Melissa Darnell - Covet

Did I ever. My body had ended up going to war with itself last year and I’d nearly died until Nanna’s spell-laced teas flushed out of my system.

“But what about Nanna’s bloodlust-dampening spell? Doesn’t it affect the fundamental nature of vamps?”

“In a way, yes. See, the vamp wards work on your brainwaves by putting out a kind of targeted energy field that interferes with certain frequencies of thought. But that’s almost like creating a sonar signal set to a frequency our ears can’t pick up. That’s not affecting anything on a cellular level.

“The bloodlust, however, isn’t about your mind or emotions—it’s in a vamp’s genetic coding to crave blood. So the bloodlust-dampening spell has to work on that same DNA level. And that is some deep magic. It’s like nothing the Clann normally teaches descendants nowadays. Which is why Nanna had to turn to the old ways from our Irish ancestors to find a way to make the dampening spell. She said there’s a reason the Clann doesn’t use the old ways anymore, because they’re too dangerous. She even hinted that she had to make some sort of personal sacrifice every time for it to work. That’s why she refused to write down the process or teach it to anyone. She was afraid other descendants would be desperate enough to try the spell regardless of the consequences.”

I stared out at the highway ahead, both my mind and my heart racing. Dr. Faulkner had said Nanna died of heart complications, that her heart had years worth of scar tissue on it. But she’d never told us she was having health problems.

Could her heart disease have been connected to the bloodlust-dampening spells she’d done for my parents for years, and later on our own home so I could continue to live with her and Mom safely?

No. No, I was already at fault enough for the Clann imprisoning Nanna in the Circle. My vamp side couldn’t be even more of a cause for her heart failure. She’d died because she’d fought against the Clann too hard that day, and because of the high cholesterol foods she ate, because she never exercised, because her genes had predisposed her to heart disease.

And yet…it fit, didn’t it? If she were giving up part of her life or her health in some way in order to overcome the vamp’s basic craving for powerful Clann blood, she wouldn’t tell her daughter what Mom’s love for Dad had cost. And she definitely wouldn’t discuss it with her half vamp granddaughter.

Oh God. Nanna, what did you do to yourself?

I stared out my open window, biting my knuckles to keep from crying out loud as tears slid down my cheeks. The guilt, ever present in my gut, rose up to claw at my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I couldn’t break down, not here, not now, when Mom was so excited about picking out the RV she’d always wanted. I’d already taken so much from her. I couldn’t ruin this day, too.

“You okay, hon?” Mom said. “You got awful quiet there all of a sudden.”

I cleared my throat, grateful the wind had dried the tears on my cheeks almost as soon as they fell, and forced a smile into my voice. “Sure! Just looking forward to seeing which RV you pick out.”

“So what’s with all the Clann questions today?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “You know, just…thinking about things.”

“Missing your Nanna?” Her murmur was low and heavy with sympathy, nearly causing more tears to spill from my eyes.

I nodded. Closing my eyes, I tried to make my mind go blank. And yet flashes of that day in the Circle still managed to slip through…all those descendants watching Nanna die, watching me fall apart, listening to us as Mr. Coleman offered his condolences.

There had been something odd in Mr. Coleman’s tone, a strange little catch as he’d almost said Mom’s first name.

Desperate to change the subject, I blurted out the question, “Did you know Sam Coleman very well?”

“He was the future leader when I was growing up. Of course I knew who he was.”

That didn’t really answer my question. Safely dry-eyed now, I risked a glance her way. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard her tanned knuckles had turned white.

“He mentioned you,” I said. “You know, when Dad and I were at the Circle.”

She didn’t look at me.

The seconds ticked by.

“Mom?”

She sighed. “I dated Sam Coleman when we were in high school.”

Whoa, totally not the answer I’d expected. “Was it…serious?”

“Serious enough that he asked me to marry him at the beginning of our senior year.”

“But you didn’t because…you met my dad?”

She shook her head. “I told Sam I couldn’t marry him months before I ever met your father. I didn’t even want to be in the Clann, much less married to its future leader, no matter how much I cared for Sam. So we broke up.”

“And then you met Dad and ran off with him.”

She nodded.

“Did you really love Dad? Or was it just because he was a vampire?”

She looked at me then. “Oh Savannah. Not everything’s so cut and dried. I think, looking back now, that it was probably a little of everything. Michael was so handsome, and dangerous, and yet so polite and protective of me. It was easy to fall for him. The fact that loving him finally gave me the perfect way out of the Clann just added to my feelings for him.”

“I thought anyone who wanted out of the Clann could leave anytime.” She made it sound like some kind of gang or something.

“They can…if they don’t have a mother like mine. Mom was determined to keep me in the Clann as long as she could. She always thought I’d change my feelings about our abilities, that I’d come around eventually and take up my training again.”

“But then the Clann found out about you and Dad and kicked you out.”

“Yes. Unfortunately my plan backfired a little. I never thought they’d blame Mom for my choices and kick her out, too.”

I was starting to get why she’d run away from Jacksonville with Dad for years and come back only because of me. And why she’d chosen a sales rep job that kept her on the road so much of the year.

She wasn’t just running away from Jacksonville or the Clann here, or avoiding causing me to feel the bloodlust around her. She was trying to run away from Sam Coleman and her past, too.

I couldn’t blame her for that. If I thought leaving Jacksonville would really help me forget all my mistakes, I would run away from home so far and so fast and to heck with what the vamp council wanted.

Unfortunately I wasn’t as good at living in denial as Mom was. No matter how far away from this town I ever managed to get, I would never escape the reflection in my mirror or the memories of the choices I had made.

But if running away made Mom happy, then that was what she should do. At the very least, she’d be safer away from the Clann headquarters. And from me and Dad.

It was a relief to arrive at the RV dealership. Normally Mom was a real pain to shop with because she tended to fall in love with everything in sight and become unable to choose. But this time Mom had done her research ahead of time and was surprisingly decisive about what she wanted in her new home on wheels. She test drove only two before she settled on a sleek travel trailer that could be pulled behind her truck so she could leave the trailer at campgrounds while she went into the fields and woods delivering chemicals and safety equipment to forestry clients.

She wore a triumphant smile as she signed the paperwork then towed it home. As she showed off the long-awaited trailer’s updated interior features to Dad, her voice glowing with pride and excitement, I realized I was just the tiniest bit jealous of her.

At least one of us had her freedom.

The funeral on Saturday was even harder to endure than I’d expected. I couldn’t look at Nanna’s body, lying in the open casket at the church where she’d played the piano every Sunday, couldn’t let myself think about her death or its possible causes, couldn’t look at my mother who, despite all her excitement over her new home, was sobbing and clearly brokenhearted at having to say a final goodbye to her mother. When the new pianist played Nanna’s favorite, “In the Garden,” it was all I could do not to join my mother in sobbing.