Hunted hon-5

by P. C. Cast

  “So the circle stays intact,” Damien said.

  “Yeah, we all go with Z back to school,” Erin said.

  “Together. The five of us,” Shaunee said.

  “I feel like one of the dorky Mouseketeers,” Aphrodite said, but she was smiling.

  “We’re agreed, then,” Darius said. “The five of you and I will return. Stevie Rae, Erik, Jack, and Heath stay here.”

  “Hell no, he doesn’t stay here,” Erik said, finally showing some emotion.

  “Dude, you don’t have shit to say about it. Anyway, I’m not staying. I’m going with Zoey.”

  “You can’t, Heath. It’s way too dangerous,” I said.

  “Aphrodite’s human and she can go. So can I,” he said stubbornly.

  “Moron football boy, first, I might be human, but I’m also special, so I go. Second, you can’t go because they can use you to get to Zoey. You’re Imprinted with her again. They hurt you; they hurt Zoey. So show some sense and take your butt back to suburbia.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Heath said.

  “You have to go home, Heath. We’ll talk later after things have settled down.”

  “Shouldn’t I stay here, where I’m close to you? So if you need me you can get to me fast.”

  I wanted to say yes, even with Erik watching me all dead-faced and even knowing that the best thing for Heath was if I never saw him again. Our Imprint was incredibly strong, even more so than it had been the first time. I could feel him, so close and sweet and familiar, and even though I knew it was wrong and knew I shouldn’t, I wanted to keep him beside me. But then I remembered how Kramisha had looked at him, like she wanted to take a chomp outta him. I knew that his blood would taste funny to any other fledgling or vampyre because we’d Imprinted, but I couldn’t be sure that would stop them from wanting to sample it. Just thinking about someone else drinking from Heath made me feel seriously pissed.

  “No, Heath,” I insisted. “You have to go home. It’s not safe for you here.”

  “I don’t care if I’m safe or not. I care about being with you,” Heath said.

  “I know, but I care if you’re safe or not. So, go home. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “Okay, but I’ll be back here the second you call,” he said.

  “Want me to walk him outside?” Stevie Rae asked. “The tunnels can be kinda confusing if you’re not familiar with them.”

  Plus, I can stop any red fledgling who has a mind to take a bite out of him. The thought was there, but unsaid in the air between us.

  “Okay, thanks, Stevie Rae,” I said.

  “Erik, hold Zoey up. Aphrodite, finish wrapping this Ace bandage around her. I better go out there with Heath, too,” Darius said.

  “The Raven Mocker was in the tree above his truck, kinda perched on the roof of the depot,” I told Darius.

  “I’ll be vigilant, Priestess,” Darius said. “Come on, boy. You need to go home.”

  “We’ll be back in a sec, Z,” Stevie Rae said.

  Instead of following Darius and Stevie Rae from the room, Heath came to me. He cupped my cheek with his hand and smiled. “Stay safe, okay, Zo?”

  “I’ll try. You, too,” I said. “And, Heath, thanks for saving my life.”

  “Anytime, Zoey. And I mean that. Anytime.” Then, like we were alone and not in the middle of a room with my friends (and boyfriend) gawking at us, Heath bent and kissed me. He tasted like Doritos and brown pop and Heath. Through it all I could smell him, the distinct scent of his blood that was Imprinted uniquely to me and, because of that, literally the most fascinating, delicious smell on this earth.

  “I love you, babe,” he whispered. He kissed me one more time. As he was leaving he waved at my friends. “See you guys around,” he said. I was only half surprised when Jack and Damien called bye and the Twins made kissing noises at him. I mean, Heath is cute. Totally cute. Right before he ducked out the blanket door he glanced back at Erik, who was standing beside me. “Hey, dude, I’m holding you personally responsible if anything hurts her.” Then Heath gave Erik his charming, lopsided grin. “Oh, and how about you make my job totally easy and try to boss her around a bunch while I’m gone?” Chuckling to himself, Heath finally left the room.

  Aphrodite laughed, which she tried to cover with a cough.

