Crave. Melissa Darnell

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СКАЧАТЬ nearly moaned out loud. Not again.

      Even knowing the cause for the weird ache couldn’t stop me from turning and looking down the hall. My gaze immediately collided and locked with the sensation’s green-eyed source towering over most of the other students.

       Tristan

      Even in the middle of a noisy mass of students, one girl’s laugh grabbed my attention.

      I couldn’t figure out how she did it. The hallway was loud, with at least a hundred students all talking and yelling in a space only a few yards wide and thirty times as long. But every time Savannah Colbert laughed, the husky sound somehow managed to reach out and twist up everything inside me.

      Part of me wished I never had to see or hear her again. Life would be a lot easier if I didn’t. The way I felt about Savannah was all mixed-up. Once, she’d been my best friend. And the first girl I’d ever kissed.

      Then I’d made the mistake of telling my older sister, Emily, about pretending to marry Savannah during recess in the fourth grade. Emily had blabbed to our parents. Mom had blown a gasket and called the school to get me yanked out of Savannah’s class. Dad had turned purple in the face and gone all silent and scowling. And I’d known I was in big trouble.

      Ever since, I and all the rest of the descendants of the Clann had been forbidden to have anything to do with Savannah. Supposedly she was a dangerous influence or something. Whatever she was, she was definitely on the Clann’s list of social outcasts. And Mom made sure I remembered it, too, constantly pounding it into my head for the past five years to “stay away from that Colbert girl.”

      And yet I couldn’t stop myself from turning to look at her now.

      From this distance, I couldn’t see Savannah’s eyes in detail. But I remembered them way too clearly. Their color changed from gray to slate-blue to blue-green depending on her mood. Wonder what color they are now? I thought, vaguely aware of my hands tightening around my books.

      A heavy arm draped over my shoulder. “Hey, Tristan. Ready to hit the weights after school?”

      My best friend, Dylan Williams, shook me, breaking my focus. I met his usual cocky grin with a frown of my own. “Yeah, sure. Though you might want to try showing up on time today, or Coach Parker is gonna be ticked.”

      He laughed. “We’re descendants. What’s he gonna do to us?”

      I shot a glance around to see if anyone was listening, then glared at him. “Dude, ever heard of the word ‘discretion’?” I lowered my voice, trying to set an example for the dumb blond. “You know we’re not supposed to talk about that stuff in public. And Coach Parker isn’t a descendant, so he’s still going to be ticked if you’re late again. Or do you actually like running laps?”

      Dylan’s smile hardened as his chin rose a notch. “We’ll see who runs laps. No one messes with a descendant. Not even a football coach.”

      “Even descendants have to play by the rules, Dylan. We always have, always will.”

      He shook his shaggy bangs out of his eyes. “Maybe, for now. Or maybe we’ll be the descendants who make some changes.”

      “Make some changes? Like what?”

      He shrugged. “We founded this town. Don’t you think it’s past time we were running it the way we should be?”

      I rocked back on my heels. “Oh, yeah? And how should we be running things?”

      “I don’t know … more out in the open about it?”

      I scowled at him, hoping he was just joking around. But something about the set of his jaw and the dark look in his eyes said otherwise. “You’re not suggesting coming out about the Clann’s abilities?”

      He shrugged again. “Why not? This is the modern world. All the books and movies say we’re cool. Why not own up to it, let everyone know what we can—”

      Sudden and total fear had me grabbing his shoulder at the base of his neck without thinking. I pulled his face close and growled, “Are you out of your freakin’ mind? If any other descendant heard you talking like that and told the elders, you’d be history.”

      He stiffened under my grip, his chin hiking up again so he could meet my stare head-on with a glare of his own. He actually opened his mouth like he was going to argue.

      But after a tense moment, he took a deep breath and chuckled. “Hey, man, ease up! I was just messing around. Forget about it.”

      “Dylan—”

      “I said I was just kidding! Man, can’t you even take a joke?”

      I stared at him a few seconds longer, trying to figure out what was going on with him lately. Even joking around about stuff like that was dangerous, and he knew it. So why do it?

      The warning bell rang, making me swear under my breath. I had less than a couple minutes now to get all the way across campus to the math and home-ec building. “All right. Are we cool?”

      “Yeah, sure.” He lifted his head and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re just looking out for me, right?” He turned away, yelling “Later” over his shoulder as he headed in the opposite direction.

      I watched the blond as he strutted off like he owned the world. Then I turned and headed for algebra class. Even if he’d been serious, Dylan was just a hothead with a big mouth. Being the star quarterback for the junior varsity team this year despite only being a freshman hadn’t improved his ego much, either. Hopefully he would come to his senses soon … before the elders had to step in. What he was talking about—the movies, the books—that was Hollywood. People liked the idea of magic. But no way would magical abilities fly in the real world, especially in Jacksonville, Texas. This was a Bible Belt town with conservative, old-school beliefs about religion and magic. Even if descendants held key positions in government and business here, if everyone found out just how powerful most descendants were, they would assume we were a bunch of Satan-worshiping baby murderers or something and run us out of the very town we founded. Dylan needed to remember that the Clann’s power came from the secrets we kept.

      Well, one thing was for sure … if Dylan kept screwing around and being late all the time for practice, at least Coach Parker would be willing to help him regain his memory. The head coach had zero tolerance for tardy players, Clann or otherwise, on his teams. He’d probably make Dylan run laps after practice as punishment. That ought to take Dylan’s ego down a notch or two, and would totally serve the idiot right.

      Sometimes I honestly couldn’t remember why I still considered him my best friend.

      I headed down the hall toward the last class of the day. And toward Savannah. Her flame-bright hair and pale skin were easy to spot in the boring sea of tanned brunettes and blondes. A couple girls called out “Hey, Tristan!” to me, and one of the sophomore cheerleaders even touched my arm and grinned up at me. But I didn’t have time to stop and talk. I was much more interested in watching that redhead. Something about looking at Savannah calmed me down today.

      I exited the air-conditioned main building and headed through the sticky spring-afternoon heat along the metal-awning-covered cement catwalk that stretched over the lower outer walkways, connecting the main building to the math building СКАЧАТЬ