She sat with her hand propped on her chin, staring
blankly into space. Not that Tierney
had much to look at, anyway. Just rows upon rows of dully colored books,
stacked neatly into compact wooden shelves. Other than that, only bland walls
and an equally depressing carpet offered any semblance of color, although the
administration had tried to liven it up slightly. Tierney's favorite part was
the motivational poster hanging on the wall.
/Remember, the problems ahead of you are never as
great as the power behind you./
Now, why did that somehow seem appropriate?
Maybe because the problems that lay ahead of her
seemed endless and insurmountable. First, Dare couldn't be happy. Second, she
didn't even know what had gone wrong. Third...
Third, she *liked* the attention she'd been getting
since she'd done the spell. Okay, so maybe she hadn't wanted to go to the prom
with that kid (whose name she still wasn't sure of), but at least she'd been
asked. It was funny, but even though she'd been ostracized because of her looks
for so long, she was still picky about guys.
She wanted her soulmate. The one she was meant to be
with, not some random boy who'd only asked her out because she was suddenly beautiful.
The hell with *that*. She wanted more. In
fact, she wanted all of it, right down to the splintering sparks each time they
touched and that awe-inducing feeling of being thrown into his mind, of sharing
yourself completely with someone else.
But still, it was nice to be wanted in the meantime.
With a sigh, she sat up, picking up her pencil and
telling herself she was really going to start on her physics now. Really. The
numbers swam crazily in front of her eyes. Of all the things interesting her
right now, the velocity of an airplane in a windstorm was not one of them. It
still needed to be done.
It's only two more problems, she told herself
determinedly. Leaning over so she could see the word problem in the book, she
quickly scanned the paragraph, jotting the numbers down on her paper. At least
they shouldn't take that long to do, and then she could move on to her French
assignment.
"Tier?"
Or maybe not. Glancing up, she saw Raquel hovering at
the end of the table. "Hey, Raquel. Shouldn't you be in lunch?"
Raquel shrugged, pulling out one of the chairs on the
opposite side of the table and sitting down. "I already ate. You'll never
guess who made an appearance."
The tone of her friend's voice said the answer should
be pretty obvious, but Tierney was clueless. Unless... Suspicion dawned in her
hazel eyes. "Dare?" she speculated, even though she knew the answer.
Nodding, Raquel made herself comfortable on the other
side of the table. "Exactly. He
wanted to know where you were."
"What did you tell him?"
The sharpness in her voice must have alerted Raquel,
because she stared at her oddly for a moment before replying. "I told him
you moved to Japan so you could wear a kimono." Then she paused again.
"Or maybe I told him you went to Germany for a Bavarian pretzel. You know,
I'm not really sure."
Her voice somewhat softer, Tierney asked, "You
didn't tell him I was here?" She nearly sighed in relief.
"I didn't know," Raquel admitted.
That gave Tierney pause. If she hadn't known Tierney
was there, why would she come? Her world suddenly skewed, Tierney hoped she had
a good answer. "You came to the
library on your own? Is this some kind of sadistic punishment for that stunt
with Henderson the other day?"
Blindly, she racked her brain for other possible
reasons Raquel might be here, but she came up blank. Punishment just about
covered all possibilities, unless maybe she was getting paid... But by who?
Raquel quickly put that thought to rest. "Julien
told me."
Nodding, Tierney accepted that answer silently, her
eyes trailing back to her physics homework. Julien told her. Wonderful. While
she knew that even if anything *had* happened -- which it wouldn't, because he
didn't like her like that -- Julien would keep it to himself, she could only
imagine what conclusions Raquel had drawn.
Actually, she probably couldn't. Raquel's imagination bordered on
drug-induced hallucinations at times.
Her friend conveniently interrupted those thoughts,
very loudly and very angrily, and changed the subject. "Remember that
essay on multifariousness?"
Tierney nodded, guessing that Raquel had been kept
after class just as she suspected and that she wasn't happy about it. She was wrong.
"Well, this time she wants us to be
creative."
Her mouth fell open. Goddess, was the woman insane?
Tierney knew most of the people who were in her English class, and "be
creative" were not the words to use with that specific group of people.
She was inviting all sorts of disaster, and worse, hours of boredom while she
had to grade the "creative" papers. At least Tierney assumed it was a
creative paper, from what Raquel said.
"Creative how?" she asked aloud.
"We have to write a short story," Raquel
sighed, slumping back in her chair and frowning. "I don't know what to
write about!"
Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Tierney glanced
over her physics. Absently correcting a mistake, she suggested, "Why don't
you write about something historical?"
Laughter bubbled from Raquel's lips. Her slim arms
curled around her sides as if they ached and her face flushed with amusement.
"Yeah, right," she finally managed, her vivid eyes sparkling.
"What do I know about history?"
"Nothing you couldn't look up," Tierney
answered dryly. She punched some numbers into her calculator, then scribbled
them on the paper. Last problem. "That's the beauty of history: it doesn't
change."
"Unless you're Mr. Timmons," Raquel agreed.
Her mouth pursed, she leveled her gaze on the bookshelf directly across from
her. She scowled at the books, evidently opposed to using them instead of
simply staring at them. Then she sighed. "In his world, it's completely
subjective. So really, you can't blame me for not knowing when the Georgian
empire fell."
Tierney looked up from her physics. "The
Georgian empire?"
"Er, Greek?"
Rolling her eyes, Tierney transferred her attention
back to the last problem. "As far as I know, Georgia never had an empire.
If anything--"
"Spare me the details," her friend interrupted.
She traced her fingers idly over the wooden grain swirling over the oak table,
her fingers dipping into the line of Tierney's vision. "I just want to
graduate and forget everything. It's not like we're going to need it
anyway."
There. Done.
Satisfied, Tierney capped her pen, blinking away the
numbers swimming drunkenly in front of her face, and slapped her thick notebook
shut. "I don't think you need to graduate to forget everything, Raquel.
You seem to do a pretty good job of that on a second to second basis. Have you
ever thought about getting your short-term memory checked?"
"Oh, it's not my short-term memory," Raquel
assured her. "It's my nonexistent attention span."
Not to mention her complete lack of concern for
anything scholastic. Tierney rubbed her hand over her face, feeling features
that no longer matched her outer appearance. Where vision lied, touch did not.
It reminded her that she was merely a lie. The realization sent a frisson of
premonition shooting through her.
Ignore that, she told herself, and firmly pushed it
to the back of her mind.
"Anyway, you said you had those papers, right? I
have something to do after school, so I think you should show me now, if you've
got them with you." Raquel stared at her expectantly, her pretty features
intent. Shifting in her seat, she flipped her long, pale blond hair over her
shoulder and tucked it behind her ear, a gesture Tierney knew meant she was
listening.
Now if only some of that interest were applied to her
classes...
"I have them with me," she said. Sliding
her stack of books to the side, she unburied her shiny magenta folder from
beneath the pile. It took her only a moment to open it and remove a thin stack
of papers from its crowded inside.
Leaning forward, Raquel snatched them out of her
friend's hand. She ignored the gasp of protest accompanying that action. After
a moment of careful consideration, she handed them back. "Why are all the
things that interest me never in an easy-to-follow format?"
"Luck," Tierney retorted, mildly irritated
at Raquel's audacity. Her friend smiled sweetly at her, completely unfazed, and
Tierney felt her irritation dissipate.
Raquel seemed to realize this. "So show me how
you know I'm a witch."
"At first I thought it was coincidence,"
Tierney admitted as she laid the papers on the table. "Some humans do have
our surname, after all, and it doesn't mean anything. But then..." she
leaned forward, excitement drifting over her features, "Adrien did
something weird."
"Oh, I'm shocked," Raquel said, rolling her
eyes. "This was what, five seconds after you'd met him?"
"We were thirteen. Adrien was fourteen. So that
would have been... two or three years ago."
Now Raquel leaned forward, too, looking somewhat
offended. Her mouth twisted wryly and her violet eyes were dark like amethysts
in shadows. Not with real offense, but more with something like hurt. As if she
couldn't believe Tierney would keep this from her. "You've known I'm a
witch for two years and you didn't tell me?"
Tierney met her eyes. "No, I haven't known you
were a witch for two years; I've known for about a year. I told you I wasn't
sure, remember? I didn't think to look it up until later."
Mollified, Raquel slumped back in her seat, tucking
her hair, which had swept forward when she moved, back behind her ear.
"You still should have told me."
"I didn't know how you'd react," she
defended, then she brushed that topic aside. She spread the papers haphazardly
between them and pointed to one of the sheets, her slender fingers tapping
against the table. "If you look at this paper, the line of descent,"
her fingers traced down the old, crinkled paper, "ends here, with Kiele
Harman." She looked expectantly at her friend, hoping for some reaction at
the name.
"So?"
