Vampires & Vinca (Hawthorn Witches Book 4) (7 page)

“Making the non-vegetarian dinner,” I joked.

“Yeah.” He breathed a smile. “I only have one brother, and he’s kind of a jerk. So, that’s all I mean. It must be nice for you to have a sister you get along with.”

I pursed my lips, and I started shaking my head without meaning to. Tristan caught my eye again.

“Mostly,” I said. “Sometimes. We kind of have different belief systems, and she can be a little preachy with hers. That’s all.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re not… Sorry, that’s rude. I shouldn’t ask.”

“She’s kind of a modern witch,” I said with a little laugh. “And I’m kind of not. Agnostic, I guess.”

He laughed, nodding. “A preachy witch. I’d like to see that.”

If he only knew. “What makes your brother such a jerk?”

Tristan coughed, and I saw his smile fall a little. I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked, but talking this much about our personal lives was new to me. I didn’t know where the boundaries were.

“He thinks that he’s better than the rest of us,” he said. “He married into a wealthy family, and he’s kind of lorded it over me since I was little. He’s the eldest, and I’m the youngest, so he’s got ten years on me.” He smiled at me sardonically. “He keeps trying to set me up with these socialites he meets, because I’m an academic and I’ll never be able to earn enough to feed myself, and it’s just… Forget it. If we keep going this way, I’m going to get bitter. It’s just you, then, here with your sister?”

I nodded. “I had a cat for a while, but it didn’t work out. She… went to live with my sister instead. At her greenhouse.”

I had almost said she went back to live at home. It was strange, but I did miss having a cat sometimes, and I momentarily wondered if getting a shelter pet might help me mellow out.

“What’s your cat’s name?”

“Martha.”

Tristan smiled, and then he laughed.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head and made a face. “Most people name their cats Whiskers or Shadow. Lucky. That kind of thing. Martha? You’re really letting something named Martha cuddle up next to you?”

A glimpse of Martha in her previous, flirtatious life flashed into my head, and I had to grin. “Oh, she’s definitely cuddly, with the right person.”

Just when I started to think that the concert and the ride had been a ruse to take me out to dinner, Tristan’s cell phone rang. He apologized as he wrapped up the second half of his sandwich and told his friend where he was. We said good night, and I watched him get into a gray sedan that pulled up in the parking lot.

Then I saw Kendra, not even bothering to hide her disdain as she stared at me from just outside the storefront window.

Chapter 7

I wrapped up the remainder of my sandwich and went out to meet her. When she didn’t immediately snap at me, I was a little confused.

“He seems like a nice guy,” she said after a pregnant pause. “Are you going to mind when your jealous ex rips him to pieces?”

My confusion dissipated. “We’re not dating. He’s the teaching assistant in my astronomy lab, and Vince isn’t really the jealous or violent type.”

She laughed low, and then bit her lip, considering. “I’ve dated more than warlocks, Annie, and I’ve known a considerable number of werewolves besides. They’re all the jealous and violent type for at least half the year. Our deal was no boyfriends, and you got to stay in school. Are you breaking the deal?”

“Our deal was no
Vince
and I got to stay in school,” I nearly growled. “And no, I don’t think consulting with my TA about an assignment after class is breaking any deal I have with you.”

She crossed her arms, exhaling through her nose as she looked away. “You’re lying to me, but it doesn’t matter. I need you back at the greenhouse. Now.”

I told her I was tired, and that I had a lot of homework. Somehow she had found out that I only had two classes on Thursdays, though, so it was hard to justify that I hadn’t had enough time to do my assignments after leaving at eight in the morning. With Lyssa gone and no one to jump to my defense, I didn’t want to push her. We went back to the greenhouse.

When I got there, the first thing I noticed was that all of the exterior displays had been removed from the greenhouse grounds, and under the icy bright moon, the place looked eerily abandoned. Charlie had done something to keep people from wandering in once Kendra returned, but I didn’t see why she would go to the trouble of clearing everything away. The healthiest plants we had always grew outdoors.

