed to the ground.

A vamp came toward us, fangs and hands out. I started to raise my hands, intending to hit him with a ball of fire. But before I could release the spell, an arrow appeared in his chest and he fell to the ground thrashing. What the…

I looked in the direction the arrow had flown from, and there was a giant panther and a crazy-eyed Anne fighting back-to-tail against the vamps.

“Savannah!” I yelled and pointed in their direction.

Savannah turned and gasped, though the sound of it was lost beneath the screams and sizzling of flying magic in the air. “Are they
crazy
?”

They sure looked it. Panther teeth and claws and a compound bow and arrows might be cool, but they were no match against an army of vamps and magic.

And where the heck had Anne found a trained panther that size in East Texas?

I ran in a crouch toward the strange team, holding Sav’s hand so we wouldn’t get separated.

“What are you doing here?” I yelled at Anne as soon as we reached them.

“Savannah owed me a hunt!” Anne grinned even as she loosed another arrow. I turned to check. The arrow had found its home in the back of another of Gowin’s vamps. The vamp screamed then burst into a cloud of ash that plummeted to the ground to form a pile. Anne had surprise on her side for now, but once the vamps caught on to her, she’d be toast. “Thank goodness I ran out of my carbon arrows and had to bring the wooden ones today, huh?”

“You’ve got to get out of here,” Savannah yelled at them. “This isn’t your fight!”

I tried to tell her that, believe me,
Ron thought.
But she’s too dang stubborn!

A vamp launched itself at our group and the panther reared up to catch the vamp’s neck between his teeth and paws.

I looked at Savannah. “I think… Did I just hear Ron—”

“Yeah, the panther’s Ron,” she shouted near my ear so I could hear her. “He’s a Keeper, a shapeshifter the Clann created as allies centuries ago. He—”

Anne stood up so she could shoot over us. “Less explaining, more fighting!”

“It’s a long story,” Savannah finished. “I’ll tell it later. But you need to know descendants and Keepers can read each other’s minds, okay?”

“Albright!” Dylan screamed from several yards away. He threw his hands into the air.

Anne dropped like a stone, grabbing her throat as if choking. A second later, her eyes rolled up in her head as the veins beneath her skin turned black in snaking lines down the sides of her face and throat toward her chest. What had Dylan hit her with?

I whirled around to hit him with a spell, but a vampire had already found him. Good, I hoped the fanger ate him.

I turned back to find Ron, still in panther form, crouched over Anne and howling as Savannah pressed her hands to her unconscious friend’s neck.

“Tristan, I can’t stop it!” Savannah cried out. “Whatever he hit her with, it’s like poison or something.”

“Cover us,” I told her and Ron as I dropped to my knees beside Anne and got to work.

The spell was as devious as its owner, spreading like wildfire through Anne’s veins. It took all my concentration to push it back from Anne’s heart, which seemed to be its ultimate target. Savannah and Ron worked to block us from more spells and vamps while too many seconds ticked by.

Finally, though, I could feel the poisonous spell fading as I drove it to Anne’s lungs and out through her every breath. When it was fully expelled, she began to breathe again. She was still unconscious, but she’d live.

“Ron,” I called out. The panther tossed aside the vampire he’d been ripping to shreds and leaped back over to us. “You’ve got to get her out of here somewhere safe. She’ll be okay, but she’s got to rest for a while.”

The huge panther’s head dipped once. He ran behind some nearby trees. A few seconds later he came running back in human form, still barefooted but wearing jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. “Thanks, man. I owe you big-time.”

He scooped Anne into his arms, cradling her limp body against him.

“Savannah, we’ve got to cover him so he can get her out of here,” I yelled, moving to stand beside Savannah as she blocked fireball after fireball thrown our way from too many directions to track.

She nodded, and we split our focus between shielding ourselves and our friends as Ron ran with Anne in his arms through the woods toward my house, where I hoped their vehicle was parked.

Once they were out of sight, Savannah said, “We’ve got to get to Caravass. He’s the oldest. He can command the vamps to stop.”

“Okay.” Staying low, I kept a hand on her back, blocking spells as we ran toward the edge of the clearing where Caravass had taken a stand, weaving our way through battling witches and descendants on all sides.

Caravass and the other council members were engaged, too, though it looked mostly defensive now. They were dodging spells and hitting attacking descendants just hard enough to knock them out, unlike Gowin’s small army who were breaking necks and slashing arteries as quickly as they could.

“Over there!” I yelled, using my hand at her back to nudge her toward the council.

“Not so fast,” Gowin said into my ear a second before pain exploded in my chest.

CHAPTER 37

SAVANNAH

Pain exploded in my chest, and Tristan’s hand at my back slipped away. I turned around, still crouched low, thinking he’d stopped to block the attacker who had just hit me with a spell.

