The Next Generation Read online

  He pressed me into the car, his hands running up my back, and my elation turned into desire. Oddly, I felt Julian’s mood shift into the same sort of desire. I couldn’t worry about it, and I was too buzzed to be concerned by it. Hunter flicked his tongue into my mouth, and I groaned as I wrapped my leg around his. I suddenly wanted to stay at this party, maybe find a quiet room upstairs to explore this burgeoning passion with Hunter. My mind started hazing, and I couldn’t recall why I’d even started distracting him in the first place.

  Hunter pulled away from me after a moment. “Nika?” he panted. His eyes searched mine. I couldn’t quite keep mine focused on him. “You seem…” He frowned. “Are you drunk?”

  I shook my head and worked harder at blocking out Julian’s soaring mood. “Nope, I’m completely sober.” Closing my eyes, I inhaled a deep breath. The fresh air helped clear Julian out of my system a little. “But my brother isn’t, so I should get him home.”

  Hunter’s eyes stared through me, like he was looking at Julian again. Concern was on his face when he refocused on me. “Are you going to be able to get him home okay? Do you want me to follow you?”

  Appreciating the offer, and wishing I could take him up on it, I pushed Hunter back and stepped away from the car. “No, I got it. Thank you.” I gave him a warm smile, then looked back at my idiotic brother. All I could see was the back of Julian’s head as he voraciously made out with Arianna. “Goddamn it,” I snapped, banging on the window.

  Trey startled, but Julian and Arianna completely ignored me. Giving Hunter an apologetic smile, I told him, “I have to break this up…and I really should get him home.”

  Hunter nodded, then reached out to stroke my cheek. He had rings on every one of his fingers that were connected by thin chains over his palm that attached to a bracelet around his wrist. It was an odd piece of jewelry, something I couldn’t recall ever seeing on him. In fact, try as I might, I couldn’t remember him ever wearing jewelry, at least, not on his hands. As the cool metal brushed my skin, Hunter’s smile widened. Grasping my cheek, he gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and said, “You’ve been avoiding coming over for dinner. No more excuses. How about Monday night?”

  Seeing that Julian was starting to lay Arianna down on the seat, I quickly nodded at Hunter. “Okay, yeah, sounds good.” I wasn’t sure how I’d swing that with my parents, but one hurdle at a time.

  Hunter nodded, backing up as he watched me run around to the other side of the car. Opening the rear door, I shoved Julian off Arianna and pulled her out of the vehicle. Her candy corn hat was askew and her hazel eyes were dazed. “Will you drive?” I asked, tossing her the keys. Before she could object, I ducked into the backseat with Julian and closed the door.

  Arianna gaped at me, then got into the driver’s seat. I smacked Julian’s thigh. Hard. “You told me you’d leave her alone!” I hissed as Arianna started the car.

  Julian jerked his thumb out the window, to where Hunter was still studying us. “You turned me on!” he hissed back.

  Luckily the radio kicked on, so neither Trey nor Arianna heard that. I felt my face searing with heat as embarrassment and disgust waged war within me. Julian’s mood stayed level, and I momentarily wished for a little more of his herbal retreat—anything to dull the mortification.

  Julian turned to look out the window at Hunter as Arianna backed up the car. My boyfriend waved, the metal on his hand flashing in the headlights. Now that I was paying attention, his other hand was similarly adorned. Shaking his head, I heard him mutter, “Smooth, Hunter…way to freak out over a set of fake teeth.” He was shaking his head and chuckling to himself as the car pulled away.

  Having heard him as well, a more-sober Julian whispered, “What did he mean by that?”

  The earlier look of panic on Hunter’s face instantly registered with me, and below human hearing, I told Julian, “He knows vampires are real.”

  Julian’s eyes flashed to mine. Fear sliced through his buzz, and he pulled his teeth back into place. “What?”

  I glanced at Arianna and Trey as we pulled onto the road, but they weren’t paying any attention to us. Well, Trey wasn’t. Arianna was glancing at Julian every once in a while, but I was certain she hadn’t seen his teeth changing size. “We’ll talk about it later,” I murmured. Twisting back to him, I snapped, “When you’re not stoned!”