Then I saw them.

There were figures moving on the ground in the dark. They crawled along and dug at the dirt and rocks, and at first, I thought the vampires had arrived. Then, one of the rolling lumps sat up, and the streetlight caught her face. It was Gates.

“You have to help her,” Kendra ordered. “We’re planting the grounds with vinca in case Draven sends his necromancers after us, and Gates can’t make it grow the way you can.”

“I can’t make vinca grow,” I said automatically. I didn’t even know why she had assumed such a thing. “And why can’t Gates do it? She’s better at everything else.”

“She’s a fair warlock, but she’ll never be a born witch,” Kendra said, walking over to where I assumed Charlie had been planting for her. “Just get down and start planting. We have to finish before dawn.”

“I want a day off,” I said.

“You just had a day off,” Kendra said derisively.

“Yeah, well…” I stared up at the sky. With Vince being so flaky, I had somehow forgotten that tonight was the full moon. When it started to wane tomorrow, Vince would be back. “I want another day. For me and Gates. She hasn’t left this place in two weeks, and she does have a family.”

“Oh, I don’t need a day—”

“Shut up and take my help,” I said. “A day for me and a day for Gates, one every two weeks, and leave us alone when we’re off. My privacy is important to me, and it would go a long way in this relationship if you would respect that.”

Kendra was already on her knees and donning gardening gloves, but she didn’t snap back at me. Her tone was quite reasonable.

“I can respect that, actually,” she said. “But no werewolves. No boyfriends. And you’ll set hours you’re going to be here, at least twenty a week, and you won’t hide on campus just because Charlie refuses to do my spying for me.”

He spoke low. “I’m not taking sides—”

“—in a fight between bridges,” Kendra finished. “Got it. Deal, Annie?”

I nodded. “Deal.”

I went to the greenhouse and grabbed a coat and a set of work gloves, and then I came back out and got down on the frozen ground to dig next to Gates. The slimy, wet, cold, bare roots of each hydroponically grown vinca vine seemed to crawl in my numbing grasp as I tried to get them adequately buried, and Kendra wanted to get at least one per square foot surrounding the greenhouse. As many as we could, and it had to happen at night on the full moon.

So we worked, and worked, and kept on working. By the time the sun’s rays peeked over the horizon, we had a ring that extended thirty feet out in all directions from our living quarters.

I had classes that day, but I wrote in sick to my first class so that I could sleep. I warmed myself in the shower before collapsing into bed, and then I dreamed about the cold ground and the vinca. It surrounded me on all sides as I stood alone on a hill, like I was standing at the crest of a massive wave of the stuff. And then Tristan was there, and he kissed me, and he wanted to take me away from the misery that the vinca had brought, but before I could answer I felt it wrapping around my ankles. It grew, and overcame me, and I was covered in the wet, slithery, disgusting roots. When they turned to worms and started to pull me under the earth, I could hardly breathe, and I watched the moon disappear.

I awoke with a start, batting the sheets off as I tried to shake the feeling of the squirming bodies that had tried to suffocate me. Then I took another shower, dragged my near-corpse into something presentable for school, and started to walk.

I barely made it to astronomy. Vince was there, and he looked as pale and sick as he usually did after the waxing moon was done with him. But he smiled when he saw me, and as I slid into the desk next to his at the back of the massive lecture hall, he gave me a frown.

“You’re not afraid someone will see?” he asked, looking around like he expected to see Kendra pop out from somewhere and surprise us.

“Charlie’s keeping his deal, and I made a new one with Kendra.”

“For us?” he asked in disbelief.

“No, we’re still illegal,” I said. “But I have tomorrow off, and I really need to see you.”

He cocked his head and smiled impishly. “Miss me that much?”

“I just had a dream,” I said, taking a deep breath. He didn’t need to know that he hadn’t featured in it. “That’s all. But I have the whole day, and Kendra swears she’ll respect my privacy. What do you want to do?”

He took a deep breath, and the look in his eyes suddenly made the circles beneath them look much less dire.

“I have an idea.”

