Braced to Bite (13 page)

Read Braced to Bite Online

Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Schools, #Juvenile Fiction, #School & Education, #High schools, #Fantasy & Magic

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
D
espite 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 could 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.”

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