Tempted

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Good. My turn. Have you been able to talk to Stevie Rae? Alone?”

“Uh-uh, not yet.”

“But you’re going to?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Soon?”

“What do you know?”

Aphrodite said, “She’s definitely hiding things from you.”

“Things like red fledglings? Like you told me before?” Aphrodite didn’t answer, which completely made my stomach clench. “Well?” I prompted. “What?”

“It feels like there’s more going on with Stevie Rae than just hiding some random red fledglings from you.”

I didn’t want to believe Aphrodite, but my gut said she was telling the truth, as did my common sense. Aphrodite’s Imprint with Stevie Rae gave her a co

Aphrodite shook her head. “No. She’s really shut down.”

“Shut down? What does that mean?”

“Well, you know how your bumpkin BFF usually is, like our own transparently perky version of a countrified goodwill ambassador for ‘Hey there, y’all! Check out how nice and sweet and white bread I am! Yuck! Yuck!’”

Aphrodite’s exaggerated Okie accent mimicked Stevie Rae’s voice a little too well, and I frowned severely at her when I said, “Yes, I know she’s usually honest and open, if that’s what you meant to say.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not being honest and open anymore. Take it from me—and Goddess knows I wish you could take this damn Imprint from me—she’s hiding a very big something that feels way more important than a few fledglings.”

“Crap,” I said.

“Yep,” she said. “But, hey, there’s not shit you can do about it right now, so get some sleep. Our world will still need saving tomorrow.”

“Great,” I said.

“Oh, speaking of—How’s your boyfriend?”

“Which one?” I asked glumly.

“Mr. Pain in the Ass Arrows.”

I shrugged. “Better, I think.”

“You didn’t let him chomp on you, did you?”

I sighed. “No.”

“Darius was right about that, you know? As a

“Which makes me feel ever so much better.”

“Hey, no problem. Look, what I’m saying is you need to be one hundred percent, and not drained like an extra-dry martini during brunch at my mom’s country club.”

“Your mom really drinks martinis at brunch?”

“Of course she does.” Aphrodite shook her head and looked utterly disgusted. “Try not to be so naïve. Anyway, just don’t do something stupid because you’re feeling all Lifetime Movie of the Week and in love with Stark.”

“Give it a rest, would ya? I won’t do anything stupid!” I leaned over and blew out the fat pillar candle that was on the end table between our beds.

The darkness of the room was comforting, and when neither of us had said anything for a little while I felt myself begi

“Are we going back to the House of Night tomorrow?”

“I think we have to,” I said slowly. “No matter what, the House of Night is our home, and the fledglings and vampyres there are our people. We have to go back to them.”

“Well, you better get some sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to land right in the middle of what one of my mom’s ex-military assistants would call a huge cluster fuck,” Aphrodite said in her best happily sarcastic tone.

As usual, Aphrodite was as right as she was a

CHAPTER 12

Zoey

After Aphrodite’s gloomy, but probably accurate, prediction I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but exhaustion caught up with me. I closed my eyes and then, for a little while there was blissful nothingness. Sadly, bliss didn’t ever seem to last very long in my life.

In my dream the island was so blue and beautiful it dazzled me. I was standing on… I looked around… the roof of a castle! One of those real old-looking castles, made of big blocks of rough stone. The roof was massively cool. Framing it were those stone-sticking-up-things that looked like a giant’s teeth. There were plants everywhere on the roof. I even noticed lemon and orange trees, branches all heavy and full of sweet-smelling fruit. In the center of everything was a fountain in the shape of a beautiful naked woman whose hands were lifted over her head, and from those cupped hands flowed crystal water. Something about the stone woman looked familiar, but my gaze kept getting pulled from the gorgeous rooft op garden to the even more awesome view that stretched around the castle.

Holding my breath, I moved to the edge of the roof and looked down and down and down and out at the brilliant blue of the sea. The water was beyond beautiful. It was the color of dreams and laughter and perfect summer skies. The island itself was made of jagged mountains, covered in unusual-looking pine trees that reminded me of giant umbrellas. The castle was at the very top of the highest of the island’s mountains, and as I peered down in the distance I could see graceful villas and a pretty little town.

Everything was bathed in the blue of the sea, which gave the place a sense of magick. I inhaled the breeze, smelling salt and oranges. The day was su

My dreaming self smiled. Sapphire… The island would turn the exact color of my tattoos. I tilted back my head and threw my arms wide, embracing the loveliness of this place I’d created out of my sleeping imagination.

“So it seems I ca

He was behind me. His voice crawled across the skin of my back, up over my shoulders, and wrapped around my body. Slowly, I let my arms drop to my sides. I did not turn around.

“You’re the one who sneaks around in people’s dreams, not me.” I was glad my voice sounded calm and über-under-control.

“So you are still unwilling to admit you are drawn to me?” His voice was deep and seductive.

“Look, I didn’t try to find you. All I meant when I closed my eyes was to sleep.” I spoke almost automatically, avoiding his question and willing myself not to remember the last memory I’d had of his voice and his arms around me.

“You are obviously sleeping alone. Were you with someone else, it would be much more difficult for you to be touched by me.”

I suppressed the confused longing his voice made me feel and filed away that little bit of info—sleeping with someone did make it more difficult for him to reach me, just as Stark had told me the night before. “That’s none of your business,” I said.

“You are correct. All of those sons of man who swarm around you, eager to bask in your presence, are completely beneath my concern.”

I didn’t bother to call him on his twisting of what I’d said. I was too busy trying to stay calm and will myself to wake up.

“You chase me away from you, yet you find me in your dreams. What does that say about you, A-ya?”

“That is not my name! Not in this lifetime!”

“‘Not in this lifetime’ you say. That means you have accepted the truth. You know your soul is the reincarnation of the maiden fashioned by the Ani Yunwiya to love me. Perhaps that is why you keep coming to me in your dreams, because even though your waking mind resists, your soul, your spirit, your very essence yearns to be with me.”