But this attacker had caught him completely by surprise. And it wasn’t my own pain I was feeling.

Tristan was standing fully upright and arched backward, his face twisted with shock and agony.

Then I saw Gowin at his back and what looked like fingertips sticking out of the front of Tristan’s chest. As if Gowin had plowed his hand right through Tristan.

Please, God, no,
I thought.

Just like that, my whole world ended.

I must have screamed or something. Gowin dropped Tristan as carelessly as if he were a piece of trash and moved on, probably to go after Caravass.

But I didn’t care where he went, or how the battle was going around us, who was winning or losing. Even the whereabouts of my dad and Ron and Anne didn’t matter in that moment as I caught Tristan before he could hit the ground.

He tried to speak, his eyes rolling to look at me as he gasped and choked.

“Please, don’t,” I cried, on my knees, cradling his upper body against me as I’d once held Nanna here in this same cursed clearing.

Once again, the Circle would claim someone I loved.

No. Tristan couldn’t die. I wouldn’t know how to exist without him in this world. He had to live.

I pressed a hand to his chest, but I couldn’t stop the blood from pulsing out in a feeble rhythm to match his heartbeat. That rhythm was slowing even as I watched.

“Oh God. Tell me how to save you,” I whispered in his ear, pressing my cold cheek against his, which was beginning to cool, too.

Nanna said I didn’t need words. So I closed my eyes and concentrated on his heart, willing it to heal. I pushed energy into him, a little at first, then with everything I had as I grew desperate. I didn’t care if I had to give him the last drop of energy within me, as long as he lived. “Come on, Tristan! You always told me to fight. Now it’s your turn. Fight!”

I told his heart to repair itself, focusing on the magic and what I needed so much that I didn’t realize Dad had joined us until his hand covered mine.

“He is dying, Savannah!” Dad yelled. “Turn him!”

Time slowed, until each of Tristan’s heartbeats seemed to last several seconds.

“I can’t,” I tried to shout, but it came out as a mumble.

“You can. Do it now! He is wounded too much and losing too much blood. Turn him before his heart stops and it is too late!”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how. You—”

“I cannot, his body will reject the pure vampire blood. You must give him yours. It is the only chance he has.”

“But he’ll die!”

“He is already dying. There are only seconds left before his heart fails. Turn him now or let him go.” Dad pressed a hand to my shoulder. “It is what he wanted. He loves you. Do you love him?”

I nodded, my throat too tight for me to speak.

Tristan grabbed my hand, his eyes going wide, pleading with me.

Praying I was making the right decision, I used my teeth to open a gash in my wrist then held it to Tristan’s mouth.

Leaning close to his ear, I whispered, “I’m sorry. I know it’s selfish. But I can’t let you go. Not yet.”

Then I did what I’d vowed never to do: I sank my fangs into the side of Tristan’s neck where his life pulsed and drank.

TRISTAN

I didn’t know where I was, or even who I was at first. A cloud of red filled my vision when I opened my eyes, giving me no additional clues.

But that scent, the smell of warm lavender filling my nose and lungs…that I knew. It meant home, and love, and everything I needed to be happy.

I reached up to touch that red curtain of softness across my face. I knew that, too. It was hair, soft curly hair, long and thick. My fingers remembered burying themselves in this curtain of red many times, always with joy.

The curtain slid away from my face and hands.

“Tristan?” a girl’s voice whispered, low and husky, and it too was familiar and meant love.

Then a face came into view, and instantly I knew who she was.

“Savannah.” The girl I loved and would die for.

Maybe I had died. I knew there had been pain, so much that I had been drowning in it. The pain had started in my chest, spread to every part of my body, then retreated back to my chest before fading away completely. In its place had come a flood of memories of Savannah as a little girl, playing in a tree house with a boy. Me. I was that boy, her best friend. And then the memories changed, showing us when we were older…the day I rescued her from someone named Greg outside a round brick building…the night we’d danced together under the moonlight, autumn leaves rustling around our feet, plastic armor covering me like a knight while Savannah flowed in a white dress with small white wings at her back.

“Are you an angel?” I murmured, trying to remember how to speak, to move enough to reach for her face.

She looked up at someone else, a man whose voice was less familiar, who said, “It will take a while for him to remember. Possibly days, even weeks.”

I ignored the rest of what they said. None of it mattered. All that mattered was that the girl before me was Savannah, and I was Tristan, and I loved her.

And then another scent came to me. Something good, and warm. A smell that made my mouth ache and my stomach cramp with need.

SAVANNAH

“Tristan,” Nancy Coleman screamed. She ran over to us and dropped to her knees beside him as the tears poured down her cheeks. “My sweet baby, are you okay? How do you feel? What happened?”