TRISTAN

Red strands of her hair tickled my cheeks, their lavender scent filling my nose and adding to the buzz in my head. Did she have any idea how much she wrecked my mind, my control? How much I'd missed even the scent of her perfume all last week? How, even now, without any power to stop her or protect myself, I was still happier than I'd ever been?

When I was around her, my world made sense. I knew who I was. I'd never known what I'd wanted out of life before her, other than to play pro football. I'd drifted through each day, doing exactly what my parents expected of me. I'd dated other girls. A lot of them. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, they'd all made me feel the same...nothing more than casual friendship. They were great to hang out with, but none had ever made me wonder what they were thinking or doing when we were apart. I never wondered how they were getting along with their parents. I never worried that no one else recognized how amazing they truly were. I didn't miss them when I couldn't talk to them, and I hadn't been torn to pieces when I stopped dating them.

I'd never needed any girl like I needed Savannah.

Sluggish as my thoughts had become, I heard the goodbye in her voice, in her words, saw it in her tear-filled eyes. She was letting me go.

I had to stop her.

She turned away, dragging a sleeve across her cheeks as she left the office and headed down the hallway toward the back stairs that led to the stage.

I struggled to my feet. My legs didn't want to work, but I forced them to move. I caught up with her halfway down the hall. "Turn me."

She stopped so suddenly I had to grab the wall to keep from running over her. She looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes pale silver now and round with shock. Then she was on the move again. "I can't."

"Think about it, Sav. If I was a vamp, we wouldn't have any problems, would we? You couldn't drain me, and the vamps and Clann wouldn't have to worry about protecting their peace treaty." And my parents wouldn't have an excuse to keep us apart anymore, either.

"There's a reason I'm the first known dhampir of our kinds, Tristan. Descendants' bodies reject vamp blood. Every descendant who has ever attempted to turn died."

"So they claim. But when's the last time anyone actually tried it? I'm willing to risk it. There's got to be a spell to help the process or-"

"No way. I'm not risking your life." Backstage now in the pitch black of the wings, I heard her set down the portable sound system with a thud. Metal clanged as she opened the fuse box on the wall, probably using her vamp eyesight to see in the dark. The stage lights came on.

"I could find another vampire to help me."

"No, you can't. Everyone knows who you are. No vamp would go against the council like that." She slammed the fuse box door shut, the sound echoing in the empty wings. Then she took the portable sound system out to the front corner of the stage, crouching down in the shadows beyond the reach of the overhead stage lights in order to set up the music in the jambox.

I squatted in the shadows beside her as I always did during sound system setup, our knees touching, her arm brushing mine as she worked. In the beginning last fall, I'd done it to try to get her to recognize her feelings for me. That had been before she'd known even kissing me could be a problem. Back when all I'd needed to do was get her to admit she was falling for me.

Now we knew what we felt for each other, and it still wasn't enough. Not as long as my parents, the Clann and the vamp council were determined to keep us apart.

"What if I got everyone to change their minds about us?" I had no idea how I could pull that off. But there had to be a way.

She looked at me, her still watery eyes filled with a flash of hope that squeezed my insides like a vise. "How?"

I didn't have an answer yet. But I would, no matter what it took. "I'll find a way."

"Mr. Coleman, what are you doing here?" Mrs. Daniels called out as she entered the theater through the audience area doors. "I don't believe you're supposed to be helping us anymore."

Great, just what I needed. "That's a misunderstanding-"

"I don't think so. I spoke with your parents last week. Their intentions were very clear." Mrs. Daniels took her usual seat in the back row.

Savannah quickly wiped her face dry then went back to working on the sound system. Obviously she would be no help here.

I jumped off the stage and strode up the aisle to Mrs. Daniels's row. The woman's gaze was every bit as frosty as Savannah's when she was trying to shut someone out.

"Ma'am, I still want to help out with the team," I insisted, trying my most charming smile on her. It always worked on the teachers and the ladies in the front office.

One blond eyebrow arched. "No one stays on the team in any capacity without their parents' consent, not even volunteers on the stage crew. School rules. You'll have to take it up with your parents if you want to help us out again. Until then, I'll have to ask you to go to the front office, where you've been reassigned as an office aide for your first periods from now on." She flipped a page on her clipboard, silently dismissing me.

