Tempted

“Sorry, Stevie Rae, but you were calling me.”

Stevie Rae brushed a blond curl back behind her ear and tried to ignore the fact that her hand was shaking. She was just seriously no good at this sneaking-around-and-hiding-things-from-your-friends stuff. But she lifted her chin and forced her nerves to settle down, and the easiest way to do that was to take a chomp out of pain-in-the-butt Erik.

Stevie Rae narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah, I was callin’ you because you’re supposed to be inside with everyone else. What the heck are ya still doin’ out here, anyway? You’re worrying Zoey—like she needs any more stress from you right now?”

“Zoey was looking for me?”

With an effort, Stevie Rae didn’t roll her eyes at Erik. He was sooooo a

“Stevie Rae! Pay attention. Did you say Zoey was looking for me?”

Stevie Rae did roll her eyes then. “You’re supposed to be inside. Heath and Dallas and the rest of the kids are. Zoey knows that. She wanted to know where the heck you were and why you’re not where you’re supposed to be.”

“If she was that worried she could have come out here herself.”

“I didn’t say she was worried!” Stevie Rae snapped, exasperated with Erik’s self-absorption. “And Z has way too much on her plate to be out here babysittin’ you.”

“I don’t need a damn babysitter.”

“Really? Then why did I have to come get you?”

“I don’t know, why did you? I was on my way inside. I just wanted to do one more sweep of the perimeter. I thought it’d be smart to go over what Heath was supposed to check. You know humans can’t see shit at night.”

“Joh

“If the sun comes up,” Erik said, squinting up at the sky.

Stevie Rae followed his gaze, and with a sense of gawd-how-clueless-could-I-be, realized it was raining again, only the temperature was still on that line between freeze and non-freeze, so the sky was, once again, spitting ice.

“This crappy weather is not what we need,” Stevie Rae muttered.

“Well, at least it’ll help cover the blood from those Raven Mockers,” Erik said.

Stevie Rae’s gaze went quickly to Erik’s face. Shit! She hadn’t even thought about the blood! Had they tracked blood into the shed? Talk about leaving a glaring path that screamed Here I am! She realized Erik was expecting her to say something. “Yeah, um, you’re right. Maybe I’ll try to kick around some ice and broken branches and stuff to cover up the blood from those three birds,” she said with forced nonchalance.

“Probably a good idea in case some humans actually go outside during the day. Want some help?”

“No,” she answered too quickly, and then made herself shrug. “What with my super red vamp skills and all it’ll just take me a second. Not a big deal.”

“Well, okay then.” Erik started to walk away, but hesitated. “Hey, you might want to give some extra attention to the blood marks at the edge of the tree line by the condos next door and the road. It was pretty nasty down there.”

“Okay, yeah, I know the place.” She sure did.

“Oh, and, where did you say Zoey was?”

“Uh, Erik, I don’t believe I said.”

Erik frowned, waited, and when Stevie Rae just continued to look at him, finally asked, “Well? Where is she?”

“Last time I saw her she was talkin’ to Heath and Sister Mary Angela in the hall outside the basement. But my guess is by now she’s checked on Stark and is in bed. She looked tired as hell.”

“Stark…” Erik muttered something unintelligible after the kid’s name, and turned back toward the abbey.

“Erik!” Stevie Rae called while she silently cussed herself out ’cause it was stupid for her to have mentioned Heath or Stark. She waited until he looked over his shoulder at her and then said, “As Z’s BFF, let me give ya a little piece of advice: she’s been through too much today to want to deal with boyfriend issues. If she’s with Heath it’s because she’s making sure he’s okay—not because she’s all lovey-dovey with him. Same goes for Stark.”

“And?” Erik said, his face expressionless.

“And that means you should get something to eat, change your clothes, and take your butt to bed without trackin’ her down and buggin’ her.”

“She and I are together, Stevie Rae. We’re going out. So how could her boyfriend caring enough about her to want to be with her be considered ‘buggin’ her’?”

Stevie Rae suppressed a smile. Zoey was going to eat him for breakfast, spit him out, and go on about her day. She shrugged. “Whatever. I’m just givin’ ya a little advice, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, later.” Erik turned and stomped off to the abbey.

“For a smart guy, he sure makes some stupid choices,” Stevie Rae said softly as she watched his broad back disappear. “’Course me sayin’ that about him is what my mama would say was a hog callin’ a skunk stinky.”

Sighing, Stevie Rae’s gaze moved reluctantly down to the row of big trash bins half camouflaged by their placement next to the nuns’ carport. She averted her eyes, not wanting to think about the terrible crumpled bodies that had been dumped there. “With the trash.” She said the words slowly, as if they each held their own weight. Stevie Rae admitted to herself that Zoey and Sister Mary Angela might have been partially right in their mini counseling session with her, but that didn’t make what they’d said any less a

Okay, sure, she’d overreacted, but the guys putting the bodies of the Raven Mockers in the trash had really jolted her, and not just because of him. Her eyes slid over to the shed that sat silently beside the green house.

What they had done with the bodies of the Raven Mockers had bothered her because she didn’t believe in life being devalued—any kind of life. It was a dangerous thing to think you were godlike and could decide who was worthy of life and who wasn’t. Stevie Rae knew that better than the nun or Zoey ever could. Not only had her life, well, actually, her death been messed with by a High Priestess who had begun believing she was actually a goddess, but Stevie Rae had once thought she had the right to snuff out lives according to her own needs or whims. Just remembering how it had been when she’d been caught up in that anger and violence made her feel sick. She’d left those dark times behind her—she’d made a choice for good and light and the Goddess, and that was the path she was staying on. So when anyone decided a life meant nothing, any life, it upset her.

Or at least that was what Stevie Rae told herself as she started walking across the abbey grounds, heading totally away from the garden shed.

Keep it together, girl… keep it together… she kept repeating over and over as she detoured quickly down the ditch and into the tree line, heading directly for the bloodstains she remembered all too well. She found a thick, broken branch that still had a bunch of twigs attached to it, and lifted it easily, glad for the extra strength that came with her new status as fully Changed red vampyre. Using the branch like a broom, she brushed over the blood, pausing every so often to toss another broken branch, or once, a whole side of a collapsed holly bush, onto the telltale crimson pools.

Following her earlier path, she turned to her left, away from the street and back onto the nuns’ lawn, staying inside the fence. She hadn’t gone far when, just like before, Stevie Rae found a big splotch of blood.