Okay, so maybe she had been too optimistic. The match
wasn't exact. "Your mom's real name is Kiele. Anyone from the Nightworld
usually has a nature name; Kiele is the name for a type of flower in
Hawaii."
Shifting through the papers, she pulled out Mrs.
Harman's birth certificate, along with another legal document showing where
she'd had her name changed. She handed them to Raquel, watching as surprise and
confusion warred over her delicate features. After a moment, Raquel set them
down.
"I don't understand," Raquel said.
"You know my mom's..."
Even though her voice trailed off, Tierney knew what
she'd been about to say. You know my mom's an alcoholic. You know my mom never
comes out of her room, and wouldn't if it were a choice between life and death.
You know I've never seen my mom sober, except maybe that once... Maybe.
Yes, Tierney knew what Raquel hadn't said. And she
also knew Raquel didn't want her pity. She hadn't from the first day they'd
met. But where Tierney had been an outcast because of her looks, Raquel had
been an outcast by choice.
I'm not like them.
Those words had been a younger Raquel's mantra, her
answer to everything. Although her friend's appearance had always bordered on
angelic, her personality had been anything but. It had only been after she'd
gotten to know Tierney that she'd started to open up, but she still scorned the
"popular" crowd, with the exception of Adrien's friends.
Adrien, in contrast, associated with anyone and
everyone. It didn't matter which crowd they ran with or what their status was.
From the pretty, pretty princesses to the gutter sluts, he knew them all. But
despite his popularity, he was only close to a handful of people.
Still, few people knew about their family life.
Gently, Tierney replied, "I know, Raquel, but
this was before she was like that. Your mother is a Harman."
"But--" Raquel couldn't seem to grasp such
a radically different view of her mother. She bit her lower lip, confusion
sliding like putty in her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Shouldn't her
last name be different if she got married?"
Tierney shook her head, her long hair slipping in a
myriad of hues over her smooth green sweater. "Not in the Nightworld. The
witches' last names descend from mother to daughter. It's a matriarchal
society."
Raquel raised an eyebrow at this new bit of
information. "I think I'm going to like this."
A brief smile curved Tierney's mouth. "I figured
you'd say something like that. Anyway, your dad took the last name of the
Harmans," she pushed forward a different document, "when they got
married." Lining the three documents neatly next to each other, she
reached to stack the rest of the papers into a neat pile. "And then when
they moved here, your mom changed her name."
"I don't get that," Raquel muttered.
"Of all the names my mother could have picked, she changed her name to
Kelly?"
Tracing her fingers over the sprawling names on the
papers -- she didn't have to be too careful, since they weren't the originals
-- her eyes hovered on the intertwined letters. "Well, it kind of sounds
like Kiele, don't you think?"
The bell cut off any response Raquel could have made.
The two girls looked at each other, then Tierney hastily gathered up the
papers. Raquel really couldn't afford to be late again.
"Sorry. I know that wasn't horribly
enlightening," she apologized, stuffing them into a folder. "What are
you doing after school again?"
A short moment of hesitation fell between them, her
friend seemingly loathe to answer. Raising an eyebrow at her friend's silence,
she picked up the rest of her stuff, then started out of the library. Raquel fell into step beside her. They began
walking toward their respective classes.
Grimacing, Raquel finally replied, "Meeting with
Harington."
Tierney made a small sound of disgust. "Lucky
you. Do you want me to wait for you or is Adrien taking you home?"
Something flickered over her friend's face. Tierney
watched curiously as a blush crept over her face as quickly as a creeping vine,
its tendrils weaving their way into her skin. "I have a ride," Raquel
answered evasively.
"With?"
"I'll find one."
"So you don't actually have one yet?"
They'd reached Raquel's classroom, so Tierney paused by the door, waiting for her
friend's answer. Raquel didn't seem concerned that she had neither paper nor a
writing utensil, but she did appear slightly nervous about supplying an answer.
The whole situation struck Tierney as odd, especially
since she'd offered to wait for her friend. After another second of silence,
she asked, "Does this have anything to do with your prom date?"
"No," Raquel answered, a little too quickly
to be believable.
Suppressing a frustrated sigh, Tierney demanded,
"Then why won't you tell me?"
The bell rang.
"Class." Raquel shrugged apologetically and
ducked through the door.
Tierney wanted to smack her. She was so *frustrating*
sometimes! Really, the girl could give government special forces some tips on
evasive tactics, and probably implement a completely original program in the
military. Her tactical skills were amazing. Her timing left much to be desired.
And because of Raquel, she was late again, albeit
indirectly.
