Crave (Harlequin Teen)

as if to point out the potential for eavesdroppers. Like anyone else would be dumb enough to hang out in a downpour in East Texas during tornado season just to listen to us. “And if you risk exposing our world, the council will have no choice but to step in and stop you.”
    I bit my lip. Everything seemed to be about the big bad vampire council. What the council wanted. What the council demanded. What about what I wanted for a change? Whose side was he on anyways? “Can’t you just tell them that I’ll be careful? I can learn to blend in, honest. Just give me time to practice at it.”
    “It is too high a risk. You have no idea what the council is capable of. The only safe course is for you to never dance again. Ever.”
    “Mom wasn’t worried about my dancing. Aren’t you just being…overly cautious?”
    “I am doing what your mother should have done…protect you. You should never have begun dance lessons in the first place. I warned your mother that this would happen, but she was as headstrong as ever.” He took a step closer to me and held out his hands palms up. “Please, Savannah. Do as I ask and do not persist in this.”
    Or what, his oh-so-important council might be even more unhappy with him? What was with him and this stupid council? Couldn’t he care about his own daughter’s needs for a change?
    And yet…he was practically begging me. And despite it all…the fact that he hadn’t bothered to come to a single game of mine last year, despite every Father’s Day event he’d missed when I was a kid and how little I saw him every year…despite how much I loved to dance and the chance it gave me to finally fit in at school, I was tempted. Out of sheer habit from years of trying to make him happy, I was tempted to give up on my dreams, to throw away everything I wanted, just because he wanted me to. He was my father, vampire or not, and I loved him. Even though it made no sense to. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally make him proud of me. All I had to do was give up the only thing I’d ever been good at. The only thing I’d ever wanted to do.
    But if I stopped dancing, what would I be? What would I have? It was my one chance to fit in somewhere. He had no idea what my life at school was really like, or how becoming a Charmer could change it. He didn’t understand what he was asking me to turn away from.
    No. I couldn’t do it. Not even for him.
    “Dancing is all I have, Dad. I’m sorry if that doesn’t matter to you or your council. But Mom and Nanna know the risks, and they were still okay with my dancing this year. So as long as they stay okay with it…I’m going to keep dancing.”
    His face hardened, making him look like a cold statue in the rain. “I am very sorry to hear that.”
    And there it was, all that I had worked so hard for years to end. His disappointment in me.
    Almost too tired to reply, I turned to go inside. “I’m sorry, too.” Sorry I couldn’t be the kind of daughter he wanted me to be. Sorry I’d cost him so much. Maybe he and Mom shouldn’t have decided to have me, after all.
    I opened the theater door, but something made me stop and look back at him over my shoulder. Finally I could see a hint of emotion in his eyes. But it was nothing I wanted to see. He looked…worried. And that made my chest ache even worse.
    “You don’t have to worry, Dad. I promise I’ll work hard to blend in. I won’t expose your world.”
    “I believe you will try. Let us hope the council has equal faith that you will succeed.” Then he turned and walked away.
     
    My ballet shoes were ruined. I stared at them in the backseat of Nanna’s car on the way home.
    Dad’s words kept echoing inside my head. With every echo, I heard his stinging emphasis on the word try. He knew I would try to blend in…but he obviously didn’t think I could succeed.
    I gritted my teeth and took out my anger on my soaked shoes, my hands crushing them around their middles.
    Why should I care what Dad thought? I hardly saw him; we were practically strangers to each other. It was just like with Tristan, this stupid need to care about someone who barely even knew I existed. Both of them had hurt me countless times. Why couldn’t I just cut them out of my mind and heart so they couldn’t hurt me anymore? Was I some sort of masochist who needed to make myself miserable?
    “Hon, what exactly did your father say?” Mom asked from the front passenger seat, her voice gentle even as