Tempted (43 page)

The memory of our last dream blazed between us. I saw in him Nyx’s Warrior, the incredible being who had stood beside her and then fell because he loved her too much. And in his eyes I saw vulnerability and a clear question. He wanted to know if I could believe him. In my mind I heard his words:
What if I’m only evil with Neferet? What if the truth is that if I were with you, I could choose good?

My mind heard the words and rejected them again. My heart was something else. He’d touched my heart, and even though I was going to have to deny him—to pretend that he hadn’t gotten to me—for that moment I wanted him to see the truth in my eyes. So I showed him my heart and let my eyes tell him what I knew I never could.

Kalona’s response was to smile with such gentleness that I had to look quickly away.

“Zoey?” Stark whispered.

“I’m okay,” I whispered back automatically.

“Stay strong. Don’t let him get to you.”

I nodded. I could feel people looking at me with even more than their normal curiosity for my added tattoos. I glanced over my shoulder to see Damien, Jack, and the Twins all gawking at Kalona. Then I caught Heath’s eye. He wasn’t looking at Kalona. He was staring at me, obviously worried. I tried to smile at him, but the expression felt more like a guilty grimace.

Then a Council member spoke, and I was relieved to focus my attention on her.

“The High Council is convened for this special session. I, Duantia, call us to order. May Nyx lend her wisdom and guidance to us.”

“May Nyx lend her wisdom and guidance to us,” intoned the rest of the room.

During Erce’s briefing she’d told us the names of the Council members, and described each of them, and from her I knew that Duantia was the senior member, so it was her job to call it to order and to decide when the session would close. I stared at her. It was unbelievable that she was several hundred years old, and except for
the intense confidence and power she commanded, her only outward sign of age was that her thick brown hair was streaked with silver.

“We have further questions for Neferet and the being who calls himself Erebus.” I saw Neferet’s green eyes narrow just the slightest, though she nodded graciously to Duantia.

Kalona stood and bowed to the Council. “Merry meet again,” he greeted Duantia and nodded to each of the other six Council members. Several of them nodded back to him.

“We have questions about your origins,” Duantia said.

“It is natural that you would,” Kalona said.

His voice was deep and rich. He sounded humble and reasonable and very, very honest. I think I, along with almost everyone present, wanted to listen to him, whether we believed what he said or not.

And then I did something that was silly and totally childish. Like a little girl I closed my eyes and prayed one prayer to Nyx harder than I’d ever prayed before in my life.
Please let him speak only the truth. If he tells the truth, maybe there is hope for him.

“You say that you are Erebus come to earth,” said Duantia.

I opened my eyes to see Kalona smile and respond with, “I am, indeed, an immortal being.”

“Are you Nyx’s consort, Erebus?”

Tell the truth!
I screamed in my head.
Tell the truth!

“I once stood at Nyx’s side. Then I fell to earth. Now I am here at—”

“At the side of the Goddess Incarnate,” Neferet interrupted, standing beside Kalona.

“Neferet, we already know your viewpoint of who this immortal is,” Duantia said. She didn’t raise her voice, but her words were sharp, their warning clear. “What we want is to hear more from the immortal himself.”

“As any consort would, I bow to my vampyre mistress,” Kalona said, bowing slightly to Neferet who flashed him a triumphant smile that made me clench my teeth.

“Do you expect us to believe that Erebus’s incarnation on this earth has no will of his own?”

“Whether on earth or beside Nyx in the Goddess’s Realm, Erebus
is devoted to his mistress, and his desires reflect hers. I can tell you that I know the truth of these words through personal experience,” Kalona said.

And he was speaking the truth. As Nyx’s Warrior he had witnessed Erebus’s dedication to his Goddess. Of course the way he worded his response made it seem like he was claiming to be Erebus—without actually saying the
un
true words.

But isn’t that what I’d prayed he’d do? That he’d only speak the truth?

“Why did you leave Nyx’s Realm?” asked another Council member, one who had not nodded her welcome to him.

“I fell.” Kalona looked from the Council member to me and spoke the rest of his response as if he and I were alone in the room. “I chose to leave because I no longer believed I served my Goddess well. At first it felt as if I had made a terrible mistake, and then I rose from the earth to find a new realm and a new mistress. Lately I have begun to believe I could, indeed, serve my Goddess again, only this time through her representative on earth.”

Duantia’s gracefully arched brows rose as she followed his gaze, which rested on me. Her eyes widened only slightly. “Zoey Redbird. The Council recognizes you.”

Feeling hot and cold at the same time, I dragged my gaze from Kalona and stood to face the Council. “Thank you. Merry meet,” I said.

“Merry meet,” Duantia responded and then continued smoothly. “Our sister, Lenobia, notified us that in Neferet’s absence from your House of Night, you have been named High Priestess; therefore, you represent their will.”

“It is entirely inappropriate for a fledgling to be named High Priestess,” Neferet said. I knew she was totally pissed, but instead of showing it, she smiled indulgently at me, as if I were a toddler who’d been caught playing dress up with her mom’s clothes. “I am still High Priestess of Tulsa’s House of Night.”

“Not if your House’s Council has deposed you,” said Duantia.

“The appearance of Erebus and the death of Shekinah has shaken Tulsa’s House of Night greatly, especially following so soon after the terrible and tragic murders of two of our professors by local humans. It saddens me, but the Council members of my House are not thinking clearly.”

“That the Tulsa House is in turmoil is undeniable. Nevertheless, we recognize their right to make the appointment of a new High Priestess, though it is highly unusual for a fledgling to be named to the position,” Duantia said.

“She is a highly unusual fledgling,” Kalona said.

I heard the smile in his voice.

I couldn’t look at him.