  Julian sighed, then leaned his head against the glass.

  Arianna drove to her house first. She was practically radiating joy when she got out of the car. “He kissed me, Nika!” she beamed, glancing at Julian in the back seat. I could feel guilt and remorse streaming from my brother, and I tried to curb my annoyance. It wasn’t entirely his fault.

  “Remember what I said, Arianna…he’s wasted.”

  She nodded like she understood, but from the way she nearly skipped to the door, I knew that fact was currently lost on her. All she cared about at the moment was that he’d kissed her. She was going to get hurt by this…and I was partly to blame. Damn it.

  I drove Trey to his place while Julian started nodding off in the back seat. By the time I was parked in Trey’s driveway, Julian was stretched out in the back of the car, snoring away. While I wasn’t looking forward to dragging his sleeping butt to his room, I was grateful that he was unconscious; my mind was clearing with Julian passed out. It made it easier to concentrate on driving.

  Trey yawned as he muttered goodbye to me, then he started to get out of the car. I grabbed his arm. “Hey, don’t give my brother drugs anymore.”

  Smirking, Trey shook his bell-covered head. “I didn’t force him, Nika. And after the night he had with Raquel, he needed it.”

  I let Trey go; Julian had mentioned to Arianna that he’d had a bad night, I just hadn’t had time to ask him why. “What happened?”

  Trey shrugged. “Well, I don’t know for sure…but I think they had a pretty spectacular make-out session.” My mouth fell open in surprise, and Trey added, “Then she ditched him and left the party with Russell. He was pretty torn up about it, so I calmed him down.”

  “Oh…” My heart broke for Julian as I pictured the torment he’d been dealing with while I’d been sleeping. I must have been seriously out of it to not have been awoken by Julian’s twisting emotions. I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that I hadn’t been there for him. I glanced at my brother asleep in the back seat, then back to Trey’s bloodshot eyes. “Thank you for watching over him.”

  He gave me a medicated smile. “Anytime, Nika. He’s my family too.”

  Trey’s comment made me want to cringe, but I held my smile. Trey may be family now, but as soon as we left Salt Lake…he wouldn’t remember anything about Julian, or me, or our hot mom. Halina would make sure of that.

  Trey waved goodbye to me and wandered off to his house, skateboard in tow. Sighing, I headed back home with Julian. It was nearly morning. I couldn’t tell if our parents were moving around yet, but I hoped they were still sound asleep. I sped back to the house as quickly as I dared. Getting pulled over right now would suck. As it was, I had no idea how I was going to hide the smell wafting from Julian. Even if we did get away with this, his stench would be a dead giveaway to my super-smelling family. He’d have to shower and do a load of laundry before they woke up.

  Not meaning to, I drove past Hunter’s house. There were a couple of ways to get into our neighborhood; sometimes my family took the route that went by Hunter’s place, sometimes they didn’t. My heart always spiked whenever they did…and that was probably why Dad didn’t often drive that way. As I rolled by it now, my heart again shifted, but to concern this time. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but for a split second there, Hunter had known what Julian was—what he really was. Odd, since all he’d seen were Julian’s teeth. But that one, small glimpse had been enough to make him believe the fangs were real. He’d dropped the ridiculous notion before we’d parted ways, but…he’d believed it for a few minutes…and that was concerning.

  As slowly as
the car would go, I pulled into our driveway. Heart pounding, I shut off the car and waited. From what I could tell, all was quiet in the house. My parents were still locked away in their room, their presence unmoving. No creaks or moans or traces of light suggested that Ben or Olivia were awake. Exhaling, I tried to calm my heart as I stepped out of the car. We might actually get away with this.

  Opening the rear door, I tossed Julian’s board onto its normal resting place near the lawn. Then I yanked him from the car. It took supernatural strength to do it, but I finally got him to his feet. Propped up on me, he semi-woke up. “We home?”

  “Yes,” I crinkled my nose, “and you stink.”

