Crave (38 page)

“I'm half human. I care about him,” I admitted in a whisper, tearing my gaze away from Tristan's drooping head.

“Emotions are a sign of a lack of control,” a pinch-faced
councilwoman hissed. “We cannot afford to risk our entire society on a girl who cannot control her emotions.”

“Especially when the cause for that loss of control is a Clann member,” Caravass agreed.

Their collective fear rose, nearly suffocating me.

What a bunch of hypocrites! They weren't even going to give me a chance to prove myself. I had to say something. “Why don't you try me.”

Dad stiffened. “I respectfully suggest that the test be kept within reason so as not to start another war with the Clann. Kidnapping their future leader could possibly already be construed as a violation of the treaty. It might be unwise to risk further provoking them.”

Provoke the Clann further how…by
killing
Tristan?

The council hesitated, and I couldn't breathe.

“Agreed,” Caravass said. “We will keep him alive for this test.”

And afterward?

One step at a time, Sav,
I told myself.

A guard outside the council chamber opened the vaultlike metal door behind me, and the inner guard stepped away from the window to lead me out. In silence, he turned to the left down a dim corridor that seemed to stretch forever in either direction. If I could get Tristan free, which way would we need to go? The place had seemed like a labyrinth on the way in.

We'd figure that out when the time came. If it did. First, I'd try to do what I should have been doing for months now; I would follow the rules.

After a few steps, the guard turned to the left again at a rectangular metal door. He reached under his jacket, withdrew a ring of keys on a chain and unlocked it. Then he stepped inside.

I followed him into the interrogation room. My gaze immediately snapped to Tristan, who was still knocked out. Part of me wanted to run over to him immediately. The other half of me was distracted by the emotions I kept sensing from the room we'd just left. On this side, the window looked like a mirror. I couldn't see my audience of judges. Yet I could almost pinpoint each council member's location through their anger, fear, worry and curiosity.

They were on the move for less than a second. Then the council stopped again by the window, gathering in a tight half circle only a few feet away. Probably so they could see me better when I failed their test.

The guard's face looked bored, as if to say this was nothing personal. Which was a lie. This was totally personal. And all my fault.

He reached inside his inner jacket pocket and took out two items…a syringe and a scalpel. The clear plastic protectors on the blade and needle made loud snicks as he removed them. The harsh fluorescent light overhead glinted off the needle and made the syringe's yellow contents glow.

I gulped, the air rushing in and out of my lungs in noisy gusts I couldn't hide within the silence of the cold cement room.

The guard stepped closer to us. My thigh muscles tensed, the instinct to fight pulsing through me, and the guard's eyes grew cautious. He knew I was desperate. But that didn't make me stupid. The guard was both a vampire and big, built like a linebacker beneath his badly fitted suit. And even if I could somehow fight him off, my audience of judges would step in to stop me.

Think straight, Sav,
I told myself while I struggled to breathe. Time for logic, not emotion.

Okay. So we were in deep this time. But we weren't totally
doomed. Yet. The council had promised that I had only to pass one test, and then Tristan could go free.

An innocent boy who wouldn't even be here if I hadn't fallen in love with him. My fault he was in danger. If I'd only broken up with him…

No, no time for guilt right now. I had to focus on passing this test, and then we could go home.

Just one test to pass.

A test I was genetically destined to fail.

“What are those for?” I murmured, keeping my voice calm as I nodded at the tools in the guard's hands.

“They are your test.” His French accent was so thick I could barely understand him. Then he pressed the scalpel to Tristan's neck.

Should I trust the council's promise not to kill Tristan? I searched the emotions in the other room but didn't sense any deception.

Holding my breath and praying I was making the right decision, I took two steps back from Tristan, closed my eyes and tried to calm my crazed thoughts.

Tristan's breathing changed, quickened and grew shallow. He was waking up. I glanced down at him. A bead of blood now welled from a nick below his jawline then trickled down his neck. Metal rang out against the cement floor. The guard had dropped the scalpel. I turned in time to see him backing out of the room, his hand over his mouth and nose as he tucked the now empty syringe into his inner jacket pocket one-handed. He wasn't even going to stop long enough to pick up the scalpel? Or was it that he wouldn't be able to endure the smell of the blood on the blade?

Lovely. So even the council's own vampire guards couldn't withstand the smell of Clann blood for long. And yet the council expected
me
to pass this test?

Maybe not. Maybe they wanted me to fail.

Well, they were about to be disappointed. I could handle this. After all, hadn't I sat in a restaurant with Dad and a full cup of blood right in front of me without a problem?

Then the scent of Tristan's powerful blood wafted toward me from both his neck and the scalpel. Oh, so
that's
why the guard had left the scalpel…to make the test twice as hard. It was working, too. Tristan's blood smelled so much better than regular human blood. Better than anything I'd ever smelled, really.

My mouth watered, and I took a step toward him before I even had time to think.

“Savannah!” he slurred, sounding drunk. He fought to raise his head as he squinted at me. They must be keeping some drugs in his system so he wouldn't be able to use magic and escape. “Oh, man, they grabbed you, too. Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out.

He smelled so good, even better than I'd remembered.

“Sav? You look a little strange.”

“You smell great.” My feet were shuffling me right over to him. Was that a bad thing? It seemed only natural at the moment.

His sleepy, little-boy smile contrasted with the blondish-brown stubble on his cheeks and around his mouth. I wanted to run my hands over it.

“Uh, okay, thanks. Now are you going to free me or what?” He flopped his hands to indicate the handcuffs.

Mmm, yes, I should free him. I could use that scalpel to pick the locks. Then he could get up and wrap his arms around me, and I could stand on tiptoe and lick the blood…

Blood? Oh, yuck. Whoa. Wait. What was I doing this close to him? Only a foot remained between us!

