Covet by Melissa Darnell Page B

some teenage hormone thing, either. I’ve loved her since we were kids. I’ve never felt anything even close to this with anyone else. And I know she loves me, too.”
    My heart pounded harder. It didn’t help that he could probably hear it. My hands turned hot and damp. I shoved them inside my front jeans pockets.
    “You know the promises she has made.” He wasn’t asking me.
    I nodded anyway. “The council and the Clann are afraid she’ll kill me and break the treaty. Savannah’s afraid of that, too. But I think there’s another option.”
    A single thick black eyebrow rose in silent question. The way he was able to stand so still was more than a little unnerving.
    If I was successful tonight, would I be able to freeze like that, too?
    “You could make me a vampire.”
    Seconds ticked by. A breeze kicked up, making the trees rustle behind me. The wind wasn’t strong enough to dry the sweat running down my back, though.
    Finally, Mr. Colbert stepped away from the door. “Come inside.”
    Was that his way of agreeing to turn me?
    Heart racing, I entered the house, my every step making the hardwood floors creak and groan. He shut the door behind me then led the way to a dark maroon leather couch in the room to the right. Sawdust made the floor slippery and the air smell like pine, and tools lay all over the place.
    He gestured toward the couch, and we sat at opposite ends, angled to face each other.
    As soon as I was seated, he asked, “You are really willing to give up your humanity for my daughter?”
    I didn’t hesitate. At least this much I was sure about. “Yes, sir.”
    He studied my face. “You seem confident. But perhaps that is because you do not know what being a vampire is truly like. Shall I tell you?”
    Less sure I wanted to hear this, I forced a nod. Might as well find out the gory details of what I was getting into. Though part of me would rather find out later once I was turned and couldn’t be tempted to chicken out.
    “We vampires are an evolved species,” he began. “Things that were once dire problems, such as daylight, are no longer threats to us. It may seem that we are the perfect beings, able to walk among humans, appearing relatively normal, with only fire, staking or decapitation to worry about. We are immortals. No sickness will ever harm us, and we will never age past the point in life at which each of us is turned. We are able to read the minds of fellow vampires and humans, but not descendants. We gain great speed, strength and agility.”
    He paused, letting silence fill the room so long I was forced to reply. “Doesn’t sound like being a vampire is all that tough so far.”
    His silver gaze, a more intense version of Savannah’s, locked onto me. “Yes, it would seem so. But within hours of first awakening as a vampire, you feel a thirst that is like nothing you could ever imagine. It is the bloodlust clawing at your very insides, the craving for human blood, and any human’s blood will do. In the first few weeks, many vampires accidentally kill even their loved ones because of this blinding thirst.”
    Okay, not so great to be a vamp in the beginning. “But it goes away, right?”
    “The bloodlust lessens after a while. But it never completely goes away. And being around someone like yourself with such powerful, magic-laced blood in your veins presents special challenges. That power calls to even the oldest of vampires as strongly as if we have just been turned. Even at my age of over three hundred years, I find it difficult to be around a descendant for long.”
    I shifted uneasily, making the couch creak. “But you can do it. I mean, you married Sav’s mom. And you were around a bunch of descendants in the woods a couple weeks ago and you were okay.”
    His lips stretched into a cold smile. “With Savannah’s mother, I had the assistance of a charm her mother created for me—a spell that only Savannah’s grandmother knew, which dampened the bloodlust and made