Awakened

Sgiach didn’t say anything, so I took a breath and kept on babbling. “I’m a kid. Seventeen. Barely. I’m crappy at geometry. My Spanish sucks. I can’t even vote yet. Fighting evil isn’t my responsibility—graduating from high school and, hopefully, making the Change is. My soul’s been shattered and my boyfriend’s been killed. Don’t I deserve a break? Just a little one?”

Utterly surprising me, Sgiach smiled and said, “Yes, Zoey, I believe you do.”

“You mean I can stay here?”

“For as long as you wish. I know what it is to feel the world press too tightly around. Here, as you said, the world is only allowed to enter at my command—and mostly I command it to stay away.”

“What about the fight against Darkness and evil and whatnot?”

“It will be there when you return.”

“Wow. Seriously?”

“Seriously. Stay here on my isle until your soul is truly rested and restored, and your conscience tells you to return to your world and your life there.”

I ignored the little pang I felt at the word conscience. “Stark can stay, too, right?”

“Of course. A queen must always have her Guardian by her side.”

“Speaking of,” I said quickly, glad to steer the subject away from questions of conscience and battling evil, “how long has Seoras been your Guardian?”

The queen’s eyes softened and her smile became sweeter, warmer, and even more beautiful. “Seoras became my Oath Bond Guardian more than five hundred years ago.”

“Holy crap! Five hundred years? How old are you?”

Sgiach laughed. “After a certain point, don’t you think age is irrelevant?”

“And it isna polite to ask a lassie’s age.”

Even if he hadn’t said anything, I would have known Seoras had come in the room. Sgiach’s face changed when he was around. It was like he turned on a switch and made something soft and warm glow inside her. And when he gazed back at her, just for a moment, he didn’t look so gruff and battle-scarred and I’d-rather-kick-your-butt-than-talk-to-you.

The queen laughed and touched her Guardian’s arm with an intimacy that made me hope Stark and I could find even a little piece of what the two of them had. And if he called me lassie after five hundred years, that would be pretty cool, too.

Heath would have called me lassie. Well, more like girl. Or maybe just Zo—forever just his Zo.

But Heath was dead and gone and he’d never call me anything again.

“He’s waiting for yu, young queen.”

Shocked, I stared at Seoras. “Heath?”

The Warrior’s look was wise and understanding—his voice gentle. “Aye, yur Heath probably does await yu somewhere in the future, but it is of yur Guardian I speak.”

“Stark! Oh, good, he’s awake.” I know I sounded guilty. I didn’t mean to keep thinking about Heath, but it was hard not to. He’d been part of my life since I was nine—and dead only for a few weeks. I mentally shook myself, bowed quickly to Sgiach, and started for the door.

“He isna in your chamber,” Seoras said. “The boy is near the grove. He asked that you meet him there.”

“He’s outside?” I paused, surprised. Since Stark had come back from the Otherworld, he’d been too weak and out of it to do much more than eat, sleep, and play computer games with Seoras, which was actually a super weird sight—it was like high school meets Braveheart meets Call of Duty.

“Aye, the lassie’s done fussin’ about with his makeup the now and is actin’ like a proper Guardian again.”

I put my fist on my hip and narrowed my eyes at the old Warrior. “He almost died. You cut him to pieces. He was in the Otherworld. Give him a little break. Jeesh.”

“Aye, well, he di

I rolled my eyes. “You said he’s at the grove?”

“Aye.”

“Okie dokie.”

As I hurried through the doorway, Sgiach’s voice followed me. “Take that lovely scarf you bought in the village. It is a cold evening.”

I thought it was a kinda strange thing for Sgiach to say. I mean, yeah, it was cold (and usually wet) on Skye, but fledglings and vamps don’t feel changes in weather like humans do. But whatever. When a warrior queen tells you to do something, it’s usually best to do it. So I detoured to the huge room I shared with Stark and grabbed the scarf I’d draped over the end of the canopied bed. It was cream-colored cashmere, with threads of gold woven through it, and I thought it probably looked prettier hanging against the crimson bed curtains than it did around my neck.

I paused for a second, looking at the bed I’d been sharing with Stark for the past weeks. I’d curled up with him, held his hand, and rested my head on his shoulder while I watched him sleep. But that was it. He hadn’t even tried to tease me about making out with him.

Crap! He’s hurt bad!

I mentally cringed as I recounted how many times Stark had suffered because of me: an arrow had almost killed him because he’d taken the shot that had been meant for me; he’d had to be sliced up and then destroyed a part of himself to pass into the Otherworld to join me; he’d been mortally wounded by Kalona because he’d believed it was the only way to reach what was shattered inside me.

But I’d saved him, too, I reminded myself. Stark had been right—watching Kalona brutalize him had made me pull myself together, and because of that Nyx had forced Kalona to breathe a sliver of immortality into Stark’s body, returning his life and paying the debt he owed for killing Heath.

I walked through the beautifully decorated castle, nodding to the Warriors who bowed respectfully to me, and thought about Stark, automatically picking up my pace. What was he thinking, dragging himself outside after what he’d been through?

Hell, I didn’t know what he was thinking. He’d been different since we’d been back.

Well, of course he’s been different, I told myself sternly, feeling crappy and disloyal. My Warrior had made an Otherworld journey, died, been resurrected by an immortal, and then yanked back into a body that was weak and wounded.

But before then. Before we’d returned to the real world, something had happened between us. Something had changed for us. Or at least I’d thought it had. We’d been super intimate in the Otherworld. His drinking from me had been an incredible experience. It’d been more than sex. Yeah, it’d felt good. Really, really good. It had healed him, strengthened him, and—somehow—it had fixed whatever had still been broken inside me, allowing my tattoos to return.

And this new closeness with Stark had made losing Heath bearable.

So why was I feeling so depressed? What was wrong with me?

Crap. I didn’t know.

A mom would know. I thought about my mom and felt an unexpected and terrible loneliness. Yeah, she’d messed up and basically chosen a new husband over me, but she was still my mom. I miss her, the little voice inside my head admitted. Then I shook my head. No. I still had a “mom.” My grandma was that and more to me.

“It’s Grandma I miss.” And then, of course, I felt guilty because since I’d been back I hadn’t even called her. Okay, sure, I knew that Grandma would feel that my soul had returned—that I was safe. She’d always been super intuitive, especially about me. But I should have called her.

Feeling really disappointed in myself and sad, I chewed my lip and wrapped the cashmere scarf around my neck, holding the ends close while I made my way across the moat-like bridge and the cold wind whipped around me. Warriors were lighting the torches and I greeted the guys who bowed to me. I tried not to look at the creepy impaled skulls that framed the torches. Seriously. Skulls. Like of real dead people. Well, they were all old and shriveled and pretty much meatless, but still, disgusting.

Keeping my eyes carefully averted, I followed the raised pathway over the boggy area that surrounded the land side of the castle. When I got to the narrow road I turned left. The Sacred Grove began just a little way from the castle, seeming to stretch endlessly into the distance on the other side of the street. I knew where it was not because I remembered being carried, corpse-like, past it on my way to Sgiach. I knew where it was because during the past weeks, while Stark had been recovering, I’d felt myself drawn to the grove. When I hadn’t been with the queen, or Aphrodite, or checking on Stark, I’d been taking long walks inside it.