Destined

His grin answered hers. “I know.”

“It’s different from up here,” she said.

“Yep, sure is. Take my girl out. She’ll remind you to breathe and smile. Oh, and Lenobia, I’d ’preciate it if you’d stop callin’ me Mr. Foster.” He tipped his hat to her, added a smile and a long, slow, “If you please, ma’am.”

Lenobia only raised an eyebrow at him. She gave Bo

Bo

“All right, my Bo

Bo

“Ha!” Lenobia shouted. “That’s it! Let’s go!”

Bo

The mare responded with a burst of speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a creature who weighed two thousand pounds.

As the wind whistled around them, lifting Lenobia’s long silver hair in time with the Percheron’s mane in that magickal dance that melded horse to rider, Lenobia thought of the ancient Persian saying: The breath of heaven is found between a horse’s ears.

“That’s right! That’s exactly right!” Lenobia yelled, and clung to the speeding mare’s back.

Joyously, freely, wonderfully, Lenobia moved as one with Bo

“She’s magnificent!” Lenobia laughed again, and leaned forward to hug Bo

“Yeah, I told ya it’d be better after that,” Travis called to her, catching Bo

“What couldn’t be? That’s so much fun!”

“Like riding a mountain?”

“Exactly like riding a beautiful, smart, wonderful mountain!” Lenobia hugged Bo

Travis just laughed.

Lenobia kicked her leg over the saddle to slide off Bo

“Steady there … steady girl,” he murmured, sounding like he was speaking to a spooked filly. “Ground’s a long ways down. Take ’er easy or you’ll have a nasty fall.”

Still feeling the sweet adrenaline rush from her run with the mare, Lenobia laughed. “I don’t care! The ride would be worth the fall. The ride would be worth anything!”

“Some girls are,” Travis said.

Lenobia looked up at the tall cowboy. His eyes had lightened so that they weren’t just hazel anymore. They were flecked with an olive green that was distinctive and light and unmistakably familiar.

Lenobia didn’t think. Instinct drove her. She stepped into his embrace. It seemed Travis had stopped thinking, too, because he’d dropped Bo

She could have stopped herself, but she didn’t. She allowed it. No, more than that. Lenobia met Travis’s passion with her own, and answered his question with desire and need.

The kiss went on long enough for Lenobia to recognize the taste and feel of him, and for her to admit to herself that she’d missed him—missed him desperately.

And then she began thinking again.

She only had to pull just a little and he let her slip from the warm circle of his arms.

Lenobia could feel her head shaking back and forth and her heart racing.

“No,” she said, trying to get her breathing under control. “This can’t be. I can’t do this.”

His beautiful, olive-flecked eyes looked dazed. “Lenobia, girl. Let’s talk this out. There’s somethin’ here that we can’t ignore. It’s like we—”

“No!” Lenobia called the steely control that she’d commanded for centuries to her, cloaking her desire and need and fear in anger and coldness. “Do not presume. Humans are attracted to our kind. What you felt was what any man would feel if I deigned to kiss him.” She forced herself to laugh, this time the sound was utterly devoid of joy. “Which is why I do not make a habit of kissing human men. It will not happen again.”

Without looking at Travis or Bo

Then, and only then, Lenobia allowed herself to weep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Neferet

Things were going very well.

The red fledglings were causing problems.

Dallas hated Rephaim with an intensity that was simply lovely.

Gaea was all in a tizzy about the lawn humans. So much so that she’d forgotten to lock the side maintenance gate and one of the street people who usually frequented Cherry Street had somehow been compelled to stagger down Utica Street and through the unlocked gate and onto campus.

“And he’d promptly almost been carved in two by Dragon, who is seeing Raven Mockers in every shade and shadow,” Neferet practically purred.

She tapped her chin contemplatively. She hated that Thanatos had invaded her House of Night. But the positive side of the High Council’s interfering ways was that forcing all of those special students into one classroom was acting like dry twigs on coals.

“Chaos!” Neferet laughed. “It is going to cause something to ignite.”

The Darkness that was her constant companion slithered closer, wrapping itself caressingly around her legs.

During the passing period the hour before, she’d overheard two of Zoey’s ridiculous friends talking. It seemed the Twins, Shaunee and Erin, were having a falling-out that was affecting the entire herd.

Neferet snorted sarcastically. “Of course it would. None of them are truly strong enough to stand on their own. They huddle together like the sheep they are, trying to stay safe from the wolf.” She would enjoy seeing how that little drama played itself out. “Perhaps I should befriend Erin in her time of need…” she mused aloud.

Neferet smiled and opened the heavy velvet drapes that usually covered the large mullioned window of her private quarters from the prying eyes of the school. She opened the window, inhaling deeply of the brisk, warm breeze. Neferet closed her eyes and opened her senses. She scented the wind for more than the familiar smells of incense from the temple and the newly cut winter grass. Neferet opened her mind to taste the aromas of emotion that roiled and lifted from the House of Night and its inhabitants.