Twin Spins! by Sienna Mercer Page A

she had to be saved, it might as well be a goth-gorgeous guy with skin the colour of pure white marble and high cheekbones that made picture-perfect valleys in his handsome face.
    Ivy glanced up at her boyfriend. ‘I’m fine.’ She pulled away. ‘Really,’ she said after seeing the worried look on Brendan’s face. ‘It’s my super-strong powers acting up again.’
At all the wrong moments
, Ivy added in her head.
    ‘Super-strong powers?’ Brendan’s eyebrows swooped up.
    This was going to take some explaining. She looked to her father for help.
    Charles gave a slight nod. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘but I should go back to check on my parents.’
    Ivy took Brendan’s hand and led him to the big porch that wrapped around the main house, where they plopped down on one of the swing seats. Ivy let her boots dangle as Brendan pushed the swing back and forth, his fingers still curled around hers.
    ‘When I told you about Wallachia Academy, I might have left out a few parts.’
    ‘Oh?’ Brendan’s eyebrows shot up beneath his hair.
    ‘Apparently my powers accelerate as I get older,’ she told Brendan. ‘It’s a part of being one of the gentry of Transylvania. It’s pretty freaky, really,’ Ivy admitted. ‘It doesn’t happen to most vampires. I accidentally broke a glass in my bare hand at Mister Smoothie the other day.’ Ivy laughed uncomfortably. ‘So anyway, that’s why I’ve been invited to finishing school – to learn to control them.’
    ‘Ivy!’ He stopped the swing. ‘Then that absolutely means you have to go. If you know this about yourself, isn’t it your duty to learn to control your powers? Do you want to risk blowing the vampire secret wide open?’
    ‘Are you being serious? I thought you didn’t want me to go.’
    Brendan’s smile faltered. ‘I didn’t want you to go, but that was before you told me about your powers.’ He shook his head, staring out at the horizon.
    ‘What’s wrong? Why are you reacting like this?’ Ivy asked.
    Brendan’s face was turning red. ‘Can’t you see, Ivy?’ He said quietly. ‘You owe it to everyone to learn to control your powers. If the vampire secret at Franklin Grove got out because you gave the game away, everyone would suffer.’
    Ivy couldn’t believe Brendan was making out she was in danger of letting down every vampire she knew.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ she said.
    Brendan turned to face her. ‘It’s not about how I feel. It’s about the truth. I don’t want you to be far away from me, but if it’s for a really important reason . . .’
    ‘We’ve never, ever argued before,’ Ivy said, sadness leaking through her.
    ‘We’re not arguing now.’ Brendan’s rigid expression softened. ‘But I’m going to tell you when I think you’re wrong.’
    ‘So if we’ve never argued . . .’ Ivy poked her finger into Brendan’s ribs, trying to get him to laugh. She needed this mood to change super-fast. ‘Does this mean I’m never wrong?’
    Brendan swatted her away. ‘This isn’t funny, Ivy. For one thing, Olivia knows something’s up and she’s been asking me awkward questions. I don’t want to be stuck in the middle. I mean, how bad does it have to be when one twin is asking the other twin’s
boyfriend
what’s going on? Please . . .’ He pressed his palms together. ‘For my sake as well as Olivia’s, can you just come clean with your sister? If you do decide to leave the country, at least warn her. It might break a vampire rule, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be breaking a much bigger twin-sister code if you sit back and do nothing. You shouldn’t be lying to your sister, no matter what your grandparents say.’
    Ivy couldn’t have been more surprised if Brendan had popped out of her coffin. He had never lectured her and she wasn’t sure she liked him mixing the role of schoolteacher and boyfriend. Brendan pulled Ivy into his chest, but it felt clumsy instead of