Great. Now how was I supposed to talk to Savannah, be with her at all, without the Clann seeing? The only class we had together was history every other day with Mr. Smythe, Dylan Williams and the Brat Twins...four descendants who would be extra vigilant in spying on us now.

I glanced back at Savannah. Her shoulders hunched in response, but she refused to look up.

Fine. Savannah had made herself clear. Until I found a way to change the rules, she wouldn't see me, and there would be no point in arguing with Mrs. Daniels.

But Savannah was wrong if she thought I'd given up on us. I would find a way to change the rules. Somehow.

SAVANNAH

My friends fell silent as I joined them at our usual table in the cafeteria on my first day back at school. I wasn't hungry, but I'd skipped breakfast, so I'd grabbed a bag of chips and a Coke. And tried to ignore the ache that being within a hundred yards of Tristan always caused. Usually he sat outside at a tree during lunch. Today he was sitting by his sister at the Clann table and staring at me.

In the silence, my chip bag cracked like a gunshot as I tore it open. But I'd pulled too hard. The bag ripped in half, exploding harvest-cheddar-flavored chips all over my lap and the table in front of me.

I sighed. "Good thing I wasn't hungry."

"Sav..." Anne began, and I cringed at the hesitant sympathy in her voice. I knew what was coming. Most of the Charmers and Mrs. Daniels had all used that same tone of voice to offer their condolences about my grandmother earlier this morning.

I looked up, found all three of my friends staring at me with drawn, sympathetic faces. I held up a hand. "I know y'all are probably worried about me. And I appreciate it, really I do. But I'm okay. Honest."

They nodded too quickly and too hard.

Desperate to change the subject, I pasted on a smile and looked at Michelle. "So what's the latest gossip? Did I miss anything good last week?"

Michelle opened her mouth, then bit her lower lip. "Um, actually, all the hottest gossip has been about Tristan and...you."

Oh no, we were not going there. "Okay, then I've got some news. I moved in with my dad last week."

"What the heck?" Anne gasped. "But how...I mean, I thought he lived in another state. Will you have to transfer?"

"Nope," I told her. "He bought that old Victorian place across the railroad tracks. You know, the one you can see from the Tomato Bowl? He's fixing it up as a local showcase house for his renovation company."

All three pairs of eyes widened.

"Oh, Sav, that's terrible," Michelle whispered, as if I'd just stated that I had some incurable disease. "Everyone knows that house is haunted."

"And extremely unsafe," Carrie added. "No one's lived in it for decades. It must be in terrible condition. Probably filled with lead plumbing and asbestos, too."

"Well, it does need a lot of work," I replied, making a mental note to get some bottled water to keep at the house. "But that's my dad's specialty. His business's whole focus is on renovating historical homes and restoring them to their former glory. So he'll probably have it all fixed up in no time." I hoped.

"Have you seen any ghosts yet?" Anne asked before taking a long chug of her soda.

"No." I laughed. "It is a little spooky though. Dad says it gets so noisy at night because all the wood and plumbing expands or contracts or something with the change in temperature from day to night. My room has a great view, though, and it's about four times the size of my old one. So everyone will finally have plenty of room for our sleepovers."

I smiled and looked around, expecting them to at least get excited about that. Instead, everyone was suddenly very busy eating or gathering up their trash.

They were freaked out by my new home, and they hadn't even seen the inside yet.

I thought about the houses they all lived in...Carrie's brick lakeside home, Anne's pristine modern brick home in town by Buckner Park. Even Michelle's house, while not always the tidiest because of all her little brothers and sisters, was fairly new.

And now they thought they'd get lead poisoning if they came over to my house.

I snagged a chip from my lap and chomped on it in silence. Then I felt it...the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end, like someone was staring at me.

Slowly I looked over my shoulder.

Tristan.

My lungs tightened, refusing to expand. Would he come over, insist on arguing with me again about things I had no power to change, make another scene in front of the Clann kids?

But he only sat there staring, his jaw set, his eyes that shade of dark emerald they always turned when he was angry or upset.

Maybe he'd finally started to see the reality of our situation.

My head said I should be relieved.

But all I felt was the aching need to cry.

TRISTAN

I tried to find that old confidence inside me that I was right and somehow I'd find a way to change the minds of the vamp council and my parents. But my parents refused to talk to me about it, my mother even going so far as to threaten to take away my truck keys and ground me if I said Savannah's name one more time in her presence. And I had no way to directly contact the vamp council.

