Braced to Bite (Book 1: Half-blood vampire series)

Chapter 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 super wired 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, bronzer had been slathered liberally over my pale skin and I was dressed in my favorite sweater and jeans. Mom generously sprayed 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.