Vampires & Vinca (Hawthorn Witches Book 4) (6 page)

Chapter 6

“Crimes?” I asked. “What crimes?”

“Are you willing to speak on behalf of your family?” Samuel asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “What crimes?”

“The theft of the two daughters of the House Luthor, Martha and Alice, and denial of Draven Luthor’s rightful claim to the Hawthorn Grimoire,” he said in a flat tone. “Do you deny these claims?”

And that was when things got strange, because my mother’s name was Alice, and I knew it had to be a coincidence, but there had been very few coincidences in my life recently. I didn’t have time to worry about it, because Samuel’s expression demanded an answer, and he had something in his right hand that I couldn’t quite make out in the dark.

“We didn’t steal anyone,” I said, shaking my head and stepping back. Samuel didn’t look threatening, but his calm exterior and rehearsed demeanor spoke volumes about his confidence and how much practice he’d had in these situations. “Martha is at the greenhouse. She’s fine, but she’s kind of a cat now. I’m sure we can work out—”

“We categorically deny both claims!”

Kendra swept up from behind me, shooting a glare over her shoulder as she put herself between me and the vampire. I saw Charlie standing behind Samuel, and he slowly shook his head at me.

Perception was that I had screwed up. Again.

“Alice left House Luthor of her own free will, and Martha came to us under false pretense. We acted accordingly. And the Hawthorn Grimoire belongs to the Hawthorns until such time as we see fit to
gift
it to another. A
gift
cannot be demanded, or else the meaning of the word loses its very definition,” she said. “Go back to your master and tell him he can speak with me himself regarding these issues. Any other actions will be considered to have hostile intent.”

Samuel gave her a nod and then turned to go. I stood there gaping, only wishing I could be so composed and verbose.

When Samuel was gone, and Kendra turned around, I thought that she was going to slap me.

“You ignorant child!” she hissed. “
Never
speak for me again. You could have killed us all, and you’ve tipped our hand. No one needed to know about the actions we’ve taken against Martha, because now she most certainly
will
be killed if Draven ever gets his hands on her!”

I shook my head, blushing. “I didn’t know!”

“
I have been trying to tell you!
” she squawked. “You’re too young and too weak to be out alone! You’re quitting college, you’re ending it with the boyfriend, and you’re coming home to learn
right now!
”

A snap of Charlie’s fingers and we were back in the greenhouse. I shook my head in dismay.

“You’re taking
her
side?” I asked him in a hot rage. “You set this whole thing up! I was helping you, and you were supposed to protect me, and you’re taking
her
side!”

A light turned on, and I heard scrambling before Lyssa came out, dressed for bed and looking disheveled. “What’s happening?”

“She’s trying to force me to quit school!” The accusation came out more like a whine, and right then, I didn’t need to feel any more childish.

“Oh, she’s not quitting school,” Lyssa said, crossing her arms and turning to Kendra.

“You’re being a little drastic,” Charlie added.

Looking sour, Kendra crossed her arms and silently shot a darting look between them. Then she focused on me and shook her head.

“I’ve been friends with the wolves, Annie,” she said. “But that’s all. I keep them at arm’s length because I like to know where they are, but don’t be fooled. They want our spells just as much as any other magic-wielder out there, and they’re willing to do things to get them. You need to spend more time here and less time screwing around with things that don’t matter or could get you killed. So fine—I’ll give you a choice. You can keep the wolf or college, but not both. Choose wisely.”

I scowled. She was being unreasonable, and she was punishing me out of spite, but I was the only one who could see it.

“Fine,” I said, my voice grating. “I’m going to school.”

Kendra gave a quick nod before she started to walk away, mumbling to herself. “Better answer than I hoped for from a teenager. At least she’s not throwing it away for a boy…”

Disgusted, I glared at both Charlie and Lyssa before I started to storm off. Then I went back and tossed the rock I had stolen at Charlie. He caught it.

“Leave me alone when I’m on campus, and stay out of my head,” I said in an acid tone.

I left. I went back to my apartment and locked the door, even as I heard Gates calling after me to wait. I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel normal again.

And I wasn’t ending my relationship with Vince. I walked back onto campus just to make sure that Charlie wouldn’t eavesdrop and called him. He came to meet me by the engineering building at almost three in the morning in the freezing cold, and I told him what had happened. He offered to stay over again, or to have me stay over with him, but I told him I was afraid Kendra would be watching. He wasn’t sure how much he trusted Blake not to tell her mother, either, and if Kendra still had any relationship with Adeline, I knew she would hear about it.

We were going to have to be more secretive now.

Of course, Charlie had known that I had gone on campus, and he told Kendra. But it seemed that he was either respecting my order to stay out of my life in those geographical bounds, or else he had decided to keep my secret.

I told Kendra I had sought privacy to end it with Vince. Charlie didn’t dispute it. If Blake told Adeline that Vince had come home and destroyed some furniture in his room that night before leaving in a fury, or if Adeline told Kendra, she didn’t let on. Lyssa tried to talk to me, and to help me sooth my wounds, and I let her in the lamest way that I could stomach. She was my sister, but after her reaction to the last several problems in my life, I didn’t want to guess how she would react to the truth about this.

Gates held her tongue, but the look she gave me said she knew I wouldn’t give up so easily. When she spoke out and said it was better that I had ended it, though, I decided our friendship was still on shaky ground. It was better than assuming it had died completely.

I went to class and then came home and pretended to brood in my apartment or at the workbench, holding out for the rare dates when Kendra would send me out somewhere to collect plants in the wild. Vince and I had become adept at finding the dark corners of campus where we could be together alone, but it was stifling, and he liked to meet me on those nature walks as much as he could.