  “Ex-boyfriend does have a way about him,” Shaunee said.

  “Yes, he does, Twin,” Erin said. “Not to mention a cute butt.”

  “Uh, awkward, anyone?” Jack said.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Twins muttered hasty apologies, shooting Erik guilty looks. Erik, looking like he was carved out of stone, told Aphrodite, “Here, I’ll lift her up a little and you can wrap the bandage around her.”

  “Fine by me,” Aphrodite said.

  So, without meeting my eyes, Erik slid his hands under my shoulders and gently lifted my torso off the table. While I gritted my teeth against the pain and Aphrodite wrapped the Ace bandage around me, I wondered what the hell I was going to do about Erik and Heath. Erik and I were supposedly back together, but after the scene in the basement I wasn’t one hundred percent sure we should be together. I mean, he said he loved me, which was all well and good, but did loving me mean he’d turned all possessive and jerkish? And besides that, was what we had together strong enough to tolerate another Imprint with Heath, especially now that it wasn’t just an abstract idea? Now that he’d seen Heath and me together, was there any way Erik and I could be together?

  I looked up at him as he held me so carefully. Feeling my gaze on him, his blue eyes shifted to me. He didn’t look like a stone man anymore. He just looked sad. Really, really sad. Did I still want to be Erik’s girlfriend? The longer I looked into his eyes, the more I thought that maybe I did. Then where did that leave me with Heath? Back to where I was with both of these guys before I’d cheated on them and let Loren trick me into giving him my virginity.

  It had been an uncomfortable boyfriend triangle then, and it was even worse now. But what the hell was I going to do? The truth was I cared about both of them.

  God, it’s exhausting being me.

  When Aphrodite was done bandaging me, Erik asked Jack to bring him a pillow from the bed, and then he put me carefully back down with my head and shoulders resting on its softness.

  “You guys had better get ready to leave,” Erik said to the Twins, Damien, and Aphrodite. “I’ll bet Darius will want to get Zoey back to the House of Night right away.”

  “That means we have to get our purses from Kramisha’s room,” Shaunee said.

  “Like I would forget my new winter season Ed Hardy purse, Twin?” Erin said.

  “Of course not, Twin. I’m just sayin’…” Their voices faded as they hurried from the room.

  “I want to go with you,” Jack said, looking close to tears.

  “I want you to come, too,” Darius said. “But it’s too dangerous. You have to stay here with Erik and Stevie Rae until we know exactly what we’re up against.”

  “My mind understands that, but my heart says something else,” Jack said, leaning his head against Damien’s shoulder. “It’s just…just…” Jack took a deep breath and finished on a sob, “It’s just poop that I can’t go!”

  “We’re going to step down the tunnel a ways,” Damien said, putting his arm around Jack. “Just have Darius yell when he’s ready.” Then Damien led a stricken Jack out of the room, with Duchess trailing sadly along behind.

  “I’m going to go find my cat,” Aphrodite said. “I’ll see if I can find your little orange creature, too.”

  “Don’t you think we should leave the cats here?” I asked.

  Aphrodite raised a blond brow at me. “Since when could cats be told what to do?”

  I sighed. “You’re right. They’d just follow us back and then complain at us for years about leaving them behind.”

  “Tell Darius I’ll be right back.” Aphrodite ducked out through the blanket.

  That left
Erik and me alone.

  Without looking at me he started to move toward the doorway saying, “I’m going to—”

  “Erik, don’t go. Can’t we talk for just a second?”

  He stopped, his back still to me. His head was bowed and his shoulders were slumped. He looked utterly defeated.

  “Erik, please…”

  He spun around and I saw there were tears pooling in his eyes. “I’m so damn pissed I don’t know what the hell to do! And what’s worse is that this,” he paused, gesturing to the huge Ace bandage hiding the wound that sliced across my chest, “is really my fault.”

  “Your fault?”

