Tempted (13 page)

“Don’t start with me. This is the penguins’ idea of nightwear. Well, I can almost understand it. I mean, they take those stupid chastity vows, and if this is what they wear to bed, the vow would be practically unnecessary. Seriously. The thing almost makes me look unattractive.”

“Almost?” I giggled.

“Yes, smart-ass,
almost
. And before you’re too gleeful, cast your eyes over there. That thing folded up on the end of your bed isn’t an extra sheet. It’s your very own designer nun sleepwear.”

“Oh, well, at least it looks comfortable.”

“Comfort is for sissies and unattractive people.”

As Aphrodite snootily retucked herself into bed, I made my way over to the little sink in the corner of the room and washed my face and used one of the new, still-in-its-wrapper guest toothbrushes to brush my teeth. As nonchalantly as I could I said, “Hey, uh, can I ask you something?”

“Ask away,” she said, plumping her pillows.

“It’s a serious question.”

“So?”

“So, I need a serious answer.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever. Ask,” she said flippantly.

“You said before that you knew Erik got too possessive.”

“That’s not really a question,” she said.

I raised my brows at her in the mirror. She sighed.

“Okay, yes, Erik was a stage-five clinger.”

“Huh?”

She sighed. “Clinger. Stage five. Totally not fucking cool.”

“Aphrodite, what language are you speaking?”

“Teenage American. Way upper-class. You could speak it too with a little imagination and a few real cuss words.”

“Goddess help me,” I muttered to my reflection before I continued. “Okay, so. Erik was too possessive with you, too.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“And it made you mad?”

“Yeah, definitely. Basically, it broke us up.”

I squished Crest on my toothbrush. “So it made you mad. You and Erik broke up, but you were, still, uh, all, well . . .” I chewed my lip for a second and then tried again. “I saw you with him and you were all, um—”

“Oh, for crap’s sake! You can just say it without melting. You saw me go down on him.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said awkwardly.

“That’s not a question either.”

“Fine! Here’s the question: You were broken up with him because he was a possessive jerk, but you were still trying to be with him, so much so that you were even doing
that.
I don’t get why,” I blurted, and stuck my toothbrush in my mouth.

Watching her reflection in the mirror, I saw her cheeks turn bright pink. Aphrodite flipped back her hair. She cleared her throat. Then she met my gaze in the mirror. “It wasn’t about wanting Erik. It was about wanting control.”

“Huh?” I said through the bubbles of Crest.

“Things had started to change with me at school even before you showed up.”

I spit and rinsed. “What things?”

“I knew something was up with Neferet. It bothered me, and that was weird.”

I wiped my mouth and went over to my bed, using kicking off my shoes, pulling off my clothes, putting on the soft, warm cotton nightgown, and climbing in bed as an excuse to stay quiet while I tried to figure out how to put into words the stuff babbling through my mind. But without me saying anything, Aphrodite continued, “You know I used to keep my visions from Neferet, don’t you?”

I nodded. “And humans died because of it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. They did. And Neferet didn’t care. I could tell. That was when I started to feel weird. That’s also when my life started to fall apart. I didn’t want it to. I wanted to stay the bitch in charge, who would someday be High Priestess and, preferably, rule the world. Then I could tell my mother to go straight to hell—and maybe even be so powerful that I could scare her like she deserves to be scared.” Aphrodite blew out a long breath. “It didn’t work out that way.”

“Instead you listened to Nyx,” I said softly.

“Well, first I tried like hell to stay queen of my bitchy kingdom, and being with the hottest guy at school, even if he was a possessive asshat, was part of that.”

“It makes sense, I guess,” I said.

Aphrodite hesitated then added, “It makes me sick to remember it.”

“You mean doing
it
with Erik?”

Her lips curled up and she shook her head, laughing a little. “Goddess, you’re such a prude! No, doing
it
with Erik was actually not bad at all. It makes me sick to remember how I kept quiet about my visions and basically shit on Nyx’s path.”

“Well, recently you’ve pretty much cleaned up any poo you put on Nyx’s path. And I am
not
a prude.”

Aphrodite snorted.

“You’re really unattractive when you do that,” I said.

“I’m never
really
unattractive,” she said. “Are you done with your serious nonquestion question?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Good. My turn. Have you been able to talk to Stevie Rae? Alone?”

“Uh-uh, not yet.”

“But you’re going to?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Soon?”

“What do you know?”

Aphrodite said, “She’s definitely hiding things from you.”

“Things like red fledglings? Like you told me before?” Aphrodite didn’t answer, which completely made my stomach clench. “Well?” I prompted. “What?”

“It feels like there’s more going on with Stevie Rae than just hiding some random red fledglings from you.”

I didn’t want to believe Aphrodite, but my gut said she was telling the truth, as did my common sense. Aphrodite’s Imprint with Stevie Rae gave her a connection to my BFF no one else had. So Aphrodite knew things about her. Plus, no matter how much I wished otherwise, I realized things weren’t right with Stevie Rae. “You can’t tell me anything more specific?”

Aphrodite shook her head. “No. She’s really shut down.”

“Shut down? What does that mean?”

“Well, you know how your bumpkin BFF usually is, like our own transparently perky version of a countrified goodwill ambassador for ‘Hey there, y’all! Check out how nice and sweet and white bread I am! Yuck! Yuck!’”

Aphrodite’s exaggerated Okie accent mimicked Stevie Rae’s voice a little too well, and I frowned severely at her when I said, “Yes, I know she’s usually honest and open, if that’s what you meant to say.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not being honest and open anymore. Take it from
me—and Goddess knows I wish you could take this damn Imprint from me—she’s hiding a very big something that feels way more important than a few fledglings.”

“Crap,” I said.