By Friday night, as I sat in the high school theater while the Charmers performed their Spring Show onstage, I knew there was only one solution to all of this.

I had to become a vampire.

I had no way to convince the Clann or the council to change their rules. But if I became a vamp, then there wouldn't be any danger in being with Savannah. They'd have to leave us alone.

Savannah would never turn me herself, even if I tried to make her lose control of the bloodlust. She believed the myth that vampire blood killed descendants. I'd have to convince another vamp to do the deed. But who? I knew only one vampire. Her dad. And I had no idea how to convince Mr. Colbert to turn me, or even where they lived.

I knew someone who might know their new address, though. And she was in the phone book. I slipped out of the theater to make the call. Thankfully she answered.

"Hey, Michelle, it's Tristan Coleman. From first period office aide-"

A loud squeak made me hold the phone away from my ear. What the heck?

"Michelle? Are you still there?" I asked, wondering if her phone had died.

"Yep! I'm here," she breathed.

Okay. "I know it's weird for me to call you like this, but I was hoping you could do me a huge favor. Do you know Savannah's new address? I need to talk to her father."

"Say no more," she said, her voice rising with each word. "I always thought you two would make the perfect couple."

That made two of us.

"They bought that old haunted house across the tracks from the Tomato Bowl. You know, the green-and-white Victorian?"

"Yeah, I know the one you're talking about." I was already headed down the ramp to my truck in the back parking lot. "Thanks, Michelle."

"You know, Savannah's been really sad this week. Everyone says it's because you two were secretly dating and then broke up, but she won't talk about it at all. Did you dump her?"

"No. It was the other way around actually."

Silence. Finally she said, "Well, I hope you get back together."

"I'm sure trying."

"Good luck!"

I thanked her, then ended the call, got in my truck and headed across town, trying to plan what in the world I could possibly say to convince her dad to turn me when I couldn't even convince his daughter.

At the house, I parked by the curb, turned off the engine, then sat for a few minutes listening to the ticking of my truck's engine as it cooled down.

Was I doing the right thing? Or should I do what everyone else wanted and let her go?

I closed my eyes, and as always Savannah's face was right there in my mind waiting for me. I had a thousand memories of her...as a sweet little girl with flowers in her hair giving me the softest of kisses on the playground in the fourth grade... dressed as a breathtaking angel dancing barefoot with me in the leaves outside this year's masq ball.... She feared she would lose control and kill me, but all I knew was the innocent, loving side of her. Everyone wanted me to see her as some kind of monster. But I didn't know how to do that.

I couldn't give up on her. Not yet. Not if there was one last shot at making everything right again.

I got out of my truck and walked across the front yard, still clueless as to what the heck I would say to her dad. The front porch creaked as I stepped onto it. I paused, my pulse pounding. Was I nervous about the creepy house, or talking to her dad?

Both, I decided, but kept going anyway. The loud whine of a saw started somewhere deep inside the house, and I froze at the front door. A chain saw? Oh man, this was like every horror movie I'd ever seen come straight to life. Still, I went ahead and knocked. A vampire would hear me even over the saw.

The noise stopped, and too soon, the door opened.

The only time I'd seen Savannah's father was on the return trip from the vamp council's headquarters in Paris. Mr. Colbert had appeared every inch the vampire then in a polished suit, his emotionless face set like carved marble.

Tonight, he wore a button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and jeans, both covered in dirt and sawdust. He seemed nothing more than an average guy hard at work on his house.

And I'd come to ask him to turn me into a vampire.

Mr. Colbert didn't seem surprised that I was there. But he didn't invite me inside, either. "Hello again, Tristan. How may I help you this evening? Savannah is not home."

"I know that, sir. That's why I'm here now. I need your help."

He stared at me, unmoving. I'd hoped we could have this talk inside. Not that it would have been any easier there. I cleared my throat.

"I love Savannah. And this isn't 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 it bearable. And in the forest with the Clann, it is true that I managed not to attack anyone, but it was a great struggle not to. If I had been younger, I might not have had the control to stop myself."

I turned my head to stare at the empty black opening of the fireplace. "So I wouldn't be able to be around my family for a while."

"If it even worked. Unfortunately, it is impossible to successfully turn a descendant."

I stared at him again. "I've heard the stories. I don't believe them. They're just lies to keep descendants from trying to become vamps."