  “If I hadn’t been such a possessive asshole in the basement, you wouldn’t have gone outside with Heath. You were sending him away, but I had to push things and piss you off, so you went out there with him.” He ran his hand through his thick dark hair. “It’s just that Heath makes me so damn jealous! He’s known you since you two were kids. I just—” He hesitated and his jaw clenched and unclenched. “I just didn’t want to lose you again, so I acted like a jerk, and not only did you almost die, but I lost you again!”

  I blinked at him. So he hadn’t been acting like stone man because he didn’t care or because he was mad at me. He’d been hiding his emotions because he thought all of this was his fault. Jeesh—I hadn’t had a clue.

  I held out my hand to him. “Erik, come here.” Slowly he came over to me and took my hand.

  “I acted like a jerk,” he said.

  “Yeah, you did. But I should have shown some sense and not gone outside with Heath.”

  Erik looked at me for a long time before he spoke. “It was hard to see you with him. To see you drink from him.”

  “I wish there could have been some other way,” I said. I did wish it, and not just because it had been uncomfortable for Erik to watch. I loved Heath, but I’d made the decision not to be with him again, not to ever Imprint with him again. I knew the best thing for both of us, especially for Heath, was to be out of each other’s lives, and that’s what I’d planned. Sadly, my life rarely goes according to my plans. I sighed and tried to put some of what I was feeling into words. “I can’t help loving Heath. He’s been part of my life for a long time, and now that we’re Imprinted again, he literally carries part of me with him, even though I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “I don’t know how much of your human boyfriend I can stand,” Erik said.

  I kept meeting Erik’s steady gaze and almost blurted I’m not sure how much of your possessiveness I can stand, but I was too tired. I’d save that till later, after I had more time and energy to think things through. Instead I just said, “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s the human I’ve Imprinted with. There’s a big difference.”

  “Consort,” Erik said bitterly. “It’s called being the High Priestess’s human consort. Many of them have one. Often they have more than one.”

  I blinked in surprise. I sure hadn’t gotten to that part in my Vamp Sociology class. I mean, was this consort stuff even covered in the The Fledgling Handbook? Guess I’d have to read the darn thing more carefully. I did remember Darius mentioning something about it being difficult for a human to be involved with a High Priestess the day Heath and I had had our official breakup scene, and Darius had definitely used the word “consort” for the human. “Huh. Um. Does that mean the High Priestess doesn’t have a vampyre, uh, consort?”

  “Mate,” he said quietly. “If he’s a human who has Imprinted with a High Priestess, he’s called her consort. If he’s a vampyre, he’s given the title of the High Priestess’s mate. And no. It doesn’t mean she can’t have both.”

  That seemed like good news to me. Clearly it wasn’t such good news to Erik, but at least I was beginning to believe other priestesses had gone through this kind of boyfriend stress before. Maybe I could read up on it or tactfully question Darius when the end-of-the-world stuff was resolved. For the time being I decided to put a Band-Aid on the issue and clean up the consequences later. If there was a later. “Okay, Erik. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Heath. It’s all a little too much for me to deal with right now on top of everything else. Hell, I don’t know what I’m going to do about you, either.”

  “We’re together,” Erik said softly. “And I want us to stay together.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I really wasn’t totally sure that was the best idea, but Erik bent and kissed me gently on the lips, silencing my comment. Then someone cleared his throat and we looked at the entryway to see Heath standing there, looking pale and pissed.

  “Heath! What are you doing here?” I hated how shrill and guilty I sounded as I frantically wondered how much he’d overheard.

  “Darius sent me to tell you the roads are too bad. There’s no way I can get back to B.A. tonight. He and Stevie Rae went to find a four-wheel drive so that he can get you and the rest of the fledglings back to the House of Night.” He paused. I recognized a tone I’d only heard in his voice a very few times. He was seriously pissed, but he was also hurt. The last time he’d sounded like this had been when he’d told me I’d killed part of his soul when I’d had sex with Loren and broken our Imprint. “Hey, carry on. Pretend I’m not here, just like you were doing before. Didn’t mean to interrupt you two.”

  “Heath,” I began, but just then Aphrodite, followed by a bunch of cats, including my Nala and her hateful white Persian, appropriately named Maleficent, came into the room.