“Yep,” she said. “But, hey, there’s not shit you can do about it right now, so get some sleep. Our world will still need saving tomorrow.”

“Great,” I said.

“Oh, speaking of—How’s your boyfriend?”

“Which one?” I asked glumly.

“Mr. Pain in the Ass Arrows.”

I shrugged. “Better, I think.”

“You didn’t let him chomp on you, did you?”

I sighed. “No.”

“Darius was right about that, you know? As annoying as it might be for some of us, and as unqualified as you appear, you are
the
High Priestess right now.”

“Which makes me feel ever so much better.”

“Hey, no problem. Look, what I’m saying is you need to be one hundred percent, and not drained like an extra-dry martini during brunch at my mom’s country club.”

“Your mom really drinks martinis at brunch?”

“Of course she does.” Aphrodite shook her head and looked utterly disgusted. “Try not to be so naïve. Anyway, just don’t do something stupid because you’re feeling all
Lifetime Movie of the Week
and in love with Stark.”

“Give it a rest, would ya? I won’t do anything stupid!” I leaned over and blew out the fat pillar candle that was on the end table between our beds.

The darkness of the room was comforting, and when neither of us had said anything for a little while I felt myself beginning to drift off, until Aphrodite’s voice snapped me back to über-aware.

“Are we going back to the House of Night tomorrow?”

“I think we have to,” I said slowly. “No matter what, the House of Night is our home, and the fledglings and vampyres there are our people. We have to go back to them.”

“Well, you better get some sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to land right in the middle of what one of my mom’s ex-military assistants would call a huge cluster fuck,” Aphrodite said in her best happily sarcastic tone.

As usual, Aphrodite was as right as she was annoying.

After Aphrodite’s gloomy, but probably accurate, prediction I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but exhaustion caught up with me. I closed my eyes and then, for a little while there was blissful nothingness. Sadly, bliss didn’t ever seem to last very long in my life.

In my dream the island was so blue and beautiful it dazzled me. I was standing on . . . I looked around . . . the roof of a castle! One of those real old-looking castles, made of big blocks of rough stone. The roof was massively cool. Framing it were those stone-sticking-up-things that looked like a giant’s teeth. There were plants everywhere on the roof. I even noticed lemon and orange trees, branches all heavy and full of sweet-smelling fruit. In the center of everything was a fountain in the shape of a beautiful naked woman whose hands were lifted over her head, and from those cupped hands flowed crystal water. Something about the stone woman looked familiar, but my gaze kept getting pulled from the gorgeous rooft op garden to the even more awesome view that stretched around the castle.

Holding my breath, I moved to the edge of the roof and looked down and down and down and out at the brilliant blue of the sea. The water was beyond beautiful. It was the color of dreams and laughter and perfect summer skies. The island itself was made of jagged mountains, covered in unusual-looking pine trees that reminded me of giant umbrellas. The castle was at the very top of the highest of the island’s mountains, and as I peered down in the distance I could see graceful villas and a pretty little town.

Everything was bathed in the blue of the sea, which gave the place a sense of magick. I inhaled the breeze, smelling salt and oranges. The day was sunny—the sky utterly clear of clouds, but in my dream the brightness of it didn’t bother my eyes at all. I loved it! It was a little cool, and more than a little windy, but I didn’t care. I liked the crispness of the breeze against my skin. At that moment the island was the color of aquamarines, but I could imagine how it would look as dusk approached and the sun no longer ruled the sky. The blue would deepen, darken, and change to sapphire.

My dreaming self smiled. Sapphire . . . The island would turn the exact color of my tattoos. I tilted back my head and threw my arms wide, embracing the loveliness of this place I’d created out of my sleeping imagination.

“So it seems I cannot escape you, even when I flee your presence,” Kalona said.

He was behind me. His voice crawled across the skin of my back, up over my shoulders, and wrapped around my body. Slowly, I let my arms drop to my sides. I did not turn around.

“You’re the one who sneaks around in people’s dreams, not me.” I was glad my voice sounded calm and über-under-control.

“So you are still unwilling to admit you are drawn to me?” His voice was deep and seductive.

“Look, I didn’t try to find you. All I meant when I closed my eyes was to sleep.” I spoke almost automatically, avoiding his question and willing myself not to remember the last memory I’d had of his voice and his arms around me.

“You are obviously sleeping alone. Were you with someone else, it would be much more difficult for you to be touched by me.”

I suppressed the confused longing his voice made me feel and filed away that little bit of info—sleeping with someone
did
make it more difficult for him to reach me, just as Stark had told me the night before. “That’s none of your business,” I said.

“You are correct. All of those sons of man who swarm around you, eager to bask in your presence, are completely beneath my concern.”

I didn’t bother to call him on his twisting of what I’d said. I was too busy trying to stay calm and will myself to wake up.

“You chase me away from you, yet you find me in your dreams. What does that say about you, A-ya?”

“That is not my name! Not in this lifetime!”

“‘Not in this lifetime’ you say. That means you have accepted the truth. You know your soul is the reincarnation of the maiden fashioned by the Ani Yunwiya to love me. Perhaps that is why you keep coming to me in your dreams, because even though your waking mind resists, your soul, your spirit, your very essence yearns to be with me.”

He used the ancient word for the Cherokee people—my grand-ma’s people and mine. I knew the legend. A beautiful, winged immortal had come to live with the Cherokee, but instead of being a benevolent earthbound god, he was cruel. He abused the women and used the men. Finally, the Wise Women of the tribes, known as Ghigua Women, came together and created a maiden from the earth. They gave A-ya life, as well as special gifts. Her purpose was to use Kalona’s lust to lure him underground so that he could be trapped within the earth. Their plan worked. Kalona couldn’t resist A-ya and he was trapped within the earth—or at least he had been until Neferet had freed him.