Oh, well. At least it was Mr. Timmons instead of a
different teacher who wouldn't be quite as understanding. She wasn't *that*
late. Wandering down the hall in the direction of her classroom, she wondered
what was going on with Raquel lately.
***
Ah, last period Calculus. His favorite.
Dare's mouth twisting wryly at that sarcastic
thought, he thanked Fate for making Tierney sick and sending her home, because
he didn't think he would be able to control his temper once he saw her. Better
for that to happen outside of class, and not in the midst of forty humans.
Oh, no. He had much more interesting plans for
Tierney Anderson.
The corners of his mouth tilting in anticipation, his
eyes shone with a curious sort of retribution promised in their depths. His
eyes were the same blazing gold despite the change in this features and, while
their shape had altered, their color was pure. When they touched you, you
burned.
He slammed his locker shut, turning to grace Byron
with smug smile. "Ready?"
The word was crushed out of his lungs as he felt
himself flung against the locker. One of the members of the football team fixed
him with a menacing stare. "Stay out of my way next time."
Never mind the plans. He was going to kill her.
His mouth drawn tight, he watched silently as the
football player -- who weighed at least three hundred pounds and was definitely
human -- glared for a second longer, his lip curled angrily, and then continued
walking down the crowded hall. The guy didn't look back from his slow swagger,
which Dare attributed to over-confidence.
Surprised, Byron whistled softly at his side.
"Don't know what *that* was about. Craig's usually not so--" Then he
shrugged, letting the thought slip back into his mind's murky swamps of
consciousness. "C'mon."
Throwing one last glance at Tierney's silent locker,
Dare followed behind him, dodging people who stepped out of Byron's way in
deference. Irritated by this small display of imposed inferiority, he suddenly
realized he didn't know where Tierney lived, which might make it difficult to
find her tonight. Maybe Byron would know.
"Do you know where Tierney Anderson lives?"
Byron stopped dead in front of him, so quickly that
Dare stumbled into his back. The slightly shorter vampire swiveled to face him.
"What d'you want with her?"
"It's just business." He shrugged, brushing
the subject off as unimportant. He elbowed a human out of his way and continued
down the hall, leaving Byron to hurry after him or be left behind.
The lamia caught up quickly. Disbelief flaring brown eyes into a stunning
and somehow murky green, he demanded, "Business? What kind of
business?"
"None of yours," Dare answered. His voice
was calm, a rough purr that scraped over nerves like the subtle wave of water
over rocks, drowning them in the sound. He stepped around a group of people who
crowded around a different classroom's door.
Shaking his head sadly, Byron said, "Thought I
told you to stay away from her. I don't care how pretty she is. She's
dangerous, you know?"
"How prett--"
Dare bit his lip, catching the sentence before it could
escape fully from his mouth. He was tempted to write Byron off as certifiable,
except... something told him Byron was telling the truth. Anger brimmed
dangerously close to the surface.
Byron's statement could mean one of two things:
either Byron was blind, or Tierney had switched their looks to teach him a
lesson. Since Byron was minus the Seeing Eye dog and the cane, he discarded the
first option.
Reining his temper under control, he agreed,
"You told me."
But apparently I didn't listen well enough. If he'd
paid attention to Byron's warning and left her alone, she might have kept her
end of the bargain. Then again, maybe he should have accepted her proposal to
put the promise in blood. At least that was biding.
He entered the classroom, ignoring the funny look
Byron was giving him. Whispers erupted when he entered. He walked to his desk
in silence, his jaw tightening with every passing second, and his head tilted
arrogantly, meeting each person's eyes in turn. One by one they looked away.
His eyes had always been his greatest weapon. The
predatory edge was there, hovering as sharp as a glass shard slipping through
skin, while the slinking movements of his body only hinted at what was trapped
inside. But his eyes...
They say your eyes are the windows to your soul, but
Dare's showed only hunger. Thick, ravenous hunger rolling through their systems
like a choking fog and stilling their breath. Dare's eyes screamed of danger
and death.
When they looked at him, they felt like prey.
He could see it on their faces, that split second
before they averted their gazes away from his, that miniscule slice of time
before they looked down and prayed they were misreading the message in his
eyes. When he smiled, showing his teeth, one of the girls shuddered, but now he
didn't know if it was because of his warning stare or because of his horrid
looks.
His confidence restored, he dropped into his seat,
stretching his long legs into the aisle. Mr. O glared as he stepped over them,
handing back homework assignments they'd turned in during the last class
period. Dare smiled nastily back at him, the grin widening as the man scuttled
away.