  “Awkward. Again,” Aphrodite added, looking knowingly from Heath to Erik and me.

  I sighed and realized my head was starting to hurt almost as much as the cut across my chest. Then the Twins and Kramisha piled into the room, too.

  “Ah, oh,” Shaunee said.

  “What’s ex-boyfriend doing here?” Erin said.

  “The roads are too bad. Heath can’t get home,” I said.

  “So that means he be staying here?” Kramisha asked, giving Heath a long look.

  “He’ll have to. He’s safer here than at the House of Night,” I said, keeping an eye on Kramisha and adding silently to myself that I wasn’t convinced he’d be safe here either. “He and I have Imprinted again,” I added for good measure.

  Kramisha curled her lip. “I know that. I can smell you in his blood. He ain’t good for nothin’ now ’cept for being your boy toy.”

  “He’s not—” I started, but Heath’s sharp voice cut me off.

  “No, the girl’s right. That’s all I am to you,” Heath said bluntly.

  “Heath. That’s not how I think of you,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want to say shit more about it. I’m your blood donor, and that’s it.” He turned away from me and I saw him grab a bottle of wine someone had left by the bed and take a big swig of it.

  Damien, a puffy-eyed Jack, and Duchess (causing all of the cats except Nala to hiss like insane creatures) crowded back into the room then.

  “Hey, Heath,” Jack said. “I thought you were on your way home.”

  “I can’t get home. Looks like I’m stuck here with you in the left-behind pile.”

  Jack frowned, close to bursting into tears again. “Damien’s not leaving me behind. Not really. I just—I just can’t go with him right now this second.”

  “That’s right. We’ll be back together as soon as we can,” Damien said, putting his arm around Jack.

  “Okay, I hate to interrupt all this gay-boy romance stuff, but I wrote me some more poems when I woke up and thought you better see them,” Kramisha said.

  That broke though my confusion about what to do about Heath and Erik. “You’re right. I do need to see them,” I said. “Damien, did Jack get a chance to explain to you about Kramisha’s poetry?”

  “Yes. I even got a copy of the poems before Kramisha went to sleep and read them while Jack and I were on watch,” Damien said.

  “What the hell are you guys talking about?” Aphrodite said.

  “When you were all drunk and disorderly, Z discovered p
oetry written on the walls of Aphrodite’s room,” Erin said.

  “Written by Kramisha, but all of it seemed to be about Kalona, which is totally creepy,” Shaunee said.

  “It’s like she’s channeling abstract images about him,” Damien said. “I think the poems in her room were meant to catch our attention, which means we need to check out everything Kramisha writes.”

  “Oh, great. That’s all we need. More gloom and doom poetry,” Aphrodite said.

  “Well speaking of, here’s two new ones.” Kramisha tried to hand me the couple of sheets of paper the poems were written on, but moving my arms up so I could hold them made me suck air with pain.

  “Here.” Erik smoothly took the papers from her. Then he brought them to me and held them up so that Damien, the Twins, Aphrodite, Jack, and I could read them at the same time. The first one was baffling:

  What once bound him

  Will make him flee

  Place of power—joining of five

  Night

  Spirit

  Blood

  Humanity

  Earth

  Joined not to conquer,

  Instead to overcome

  Night leads to Spirit

  Blood binds Humanity

  And Earth completes.

  “That makes my head hurt. I mean, more than it already does. I cannot tell you how much I hate poetry,” Aphrodite said.

  “Do you have a clue about this?” I asked Damien.

  “I think it’s giving us directions on how we can make Kalona flee, or run away,” he said.

  “We know what ‘flee’ means, Mr. Vocab,” Erin said.

  “It’s kinda depressing that it says flee instead of kill,” Jack said.

  “Kalona can’t be killed,” I said, speaking the words automatically. “He’s immortal. He can be trapped. He can be chased away, although it boggles my mind to think about what might make him run. But he can’t be killed.”

  “Those five thingies together, in a place of power, make him run,” Jack said.

  “Wherever that is, and whatever they are,” I said.