school.â
He nods. I wonder if heâs secretly happy that itâs not a vamp girl. âMust be smart.â
âSheâs very smart. Nice. Funny. Good-looking.â
âSounds like the whole package.â My dad was always cool that way. Thatâs probably one of the reasons he and my mom split up. That, and her parents, who more or less disowned her when she married him, then ten years later offered her a big house and a ton of money if she would leave him. I guess she and my father were already fighting a lot, so they decided to call it quits. We moved into the big house in the Hills. And that was that.
Anyway, I donât believe my father was interested in Mom just because she was beautiful and a vampyre and it was sort of moving up socially for him. He never cared about any of that. From what heâs told me, she was a lot of fun back then, and there werenât any species issues between them. Not for him, anyhow.
âOkay, so itâs not girl trouble,â he says. âLetâs hear it.â
âI was just wondering.â Keep that voice steady and casual. âAnd you donât have to answer if you donât want, but how old were you when you had your first Change?â
âThe first full one? I guess eleven, almost twelve. On schedule. Why?â
I donât say anything for a couple of seconds. âWhat was it like?â
âYou came to ask me what primitis is like? When you can find out all the details you want from a book or the Internet? Come on, now. Whatâs this really about?â
I havenât said it out loud to anybody yet. âI think somethingâs happening to me.â
He takes a Coke and pours some into one of the glasses, then sits back and watches the foam dissolve. âYou had treatments. Almost all of them.â
âI know.â
âSo why would you think it has anything to do with the Change?â
âBecause. I know it sounds impossible, but whatâs happening sure seems to me like primitis-Lycan -whatever.â
â Primitis Lycanâmetamorphosis . No. Youâre howling up the wrong tree. Itâs got to be something else.â
I donât say anything. He drinks.
But the subject is open now, so I canât let it stop there. âThey had to stop the treatments, though. Because I got sick.â
âYeah, but you were almost done. Except for your hair and skin tone, youâre practically all vamp. You have the blue eyes, you got the smarts, and you have the Thirst. Oh, sorry. I donât know what the politically correct expression is now. What makes you think youâre having a primitis ?â
âOne thing is that SynHeme is making me kind of sick. I sometimes feel like puking when I drink it.â
âThatâs how I always felt when I tried it.â
âBut youâre not a vampyre. Thatâs normal for you. I still have the Thirst, so it shouldnât make me sick.â
He shakes his head. âI donât know what would cause that, but having a stomach ache doesnât mean youâre going to Change.â
âIâve been getting headaches,â I tell him. âI have aches in my muscles and bones. And joints.â
âBig deal. Flu.â I give him a look. âOh. Right. Okay, so itâs not a flu. But it could be a thousand other things.â
âMy teeth havenât needed to be filed down for over eight months. Yesterday the dentist said that my wulf teeth never shrank. He said it was probably because the genetic treatments werenât complete.â
He shakes his head and brushes his hair back with his fingers. Thereâs one small ridge on his temple. Other than that, his facial plates are perfectly aligned. âOkay, so the teeth business is strange. And the dentist could be right about the reason.â
âIâm stronger than I used to be.â
âWell, sure. Youâre getting older and