Covet (Clann)

so beautiful, as well as for spreading the word about it in so many wonderful ways. You guys are awesome!
    As always, thanks goes out to my agent, Alyssa Eisner-Henkin at Trident Media, for choosing to represent me and for your enthusiastic support for this series.
    And finally, I would like to say a heartfelt thanks to Walker Carrigan, Scheels Bow Technician, for taking so much time to not only teach me the basics about compound bows but also for going the extra mile and showing me how to shoot one correctly without taking out my foot (or anyone else in the store!). If I sound like a bow hunting genius in this book, it is due to your invaluable lesson. And if I got anything wrong, I’m blaming it on Savannah’s lack of knowledge about compound bows!
     
     
    Read on for an exclusive excerpt from CONSUME by Melissa Darnell, book 3 of The Clann.
Coming in 2013.

     
    I stared at the surrounding forest on Rich Mountain, one hand braced against the trunk of a leafless hardwood tree at my side, my too quick breaths making puffs of fog in the afternoon air as the feeble sun edged beneath the winter-stripped branches of the treeline. The air was smoky, acrid with the false promise of comfort from the chimney of a cabin several yards behind me, which I was struggling to ignore during my few blessed minutes of solitude outside.
    It should have been perfect…Tristan and me and a remote log cabin with a crackling fireplace nestled on a west Arkansas mountain in December. No Clann or vampire council members nearby to bother us. No more rules or secrets to keep us apart. No more risk of accidentally killing Tristan with a kiss.
    Instead, it was all wrong, and I was staggering under the weight of what we now faced.
    We weren’t alone. My dad had come along, not for Tristan’s safety or even my own, but for everyone else who might come too close and trigger the bloodlust within Tristan. Tristan’s bloodlust could never be underestimated. If not for Dad holding him back, Tristan might have slaughtered his own family in the Circle, the Clann’s clearing in our hometown woods where so much Clann and vamp blood had been shed only hours ago.
    Just the memory of how Tristan had looked there—his once soft emerald eyes turned white-silver with need, his normally curved lips baring newly formed fangs as he snarled with rage—forced a shudder to ripple down my body. Until that moment, I’d never seen a vampire lose control to the bloodlust. Now that I had, I would never forget it.
    Not coming to this isolated cabin hadn’t been an option, and staying here promised to be anything but fun or peaceful. We’d had to load up Dad’s car and come here immediately after the battle in the Circle just to get Tristan away from all humans before the bloodlust drove him crazy. Even stopping for gas had been a nightmare. Thank heavens the cabin was only a day’s drive from our East Texas hometown of Jacksonville so we hadn’t been forced to stop often. Now that Tristan was a full vampire like me, his strength was once again far beyond my own—becoming a vamp enhanced whatever each human had to start with, and unlike me, Tristan had worked out all the time for football before being turned last night. The one time we had stopped, I’d had to fill the car’s gas tank so Dad could hold Tristan inside the car and away from all the humans at the gas station.
    Afterwards, the mind connection had made it all even worse by allowing Tristan to pick up my every thought while I silently struggled not to freak out.
    Dad couldn’t read our minds thanks to Tristan’s and my Clann genes, which gave our minds a natural block against all other vamps’ minds. Unfortunately Tristan and I had zero trouble reading each other’s every thought. It would have been great if there had been some sort of off switch to the ability. But for now, there didn’t seem to be one. The only way we could block it was to be in separate rooms.
    Which was why, after Tristan had fallen asleep inside the cabin, still hurt and confused by my reaction to him at the gas station, I’d snuck out here to the woods to catch a breath. And to finally give in to the thousand and one worries I hadn’t dared think when he was awake.
    I sighed, allowing the tree beside me to hold me up. I was so tired, but my mind wouldn’t shut off and let me rest.
    I refused to regret turning Tristan. He was the only one for me. He always had been, and he always would be. Holding his broken