Exile: Sídhí Summer Camp #3 (40 page)

He was on the other side of the cabin, in the
guy’s dorm room, unpacking his clothes and stuff, same as she was.
Yet, from the tone of his mental voice, he was worried about her.
Sometimes, having a twin-bond wasn’t a good thing. Thank goodness,
he couldn’t hear her thoughts unless she projected them.

She groaned, realizing her shields must’ve
slipped. Again. It was either slipped shields or she’d been
muttering out loud, which was worse than slipped shields,
especially when someone heard. It was such a mundane thing to
do.

What did she expect? She hadn’t grown up
inside one of the ‘oh, so perfect’ immortal valleys. She grew up on
Earth around normal mundane humans.

“
Yeah, fine,”
Katie answered glumly.
She didn’t try to sound cheerful. He wouldn’t believe her if she
tried. They were both in a rotten mood. She didn’t think anything
could make her happy today. Though, she would be happier if she
knew where they were. She still wasn’t sure.

Oh, she knew they were in Dragon Valley. The
valley was probably hundreds of miles wide, possibly thousands of
miles wide. She just didn’t know where ’on’ Earth Dragon Valley was
located. They could be anywhere.

Not that it mattered. She couldn’t leave the
campgrounds, not even to port home for a few minutes. The stupid
dragons had strictly forbidden teleporting, or porting, as vampires
called it. Even if she tried to leave the camp, she was too young
to port very far. Without knowing where Dragon Valley was located,
she’d have to port without a specific destination in mind, which
meant porting blind.

Katie shuddered at the thought of porting
blind. Horrible things happened to people that ported blind. The
synth crystal in her blood could heal nearly any injury, but she
didn’t want to test the theory and end up squished in the middle of
a mountain.

Sighing, she reached into the nearly empty
suitcase and snatched up the last two items. She tossed the fluffy
pile of colorful panties into the top dresser drawer, and laid her
worn Bible on the nightstand. That was it. Finally, everything was
unpacked.

She shoved the bulky suitcase under her bed,
the one farthest away from the bathroom. Six girls would make the
bathroom the busiest room in the cabin. She could imagine the chaos
that would reign every morning. Mixing teenage elves and vampires
in a single bathroom was the perfect way to create a daily fight.
By adding her into the mix, it was a recipe for disaster.

As a halfling, she wasn’t an acceptable
member of polite valley society. Even her grandpa had taken several
hundred years to accept her mom and dad’s lifeBond. Full bloods
didn’t accept mixed lifeMate couples or their halfling children. It
was totally taboo.

“
Finished unpacking? Hungry?”
The
sugary sweet tone in Mitch’s voice was pure payback.

Katie had teased him unmercifully the
previous summer. For some reason, Mitch went through puberty a full
year before her, while she suffered through an additional year of
being a skinny pre-pub. They were twins. They were supposed to do
things together. She guessed her body didn’t know that.

“
Dumb question, I’m always hungry,”
she complained.

Puberty meant she’d be eating everything in
site, at least for the next few days. Sídhí puberty was very
different from mundane puberty. Sídhí puberty lasted three weeks.
Period. A Sídhí juvenile went from stick-thin to adult curves in a
short twenty-one days.

A little over two weeks ago, she finally
started puberty. Her strength and senses had slowly improved. Soon,
she would be tremendously stronger than any human could ever dream
of being. Her fangs showed up the first week. As did her ability to
port, and just last week she extended her claws for the first time.
It was so freaky to have normal fingernails one minute, and
two-inch crystal claws the next. She thought they looked like weird
grizzly bear claws, only a hundred times stronger and
semi-white.

“
You’re going to harass me for my final
week of puberty, aren’t you?”
she asked.

“
Of course, you’d think I didn’t love you
otherwise,”
Mitch answered. His serious tone of voice didn’t
surprise her.

Why did she even bother asking?

Katie grumbled for a minute, but she really
was hungry. Then she grinned to herself, at least she wouldn’t look
like a cartoon stick figure for much longer. Guys never showed
interest in someone with a boyish thin figure. No one ever asked
her out on a date. Sometimes being Sídhí really sucked.

She couldn’t even delude herself as to why
they didn’t ask her. Being Sídhí meant she heard all the human
thoughts around. She knew what guys, and girls, thought about her.
She didn’t even try to kid herself. She had major self-esteem
issues.

Her growling stomach pulled her back to his
question.
“There’s a ton of food in the kitchen. I’ll cook, if
you’ll clean up.”

“
Yeah, sure, that’s fine,”
he agreed
quickly.