He was gone and back so fast I felt a breeze, returning to stand by the coffee table with a knife and two saucers. "I will prove it is the truth. Cut yourself, just a little, please, and catch the blood in a saucer. Then add my blood to yours and see what happens." He sliced his finger, and a dark red puddle rapidly formed in one saucer. Then he handed me the knife, his finger already healed as if it had never been cut in the first place. "When you are done, we will continue this discussion outside."

Then he was gone, leaving the front door open. Apparently he didn't want to test his control around a bleeding descendant. Was it really that big a problem?

I cut my finger like he had, letting the blood drop onto the clean saucer. When the pool was roughly the size of a dime, I used the knife to scrape up a few drops of his blood from the other saucer and drip it into mine.

I'd thought he and everyone else had been lying. But when I saw the two combined types of blood turn into one thick, gooey black circle that smelled like rotting roadkill left in the sun, then sizzle and give off tendrils of smoke, I knew it wasn't a myth. And that was from a few drops of vamp blood. What would more vamp blood do inside a descendant's body?

There was no way to turn me into a vampire.

I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the back of the saucer. A Band-Aid. I tore its thin wrapper open with my teeth and covered the cut on my finger, then headed out to the porch on shaking legs.

"If you knew, why bother telling me what being a vamp is like?" He'd been toying with me since I got here, making me think I had a shot at becoming a vampire and being with Savannah forever. If he hadn't been her father, I would have been tempted to punch him.

"So you would know just how impossible it is for you two to be together."

I stared at the street lamp, its light throwing long shadows across the yard.

Sheer desperation made me say, "There has to be a way we can be together. If you love her, tell me what to do, what to say to make them change the rules. You know it can be done. You did it yourself. You married her mother. Give us the chance to have that, too."

"But it did not work. Even after Savannah's mother was kicked out of the Clann, our union was a danger to the peace treaty because of what it produced."

"You mean Savannah."

He nodded. "You two could produce another dhampir like her if she does not fully turn vampire first. And the council, as well as the Clann, will never allow that to happen again."

An image flashed before me of a little girl with curly red hair like her momma. And maybe green eyes like her daddy. I'd never thought about being a dad someday, but something clenched in my chest all the same, making it hard to breathe.

Mr. Colbert didn't seem to notice. "That child would be a danger to vampires and descendants alike, even more than Savannah is. Like Savannah, it could grow into a fully immortal vampire with its father's legendary Coleman magical abilities, or into the next Coleman witch with the speed, strength and agility of a vampire. Either way, it would present enormous risks. Risks that the council-and I am sure the Clann-will never consider acceptable."

I couldn't be turned into a vampire. And as long as I was still human and Savannah could still have kids, the Clann and the council wouldn't let us be together. "What happens if she fully turns?"

"There will still always be the risk that she could end your life. Your parents will not care whether you are a member of the Clann. You will always be their child, and they will do whatever is necessary to protect you." He turned to me now, placing a hand on my shoulder. "If there was a way for you and my daughter to be happy together, I would do everything in my power to assist you. But there is no way the rules will be changed for you. And I can promise you from experience that even the strongest of love cannot long survive being on the run, or some of the tactics either side might employ in an attempt to draw you out of hiding." His hand fell away. "The constant hiding alone drove Savannah's mother away from me."

I wanted to believe he was wrong, that things would be different for Savannah and me. That what we had together could survive anything, including being on the run from the council and the Clann.

But what if he was right? The Clann had already taken Sav's grandmother from her. Would my parents be desperate enough to go after Sav's mother next? Or her father? Would the vamps go after Emily to get to me?

Savannah and I could never live with ourselves if any of that happened. Savannah was struggling to deal with her grandmother's death as it was.

And that's when it hit me. There was nothing left to try. The Clann and the council were going to get their way, no matter how much Savannah and I wished otherwise.

No amount of football game losses could have prepared me for the crushing defeat that slammed me now. I'd never been in this situation before. I'd always been able to find a way to get what I wanted in life. Not because I was spoiled, as Emily teased me, but because Dad had always said if you wanted something enough and kept working at it, you'd find a way.

He was wrong. The one thing I wanted more than anything else in life was to be with Savannah. But I couldn't. Not now, and if her father was to be believed, not ever. Not as long as the Clann and the council hated and feared each other.

I made my feet carry me down the porch steps to my truck, and then I headed for the prison that my home had become.