Tempted (29 page)

“Sssh.” Heath’s voice had gone all deep and kinda raspy, but it was weirdly soothing. “It’s okay, Zo. It can just feel good and that’s it. Think about how strong it makes you. You need to be strong, remember? You have, like, a zillion people counting on you. I’m counting on you; Stevie Rae is counting on you; Aphrodite is counting on you, even though I kinda think she’s a bitch. Erik’s even counting on you—not that anyone cares about him . . .”

Heath’s words went on and on. And as he spoke a weird thing
happened. His voice stopped being all deep and raspy. He started sounding just like Heath—like he and I were sitting here talking about normal stuff and I wasn’t sucking blood from his neck. Then, without me hardly knowing it, the surge of feeling that filled me as I drank from him changed from raw sex to something else. Something I could think through. Something I could handle. Don’t get me wrong, it still felt good. Really, really, seriously good. But good was tempered with what I can only describe as normal, and normal made it manageable. So when I felt strong and rejuvenated I was actually able to pull back.
Close now
, I thought, and licked the bleeding line on Heath’s neck, automatically changing the endorphins in my saliva from coagulants to anticoagulants. I watched the bleeding stop and the small wound begin to knit together, leaving only a slim, pink line to betray to the world what had happened between us.

My eyes lifted to meet Heath’s gaze.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Anytime,” he said. “I’ll always be here for you, Zo.”

“Good, because I’ll always need you to remind me of who I really am.”

Heath kissed me. It was a gentle kiss, but it was deep and intimate and filled with a desire I knew he was holding back, waiting for me to be ready to finally say yes to him. Instead, I broke the kiss and snuggled into his arms. I felt him sigh, but his embrace didn’t falter and he held me tightly.

The sound of the door to the cafeteria swinging open made us both jump.

“Zoey, you really should get to the dorm. They’re waiting for you,” Stark said.

“Okay, yeah, I’m coming,” I said, pulling out of Heath’s arms and helping him put on his coat.

“I’d better find Darius and those guys and give them some awesome human help with stuff,” Heath said.

Like guilty kids, we walked together over to where Stark stood, expressionlessly holding the door open.

“Stark.” Heath nodded at him. “Thanks for getting me to her.”

“It’s part of my job,” Stark said sharply.

“Well, I think you deserve a raise,” Heath told him with a grin, then he bent and gave me a quick kiss before telling me bye and hurrying toward the door that led to the central school grounds.

“It’s not a part of my job I like,” I heard Stark mutter as both of us watched Heath disappear outside.

“Like you said, guess we better get to the dorms,” I said, starting to walk briskly down the hall that led to the exit nearest the dorms. Stark followed me—along with a very uncomfortable silence.

“So,” he finally said, his voice sounding strained. “That sucked.”

I spoke before thinking, and the ridiculous words seemed to babble out of my mouth of their own accord. “Yep. Yep it did. Literally.” Then, unbelievably, I giggled.

Okay, in my defense, I was feeling amazingly good. Heath’s blood had made me feel better than I had since Kalona burst through the ground and messed up my life.

“It’s not funny,” Stark said.

“Sorry. It was a bad pun,” I said, giggled again, and then clamped my lips shut.

“I’m going to pretend really hard that you’re not all giggly and I didn’t just feel everything you felt in there,” Stark said in a strained voice.

Even through my blood rush I understood that it must have been really hard on Stark to experience the intense pleasure another guy had just brought me, and to realize how close Heath and I actually are. I slid my arm through Stark’s. At first he was cold and stiff, and barely responded, like I was trying to hold on to a statue, but as we continued walking he thawed and I felt him relax. Just before he opened the door to the girls’ dorm for me, I looked up at him and said, “Thank you for being my Warrior. Thank you for making sure I’m strong, even though it hurt you.”

“You’re welcome, my lady.” He smiled at me, but he looked old and really, really sad.

“Do you want a brown pop, too?” I called over my shoulder to Stark, who was waiting impatiently for me out in the very silent, very weird main room of the dorm. I say weird because it was silent, even though there were a bunch of fledglings, girls and guys, sitting in the clusters of chairs staring at the flat-screen TVs. Seriously. They just sat and stared. No talking. No laughing. Nothing. They did look up when Stark and I walked into the room. Actually, I was semi-sure some of the kids sent us hateful glares, but they still didn’t say anything.

“No, I’m fine. Just grab your pop and let’s get upstairs,” he said, already walking toward the stairway.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming. I just—” And I ran smack into a kid named Becca. “Jeesh, sorry!” I said, stepping back. “I didn’t see you ’cause I was—”

“Yeah, I know what you were doing. What you’re always doing. You were checking out a guy.”

I frowned. I didn’t know Becca very well. Except that she’d had a big crush on Erik. Oh, and I’d caught Stark biting and practically raping her—
before
he’d chosen good and sworn himself as my Warrior. Of course, Becca hadn’t remembered the raping part. She’d only remembered the biting pleasure part, again thanks to the jerk Stark used to be.

Still, that didn’t give her permission to pop this ridiculous attitude on me. But I didn’t have time to get things right with her and, honestly, I didn’t really care that she was a big, festering pile of
I’m-jealous-of-Zoey. So I just made one of Aphrodite’s unattractive snorting noises and walked around her and over to a fridge, opened it, and started my quest for brown pop.

“You did this, didn’t you? You messed up everything.”

I sighed. I found my can of brown pop and turned around. “If you mean, did I get rid of Kalona, who is not Erebus come to earth but really an evil fallen immortal, and chase away Neferet, who is not Nyx’s High Priestess anymore but really an evil Tsi Sgili who wants to take over the world, then yes. Yes, with the help of some friends I did that.”

“Why do you think you know everything?”

