Seven #2
“I wasn’t trying to kill you!” Yelling wasn’t an option, so I whisper-yelled, which didn’t feel nearly as good.
“You can’t turn me, Kieran, so what were you trying to do? Gonna tell me these were love bites?”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything!” Except kiss you, hear you, maybe mark you. I wanted to light my brain on fire. “It was an accident. Not a vampire thing, just—a boy thing.”
Mason hesitated, arms crossed tightly, studying my face for cracks. He sniffed like he might smell a lie in the air. Eventually, he dropped his arms and sighed.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Mason lifted his shirt from the hem up to his left ribs. “If you’re not trying to kill me, who is?”
The wound had scabbed over, but it was still inflamed and raw-looking, blistered and puckering around the edges.
Quietly, I asked, “How is it?”
Mason’s sharp scowl faltered. He released his shirt. “It’s . . . fine. Hurts, but no real damage.”
My tongue clicked against the roof of my mouth. “That was . . . Some in my clan have had a pretty, ah, traumatic experience with werewolves. Life-and-death stuff. I think when they heard there might be wolves . . . before the peace talk started, I mean—it was a fear response.”
“So it was a trap? For us?”
“It won’t happen again. But . . .” I chewed the inside of my cheek. “There’s got to be a reason you haven’t said anything yet.”
Mason scratched the back of his neck. “There are members of my pack that would be all too happy to scrap the truce we just made.”
I nodded. I knew the type.
“Why were you in our woods?” I asked.
“I was seriously on a run.” I gave him an unimpressed look. “It’s a thing I do. When I need to clear my head. I wasn’t even paying attention to where I was going. I don’t know how I ended up there. Why are you shaking?” Mason asked, closer than he’d been a second ago.
Squaring my shoulders, I said, “I’m not.”
“Been shaking since you got here.” He stepped forward again. “Like one of those small”—he outlined a questionable shape in the air with his hands—“strange greyhounds.”
“Are you going to take me to my car?”
Mason sighed and beckoned, turning confidently even though there was no trail, no markers, not even a distinctive tree to go off of.
“Why did you leave? Last night.”
My hand slipped off of a branch, and it swung back and hit me in the face.
“Were you just freaked over biting me?”
“Is that a joke?” I said. Ahead, the ground sloped steeply upward, wound so tightly with roots it looked like a wicker basket. “We’re natural enemies, and you think that was the biggest issue?”
Mason paused, but I didn’t, forcing him to lumber after me.
“Not to mention the colossal crush my best friend has on you because you’ve been flirting relentlessly with her for a week. You better have called off that date.”
Mason was quiet behind me. I spun around.
“You still went out today?” I had forgotten about whispering.
“I thought you’d tried to kill me! Shouldn’t you know we went out by now, best friend?”
He was right. I should have known, but Cella hadn’t said a word about it.
Jamming both hands into my pockets, I searched for visual evidence that Cedric’s trap had somehow given him brain damage. “That doesn’t change the fact that you kissed me the night before your date.”
“I feel like we’re neglecting to acknowledge that you kissed me back. Are we forgetting that?”
“That didn’t mean anything!” I stormed up the ridge. “None of that meant anything. I don’t even like guys like that.”
Mason stumbled over a root and would’ve slid back down if he didn’t grab onto a branch over his head. “You said you were gay.”
“I lied!” I announced, reaching the crest. Below, I could see my dad’s old black Chevy. It seemed strikingly out of place beside the farm.
“Why would you do that?”
“It was this whole vindictive thing, it doesn’t even matter, okay. I regret it—I regret all of this. Last night was a mistake. Last night didn’t happen.”
“Which is it?”
“That doesn’t matter, either.”
Mason kicked impatiently at the packed dirt. As he watched dislodged pebbles cascade down the hill, he said, “Then what does?”
“You need to end things with Cella.”
Mason lifted his head, slightly lower down the hill, shoulders hunched, one foot up on a fat looping root. “Why would I do that?”
“This time you’re joking.”
He shook his head slightly. “We hadn’t even gone on the date yet when I kissed you. I’m allowed to kiss someone. Especially since, like you said, none of it meant anything.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“No,” agreed Mason. “I like her, and she likes me, and I’m not going to sabotage that over a mistake that never happened. If you want her to know so badly, tell her yourself.”
Mason turned and walked back down the hill with light-footed ease. “Nice undies, by the way,” he threw over his shoulder.
Further down the tree line, my dad and Cedric emerged from the woods. I jogged to reach them, waving and shouting that I’d gotten lost. Cedric hung back as Dad climbed inside the car.
“Did the young one follow you?” Cedric demanded. “Who is he?”
“He goes to my school,” I said. “Don’t make that face. He’s too much of a moron to fret over.”
Cedric snickered, ruffling my hair. When my dad shut the driver’s side door, I took hold of Cedric’s sleeve, keeping him near by the black cotton of his topcoat.
“If your traps hurt any of them, all you’ll do is give them every right to hurt one of us. You need to get rid of them.”
Cedric stood there as I climbed into the back seat, watching me narrowly over one shoulder. My dad tapped the horn, and my brother yanked the door open hard enough to earn a groan and a scolding from Dad. I leaned against the window.