“No way! Then Mom would take it away, too. And before you ask, you can’t borrow my laptop, either. I’m not losing my social life just because you’ve gone nuts over one of the few girls on the entire planet that you can’t have.” She hopped to her feet. “Face it, little brother. You’ve had your fun, but your fling with Savannah is over. The sooner you move on and find someone else, the better it’ll be. For the both of you.”
She walked out the door then hesitated. “Oh yeah. And Mom sent you this.” She used a foot to push a wicker and wood tray with a can of soda and a sandwich on a plate across the threshold into my room. “PB and strawberry jelly. Your favorite.”
Like I would eat that. Mom had probably laced it with more spells to make me forget about Savannah or something. “I’m not eating till they let me out of here.”
A slow grin spread across her face. “Stupid, but admirable. I’ll sneak you in something to eat.”
Could I trust whatever she brought?
Her grin turned into a laugh. “It’ll be safe. Pinky swear.”
“Thanks, sis.”
Now if she could just find me a spell strong enough to bust out of this joint.
SAVANNAH
As I stumbled out of bed the next morning, I felt like one of my glass ballerinas, cold and brittle and way too breakable. My eyes were scratchy and so puffy I could barely open them at first.
I desperately needed some caffeine.
Dragging myself down the hall, I headed for the dining table, already looking forward to that daily cup of Nanna’s homegrown, old-fashioned steeped tea. Two things stopped me in my tracks.
My father sat at the dining table with my mother. I couldn’t remember them ever sitting at a table together. They’d divorced when I was two and barely managed to speak nicely to each other over the phone since, much less actually sit down to a meal together.
The other thing that made my muscles lock up was the realization that I’d never have Nanna’s homegrown tea again. At least not carefully measured out and steeped by her own hands.
“Hey, hon, how are you feeling?” Mom hopped up from her usual seat at the dining table and went into the kitchen to fix a plate of something I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat.
How did I feel? Like a traitorous, rule-breaking, lying murderer. “Fine,” I muttered, sinking into the chair next to Mom’s. Which left me facing Dad.
I caught myself staring at him. Seeing him at Nanna’s dining table was too weird.
Mom set a plate of nuked waffles in front of me. My stomach rolled over and threatened outright revolt as I stalled for time by cutting up the dripping, sticky plate of guilt into the tiniest pieces possible.
Mom sat down, clasped her hands on the table, then exchanged a look with Dad.
My instincts went on alert.
“Savannah, we need to speak with you,” she began.
My gaze shot to her face, then Dad’s. “Okay.”
“Your father and I have been talking,” Mom continued. “And we both feel that you should live with him for a while. At least until you graduate from high school.”
I stared at her, my brain scrambling to understand words I never thought I’d hear her say.
“Over the next year as your vampire side continues to develop, you are going to need me nearby to teach you how to recognize and control each new ability,” Dad said.
“Why can’t I just call you for advice?”
“This is not just your mother’s and my wishes. The council has also…requested that I stay near you during this crucial time.” Which wasn’t a surprise, considering they’d threatened before to require me to live with my father in order to balance out the “effects” of living with former Clann descendants all my life. “If the bloodlust increases in strength, a phone chat is not going to do much to help control you.”
“Control me? You really think I could become that big a threat to others?”
“It is possible, unless we are proactive in recognizing the signs leading up to such a situation and act quickly.”
I tried to imagine living with him, but it was hard. Until this weekend, I’d seen him only twice a year for an hour-long dinner, during which we’d both pretended to eat and care about each others’ lives. So I didn’t have much personal experience to support my imagination.
“And this is what you want, too?” I asked Mom, desperate for her to say no, that she wanted me to keep living with her. All my life, my family had consisted of Mom and Nanna and myself. Now Nanna was gone and they were talking about taking me away from Mom, too.
“Hon, this is the best choice possible. For everyone,” she said.
“I will of course be purchasing a home for us here in your hometown,” Dad added. “So you need not be concerned about relocating to a new school or leaving your friends and dance team.”
“Why would you do that?” I blurted out in confusion. If he was trying to reassure me, he’d just failed big-time. While descendants were spread out worldwide, Jacksonville was the Clann’s home base and therefore had the highest concentration in any one area. The temptation of being surrounded by hundreds of descendants and their powerful, magic-laced blood would make his existence here unbearable. The only upside to moving in with my father should have been getting away from the Jacksonville Clann.
And avoiding the temptation of getting back together with Tristan.
“The council wishes it,” was all he said.
Maybe the council wanted to continue to test me by making me stay here another two years?
“Well, at least I can still come visit you here on weekends, right?” I asked Mom.
“Hon, please try to understand, Nanna’s social security checks barely helped us make ends meet. Now that she’s gone, there’s no way I can continue to make the payments on this place.”
Dad scowled, and she rolled her eyes. “Yes, Michael, I know you’ve offered to help with that. But it wouldn’t be right now that we’re no longer married. I’m not your responsibility anymore, remember?”
She turned to face me again. “Besides, this place is too big for me to live in alone. I’d have to get fifty million cats just to keep me company.”
A reluctant smile bunched my cheeks and pushed the tears out of my eyes. I sniffed and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands. “That’d be attractive.”
She smiled. “Exactly.” She took a deep breath, then dropped the biggest bombshell of all. “But the main reason is, now that your grandma is gone, her magic has begun to fade. Within days it will be gone completely, depending on how strong each spell was and how recently she strengthened it. That includes the dampening wards here.” She didn’t quite meet my eyes as she said that last part.
Oh. She was talking about the bloodlust-dampening spells only Nanna had known how to make, because she was the only descendant with magic abilities who had ever wanted to dampen a vampire’s bloodlust—mine, in this case—without actually repelling the vampire completely.
As a teenager Mom had chosen to let her abilities atrophy like an unused muscle. But that decision couldn’t erase her lineage. She was still a descendant with the Clann’s powerful blood running through her veins, the kind of blood that was almost irresistible to vampires.
Without the dampening wards on my home, I might begin to feel the bloodlust for my own mother. And now those wards were beginning to fade.
I shuddered. As much as I hated it, there was only one thing to do. “I guess we’d