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