by P. C. Cast
“Zo, I’m trying hard not to let it drive me crazy that you have some kind of special thing with Stark—something you don’t have with me.”
“It’s a Warrior Bond. I can only have it with a vampyre.” I said the words apologetically, and I was sorry—sorry that I kept hurting this guy whom I’d loved since grade school.
“Yeah, I heard about that. Anyway, what I was sayin’ is that I’m trying to deal with the Stark thing, but it makes it doubly hard for me when you push me away.”
I couldn’t say anything because I knew exactly what he was really talking about. It was why Stark had sent him in here. Heath wanted me to drink from him. Just thinking about it made my mouth water and my breath come faster.
“I know you want to,” he whispered.
Unable to meet his eyes, I stared down at our joined hands. In the dim light of the deserted cafeteria the tattoos on my palms were almost invisible and our hands looked so ordinary—so much like they’d looked for so many years that it made my stomach hurt.
“You know I want you to.”
I met his gaze then. “I know you do. I just can’t, Heath.”
I expected him to explode and get all pissed, but instead he deflated. His shoulders sagged and he shook his head. “Why won’t you let me help you in the one real way I can?”
I drew a deep breath and told him the complete truth. “Because I can’t deal with the sex part of it right now.”
He blinked in surprise at me. “Is that the only reason?”
“Sex is a kinda big reason,” I said.
“Well, yeah, not that I’d know from experience, but still I get what you’re saying.”
I felt my cheeks get warm. Heath was still a virgin? I’d thought for sure that after I was Marked and left my human life for the House of Night, my ex-BFF had totally gone after him. Actually, I knew skanky Kayla had gone after him.
“What about Kayla? I thought you two hooked up after I left .”
He gave a humorless little laugh. “She wishes. Not no, but hell, no. I wasn’t with Kayla. There’s only one girl for me.” The humorlessness left his expression and he grinned at me. “And even though you’re a big-time High Priestess and so not technically just a ‘girl’ anymore, to me you’re still my girl.”
Again, I didn’t know what to say. I’d always thought when I had sex for the first time it would be with Heath, but then I’d messed up majorly and lost my virginity to Loren Blake, which was literally the biggest mistake of my life. It still made me feel sick and more than a little guilty.
“Hey, stop thinking about Blake. You can’t change what happened with him, so let’s forget it.”
“Are you a mind reader now?”
“I’ve always been able to get inside your head, Zo.” His grin faded. “Well, I guess I haven’t been able to do that so good recently.”
“I’m sorry about all of this, Heath. I hate that it hurts you.”
“I’m not a kid anymore. I knew what I was getting into when I got in my truck and drove to Tulsa to see you. It doesn’t have to be easy between us, but it does have to be honest.”
“Okay. I want to be honest, too. So I’m telling you the truth when I tell you that I can’t let myself drink from you. I can’t deal with what will happen between us because of it. I’m not ready to have sex, even if the whole world wasn’t going to hell in a handbasket all around us.”
“Hell in a handbasket—you sound like your grandma when you say that.”
“Heath, changing the subject won’t change my mind. I’m not having sex, so I’m not drinking from you.”
“Jeesh, Zo, I’m not a moron; I get that,” he said. “So we don’t have sex. We’ve spent a whole lot of years not having sex. We’re experienced at it.”
“There’s more to it than just wanting each other. You know what the Imprint does to both of us. It was intense enough before when I was hurt so bad I was almost dead. It would be that times ten if I drank from you now.”
Heath swallowed hard and ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay, I know that. But here’s what I’m saying about it—the Imprint goes both ways, right? While you’re drinking my blood you feel stuff I feel, and I feel stuff you feel.”
“Yeah, and the ‘stuff’ is all about pleasure and sex,” I said.
“Okay, so, instead of us focusing on the sex part, we’ll focus on the pleasure part.”
I raised my brows at him. “You’re a guy, Heath. Since when do you not focus on the sex part?”
Instead of the kidding response I expected, his expression was absolutely serious. “When have I ever pressured you about sex?”
“There was that time in the tree house.”
“You were in fourth grade. That doesn’t count. Plus you knocked the crap out of me.” He didn’t exactly smile, but his brown eyes twinkled.
“How about the back of your truck last summer at the lake?”
“You really can’t count that, either. You had that new bikini on. And I didn’t actually pressure you.”
“You had your hands all over me.”
“Well, there was a lot of you showing!” He paused, lowering his voice to a normal level again. “My point is, we’ve been together for a long time. We can definitely be together without having sex. Do I want to have sex with you? Hell, yes. Do I want to have sex with you when your head is all messed up from that Blake guy and you’re worried as hell about everything that’s going on, and you don’t actually want to have sex with me? Hell, no! Hell, hell, no.” He put his finger under my chin and made me meet his gaze. “I promise that this won’t be about sex because you and me, what we have, means more than sex. Let me do this for you, Zoey.”
My mouth opened and before I could stop it I heard myself whisper, “Okay.”
His smile was like he’d just won the Super Bowl. “Excellent!”
“But no sex,” I said.
“Absolutely none at all. Just call me Heath No Sex. Hell, my middle name is No Sex.”
“Heath.” I put a finger on his lips to shut him up. “You’re dorking this up.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay,” he mumbled around my finger. Then he let loose my hand and reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a small pocketknife. He slid off his coat and opened the knife. The blade looked weirdly like a kid’s toy in the dark cafeteria.
“Hang on!” I kinda shrieked when he started to lift the knife to the side of his neck.
“What?”
“Um. Right here? We’re doing this right here?”
He raised his brows at me. “Why not? We’re not having sex, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” I said. “It’s just, well, someone might come in.”
“Stark’s guarding the door. No one will get past him.”
That shocked me into silence. I mean, obviously this had been Stark’s idea, but guarding the door to make sure Heath and I had private time? That was just—
The scent of Heath’s blood hit me and all thoughts of Stark flew from my mind. My eyes found the small ribbon of red that lay along the soft spot where his neck met his shoulder. He shifted, putting the knife on the table and holding his arms open to me.
“Come here, Zo. It’s just you and me right now. No one else for you to think about. No one else for you to worry about. Come here,” he repeated.
I went into his arms inhaling his scent: Heath, blood, desire, home, and my past all wrapped up together in a strong, familiar embrace. When my tongue touched the line of scarlet I felt him shiver and knew he was suppressing a moan of pure desire. I hesitated, but it was too late. His blood exploded in my mouth. Unable to stop myself, I pressed my lips against his skin and drank. At that moment I didn’t care that I wasn’t ready for sex, or that the world around me was one big ball of chaos, or even that we were in the middle of the cafeteria while Stark guarded the door (and probably was experiencing everything I was feeling). At that moment all I cared about was Heath and his blood and his body and his touch.
�
�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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Zoey
“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.
