Braced to Bite Read online

  I looked at Piper, seated on my very pink bed with its overhead lace canopy, and we both laughed. I was not a coffin kind of vampire, that was for sure.

  We chatted a bit more, and then Piper left for dinner. I eyed my bed longingly. I really wanted a short nap but knew I should fight the urge. I sat down on my bed instead, and then lay down. I told myself I was only going to take a cat-nap. Just catch a couple of winks.

  I awoke suddenly. One look at the clock confirmed my suspicion that I was incapable of catnaps. It was 12 A.M. and I was wide awake. I lay in bed, thinking of my evening out with Thomas, and smiled despite the awkward feeding situation. The way he held me, understanding what I was going through, was so romantic. We were going out again tonight. Well, not a real “date” or anything. Just more of my vampire education, but still, it made me tingly all over.

  I decided I would attempt school tomorrow, even if Mom disagreed. Perhaps I could just do a half day and arrive after lunch? Then I could make it to cheer practice. Homecoming was less than a week away and I still hadn’t finished learning our dance routine for the pep assembly and halftime show.

  Taking a shower felt wonderful, but all of the scented products had to go. My super-sniffer wasn’t up to the task anymore.

  Wearing a big fluffy pink robe, I walked around my room to gather up pedicure equipment. It was time to update my toe color. I glanced out the window: Standing in my driveway was Charles Winthrop. Boy, that guy did not take no for an answer.

  Throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt, I hurried downstairs to confront my attacker, again.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded, shivering in the cold evening breeze.

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you’ll catch your death going out with wet hair?” He tipped his head to one side as he spoke.

  “Ha, ha. Look, I told you I am not going to live with you. Why don’t we try something new, like you stopping by only when I call you? What a novel idea. Why are you here?” I repeated.

  “I come bearing sad news,” he replied, looking anything but sad.

  “What kind of sad news?” I asked slowly, my mind racing with all sorts of implications. Where was Piper, Aunt Chloe and my folks?

  “I’m afraid she didn’t take it well.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Why, Jill, of course. She was part of our family but no more. See, my dear? See why it is so important that you come live with me? Only I can protect you. She didn’t come with me either and now look what happened.” He looked heavenward and begged an answer from the sky: “Why must all of my children be taken from me?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Chuck, but I meant what I said—stay away from me.” I turned to go back into the house.

  “Colby, it is a Tribunal Investigator’s job to carry out the Princes’ orders. Remember that.” He pressed a card into my hand and stepped back.

  I ignored the card and looked at him, trying to gauge what he was telling me. Chuck just smiled pleasantly, as though we were discussing the weather. What a nutter.

  I went back inside and locked the door behind me. Chuck had given me a card with a phone number on it. Maybe he was taking me seriously. I snorted. Who was I kidding, and who was Jill? Why was she taken away? Thomas was an Investigator and I didn’t doubt Chuck was trying to freak me out about something.

  Instead of wasting too many brain cells thinking about Chuck’s demented musings, I took my time getting ready for meeting Thomas. It wasn’t a date or anything, but I did want to look good. Being Undead was no excuse for looking like a slob.

  As I painted my toenails, I tried to ignore the little voice in my head that said even if Chuck was nuts, why would he make up a weird story? He knew I wasn’t frightened of him, so why try to scare me with some story of a girl who didn’t want his protection?

  I checked the clock one last time, made sure my toes were dry and hurried to change my clothes. I wore my contacts instead of sunglasses and the reflection in the mirror confirmed my suspicions that I looked like a normal teenager. And a rather hip one at that.

  I met Thomas at the door wearing boots, a miniskirt and poncho. I added the newsboy cap at the last minute because I felt it had a 1940s look that Thomas might appreciate. He smiled when he saw me.

  “Where to this time?” I asked, after sliding into the Camaro.

  “I thought you might want to check out the library.”

  Surely my ears were deceiving me.

  “The library? Isn’t that closed?”

  He winked at me and revved the engine. “Not the library I have in mind.”

  I smiled halfheartedly, mentally kicking myself for reading more into our “date” than there was. When Thomas said he wanted to help me with my Tribunal case, he meant it literally. It obviously wasn’t a come-on, like a “let’s study together” where you meet and then end up making out.

  We drove south until we reached the Burien area, then headed west, until we reached the Puget Sound. The moon was hovering over the water and the scene was breathtaking. He parked his car in the driveway of an old home with a waterfront view and escorted me to the door.

  “Where’s the library?” I asked.

  “This is a vampire safe house that also contains a library. The Tribunal owns it.”

  I counted the other cars in the driveway—five—and let out a discouraged breath. We had little chance of being alone.

  The entryway of the home offered a choice of stairs going up or down; we went down to a huge room lined with bookshelves, chock-full of books. It really was a library. Crap.

  Several people were reading at one of the conference tables. Another table held several very old-looking volumes. Thomas led me there.

  “I took the liberty of picking these out for you to look through. I think they will give you the best understanding of the culture.” He pulled the top book off the stack and plopped it down in front of me. Dust arose when he opened it and I coughed a bit as he flipped the pages.

