Vampires & Vinca (Hawthorn Witches Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

room.
    He had a bed in the corner by the window with a closet door at the foot, and a small desk pushed into the opposite corner. The walls were plain white and he had a view out his window of the dumpsters at the back of the stores across the street. I raised an eyebrow as I used my foot to scoot the chair out from the desk to sit and eat.
    “You left what Charlie made for you, for this?” I mocked.
    He crossed his arms. “And apparently you have, too. What happened?”
    I chewed slowly, trying to concoct a quick way to get out of telling him, but I knew he would spot the lie and call me out.
    “My aunt wants to take me on as an apprentice,” I said bleakly. “Gates, too.”
    “Gates?” he said, surprised. “You can learn to be a witch? I didn’t think it worked that way.”
    I shook my head. “She wants to train her to be a warlock. I… she screwed up, and left this dumb book lying around that apparently no one else was supposed to read, and Gates read it, and now she’s touched, apparently.”
    I looked over when I heard Vince chuckle.
    “She’s probably thrilled,” he said.
    I couldn’t believe that he had known she would react that way, and I hadn’t. She was my best friend, after all.
    Vince saw the look on my face. “Oh, come on, Annie. She was always the leader in your friendship, and then you turned into a witch and she turned into a cat. That’s a pretty big demotion. That’s like not even being a sidekick. Let her have the spotlight for a while.”
    I opened my mouth to tell him exactly how I felt on the issue, but instead I just shook my head. I hadn’t come here to fight. “Yeah, I guess.”
    I finished my food. We talked about that week’s computer programming assignment for a while, and then he turned on an old ‘80s science fiction movie on his laptop and we lay on the bed and watched it.
    We were about twenty minutes in when I felt his hand sliding around my waist as he kissed the side of my neck, and I turned to kiss him back.
    We had never done anything more than kissing, but it was enough for me. I didn’t need anything else to worry about or be responsible for in my life, and at least for the moment, Vince was okay with that. We made out until the credits rolled, and it was almost eleven, and I didn’t want to go back out in the cold to drive home.
    But luckily, I lived alone, and no one was going to miss me. My dad lived in California and Lyssa and Kendra weren’t the boss of me.
    I thought about asking Blake if I could borrow pajamas. She seemed like the type of hostess to let me, but I quickly dismissed the idea as too weird. I spent the night with Vince draping an arm over me, squeezed in together on the twin bed.
     
    The next day, I woke to find Vince already gone to his early morning classes. Blake was gone, too, and it was a little weird that they had left me alone in the apartment. I collected my things and straightened my hair before climbing back into my Trooper and driving home.
    Charlie was waiting for me.
    “Get it out of your system?” he asked me as I shut the door behind me.
    “Get what out of my system?” I asked haughtily.
    “Guess not,” he taunted. “Kendra wants to see you today. You might want to not mention Vince. She doesn’t really like werewolves as much as I do.”
    I furrowed my brow. Charlie hated werewolves, and I knew from my previous encounters with Vince’s pack elder that Kendra had a few friends of that persuasion.
    “Friendship is one thing, Thorn,” he said. “What you’re doing is something else entirely.”
    “Yeah, well, she’s doing a demon, so she can deal with it,” I grumbled as I went to the kitchen to start my tea. “What does she want?”
    “She wants to see you practicing,” he said. “Really practicing.”
    I ditched the idea of tea as soon as I saw the half gallon of milk. My stomach rumbled, and I picked it up and drank straight from the carton.
    “Practicing?” I said. “Anything I want?”
    I went for