  Julian smelled himself as I maneuvered us to the front door. “I do not…”

  I opened the door as quietly as I could. Thankfully, my dad hated squeaking doors and kept them well lubricated. Sometimes super hearing worked in my favor. Still fighting off the need for sleep, Julian yawned and leaned on me as I trudged us up the stairs. Great, I was going to have to tuck him in, or at least throw him down. I tiptoed past the room Ben was staying in, not wanting him to wake up. I didn’t need to worry though—he was already awake.

  Cracking the door right as we walked by, he murmured, “Need a hand?”

  My heart spiked as I gasped in surprise. Julian startled, hissing at Ben with his fangs extended. Ben raised a pale eyebrow while Julian slapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbled into his palm…then he started laughing.

  I chastised my idiotic brother in my head while Ben turned his curious eyes to mine. “Is he drunk?”

  Pulling Julian toward his door, hoping against all hope that my parents weren’t awake too, although I wasn’t sure if that mattered now since Ben had caught us red-handed, I shook my head. “No, not…drunk.”

  Not deterred by my movement, Ben followed us into Julian’s room. Even though I could have carried Julian with no problems, Ben decided to help me, and ducked his shoulder under my brother’s. He cringed. “Whoa…no, he’s high, isn’t he?”

  I sighed. Thanks to the pot-laced room my brother had been baking in for who knows how long, the smell was unmistakable, even to a human’s nose. Being vague, I only told Ben, “I’m not really sure.”

  I’d wanted to get Julian showered and cleaned up, or at least changed into clean clothes, but Julian took one look at his bed, and, giggling, he broke away from us to flop on top of it. Realizing we were pretty much screwed anyway, I left him alone. He was already snoring when Ben pulled me back into the hallway.

  Arms crossed over his chest, Ben stared me down. Even dressed in loose pajama pants, he could be imposing. “You want to tell me what happened tonight?” His blue eyes glanced up at my parents’ door. “How’d you get out of here without them knowing?”

  I looked behind me. “They’re asleep.” I twisted back to Ben. “We don’t notice the bond when we’re asleep.”

  Curious, Ben asked, “But what about the others? Halina must be awake?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, probably, but she’s too far away to tell that Julian and I moved. To her, it would have felt like we were still at home.”

  I hoped that would satisfy Ben and he would forget about his original question, but, no such luck. “And why did you leave?”

  Suddenly feeling very tired, and a lot more sober now since Julian was sleeping it off, I yawned. “Julian snuck out to…meet a girl. I followed him when I realized he was gone.”

  Ben’s eyes widened as he looked over at Julian’s closed door. “Julian has a girlfriend? I didn’t know that.”

  I bit my lip in shame, knowing Julian wasn’t the one with a secret love interest. “No, the girl he likes is seeing someone else. It’s sort of…drama.”

  Ben smiled and looked back at me. His eyes were suddenly laced with sadness. “Love usually is.”

  Feeling bad for his relationship troubles, I gave him a sympathetic smile. He patted my shoulder then indicated my parents’ door. “I’ll have to tell them about this. I’m sorry.”

  My heart dropped a little, but really, I’d never expected to get away with any of this. My only real dilemma was Hunter. Did I tell my parents about him noticing Julian’s teeth? If I mentioned Hunter, then I’d have to mention what he was to me. And my parents weren’t going to like that I had an undercover relationship blossoming. They’d put a stop to it for sure. They’d probably erase me from his memory, as well as Julian’s fangs.

  I swallowed and nodded, dread locking up my voice. No, I couldn’t tell any of them about Hunter…not yet. And besides, I didn’t know if there was even a problem with Hunter. He’d seemed convinced that he’d made a mistake and Julian was a human wearing a realistic costume. He hadn’t seemed alarmed or scared of me or my family. He hadn’t seemed worried or freaked out. He’d even made plans to have dinner with me—a dinner I had no idea how I was going to go to. But even if something had convinced Hunter that Julian was 100 percent human, I knew one thing for sure now…I would have to be very careful from here on out with my boyfriend. For whatever reason, an active imagination or a past experience, he knew about vampires. And that made him a threat. A threat I was beginning to fall in love with.

  And here I thought Julian was being an idiot.

