Covet (Clann)

didn’t pay much attention to it. I kept getting distracted by the smells assaulting my nose from the kitchen just a few yards away. There were also a whole host of smells I couldn’t identify, and those were the worst. But not because they smelled bad. Actually, they smelled…mouthwatering.
    Why couldn’t I have had the source of that scent for dinner? Had Mrs. Albright cooked something else earlier? Maybe Anne would let me have the leftovers if there were any.
    There was a really distracting sound in the background, too. Maybe a movie Mr. and Mrs. Albright were watching in their room? The sound was like a low thumping, almost like a car outside with one of those loud stereo systems. Except this beat was out of rhythm, as if several drums were being played at once and out of sync.
    Then I caught snatches of conversation coming through the bedroom door.
    “Well, Savannah’s always been weird,” Mrs. Albright muttered. “But what can you expect, considering that family of hers? Joan was always more than a little strange in school, too.”
    I tensed up, then glanced at my friends. They were all glued to the TV. Apparently only I could hear the discussion in the other room.
    “I heard Joan ran off after her mother’s death and left Savannah on her own,” Mr. Albright murmured. “Savannah’s dad had to move here to take care of her. Perhaps we should feel sorry for the girl.”
    “You call her father’s parenting style ‘taking care of her’?” Mrs. Albright snapped. “What kind of parent buys a health hazard and makes his kid live in it? And on top of that, he’s apparently too busy chasing after rats in their new house to bother with getting his daughter some new socks every now and then. Did you see the size of the hole in hers? She looks like a thrown-away orphan.”
    Still lying on my stomach on the sleeping bag, I glanced over my shoulder at my feet behind me. Sure enough, my left big toe peeked out past a ragged opening in the cotton. I hadn’t even noticed when I’d pulled them on earlier. All I had cared about was that they were clean.
    “Mmm, I know what you mean,” Mr. Albright said. “It’s no wonder the poor girl has developed an eating disorder, living with a father she doesn’t even know in a deathtrap like that. I tried everything I could to talk Michael out of buying that house when he called me about home insurance. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He called it a ‘priceless piece of history.’” He snorted. “He’s probably spent all his money trying to make it liveable and didn’t have any left over to buy her new socks.”
    Nausea rose hard and fast, driving me to sit up. Anne looked at me.
    “I need some air,” I muttered, yanking on my sneakers over my holey socks and heading for the door.
    “But you can’t!” Michelle protested. “There are coyotes out there.”
    I managed a half smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
    As soon as I stepped out and shut the door behind me, the smells changed. Sun-warmed ragweed was the strongest. But then I heard something rustling through the surrounding pasture’s tall yellow grass. At the same time, a breeze blew a new scent to me. Something warm and wild was out there.
    Then the door opened behind me and Anne walked out. I froze as she came to stand beside me, bringing the delicious scent from inside the lodge outside with her.
    That scent should be fading. But it wasn’t. It was…
    Oh no. This could not be happening. Not here. Not now, with my friends…
    The bloodlust…for normal, nonmagical human blood. Dad had warned me that this would happen, but I hadn’t believed him. I hadn’t wanted to. I needed to believe that I could still be friends with humans and everything would be okay.
    But it really, really wasn’t. My teeth ached with the need to sink into something....
    I clamped a hand over my mouth, my heart racing harder than it ever had before. I had to get out of here. Now. I made a beeline for my truck.
    “Sav, what’s wrong?” she asked, grabbing my shoulder to stop me and leaning closer to peer into my face.
    I twisted away from her, silently cursing the full moon’s brightness. She would be able to see my teeth.
    My fangs.
    Oh God. It was one thing for her to have to know what I was, and another to actually see it. Even I didn’t want to see what I looked like right now.
    “I’ve gotta go,” I muttered, taking the last steps to my truck.
    I opened my door, slid in behind the wheel and glanced