“I definitely don’t know everything. If I did, I’d know why you still can’t see that Kalona and Neferet and the Raven Mockers are evil, even after they killed Professor Anastasia.”

“The Raven Mocker only killed her because you pissed them off by running away and then fighting Kalona, who a bunch of us think really is Erebus.”

“Get a clue, Becca. Kalona isn’t Erebus. He’s the Raven Mockers’ dad. He created them by raping Cherokee women. Erebus wouldn’t do that. Has
that
occurred to the whole bunch of you?”

She acted like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “Everything was fine when you were gone. Now you’re back and everything’s screwed up again. I wish you would just leave for good and let the rest of us do what we want to do.”

“The rest of you? You mean like the kids in the infirmary who were almost killed by your winged friends. Or do you mean Dragon, who is out there mourning the death of his wife by himself?”

“That only happened because of you. No one was attacked before you took off.”

“Seriously, are you not hearing a word I’m saying?”

“Hey, Becca.” Stark was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, just behind Becca.

She turned her head, tossed her hair, and gave him a flirty smile. “Hey there, Stark.”

“Erik’s free meat,” he said bluntly.

She blinked and looked a little confused.

“He and Zoey broke up,” he added.

“Oh, really?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but her body language gave away her pleasure. She glanced back at me. “It’s about time he dumped you.”

“Other way around, you . . . you . . .
bitch
!” I blurted.

Becca actually took a step toward me, raising her hand like she was going to try to hit me, which shocked me so badly that I didn’t even think about calling one of the elements to smack her down. Thankfully, Stark wasn’t so shocked, and he stepped quickly between us.

“Becca, I’ve done enough bad to you. Don’t make me toss you out of here. Just walk away,” he said, looking very warriorlike and dangerous.

Becca backed down instantly. “Oh, whatever. Like I care enough about her to mess up my nails?” She spun around and huffed out.

I opened my pop and took a long drink before saying, “Well, that was really disturbing.”

“Yeah, I must be losing it. The real me would never stop a good girl fight.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re such a guy. Come on, let’s get upstairs where there’s less crazy.”

We walked out of the kitchen and had to go through the main dorm room to get to the stairs, which meant jumping back into a whole bunch of crazy. Becca was all whispery with the biggest cluster of kids, though she stopped talking to give me the stank eye, which was the same stank-eye-kill-you-dead that all the other kids were giving me, too.

I picked up the pace and practically vaulted up the stairs.

“Okay, that’s freaky,” Stark said as we hurried to my dorm room.

I just nodded. It was hard for me to find the words to describe how it felt to me that almost everyone at my school, my
home
, obviously hated my guts. Opening the door to my room, I was instantly assaulted by an orange ball of fur that hurled herself into my arms as she
“mee-uf-owed”
like a disgruntled old woman.

“Nala!” I ignored her annoyance and kissed her on the nose, which made her sneeze in my face. I laughed and juggled my brown pop to my other hand so I didn’t spill it or my cat. “I’ve missed you,
little girl.” I pressed my face into her soft fur, which stopped her complaining and started her purr machine.

“When you’re done making out with your cat, we have stuff to discuss—important stuff,” Aphrodite said.

“Oh, don’t be so odious,” Damien told her.

“Ode this, Damien.” Aphrodite made a rude gesture at him.

“Stop it!” Lenobia spoke before I could tell them to be quiet. “The body of my good friend is still smoldering out there and I don’t feel like listening to teenage bickering.”

Aphrodite and Damien actually muttered apologies and looked uncomfortable, which I decided was an excellent cue for me to start talking. “Okay, so, every single one of those kids down there is hating my guts.”

“Really? They were just being Stepfords when we came in,” Damien said.

“Really,” Stark said. “I almost had to pull that Becca girl off Zoey.”

I could see by the looks on Aphrodite and Damien’s faces that they were remembering Stark’s not-so-nice past. Neither of them said anything.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Lenobia said.

I looked at the Horse Mistress. “What is going on? Kalona’s gone. Way gone. Like I don’t even think he’s in the country anymore. How can he still be affecting fledglings?”

“And vampyres,” Damien added. “No other professor except for you came out to be with Dragon. That means the rest of them are still under Kalona’s influence, too.”

“Or they’re simply allowing fear to defeat them.” Lenobia said. “It’s hard to tell whether they’re afraid, or whether the demon began something within them that is still at work, even though he’s no longer present.”

“He isn’t a demon,” I heard myself say.

Lenobia gave me a sharp look. “Why would you say that, Zoey?”

I shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny and sat on my bed, curling Nala into my lap. “It’s just that I know things about him, and one of the things I know is that he isn’t a demon.”

“What difference does it make what we call him?” Erin asked.

“Well, true names are powerful,” Damien said. “Traditionally using someone’s true name in a spell or ritual can be more binding than sending out energy generally, or even just using their first name.”

“You make a good point, Damien. So we won’t call Kalona a demon,” Lenobia said.

“And we also won’t forget he’s evil, like those other kids have,” Erin said.

“But not all of them have,” I said. “Those kids in the infirmary weren’t under Kalona’s spell, and neither are Lenobia and Dragon—neither was Anastasia. But why? What do you guys have that everyone else doesn’t?”

“We already decided that Lenobia and Dragon and Anastasia all had heightened gifts from Nyx,” Damien said.

“Okay, so what’s special about the kids that stood up to the Raven Mockers?” Aphrodite said.

“Hanna Honeyyeager can make flowers bloom,” Damien said.

I stared at him. “Flowers? Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Damien shrugged. “She has a green thumb.”

I sighed. “What else do we know about the kids in the infirmary?”

“T.J. is a wicked good boxer,” Erin spoke up.

“And Drew’s an awesome wrestler,” I said.