Hunted

I blinked at him. So he hadn’t been acting like stone man because he didn’t care or because he was mad at me. He’d been hiding his emotions because he thought all of this was his fault. Jeesh—I hadn’t had a clue.

I held out my hand to him. “Erik, come here.” Slowly he came over to me and took my hand.

“I acted like a jerk,” he said.

“Yeah, you did. But I should have shown some sense and not gone outside with Heath.”

Erik looked at me for a long time before he spoke. “It was hard to see you with him. To see you drink from him.”

“I wish there could have been some other way,” I said. I did wish it, and not just because it had been uncomfortable for Erik to watch. I loved Heath, but I’d made the decision not to be with him again, not to ever Imprint with him again. I knew the best thing for both of us, especially for Heath, was to be out of each other’s lives, and that’s what I’d pla

“I don’t know how much of your human boyfriend I can stand,” Erik said.

I kept meeting Erik’s steady gaze and almost blurted I’m not sure how much of your possessiveness I can stand, but I was too tired. I’d save that till later, after I had more time and energy to think things through. Instead I just said, “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s the human I’ve Imprinted with. There’s a big difference.”

“Consort,” Erik said bitterly. “It’s called being the High Priestess’s human consort. Many of them have one. Often they have more than one.”

I blinked in surprise. I sure hadn’t gotten to that part in my Vamp Sociology class. I mean, was this consort stuff even covered in the The Fledgling Handbook? Guess I’d have to read the darn thing more carefully. I did remember Darius mentioning something about it being difficult for a human to be involved with a High Priestess the day Heath and I had had our official breakup scene, and Darius had definitely used the word “consort” for the human. “Huh. Um. Does that mean the High Priestess doesn’t have a vampyre, uh, consort?”

“Mate,” he said quietly. “If he’s a human who has Imprinted with a High Priestess, he’s called her consort. If he’s a vampyre, he’s given the title of the High Priestess’s mate. And no. It doesn’t mean she can’t have both.”

That seemed like good news to me. Clearly it wasn’t such good news to Erik, but at least I was begi

“We’re together,” Erik said softly. “And I want us to stay together.”

I opened my mouth to tell him I really wasn’t totally sure that was the best idea, but Erik bent and kissed me gently on the lips, silencing my comment. Then someone cleared his throat and we looked at the entryway to see Heath standing there, looking pale and pissed.

“Heath! What are you doing here?” I hated how shrill and guilty I sounded as I frantically wondered how much he’d overheard.

“Darius sent me to tell you the roads are too bad. There’s no way I can get back to B.A. tonight. He and Stevie Rae went to find a four-wheel drive so that he can get you and the rest of the fledglings back to the House of Night.” He paused. I recognized a tone I’d only heard in his voice a very few times. He was seriously pissed, but he was also hurt. The last time he’d sounded like this had been when he’d told me I’d killed part of his soul when I’d had sex with Loren and broken our Imprint. “Hey, carry on. Pretend I’m not here, just like you were doing before. Didn’t mean to interrupt you two.”

“Heath,” I began, but just then Aphrodite, followed by a bunch of cats, including my Nala and her hateful white Persian, appropriately named Maleficent, came into the room.

“Awkward. Again,” Aphrodite added, looking knowingly from Heath to Erik and me.

I sighed and realized my head was starting to hurt almost as much as the cut across my chest. Then the Twins and Kramisha piled into the room, too.

“Ah, oh,” Shaunee said.

“What’s ex-boyfriend doing here?” Erin said.

“The roads are too bad. Heath can’t get home,” I said.

“So that means he be staying here?” Kramisha asked, giving Heath a long look.

“He’ll have to. He’s safer here than at the House of Night,” I said, keeping an eye on Kramisha and adding silently to myself that I wasn’t convinced he’d be safe here either. “He and I have Imprinted again,” I added for good measure.

Kramisha curled her lip. “I know that. I can smell you in his blood. He ain’t good for nothin’ now ’cept for being your boy toy.”

“He’s not—” I started, but Heath’s sharp voice cut me off.

“No, the girl’s right. That’s all I am to you,” Heath said bluntly.

“Heath. That’s not how I think of you,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to say shit more about it. I’m your blood donor, and that’s it.” He turned away from me and I saw him grab a bottle of wine someone had left by the bed and take a big swig of it.

Damien, a puffy-eyed Jack, and Duchess (causing all of the cats except Nala to hiss like insane creatures) crowded back into the room then.

“Hey, Heath,” Jack said. “I thought you were on your way home.”

“I can’t get home. Looks like I’m stuck here with you in the left-behind pile.”

Jack frowned, close to bursting into tears again. “Damien’s not leaving me behind. Not really. I just—I just can’t go with him right now this second.”

“That’s right. We’ll be back together as soon as we can,” Damien said, putting his arm around Jack.

“Okay, I hate to interrupt all this gay-boy romance stuff, but I wrote me some more poems when I woke up and thought you better see them,” Kramisha said.

That broke though my confusion about what to do about Heath and Erik. “You’re right. I do need to see them,” I said. “Damien, did Jack get a chance to explain to you about Kramisha’s poetry?”

“Yes. I even got a copy of the poems before Kramisha went to sleep and read them while Jack and I were on watch,” Damien said.

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Aphrodite said.

“When you were all drunk and disorderly, Z discovered poetry written on the walls of Aphrodite’s room,” Erin said.

“Written by Kramisha, but all of it seemed to be about Kalona, which is totally creepy,” Shaunee said.

“It’s like she’s cha

“Oh, great. That’s all we need. More gloom and doom poetry,” Aphrodite said.

“Well speaking of, here’s two new ones.” Kramisha tried to hand me the couple of sheets of paper the poems were written on, but moving my arms up so I could hold them made me suck air with pain.

“Here.” Erik smoothly took the papers from her. Then he brought them to me and held them up so that Damien, the Twins, Aphrodite, Jack, and I could read them at the same time. The first one was baffling:

What once bound him

Will make him flee

Place of power—joining of five

Night

Spirit

Blood

Humanity

Earth

Joined not to conquer,