Covet (Clann)

cheek, hear his heartbeat pounding beneath my ear. To feel the illusion of safety while cradled within his arms, his strong hands on my hip and back cupping me as if I were a precious treasure instead of the monster that I truly was…
    “Savannah,” a familiar voice whispered like an annoying mosquito near my ear.
    “Mmm,” I mumbled, wanting that voice to go away. Only one male’s voice was welcome right now, and that one wasn’t it.
    “Savannah, wake up,” Dad insisted, his whisper slightly louder but still far too soft for Tristan’s human ears to hear.
    Scowling, I cracked one eyelid open.
    “We are an hour away from the Cherokee County Airport, and the pilot warned that we will be landing in bad weather. You should call your grandmother and mother and let them know.” Dad held out a black cell phone stamped For In Air Use Only in gold letters.
    I took the smartphone, and Dad returned to his recliner at the front of the cabin.
    Worried my talking would wake Tristan, I tried to ease out of his arms, intending to move closer to Dad’s end of the plane. But as soon as I moved, he woke up.
    “Sorry,” I whispered. “I need to make some calls. Go back to sleep.”
    “I’m all right.” He tugged me back onto his lap, brushing his nose against mine in a too-familiar, silent request for a kiss. At the last second, I turned my head so his lips touched my cheek instead. He leaned his head back to search my face, his heavy-lidded gaze hurt and confused.
    “We shouldn’t…not until we land and you can draw some energy.” Thanks to the demon Lilith, the creator of my father’s race of hybrid vamps, I could drain energy with a bite or a kiss, a fact I had only recently been reminded of. As long as we were away from the ground, my kiss could kill Tristan, despite his being the son of the most powerful family of witches in the Clann. His ability to pull energy from the earth through direct contact with the ground was the only thing that had saved him a few days ago after too long a kiss with me and a fight with his fellow Clann member Dylan Williams. If I hadn’t been able to drag Tristan over to some nearby grass where he could draw replacement energy, Tristan might have died that night.
    He frowned but nodded, letting me slide over to sit at the other end of the short couch. As soon as I was settled again with my legs curled up between us, he rested a hand on my ankles below the cuffs of my slacks. His unusual need to maintain constant physical contact with me over the last few hours made me wonder. Did he somehow know what the council had made me agree to? Or had the council’s test simply left him on edge and worried about me?
    I covered his hand with one of mine and tapped numbers on the plane’s phone with the thumb of my free hand.
    My home phone rang four times, then the answering machine clicked on. I glanced at my watch, which was still set on Central Standard Time. It was 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday. Nanna, whom my mother and I had lived with most of my life, should be home and getting ready for church. As our church’s pianist, she never missed the Sunday service. Why wasn’t she answering?
    I tried again, thinking maybe Nanna was in her room getting dressed. Again, I got the answering machine. Unease crept in as I left a message.
    I called my mother’s cell phone next. At least her whereabouts weren’t a mystery. She was probably still on her latest sales trip.
    Mom answered on the first ring, making me jump. Unlike Nanna, Mom seldom had a signal while she was delivering safety products and chemicals to forestry clients out in the fields and woods.
    “Oh, hey, Mom. Just wanted to let you know I’m okay and—”
    “Savannah! Oh thank God. I, we, your grandma…” She was on the verge of shrieking, her normally low voice pitched high enough to hurt my ears and make me wince. “I’m on my way home now. But I’m still hours away from Jacksonville and—”
    My hands convulsed around both the phone and Tristan’s hand. “Whoa, Mom, slow down. What’s going on?”
    Eyebrows pinched with concern, Tristan flipped his hand under mine and laced our fingers together. Grateful for something strong and solid to hold on to, I squeezed his hand.
    “Sav, they took Nanna! They called me, and—”
    “Wait a minute. Who took her?” What little warmth my body had drawn from Tristan’s drained away. Had the vamp council gone after my grandmother now?
    “The Clann. They called me, asking about