  A stern-looking woman with bifocal glasses that slipped to the end of her nose shushed me from behind an ancient desk.

  Thomas ignored the warning and said, “Start here and read until the end of the chapter. I will mark the other books so you know which chapters to read.”

  I sat at the table, mouth agape as he pulled the stack in front of him and began flagging passages with Post-it notes. He worked quickly, obviously knowing which material each book contained. When he was done, I was barely a page through my first reading.

  “There you go. I will be back in a couple of hours to see how you are doing.”

  “You’re leaving me?!”

  “You can cover the material faster without me here. That way you won’t be tempted to stop and ask questions that might be covered in another book. We will review the material together when I return. Good luck.”

  He waved and took the steps two at a time. I didn’t even have time to admire his layered fashions or inhale his delicious cookie scent.

  I let out a disgruntled sigh and turned back to my reading. At least I could do this. Studying was second nature to me, but after an hour of reviewing the driest text ever put on paper, my eyes were aching. Even though I didn’t see the point of reading about the entire Tribunal legislature, history and such, I had to admit some of it was interesting.

  I was particularly fascinated with the passages that talked about rogue vampires and half-blood creation, but since all of those stories ended in eliminating the half-bloods and torturing the rogue vampire to death, they didn’t leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling for my fellow vampires.

  As a matter of fact, I felt it was downright unfair to punish the half-blood for the mistakes of its Creator. It reminded me of ancient times, when the sins of the father were passed down to the children for many generations. People and civilization had evolved; why couldn’t the vampire world?

  I decided to photocopy some legislation of interest and approached the librarian who had
shushed me.

  “Excuse me,” I took pains to whisper, “where can I make some copies?”

  “No,” she said, not even looking up from her task of stamping books.

  Huh? “I’m sorry, I don’t think you heard me correctly. I was asking for a copy machine?”

  “I heard you correctly and the answer is no. Half-bloods are not allowed to copy vampire legislature.”

  I tapped my toe impatiently. Bigotry aside, if I was allowed to review the legislature, why wasn’t I allowed to copy it?

  I turned around and slowly walked back to my pile of books, noticing several faces smirk in my direction. Not one sympathetic vampire among them and they all practically reeked of superiority.

  Oh, I don’t think so. This may be a vampire library but it’s still America. I watched another vampire come out of a door behind the librarian’s desk, his hands full of copies. So there it was.

  Standing up with my book, I walked toward the librarian again, this time ignoring her completely and walking around her desk to the door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieked at me.

  “Shhhh,” I chided. “You’re in a library. Kindly use your indoor voice.”

  “I told you that you can’t make any copies.” She stood up and both of us reached the door at the same time.

  “Listen, lady, I’ve got all night and all day to wait to make copies. Can you say the same?”

  We stared at each other and she finally backed down with an exasperated sniff. We both knew Thomas would make any copies I needed the minute he came back anyway, so the standoff was a moot point at best. She’d done it to prove something to me.

  When Thomas returned, I had skimmed much of his material and was researching other items I thought were more relevant.

  “Are you ready for a break?” he asked, handing me a bottled water.

  I stood up and stretched my back, taking satisfaction in the way his gaze went to my bare belly when my poncho rode up. Hah! Take me to a library and leave me when I thought we were on a date. Serves you right, I thought smugly.

  We took a walk upstairs and I was surprised to find a comfortably outfitted living room and a deck running along the entire floor.

  “I bet the sunset on the water is amazing,” I said to Thomas as he offered me a seat on the deck.

  “I wouldn’t know.” He smirked in my direction and took a drink of his water.

  Duh! I wasn’t very good at thinking before I spoke around him. “Sorry, I forgot,” I offered lamely.

  Thomas sat next to me and patted my knee in forgiveness. The gesture was almost brotherly. What was with me lately? I couldn’t get Aidan to commit to a simple date and now I couldn’t get Thomas to look at me as anything other than a genetic mutant. It seemed like the only person who wanted to be with me was that fruitcake Winthrop and I wasn’t that desperate yet—was I?

  I leaned forward abruptly. “Well, it’s getting late and I don’t want to keep you out past your vampire time. Thanks for the library information.” I stood up, plainly ready to leave.

  Thomas said, “What’s your hurry? Tell me what you learned today.”

  I very much wanted to whack him upside the head with one of those big dusty books. “I’m not the one who’ll be incinerated when the sun comes up.”

  He glanced at my face in surprise. I could have tried to keep the hostility out of my voice. He stood up and asked, “Are you mad at me for something?”

  I fidgeted a moment, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “No, no. What reason could I possibly have to be mad at you?”

  His eyebrows rose in response. I really, really needed to learn how to disguise the hostility in my voice.

  “Colby, I want you to do well with the Tribunal, but I can’t do the research for you.”

  I gaped at him. He thought I was mad because I had to do my own work?

  “I don’t need you to do my work for me, Thomas. I’ll have you know I can and did research circles around you—I found more information on my behalf by myself than in those passages you outlined for me.”

  “Then what’s the matter with you?” he exploded, clearly not understanding anything.