“
What sounds good?”

His deep chuckle echoed behind her as he
entered the girl’s dorm room. “Anything, as long as I don’t have to
cook, I’ll eat whatever. That is, if there is anything left to eat
after you get finished. You ate that entire pack of Oreo cookies
and didn’t even give me one.”

At a few inches over six feet, Mitch had the
muscled body of a pro-football player. They both had their mom’s
light coloring and elfin features. She reluctantly admitted, even
though he was her brother, he was good looking. Though, she’d never
tell him. It’d go to his blond head, and there would be no living
with him.

“And I saw you snitching that last slice of
coconut cream pie mom made. You should be ashamed of yourself for
not sharing with your beloved twin brother.”

She grinned as he walked toward her. He was
so busy teasing her he didn’t notice the slowly rotating ceiling
fan. He had a bad case of tunnel vision, or maybe she should say,
once he got something stuck in his thick head, he chewed it to
death, it rattled around in his hard head and would not go
away.

For all his teasing, she should let him walk
into the fan, but his head would break her ceiling fan.

“Mitch,” she said, pointing up at the fan in
warning.

He ignored her, chattering on about how much
she was eating during puberty. He was almost there.

“Mitch!” She waved her hand to stop him,
waiting for the inevitable ker-chunk.

“Aargh!” He bellowed and his eyes bugged out.
Ducking at the last minute, he neatly avoided the thin wooden blade
of the fan. Looking up, he glared at the fan.

Katie’s laughter filled the room. Talk about
priceless. Though, she was glad his cement-hard head hadn’t broken
her ceiling fan.

“Very funny, Katie. Ha ha,” he grumbled,
turning his good-humored glare on her. His lips twitched trying not
to laugh with her.

“I tried to stop you.”

“Just wait until you start your growth spurt.
Next week you’ll be whining and complaining that nothing fits
anymore.”

He dropped onto one of the six beds lining
the room. The poor thing groaned under his weight, there was
nothing tiny about him. He was solid muscle.

“I think it might be sooner than next week.
I’d guess a couple of days max.” Her clothes were loose, but they
irritated her skin. Every time she moved, she felt the brush of her
shorts and soft cotton halter-top slide against her sensitive skin.
Her skin had started tingling yesterday afternoon. She sighed in
resignation, being tender was normal a few days before she started
the final growth spurt.

“Honestly,” Katie said. “I can’t wait. I’m so
sick of wearing boys slim cut jeans. To think, I’ll actually
have…”

“Laa! Laa! Laa! Laa!” He loudly bellowed with
a sick look on his face and fingers stuck in his ears.

“I was just going to say hips,” she said,
planting her hands on her hips. She grinned at his pained
expression.

He gave a long-suffering sigh and removed his
fingers.

She couldn’t resist the urge to tease him.
“Oh, and I’ll finally have boobs.”

Her giggles turned to laughter as his
mortified expression turned beet red. He tried to say something,
but only a gurgle came out, while the tips of his pointed ears
turned rosy red.

The words barely left her mouth, when she
felt someone watching her. She turned and found herself looking
into a set of piercing blue eyes. She skimmed his face and then
took in the whole deal: deep blue eyes, silky black hair, tall,
muscled, and gorgeous. Definitely, the most gorgeous guy she’d ever
seen. She honestly didn’t have the words to describe what he looked
like.

How could Katie think of words, when he made
all her brain functions cease to exist? For just a second, she
forgot where she was and even how to breathe. Her body went from
laughter to a hot flush, even the tips of her fingers and toes
tingled with sparks of awareness.

Wow, talk about making a great first
impression.

He casually leaned against the door frame,
watching her as she gave him the once over. He was nearly as tall
as Mitch. And she thought her brother looked like a pro athlete.
This guy put her twin to shame. He looked a bit stunned as he
stared back at her. She briefly wondered if she wasn’t the only one
having trouble breathing.

Then it registered. Her heart stuttered to a
complete stop; her eyes widened and she stared at him in mounting
alarm.

He was a vampire. A full blooded vampire!

His stunned look changed to shock. His eyes
slightly narrowed and his gaze flickered across her face, taking in
her small pointed ears as they peeked past her thick hair. She
groaned and felt her face and ears fill with blood, turning her
light golden tan into a deep red blush.

She was humiliated. He must’ve heard them
talking about her current lack of feminine curves. She wanted to
crawl in a dark, deep hole and hide.

His eyes settled on hers, she finally
remembered to breathe. Sucking in a ragged gasp of air, she vaguely
realized, breathing didn’t come easy.

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