Tempted

“Should I talk to her?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Uh, no. At least not right now. Last time I saw her, Darius was carrying her up an amazingly wide staircase to what sounded like a totally expensive suite so she could sleep off the drugs the vamps had given her.”

“Oh, good. They medicated her. Aphrodite will like that.”

We laughed, and it felt normal between us again.

“Zoey? The High Council is calling the session to order. You must go,” Erce’s voice called down the hallway.

“I gotta go take care of business,” I said.

“Yeah, I heard. Hey, I want to say somethin’ to you that you need to remember. Follow your heart, Z. Even if it seems like everyone else is against you, and that you might be messing up royally. Follow what everything inside you tells you to do. What happens because of it might surprise you,” Stevie Rae said.

I hesitated and then said what was foremost in my mind. “And it might save your life?”

“Yes,” she answered. “It might.”

“We need to talk when I get home.”

“I’ll be here,” she said. “Kick ass and take names, Z.”

“I’ll try,” I said. “Bye, Stevie Rae. I’m glad you’re not dead. Again.”

“Me, too. Again.”

We hung up. I drew a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and got ready to face the High Council.

The High Council met in a really old cathedral that sat right next to the super-beautiful San Clemente Palace. It was obvious that it had once been a Catholic church, and I wondered what Sister Mary Angela would think of how the vamps had changed it. They’d gutted the place, except for the enormous light fixtures that hung on thick bronze chains from the ceiling, looking like something that should have been suspended magically over the tables at Hogwarts. They’d built circular seating in tiers in a style I remembered studying about when we read Medea. Down on the granite floor, seven carved marble chairs sat side by side. I thought they were pretty, but looked like they’d make your butt fall asleep or freeze.

The stained-glass window scenes of the original cathedral had been changed from bloody Jesus on the cross and a bunch of Catholic saints to a representative of Nyx, arms upraised holding a crescent moon between her hands, a brilliant pentagram close beside her. In the other windows I saw stained-glass versions of the four class emblems that symbolized which year a fledgling ranked at the House of Night. I was looking around the cathedral, thinking how beautiful the windows were, when I noticed the scene depicted directly across from the image of Nyx—and it felt like everything inside me froze.

It was Kalona! Wings fully extended, his naked body muscular and bronzed and powerful. I felt myself begin to tremble.

Stark took my arm and wrapped it through his, like he was being a gentleman and guiding his lady down the stone stairs of the amphitheater-like space to our seats near the floor. But his touch was strong and steady, and he spoke low for my ears alone, “It isn’t him. It’s just an ancient repre sen ta tion of Erebus, like the symbol of Nyx over there.”

“But it looks enough like him that they’re going to think Kalona really is Erebus,” I whispered frantically back to Stark.

“They might. And that’s why you’re here,” he murmured.

“Zoey and Stark, these seats are for you.” Erce pointed down to a tier of seats in the front and off to the side of the seven chairs. “The rest of you may fill in the row back there.” She ushered Damien, Jack, and the Twins into seats several tiers behind us saying, “Remember, you may only speak if the Council recognizes you,” Erce said.

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” I said. Something about Erce was a

Okay, a fallen immortal and a rogue ex—High Priestess were trying to manipulate the Vampyre High Council. Wasn’t clueing them in to that a little more important than being polite?

Of course, Damien, Jack, and the Twins all chimed in with i

“I’m go

I saw Stark exchange a long look with him. “You watch her back,” he said.

Heath nodded. “I’ll always have her back.”

“Good. I’ll focus on everything else,” Stark said.

“Got it,” Heath said.

And they weren’t kidding. They weren’t being sarcastic or testosteroney or overly possessive guy-like. They were so worried that they were working together.

That made me really, really paranoid.

I know it was ridiculous and immature, but I felt a terrible longing for my grandma. I wished with everything inside me that I was curled up in her cottage back at her Oklahoma lavender farm, eating popcorn that was too buttery, watching a marathon of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, and the worst thing I had to worry about was how much I totally didn’t get geometry.

“The Vampyre High Council!”

“Remember to stand up!” Erce whispered over her shoulder to me.

I squelched an eye roll. The big room fell absolutely silent. I stood up with everyone else, and then gawked as seven of the most perfect creatures I’d ever seen strode into the room.

All of the High Council were women, but that much I’d known already. Our society is matriarchal, so it figures that its governing council would be female. I knew that they were old, even for vampyres, and they were. Of course you couldn’t tell their age from just looking at them. All you could tell was how incredibly beautiful and amazingly powerful they were. On one hand it gave me a little squee of pleasure to see proof that even though vamps did age and, eventually die, they didn’t get all grossly Shar-Pei—looking and full of wrinkles. On the other hand, the sense of power they exuded was totally intimidating. Just thinking about speaking in front of them, let alone the rest of those in the cathedral, grim, silent vampyres, made my stomach want to turn itself inside out.

Stark covered my hand with his and squeezed. I held tight to him, wishing I was older and smarter and, quite frankly, a better public speaker.

I heard the sound of someone else entering the room and glanced over to see Neferet and Kalona walking confidently down the stairs to fill two empty places in the same bottom row tier we were on, only the two of them sat directly in front of the High Council. As if they’d waited for them to arrive, the Council sat down, signaling to us it was okay to sit, too.

It was hard not to stare at Neferet and Kalona. She’d always been beautiful, but in just the couple of days since I’d last seen her, she had changed. The air around her seemed to vibrate with power. She was wearing a dress that reminded me of ancient Rome, flowing like a toga. It made her look like a queen. At her side Kalona was spectacular. It sounds stupid to say that he was only half dressed: He had on black slacks—no shirt—no shoes, but he didn’t look stupid. He looked like a god who had decided to walk the earth. His wings swept around him like a cape. I knew everyone’s eyes were on him, but when he looked at me and our gazes met, the world fell away and there was just Kalona and me.

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?