Covet (8 page)

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.