  “Oh, you’re such a—such a—bloodsucking man!” I turned to stomp away, but Thomas was faster and whipped me around to face him.

  “I don’t get you, Colby! You are so independent and yet so vulnerable that I’m just not sure how to treat you. You know how important this summons is, yet when I try to help you, you get mad at me.”

  When he put it that way, I did sound a tad unreasonable. It was just that I had such expectations about our evening together; spending it alone in a dusty library with a bunch of hostile vampires was not one of them.

  “I just didn’t expect to spend my night out with you all alone with a bunch of old books, that’s all,” I mumbled into my shoulder.

  It took Thomas a moment to realize what I was saying, but his vampire hearing was very good, so there was no pretending I’d said something different. He leaned forward, taking my face in his hands, and looked into my eyes.

  “Our time together is precious and short, Colby. I can’t even think about how I really want to spend it if I am going to save you.”

  I felt a surge of warmth start in the pit of my stomach and flow through my limbs. He did like me.

  “Oh, okay then.” I sounded so lame!

  He dropped his hands and ushered me back into the library. We gathered our stuff and left in his car, both of us quiet and lost in our own thoughts.

  We made it back to my house in record time. “Thanks for taking me to the library,” I offered when the silence started to get awkward.

  “I’m glad to be of service,” he countered neutrally.

  Nodding, I blew out a breath and said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you later. I’m going to try to go back to school tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Thomas questioned.

  “I have a college scholarship interview Thursday night I just can’t miss. Also, I don’t know the dance routine for Homecoming. I can’t stop going to school indefinitely.”

  Thomas nodded briskly, his lips tightening in disapproval.

  “See ya,” I said, equally cool, and opened the car door.

  “Colby?” Thomas surprised me by saying.

  Somewhat annoyed, I turned back to him. “What?”

  Before I could register a thought, his lips were on mine.

  Nine

  Despite our very low body temperature, I can assure you that vampire lips—or Thomas’s, at least—are warm, soft and oh so perfect. He held me close with his hand on the back of my neck and was so confident with his kisses that it left no doubt in my mind he knew what he was doing.

  He deepened the kiss and just when I thought we were going to settle in for a nice long lip-lock session, he pulled away and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow night at the Krispy Kreme, okay?”

  Dazed, I mumbled, “Sure,” and slid out of the car, floating all the way to the front door. I dreamily stepped into the house and hummed down the corridor to the kitchen. Still singing to myself, I dumped my research next to the kitchen computer and twirled each bar stool around, as though I were dancing with them. Yes, excellent blackmail material if anyone happened to be filming me at this hour, but I didn’t care.

  I had been thoroughly kissed by a very dreamy vampire and that was all that mattered. A thought occurred to me as I twirled and abruptly stopped my daydreaming. What if Thomas didn’t get home before sunrise? I checked the clock. It was almost 6 A.M. I swung myself in front of the computer to pull up a local news site. They always listed sunrise and sunset times.

  In my frenzy, I completely ignored the headlines and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw 6:45 as the listed sunrise.

  I went to bed but sleep eluded me. I was restless. Every sound, every scent invaded my head. It was like being superwired on caffeine and told to keep still. Suddenly it was 11 A.M. After Thomas’s kiss, I felt I co
uld take on the world, so I decided to try school for a half a day.

  My blue contacts were in, self-tanner had been slathered liberally over my pale skin and I was dressed in my favorite sweater and jeans. Mom generously applied the SPF to any skin that was left uncovered. I was almost normal, except I was very crabby. I like my sleep and when I don’t get enough I can be very snippy, as my mother was quick to remind me when I sarcastically answered her homework question.

  “I’ve about had it with your attitude, missy. If you want to attend school with your friends, you’re going to have to get used to sleeping in four-hour increments. Otherwise, you can finish school at night and get your GED,” she told me.

  “Never! I will not get a GED. I am going to graduate at the top of my class like I planned and you can’t stop me.”

  “Undead or not, Colby, I am your mother and you will do as you’re told. Now gather your books and get in the car. I’m going to be late showing the Valentine house if we don’t leave right now. I don’t know why you insisted on going back to school today, anyway. We haven’t even filed a police report yet!”

  I flounced into the kitchen to get my book bag. Mom could be such a pain sometimes.

  When we reached school, I kissed her good-bye. She sniffed a bit at the gesture. It was the closest thing she was going to get to an “I’m sorry” and we both knew it. The bell rang for fourth period to start so I hurried through the front doors of the school and headed for the office. I checked in and everyone wished me well and hugged me. It was nice to be so coddled by the secretaries. My school counselor came out of her office to remind me about the PSU interview tomorrow night and I assured her I was up for it.

  As far as I was concerned, it was business as usual but everyone else wanted to talk about what happened and try to get any new dirt on the situation. By sixth period, my already strained good humor was almost at its breaking point.

  The person I really wanted to talk to was Aidan. I was holding out little hope of being his Homecoming date, since rumor had it he was taking Allison, but I wanted to see where we stood. Sure, I was still thinking about Thomas’s kiss, but I wanted to line up my options. Aidan was at his locker when I finally tracked him down at the end of the day.