  MUCH TO MY surprise, my parents went easy on me after Ben told them what had happened. Dad said that running out of the house to make sure Julian was safe was a noble thing to do. In fact, the only thing they were disappointed at me for, was the fact that I didn’t wake them up so we could all leave together to “rescue” Julian. But with a sad, reminiscent smile, Dad confessed that he’d been a teenager once too, and even though he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, he understood not wanting to get someone in trouble.

  So, I got away with my part of the crime with not much more than an hour-long talk behind closed doors. Julian, however, was not so lucky. His punishment lasted all weekend.

  First, Dad made him go with Ben and Olivia to the airport. He had to hold Liv’s bright pink carry-on bag. While I was sipping hot cocoa out at the ranch, Julian was knee deep in Olivia’s preteen tears, some for having to leave her father, most for having to leave Julian. I felt his discomfort the entire time.

  When Ben finally brought Julian out to the ranch, he had a few brief minutes of hope that he’d get to do something fun. That ended when Dad forced him to do health inspections of the entire herd with Peter and the crew. Julian was sullen, annoyed, but he didn’t complain as he threw on extra warm clothes and extra high boots. I could feel Julian’s remorse as he headed out to the pastures, but I wasn’t sure if Julian was feeling bad about getting high, or bad about what he’d done to Arianna. I hoped it was a little of both.

  By Sunday night, everyone in the ranch had made Julian do some gross or menial task for them. Alanna had made him help with butchering dinner; his part had been to clean up the unusable remains. Imogen had made him rewind every roll of yarn that had partially untangled, which seemed like all of them. Gabriel had made him measure out and bottle vials of the miraculous shots that kept mixed vampires alive indefinitely; there were hundreds of them. After inspections, Grandpa had made him help repair some barbwire fencing with the ranch hands—meaning, he had to do it without using his enhanced abilities. Grandma Linda had made him help her finish our childhood scrapbooks, and she hadn’t even started on them yet. And Halina had supervised as she’d made him clean out every gutter on every building…in the middle of the night.

  Julian was sound asleep on the drive home. I figured he’d think twice before touching pot again.

  Julian had bags under his eyes Monday morning. He kind of looked like he’d spent the entire weekend on a bender, not working hard for our family. Starla commented on it while Dad was dropping us off at her place before school.

  “Whoa, what the hell happened to you, Julian? You look like you played chicken with a semi-truck…and lost.”

  Julian yawned as he brushed past her. Smirking, Dad answered for him. “He indulged a little on Fri
day night, so he had some extra…chores…this weekend.”

  Starla’s face turned to disgust. “At that smelly, crappy ranch?” Dad’s face darkened at her comment, but Starla twisted to watch Julian flop onto her couch and missed his expression. Julian curled into a ball like he was going to take a nap. I ducked by Starla as she murmured, “Poor kid.”

  Dad looked over at Julian and shrugged; he was still upset about the whole thing, more so the drugs than the sneaking out. “Yeah, well, he’s still being punished so he’ll need to be picked up immediately after school.”

  Seeing an opportunity, I piped up, “Hey, Dad, a friend asked if I could come over after school and stay for dinner. Is that okay?”

  Dad paused his frowning at Julian to glance at me. “Which friend?”

  I tried every mental trick I knew of to keep my heart as slow and steady as possible. My nerves spiked, though, and Julian cracked an eye open. His sullen mood was curious now, and I figured he hadn’t heard me making plans with Hunter on Friday night; he’d been pretty preoccupied at the time. And he’d been so busy being punished this weekend that we hadn’t had a chance to talk about Hunter, about what had happened, about what Hunter knew about our race. Tonight would be my first chance to try and figure out why Hunter believed what he did, but it meant I had to lie to my father, and I really hated doing that.

  I shrugged. “My partner for a project at school. We need to work on…an assignment.”

  Dad nodded. The academic part of my lie appealed to him. “Yeah, okay. Just don’t stay out too late.”

  “I won’t, and you don’t have to worry about picking me up after school. I’ll get a ride with my friend. They live right around the corner from our house.” I purposely didn’t mention if my partner was male or female. As Dad nodded again, I grinned and sat next to Julian on the couch. Julian asked me a million questions with his eyes, but thankfully, he didn’t verbalize any of them.