Covet (Clann)

council says or demands.” I shook a handful of wadded-up newspaper at him. “I’m not going to spy on the Clann for you guys. And I’m not going to be any ambassador, either. I mean, come on! Besides the fact that I’m only seventeen and completely clueless about playing the political game, I want to have a life of my own. A normal life, or at least as normal as possible. Playing peace ambassador doesn’t fit in with that.” Seeing how I’d mangled one sheet of the newspaper already, I gave up trying to refold the rest of it and settled for tossing the whole stack onto the coffee table so I could check under the sofa cushions for my book.
    “At least consider it.” Dad remained standing, staring down at me. “Now that you quite obviously can read vampire—and I assume Clann—minds, you are uniquely positioned to always be able to discern the truth from the lies that either side might attempt to employ. And you already have a…connection to the descendant who, as you pointed out, may very well become the next Clann leader. The…friendship has already been forged.”
    “Your…pauses already point out why that’s a bad idea.” Aha! There it was, under some papers on the floor under the coffee table. I snatched up the paperback and tried to figure out which page I’d stopped at last night.
    “Or a very good one. He listens to you, values your opinion.”
    “I’m not using my history with Tristan to push the council’s agendas.”
    “You are seeing it from the wrong angle. I am merely suggesting that, rather than having to get to know some strange and as you would say ‘ancient’ vampire, Tristan already knows one who is his age. Someone he trusts and is capable of having logical discussions with. Someone who also happens to be the daughter of a former councilman who—”
    “Who clearly is still looking for a way back onto the council,” I grumbled.
    “—who still converses regularly with the council and could easily pass on any of Tristan’s concerns or requests,” he finished with a glare.
    I really hated to see his point. But I did. Still, it seemed an invitation to trouble at the same time. And then I had the perfect argument.
    “The council will never go for it. Remember? They made me promise to stay away from him.”
    One thick black eyebrow arched. “They have also been known to change their collective minds when it suits their needs.”
    Whatever. They would still never choose me as vamp ambassador. Not as long as Tristan was my contact with the Clann and there was any risk that my feelings for him might overwhelm my reasoning and cause me to lose control and kill him. Dad was just trying to lose the argument gracefully. I flipped through the pages until I found the spot where I’d last read.
    “Also, you are not going to school this week,” he ordered, walking from living room to kitchen to parlor to living room and back. Where is that blasted cell phone? And why must the makers forever insist on making them smaller and smaller?
    He’d managed to lose his cell phone somewhere in this house yet again. What was this, the seventeenth time? Or the twentieth?
    “Fine. Want me to call it?”
    “Call what?”
    “Your phone. That’s what you’re looking for, right?”
    Pulling himself up straight, he puffed out his chest and scowled. “Stop reading my mind, please. It is rude. And I am a vampire. I do not lose things.”
    “I can’t help the mind-reading thing any more than you can help overhearing my phone conversations when I’m in my room. It doesn’t have an on/off switch. And even vamps can lose itty bitty phones that tend to fall out of the pocket of their slacks every time they sit down to read the newspaper.” On a hunch, I dug in between the cushions and the back of the couch to my left, then held up his phone.
    “Hmpf.” He took the phone and flipped it open, then paused. “Now about your missing school this week—”
    “Are you going to call the school, or should I?”
    He stared at me through narrowed eyes. “You are not arguing with me about it?”
    “Nope. Why would I want to be anywhere near that campus this week? Do you have any idea how bad the descendants will be now that their leader’s been killed? Besides, it’s exhausting dealing with them all the time as it is.”
    And now with Tristan gone all week… He would be preparing for his dad’s funeral. And becoming even more out of my reach as a boyfriend.
    The memory of his breaking down in