I didn’t talk to anyone in my make-do family except to accept instruction on my magical technique, but Lyssa continued to try to weasel her way back into my good graces. From afar, I watched Gates and Kendra getting closer, and magic treated my friend well.

She seemed to have a knack for the spells I just couldn’t master, and on the day she came to me to ask assistance collecting cactus thorns, I knew she had surpassed me. Kendra had been giving us the same assignments, and I had no clue what cactus thorns were used for.

I wanted to be happy for her, but I wasn’t. Magic continued to spit in my face while it smiled on her, and even though I had never wanted to be a witch, Gates’ success at being a warlock made me flaming jealous. I hadn’t managed to replicate the show I had put on shattering the door at the geology building, though Charlie assured me that I had, in fact, been asserting my magical prowess at the time.

As the semester progressed, Vince got busier with his assignments, and the scheduling for our group assignments started to take precedence over our trysts. Even then, he all but disappeared seven to fourteen days each month when the moon started to wane and the wolf took over. I had thought he was getting better at controlling it, but he would disappear for days at a time and then show back up without warning. He said he was going to the pack commune in the mountains to “run off the wolf.” I knew it was necessary, but on top of everything else, a small voice in my head told me he was avoiding me. Kendra had made things too difficult, and we were growing apart.

I buried myself in my studies on campus more and more, avoiding Gates and Kendra’s soul mate connection and Lyssa’s condescending tone when she repeatedly assured me that I had made the right decision breaking up with Vince. When Kendra finally granted Lyssa a reprieve to go and see her family for a week, I told her I was happy for her.

Late on a Thursday evening, just after my astronomy lab, I was joking with Tristan about the wisdom of pursuing a career as a professional astronomer. He had kindly listened to a twenty-minute rant about how I was struggling with an unreasonable jealousy after my aunt had given a precious family heirloom to my best friend, so I figured I owed him at least a few minutes of feigned interest in his motivational pep talk.

He said I was a natural at understanding stellar parallax, and I said that the odds of ever becoming a professional
paid
astronomer were slim to none.

“They save the jobs for the best in the field,” he said, lowering his chin and shaking his head at me. “Devote yourself, and your odds are better than average.”

I scoffed at his apparent delusion, and for the third time, the janitor walked in and interrupted our conversation. Tristan gave me a silent wink and loaded his laptop into his backpack, and we both gathered our things and wordlessly exited the room.

He usually went west on campus. I went east. But today, when he continued to walk with me, I felt a touch of discomfort, but I didn’t know why.

He saw me looking behind, the way he usually went when we called it a night, and started to apologize profusely.

“Oh, geez—” he said, hesitating. “I feel like a creep now. I’m so sorry. I have a friend picking me up for a concert tonight, and we’re meeting off of where the highway comes into town. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was following you in the dark.”

“No, of course not!” I shook my head and pulled my jacket tighter. I had been being paranoid, but a girl couldn’t be too careful. I took the more popular and lit paths back through campus, and when we went under the highway overpass, I quickened my pace to make sure we went under with two other girls who were also making their way home. We had been laughing and talking and joking the whole time, but I know he noticed, and he didn’t comment or try to stop me.

Safe on the other side, he slowed his pace beneath a street lamp, smiling.

“Well, I suppose this is it, then,” he said. He nodded at the sandwich place behind my apartment. “Do you know if that place is any good? I’m still early, and I am really not waiting in the cold.”

I raised my eyebrows, stamping my feet and rubbing my hands against the fabric of my pockets to try and get some heat from friction.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re great. I actually eat there a lot. I’m not a vegetarian, but check out the vegetarian options. Best thing on the menu because they give you double guacamole.”

“Will do,” he said. “Thanks. Um… would you care to join me?”

Taken aback, I tried to find any clues in his voice or face that would tell me if he thought it was a date. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, though, and with his scarf pulled up and only little curls of his dark hair sticking out comically around the edges of his hat, there wasn’t much to go by. I didn’t see the harm.

“Sure,” I said brightly.

We crossed the street together.

There was a part of me that wanted to believe it was a date, and another part that felt guilty for that. I hadn’t seen Vince in two weeks, though, and he hadn’t said goodbye or tried to make plans before he went. I didn’t know what was going on with him, and the part of me that really loved being a student didn’t understand why I kept the drama around. As much as I loved Vince, being with him meant that the magical world would always be a part of my life, but Tristan…

Tristan was as normal as anyone. And just for a half an hour, it was nice to feel like a normal girl.

We ordered, and paid separately, and sat down to eat. And like a switch, he went from discussing school assignments to more personal things.

“No one in my family eats vegetarian,” he said with a nervous smile. “I hardly know anyone brave enough to even try the vegetarian options.”

I shrugged. “Like I said, it’s mostly about the double guac. The turkey isn’t bad here, either, but stay away from the chicken. I think not enough people order it, so it tends to hang around a day too often sometimes.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the menu, and then back at me. “You come here a lot?”

“I live around here,” I said. “It’s cheap and convenient.”

“Oh, are you from here?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “I grew up in Bellmoral, and then came here for college. My dad moved away just recently, but my sister lives nearby…” I paused, frowning. “She used to, I mean. But she’s still around a lot.”

“Must be nice.” He stared at me a little too long, and I worried I had gone too far into my personal life. Then he shook his head and sighed. “I’ve got five brothers and sisters, I mean, and I’ve never gotten along well with any of them. They’re all extroverts, and I’ve never been able to really get why they’re so concerned with what other people think of them. I mostly hide in the kitchen with my mother at family gatherings.”