Byron sat in the desk next to his and leaned across
the Formica top so he could whisper. "Should have paid attention to me. Stay
away if you can help it. She might turn you into something nasty."
She already did, Dare thought, his displeasure
dripping from those golden orbs. "If she wants to play games, we can play
them." Silence stretched between the two boys and even though Byron wasn't
aware of what had happened, so did understanding. "But if she plays,
she'll lose."
"Might want to tell *her* that," Byron
muttered, his eyes fixed on the doorway.
***
Of all the days she'd wanted to skip class, today *had*
to be the one where the guidance counselors were in a meeting. Mrs. Shumaker
hadn't been happy about writing her a pass, but Tierney didn't care. She was
too focused on having to see Dare.
She'd really, really tried to get out of class. When
that hadn't worked, she'd tried to get out of school. But, ironically, the
school nurse had called in sick, so Mrs. Shumaker had forced Tierney to finish
out the day.
It's only one class.
Of course, Mrs. Shumaker didn't know why she didn't
want to go to that class, and probably wouldn't care if she did. She looked
like she'd just swallowed a lemon when Tierney walked in, her eyes bulging and
her cheeks puffing a like a blowfish's. The yelling had followed only a few
seconds later, while Tierney tried desperately to look ill.
Her expression was just about equivalent to the one
washing over Dare's features right now.
First the surprise -- quickly becoming more akin to shock -- then
irritation, and finally anger. For very different reasons, of course. While Mrs.
Shumaker just didn't like to do what she was paid for -- and sometimes Tierney
didn't think she liked the students at all -- things seemed to be clicking in
Dare's mind, much to Tierney's dismay.
"Tierney, did you bring me a slip?" Mr. O
demanded fanatically, probably hoping that she didn't so he could give her
detention or make her go back to get one.
She nodded and carefully avoided looking in Dare's
direction. Without a word, she handed it to him. He signed it, handing it back
to her, then she walked quietly to her desk, where she sat. She kept her eyes
trained in front of her. Flipping open her book, she settled as inconspicuously
as she could into her seat.
Dare's eyes bored into her back. Even though she
wasn't looking at him, she could feel them like twin spires driving deeply into
her soul. Slumping further down, she tried to ignore him.
It wasn't easy.
Glancing at the clock, she wished fervently for the
hands to magically reflect thirty-five minutes into the future, when she could
leave. She'd seen Jihn in the hallway
before class and begged her to make some excuse calling her to the office or
the music room or the art room -- anywhere -- before the dismissal bell rang.
She just wanted to avoid a confrontation with Dare.
Jihn agreed, so Tierney was counting on that to get
her out of this mess she'd created for herself. Thank the goddess it was
Friday. She could avoid Dare until Monday, and by then, hopefully she'd have
found the remedy.
Thirty-five more minutes.
***
She was beautiful.
He knew he should have expected it, but somewhere
deep, down inside, he'd told himself that life wouldn't be so unfair as to let
a spell turn Tierney beautiful while he turned into... this horrible parody of
his former looks. He hadn't thought life would let him, a Nightworlder --
someone born above these worthless pieces of flesh that called themselves
humans -- sink so far as to find himself ridiculed by them.
All day he'd been telling himself it wasn't their
fault that things had changed and not to take his anger out on them. He had to
survive in this place for at least another two months, and then in the town for
another year after that. That had been the deal; live with your great-aunt for
a year, then you're on your own, free to do as you want. His parents told him
that right before they'd shipped him off to this godforsaken town.
And while he hadn't been happy about it, at least
there had been an ending to the mess in sight. Now he wasn't sure what they --
what he -- had gotten himself into. This whole situation was far beyond his
call of duty.
She was beautiful and he was angry.
He couldn't help but stare at her, at her flawless
features twisting into the illusion she now was. Fine, delicate features, so
pure it was stunning, and her eyes -- which he reluctantly admitted had always
been pretty -- framed in that exquisite setting. If he hadn't been able to see
beneath that mask, hadn't been able to see the visage that lay raw just
underneath, she would have made him ache.
He wanted to run his fingers through that long hair.
Straight now, the colors mixed and melded into a striking sheet of silk. His
fingers itched to touch it, to see if it felt as sensual as it looked.
But he wouldn't do that.
He looked at the clock. Thirty-five more minutes
until the bell rang. A smug smile curving his lips, he returned his attention
to his soulmate and her suddenly beautiful appearance.
Thirty-five more minutes until she started paying for
what she'd done.
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