I stumbled backward until my hands found the cinder-block
wall. I slid down the wall until my butt met the equally cold cement floor. But he wasn't safe enough yet. I could still crawl over to him. I pressed my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my shaking limbs.

Oh, crap. I
was
dangerous to him. This wasn't a dream or a nightmare. This was really me fighting my fully-awake self against the urge to drink Tristan's blood. And I didn't just want to drink a little. I wanted to drain him dry, to take every bit of his energy into me so I could keep him with me forever.

“Did they brainwash you or something?” he muttered, the words coming out more smoothly now. The drugs must be wearing off.

“No. I'm being tested.”

“With what, the urge to free me?”

“It's okay. All I have to do is sit here and stay calm. Once the test is over, I'm sure they'll take you home. No one wants another war between the species.”

“Species? What are you talking about? What species?”

“Ours. Yours and mine.”

He stared at me. “You're making zero sense. Is this about last night?”

“A little, yes. Remember the watchers? They're with this…group. You could call them all one big family.” A family of monsters. And I was one of them.

My feet slid forward as if they had a mind of their own. I dragged them back up against me.

“Vampires,” he whispered.

I nodded and focused on trying not to breathe through my nose. But the room was small and the scent of his blood was rapidly filling the tiny space.

Whimpering, I pinched my nose shut with one hand, kept the other arm like a chain around my legs and closed my eyes.
Ah, better. But pinching my nose shut trapped the smell inside me so that it filled me up, tickling at the insides of my nose and throat.

“Sav, what is going on?” If he'd been rude or angry, I could have ignored him. But I couldn't block out that warm, low voice when it softly pleaded with me.

I had to tell him the truth.

“I'm half vampire.” My voice came out flat, as dead as I felt inside, but it couldn't be helped. “My father is an incubus, a demon-vampire hybrid that can drink blood or drain you with a kiss. Apparently I can, too. It's the reason for my eyes changing color and the gaze daze. And why you feel weak after we kiss, and why we're drawn to each other…some sort of built-in suicidal attraction between the species.” I looked at him, meeting his gaze, needing him to see the honesty in my next words. “I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before. I…I forgot about the draining-through-a-kiss thing. I thought as long as I never bit you, you'd be safe around me. I should have told you anyway, but I just wanted you to keep liking me.”

I expected to find shock and horror in his eyes. Instead, I found…warmth. Caring. Impossible. He should at least be a little bit surprised. How many people heard their girlfriends announce that they were half vampire?

“You already knew, didn't you?” I whispered. “You knew and never told me?”

He flinched. “Emily and I guessed.”

“How long?”

“When the bracelet nearly killed you.”

“And you knew about the draining-kiss ability, too?”

He nodded.

He'd known for
months.
Months I'd spent feeling guilty for not telling him. And all that time, while I'd been kissing him,
unaware that I was draining him, he'd known…and hadn't cared.

“Are you an idiot?” My arm loosened from around my knees. “How could you keep seeing me?
Kissing
me?” I rose up on my knees, so furious the cement didn't even hurt. “Do you have some kind of a death wish? Do you
want
to die?” I was nearly shouting now. And the angrier I became, the more irresistible he smelled.

From the other room came a heightened mixture of fear and the faintest hint of smugness. Oh, crap. I was giving them exactly what they wanted, losing control right before their eyes. Moaning, I pinched my nose shut again. Dad was right, emotions might make me more human, but they also definitely made the bloodlust worse. Calm, I had to stay calm. I sat back down against the wall.

“I didn't say anything because I love you. I didn't want you to run away from me, from us.” The sadness in his voice created an echoing ache in my stomach.

He loved me. Even though he knew I was a dangerous monster.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to bite him, slap him or kiss him. “Do you know why we're in here? Why they kidnapped you? Because
you
are my test. There's a reason why the vampires are the Clann's worst enemy. That blood running down your neck is the ultimate test for me. You're the son of the Clann's most powerful family. They know you're like an addiction for me, the one person I'll crave above all others, even other descendants.”

“Well, same here,” he growled. “It doesn't matter what you are. Don't you have any idea how much I love you? How much I've always loved you? And I always will, no matter who or what you come from. So what if you take some of my
energy when we kiss? Don't you get it? It's worth it to me, just to be with you.”

He made craving someone sound romantic, like a symptom of love. The need I felt for his blood right now was anything
but
romantic. How could it be romantic to want to kill some one? A sharp laugh escaped me. “What we have here isn't love. It's just the monster's drive for survival.”

He cursed and jerked at the cuffs, the tendons in his neck standing out. “Damn it, you're not a monster!” The blood dripped a little faster toward the collar of his shirt.

Oh, God. I couldn't do this anymore. His words, his voice and the furious ache within it, were ripping me apart. I couldn't talk to him, love him, want to hold him and want to drain him dry all at the same time.
This
wasn't love. Love was that sweet glow of warmth I'd always felt for him even when we were little kids.
This
was bloodlust. And it was threatening to destroy what little humanity I had left.

Maybe that humanity was the problem. According to Dad, there was only one way to end the torture here. Regain control over my emotions.

But could I really trust a former council member's advice?

“Sav, whatever you're thinking, don't do it,” he murmured. “Don't pull away from me. I don't care what they said. You
know
what we have is real.”

I gave him a sad smile, my decision made. “I'm so sorry, Tristan. For everything. But I promise it'll be over soon.”

Then I closed my eyes.

I am an Ice Princess,
I thought, reaching for that mask. The cold within answered, eagerly seeping over my face. But this time, it didn't stop there. Instead, it kept going, tightening my scalp, creeping down my neck and torso, spreading goose bumps along my arms and legs.

Oh, no. I'd gone too far, let it take over too much. I was drowning in the cold now, going numb from head to toe.