Crave (Harlequin Teen)

Apple?”
    I shook my head. The only traveling I’d done was when Mom had moved from New Orleans back to East Texas when I was two, plus short weekend trips for dance competitions with the Charmers earlier this month, which unfortunately Tristan’s parents hadn’t let him go on.
    “Great! Then if I mess up anything, you won’t know it.”
    I laughed.
    He reached into his coat pocket then pulled out a cardboard hat and two noisemakers. “Let’s party!”
    After the current song ended, he said, “Your turn. Play a song we can dance to.”
    “Me? I can’t.”
    “Sure you can. Just pretend you’re listening to it on your iPod.”
    “Tristan, I can’t do magic. I don’t know how!” I probably couldn’t even manage it if I really tried because of my vampire side.
    “Sweetheart, you already are. How do you think we dream connect? If you couldn’t do magic, I’d be able to see you in your dreams, but you wouldn’t be able to see or hear me.”
    That made me blink a few times. I’d been doing magic for years and didn’t even realize it?
    Experimenting, I thought of a song, imagining it playing over some unseen speaker system, and it blasted out, scaring a squeal out of me. Laughing, Tristan grabbed me around the waist and spun me. “Keep it going!”
    It was hard at first to focus on both the song and dance with Tristan. Humming the music helped. After a while, I got the hang of it and discovered I was actually pretty good at remembering all the notes of the songs on my iPod’s playlists. Once I relaxed, dancing in the middle of Times Square with Tristan was an absolute blast and exactly what I needed to take my mind off all the fears and guilt that dogged me when I was awake. It was one of the absolute best moments of my life, even if it was only a dream and the noisy crowd around us looked suspiciously two-dimensional.
    “Tristan, why are all these people flat like cardboard cutouts?” I teased as he spun me out, twisted me, then tugged me back in to him.
    His smile turned decidedly sheepish. “I only saw one side of them. I didn’t really pay much attention to their backsides.”
    “Do your parents go to New York City often?”
    “Yeah, usually every year for New Year’s, at least. They like to check in on the Clann families there.”
    “Are there a lot of descendants there?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe twenty or so. Nothing like East Texas. We’ve got just over a hundred in this area.”
    “So why didn’t you go to New York this year?”
    He changed the music to a slow song so he could hold me close. It took real effort not to melt into a mindless puddle. “What, and miss this with you? No, thanks. Besides, Emily wanted to go to some local party.” He nuzzled the side of my neck with his nose, tickling a laugh out of me.
    “And you? Are you missing any parties right now?” Ones he would be having fun at if not for me. Crap. As soon as the words were spoken, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head again.
    “Nope. I’m right where I want to be.” He shivered in my arms.
    “Cold?” I asked, distracted. Feeling a little naughty, I imagined gloves on my hands and grinned when they appeared. Then I pressed my gloved hands to his cheeks to warm them.
    “In real life, yeah, probably. It was a little chilly when I fell asleep outside.”
    That got my attention.
    “You’re sleeping outside? ” My voice rose to a shriek. I stumbled to a stop, making him trip over my toes. Was he crazy?
    “I have to. It’s the only way I can get around whatever spells my parents hid in my bedroom to keep us from dream connecting. But it’s okay, I’m in a tent tonight. Next time I’ll just have to remember to use a warmer sleeping bag.”
    This did not make me feel better. “Tristan, are you telling me that every time we dream connect, you’re sleeping in your yard?” Where anything could attack him in his sleep. The nearby town of Palestine was notorious for both its dangerously aggressive wild hogs and its black-cat population in the miles of woods surrounding it; any of those animals could easily stray into our area. What if a crazed wild hog or a black cat found their way into the woods behind Tristan’s house some night when he was sleeping outside and decided to attack him?
    And even if that didn’t happen, this was East Texas. The insects would eat him alive in the warmer months, he was risking getting sick or hypothermia in the winter and tornadoes were practically guaranteed in the