Survivor - By Kaye Draper Page 0,35

to slip the D.V.D. into the player.

“You seem happy,” he said, eyes on the TV.

I smiled. “We used to have movie night when I was younger…before.” My smile wavered and I reached to take a piece of fluffy popcorn. “We aren’t really a family anymore. Sometimes that’s the thing I miss the most.” Peter made his way to the couch, where he sat cross-legged beside me. He reached out a long arm and snatched the popcorn bowl, placing it in his lap.

“That must be hard,” he said, throwing a piece of popcorn into the air and effortlessly catching it in his mouth. The crunch of the popcorn sounded louder than it should have.

“I’m sorry,” I said guiltily. “I suppose it’s selfish of me to whine about my family problems when you don’t even have a family.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I have a family.” I was trying to open the pull-tab on my soda. He took it from me and popped it open. “The coven is my family.”

I took my soda back and took a swig, feeling my eyes water at the effervescence. “Are you really that close? I mean…that blonde woman and the man who attacked you in the park, they’re part of your coven aren’t they?” I scooted toward him and snatched the bowl from his grasp. The cool brush of his hands was a sharp contrast to the heated plastic.

Peter gave me a look for hogging the popcorn. It was one of the rare human foods he enjoyed. Granted, we had to get the all-natural kind or he bitched about all the additives he could taste, but he said he enjoyed the texture. He picked up the D.V.D. remote and pretended to be unaffected by my thievery. “Cynthia and Viktor are like my younger siblings,” he said dryly. “Just because we are a family, doesn’t mean we always see eye to eye. We do love each other.”

I saw his point. I loved Chelsea- most of the time- but she was a real pain in the ass. I’d slam her into a concrete bridge some days, if that were an option.

I nodded when he hovered the selector over the widescreen option, and Peter continued. “Our coven isn’t like other covens.” He considered for a moment. “I guess you would call us orphans. Most master vampires either create the members of their covens or take them in and bind them.” He shrugged. “Leah doesn’t believe in binding the will of her people. Some, like me, were left to her when the previous master died. Others came to her for help when they were abandoned or lost their masters. I suppose you could say we are all adopted.”

They didn’t have family ties, but their kinship was in their lack of ties. I thought Leah was a very smart woman not to bind them. “If the coven is like your family, why is it that only those two pick on you?”

He sighed. “Cynthia and Vicktor are Leah’s children, the only coven members that she created, and are therefore bound to her.”

“What you are doing is pissing Leah off, so it pisses them off too?” I frowned. It seemed a bit extreme and melodramatic to me.

Peter slid close, putting an arm around. Then he leaned down and blew in my ear. I was so distracted by his nearness that I loosened my grip on the popcorn bowl. He snatched it with ease, sitting back with a laugh at my betrayed expression. “They are brother and sister,” he said, continuing our discussion. “They were orphans at the time they were turned, having only each other to rely on in this world. I think they were living like a couple of wild children.” He shrugged. “Whatever the circumstances, Leah came upon them just after their car smashed into a very large tree. She told me about it afterwards.” His expression was wry. “She acted without thinking, which is rare for her. She said they were each so worried about the other that neither one of them realized they were both dying. She wanted to keep Cynthia. She was due to turn someone and she really wanted to have a female companion, a sister.” He smiled softly. “She saw the two of them together and couldn’t bear to separate them. She knew she couldn’t let one live and one die. She should have let them both go, but she didn’t.”

I gaped at him. I wouldn’t have pictured Cynthia or Viktor to have such tender sides. “But