Another Council member spoke up. Her dark eyes flashed and her voice was sharp, almost sarcastic. I thought she must be Thanatos, the vampyre who’d taken on the Greek name for death. “Interesting you speak in support of her, Erebus, as Lenobia says Zoey believes another version of who it is you are.”

“I said she was unusual, not infallible,” Kalona said. Several of the other Council members chuckled, as did many vampyres in the audience, though Thanatos appeared unamused. I could feel Stark stiffen where he sat beside me.

“So tell us, unusual and very young Zoey Redbird, who do you believe our winged immortal to be?”

My mouth was so dry I had to swallow twice before I could speak. And then when the words finally came, what I said took me by surprise, as if my heart said them without asking my mind’s permission.

“I believe he’s been lots of different things. I think he used to be close to Nyx, though he isn’t Erebus.”

“And if he isn’t Erebus, who is he?”

I focused on the wisdom in Duantia’s eyes and tried to block out everything else as I spoke only the truth. “My grandmother’s people are Cherokee, and they have an old legend about him. They called him Kalona. He lived with the Cherokee after he fell from Nyx’s Realm. I don’t think he was himself then. He did terrible things to the women of the tribe. He fathered monsters. My grandmother told me how he was trapped. There was even a song the people used to sing that told how he could be freed from his imprisonment—directions Neferet followed, which is why he’s here now. I think he’s with Neferet because he wanted to be the consort of a goddess, and I think he messed up in his choice. Neferet isn’t a goddess. She isn’t even a goddess’s High Priestess anymore.”

My proclamation was met with exclamations of outrage and disbelief, the loudest coming from Neferet herself.

“How dare you! As if you—a fledgling
child
—can know who I am to Nyx?”

“No, Neferet,” I faced her across the Council Chamber. “I don’t have any idea who you are to Nyx anymore. I don’t begin to understand
what you’ve become. But I do know who you
aren’t.
You aren’t Nyx’s High Priestess.”

“Because you think you’ve supplanted me!”

“No, because you turned from the Goddess. It doesn’t have anything to do with me,” I said.

Neferet ignored me and appealed to the Council. “She’s infatuated with Erebus. Why must I be subjected to this jealous child’s slander?”

“Neferet, you have made it clear that it is your intention to be the next Vampyre High Priestess. Should you hold that title, you must be wise enough to deal with all types of controversy, even those involving yourself.” Duantia looked from Neferet to Kalona. “What say you about Zoey’s speech?”

I could feel him looking at me, but I kept my eyes steadily on Duantia.

“I say that she believes she is speaking the truth. And I do admit that my past has been violent. I have never claimed infallibility, either. I have recently found my path, though, and within that path there is Nyx.”

There was no way I couldn’t hear the truth that rang in his words. Unable to stop myself, my eyes were drawn to him.

“My experiences are why I feel so strongly about bringing back the old ways, where once vampyres and their Warriors strode the earth, proud and strong, instead of hiding in clusters of schools and only letting our young outside our gates if they have their Marks covered, as if the Goddess’s crescent is something of which they should be ashamed. Vampyres are Nyx’s children, and the Goddess never meant for you to cower in darkness. Let us all step into the light!”

He was magnificent. As he spoke, his wings had begun to unfurl. His voice was filled with passion. Everyone stared at him. Mesmerized by his beauty and passion, we all wanted to believe in his world.

“And when you’re ready to be led by Nyx Incarnate and her consort Erebus, then we will bring the ancient ways to life again, so that we may all stand proud and strong—and not bow to human bondage and
prejudice,” Neferet said, looking glorious beside him as she wrapped her arm possessively through his. “Until then, listen to the whining of children as Erebus and I reclaim Capri from those who have inter-loped on our ancient home too long.”

“Neferet, the Council will not sanction war against humans. You cannot force them from their homes on the island,” Duantia said.

“War?” Neferet laughed, sounding shocked and amused. “Duantia, I
purchased
Nyx’s Castle from the elderly human who had allowed it to fall into disrepair. Had any one of you on the Council checked, we could have regained our ancient home at any time during the past two decades.” Neferet’s green eyes swept around the chamber. Intense and appealing in her passion, she captivated the audience as she spoke. “It was there that vampyres founded the beauty of Pompeii. It was there that vampyres ruled the Amalfi Coast, ushering in centuries of prosperity with their wisdom and benevolence. It is there that you will find the heart and soul of Nyx and the richness of the life she wishes for her people. And it is there that you will find Erebus and me. Join us if you dare to live again!”

She turned and, in a swirl of silk, swept out of the chamber. Before following her, Kalona bowed respectfully to the Council, his fist over his heart. Then he looked at me and said, “Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again.”

When they left the chamber utter pandemonium was loosed. Everyone spoke at once, some clearly wanting to call Neferet and Kalona back—some indignant that they’d left. No one—not one vampyre—spoke against them. And whenever his name was spoken, they called him Erebus.

“They believe him,” Stark said.

I nodded.

He gave me a sharp look. “Do
you
believe him?”

I opened my mouth, not sure how I was going to explain to my Warrior it wasn’t so much that I believed in Kalona, but that I was beginning to believe in what he once had been and might become again.

Duantia’s voice echoed through the chamber, silencing everyone. “Enough! This chamber will be cleared immediately. We will not
disintegrate into chaotic rabble.” Warriors seemed to materialize from the crowd, and the still animated vampyres began leaving.

“Zoey Redbird, we would speak with you tomorrow. Bring your circle here at dusk. We understand the fledgling-turned-human prophetess has experienced the trauma of a broken Imprint today. If she has recovered enough, we would have her join your group tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

Stark and I made a hasty exit. Damien motioned us over to a little side garden that was tucked just off the main path where the rest of the kids were waiting for us.