Covet (Clann)

I sighed. “You know becoming more of a vamp hasn’t made you any better at lying to me.”
    She shook her head and looked away, her pale fingers plucking up bits of grass to shred. “I’m happy for you, Tristan. Really, I am. You’re going to do what your parents always dreamed for you. What you were born to do. And that’s the important thing. So let’s just leave it at that, okay?” She leaned forward, pressed a hand to one side of my face and slowly, gently kissed my cheek. It felt like a kiss goodbye. “You’re going to be a great leader for the Clann. Your dad would be really proud of you. And I am, too. You need to do this. The descendants need a leader with a good heart like yours.”
    I caught her chin when she tried to look away again. “Then why does it sound more like you’re begging me not to do it?”
    “I’m not. I’m telling you that you should .”
    “Liar.”
    She shifted her feet under her like she was going to get up. But she’d forgotten, in our connected dreams she didn’t have the physical upper hand. I moved faster, leaning forward until she was lying on her back in the grass and I half covered her.
    “Stop running away,” I growled, nuzzling the curve of her neck, testing her. If she had tensed up beneath me, if she had given me one sign that she didn’t want to be close to me, I would have moved away again. Instead, her hands crept up to circle my waist.
    Resting most of my upper body weight on my elbows at either side of her head, with our faces only inches apart, she had to know she couldn’t possibly hide anything from me.
    “Tell me you don’t miss what we had,” I whispered into her hair, daring her to try and lie to me now.
    “I do.”
    “Tell me you don’t think about us every day and regret breaking up with me.”
    Her hair fanned out in the grass around her head, begging to be touched. I buried my nose in it, filling my lungs with that warm lavender scent that I missed every waking second now.
    My chest expanded with the deep breath, pressing against her, and she shivered.
    “I do think about it. And I wish I hadn’t had to break up with you.”
    “Tell me you don’t love me.” I stared into her eyes now, frustrated, hurting, missing her so much it formed its own kind of physical pain that burned my lungs and throat. “Because I’ve tried, Sav. I’ve really tried not to be in love with you, even to the point of hurting others along the way. But I can’t make myself stop loving you. So if you’ve figured it out, if you’ve found some spell or something that will end my feelings for you, I’m all ears here.”
    She closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands and sobbed, her shoulders shaking. “I can’t! I wish I could. I wish every day that I could find a way not to love you. But I still do. I—”
    It was all I needed to hear. I covered her lips with mine, careful to also press a palm to the ground and draw energy.
    Then I remembered. I’d fallen asleep indoors in my room tonight. There was no real ground beneath me to draw energy from.
    So I kissed her cheeks instead, her nose, her wet eyelids, her throat, the ridge of her collarbone.
    “It’s going to be all right,” I promised her over and over in between kisses. “I’ll be Clann leader soon, and then no one can tell us that we can’t be together.”
    Her hands froze in their journey from my hair to my shoulders.
    Too caught up in the moment, it took several seconds for me to notice how tense she’d become beneath me.
    “Sav?” I lifted my head to look at her.
    Her expression was unreadable for a change. “Are you sleeping outside tonight?”
    “No, I’m in my room—”
    She twisted her head to look down at my right hand cupping her shoulder. My hand was shaking.
    Suddenly she scooted up and away before I could stop her.
    “Oh come on, Sav!” I sat back on my knees. “You’re driving me nuts here.”
    “You don’t get it! Nothing’s changed between us. Learning how to do magic hasn’t made me suddenly not a vampire anymore. I’m still draining you when we kiss, still psychically draining you with a kiss even in our dreams together. I haven’t learned a single thing about how to turn it off. And you becoming Clann leader? That doesn’t change anything, either. In fact, it just makes it more impossible for us to be together.” She scrambled to her feet.
    I stood up as well. “Fine. I won’t become leader.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.