Chosen

I frowned up at him. "Why are you laughing at me?"

He hugged me and said, "Z, do you have any clue what it's like to date a girl who is the most powerful fledgling in the history of vampyres?"

"No, I don't date girls." Not that there's anything wrong with lesbians.

He took my chin in his hand and tilted my face up. "You can be scary, Z. You control the elements, all of them. Talk about having a girlfriend it'd be best not to piss off."

"Oh, please! Don't be silly. I've never zapped you." I didn't mention that I have actually zapped people. Most specifically undead people. Well, and his ex-girlfriend, Aphrodite (who is about as hateful and a

"I'm just saying that you don't need to be intimidated by anyone. You're amazing, Zoey. Don't you know that?"

"I guess not. Things have been kinda foggy lately."

Erik pulled back again and looked at me. "Then let me help clear things up for you."

I felt myself swimming in his blue eyes. Maybe I could tell him. Erik was a fifth former, and in the middle of his third year at the House of Night. He was almost nineteen and an amazingly talented actor. (He can sing, too.) If any fledgling could keep a secret it would be him. But as I opened my mouth to blurt the truth about undead Stevie Rae a terrible feeling clenched my stomach and made the words freeze in my throat. It was that feeling again. The gut-deep feeling I get that tells me to keep my mouth shut or run like hell or sometimes just take a breath and think. Right now it was telling me in an impossible to ignore way that I needed to keep my mouth shut, which Erik's next words just reinforced.

"Hey, I know you'd rather talk to Neferet, but she won't be back for maybe another week or so. I could stand in for her until then."

Neferet was the one person or vampyre I absolutely could not talk to. Hell, Neferet and her psychic-ness was the reason I couldn't talk to my friends or Erik about Stevie Rae.

"Thanks, Erik." Automatically, I started to pull out of his arms. "But I have to work through this myself."

He let go of me so suddenly I almost fell backward. "It's him, isn't it?"

"Him?"

"That human guy. Heath. Your old boyfriend. He's coming back in two days and that's why you're acting weird."

"I'm not acting weird. At least not that weird."

"Then why won't you let me touch you?"

"What are you talking about? I let you touch me. I just hugged you."

"For about two seconds. Then you pulled away, like you've been doing for a while now. Look, if I've done something wrong you need to let me know and—"

"You haven't done anything wrong!"

Erik didn't say anything for several breaths, and when he did speak he sounded way older than almost nineteen and more than a little sad. "I can't compete with an Imprint. I know that. And I'm not trying to. I just thought you and I had something special. We'll last a lot longer than some biological thing you have with a human. You and I are alike, and you and Heath aren't. At least not anymore."

"Erik, you're not competing with Heath."

"I researched Imprinting. It's about sex."

I could feel my face getting hot. Of course he was right. Imprinting was sexual because the act of drinking a human's blood turned on the same receptor in the vamp's brain and the human's brain that was turned on during orgasm. Not that I wanted to discuss that with Erik. So instead I decided to stick with the surface facts and not get into the deeper stuff. "It's about blood, not sex."

He gave me a look that said he had (unfortunately) been telling the truth. He'd done his research.

Naturally, I got defensive. "I'm still a virgin, Erik, and I'm not ready to change that."

"I didn't say you—"

"Sounds like you're getting me mixed up with your last girlfriend," I interrupted. "The one I saw on her knees in front of you trying to give you another blow job." Okay, it was really not fair of me to bring up the nasty incident I'd accidentally witnessed between Aphrodite and him. I hadn't even known Erik then, but at the moment picking a fight with him seemed a lot easier than talking about the bloodlust I definitely felt for Heath.

"I am not getting you mixed up with Aphrodite," he said between clenched teeth.

"Well, maybe this isn't about me acting weird. Maybe this is about you wanting more than I can give you right now."

"That's not true, Zoey. You know damn well I'm not pressuring you about sex. I don't want someone like Aphrodite. I want you. But I want to be able to touch you without you pulling away from me like I'm some kind of leper."

Had I been doing that? Crap. I probably had. I drew a deep breath. Fighting like this with Erik was stupid, and I was going to end up losing him if I didn't figure out some way to let him get close to me without letting him know things he couldn't accidentally let Neferet know. I looked down at the ground, trying to sort through what I could and couldn't say to him. "I don't think you're a leper. I think you're the hottest guy at this school."

I heard Erik's deep sigh. "Well, you've already said you don't date girls, so that should mean you would like it when I touch you."

I looked up at him. "It does. I do." Then I decided I was going to tell him the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as I could. "It's just hard to let you get close to me when I'm dealing with, well, stuff." Oh, great. I called it stuff. I'm a moron. Why does this kid still like me?

"Z, does this stuff have to do with figuring out how to deal with your powers?"

"Yeah." Okay, that was pretty much a lie but not totally. All the stuff (i.e., Stevie Rae, Neferet, Heath) had happened to me because of my powers and I was having to deal with it, though clearly I wasn't doing a very good job of that. I felt like I should cross my fingers behind my back, but was afraid Erik would notice.

He took a step toward me. "So the stuff is not that you hate it when I touch you?"

"Hating it when you touch me is not the stuff. Definitely nope. Definitely." I took a step toward him.

He smiled and suddenly his arms were back around me, only this time he bent to kiss me. He tasted as good as he smells, so the kiss was nice and somewhere in the middle of it I realized how long it had been since Erik and I had had a good hot make-out session. I mean, I'm no ho like Aphrodite, but I'm not a nun either. And I wasn't lying when I told Erik I liked him to touch me. I slid my arms up around his broad shoulders, leaning into him even more. We fit together nice. He's really tall, but I like that. He makes me feel little and girly and protected, and I like that, too. I let my fingers play with the back of his neck where his dark hair brushes down thick and a little curly. My fingernails teased the soft skin there, and I felt him shiver and heard the little moan in the back of his throat.

"You feel so good," he whispered against my lips.

"So do you," I whispered back. Pressing myself against him I deepened the kiss. And then on impulse (ho-ish impulse at that) I took his hand from the small of my back and moved it up so that it was cupping the side of my breast. He moaned again and his kiss got harder and hotter. He slid his hand down and under my sweater, and then back up so that he had my breast in his hand, bare except for my lacy black bra.

Okay, I'll just admit it. I liked him touching my boob. It felt good. It especially felt good that I was proving to Erik that I hadn't rejected him. I moved so that he could get a better feel and somehow that little, i

The taste of his blood hit me hard and I gasped against his mouth. It was rich and warm and indescribably salty sweet. I know it sounds gross, but I couldn't help my instant response to it. I cupped Erik's face in my hands and pulled his lip down to my mouth. I licked it lightly, which made the blood flow faster.