He drove me out to an area in the mountains, and then we walked.

A long ways.

I was surprised by how well he handled going such a distance while looking like he had just done a round with the flu. The late October sky was overcast, and a thin misting was beginning to thicken into larger drops of rain.

“This is one of the camps Adeline set up, but they don’t use it anymore,” he said. “She sets up a new one about once a year, and then we use a different one every month to prevent anyone from planning an attack. They eventually tear down the old ones, but they haven’t taken this one down yet, so me and some of the others come here to run. It’s good for solitude, and it’s nice to have a little shelter when the shift keeps switching on and off.”

Vince had learned, and later explained to me, that the werewolves who had been infected longer were only rarely forced to take wolf form for more than a few days and only once a month. But being new to the affliction, Vince was more unstable, and the wolf took control at random when the moon was waxing.

As with the other camp I had seen, large amounts of wisteria grew everywhere. Most of it was dead now, the first frost having already come and gone, and the skeletal vines wavered uncertainly as their last tendrils fought to cling to the boards of the cabins.

He took my hand and led me to a cabin with a more intact-looking roof on the outskirts of the camp. When he opened the door, it took my eyes a moment to adjust.

He had made himself a humble living space in there, complete with a sleeping bag and an electric lantern. A few water-damaged books and magazines were tucked in one corner, and a small plastic container held a few granola bars, bottles of water, and a toothbrush.

I turned to Vince, smiling in amazement, and he bent down to pick up a large coffee tin from the corner. I was afraid it was the latrine, but then I saw the candles and matches inside. He had made himself a makeshift space heater.

Pushing his damp hair back, he lit the candle, and then set the tin down next to the sleeping bag as he sat. I went and sat next to him. Breathing heavily, he pulled off his wet jacket.

“Sorry about the weather,” he said quietly. “I was hoping for a better day when I brought you here, but I’ll take what I can get. The roof doesn’t leak much.”

I looked up, suddenly feeling bad for him. “They don’t have a better place for you to stay?”

“Oh, they do,” he said. “Yeah. The cabins that are actually getting used regularly have heat and everything. I just prefer to be alone sometimes, and the wolf doesn’t mind the lack of amenities.”

A wind rattled the shutters on the window, and Vince reached up to test the rag he had used to tie them shut. My eyes followed his reach, and when I returned my gaze to his face, he was watching me with a nostalgic interest.

“I’ve fantasized about having you here with me,” he said.

I cocked an eyebrow. We were cold and wet, and I was exhausted after the hike. The cabin was old and weather-worn, and the wind kept finding its way through every pest-chewed crevice in the walls and floor.

It was about the least romantic setting I could think of, but when he put a hand softly on my face and kissed me, I kissed him back. He pulled me back onto the floor, and then pulled the unzipped sleeping bag up over both of us.

“Are you cold” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He rolled me so that I was on top of the bag, and I slipped off my wet coat before he folded it over top of me.

“You’re
not
cold?” I asked.

“I’m used to it,” he said. “It’s a lot colder at night, too.”

He held me closer, but the floor was uncomfortable, and I was still freezing. Vince didn’t seem to care at all, and he tried to kiss me again.

“Hey.” I tried to push him away as gently as I could without making it seem like total rejection. “Maybe back at the car, okay? I really need to get somewhere warmer.”

“You’ll warm up in the bag,” he assured me. “Just give it a minute. Okay?”

I nodded, even though the tip of my nose felt frozen. “Okay.”

He started to nuzzle against my neck, and I tried to get into it, but with the bag separating us and the cold already in my fingers and toes, I couldn’t. I let it go a few minutes longer than I should have, just hoping. Vince seemed to be enjoying himself, but I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Vince…”

He didn’t stop. If anything, he became more resolved, and unzipped the side of the bag to hold me closer. He let in a blast of cold, rainy air as he did so.

“Vince,”
I said more urgently.

Something happened. I can’t say what, exactly, because I couldn’t see his face. He growled very suddenly.

Then I felt the pinch of his teeth on my shoulder.