I stayed on the dark side of the street where there were very few streetlights and walked slowly, trying to figure out what I would say to Heath to get him to understand he and I couldn't keep seeing each other. I'd gone less than half the distance to the square when I saw him coming toward me. Actually, I felt him first. Like an itch beneath my skin that I couldn't quite reach to scratch. Or an abstract compulsion to move forward, looking for something I knew I wanted, but didn't know how to find. And then the compulsion went from abstract to definedfrom subconsciously insistent to demanding. Then I saw him. Heath. He was coming to meet me. We saw each other at the same instant. He was walking on the opposite side of the street and was right under a streetlight. I could see his eyes sparkle and his smile blaze. Instantly, he kicked into a jog and crossed the street (I noticed he didn't look either way and was glad the crappy weather was keeping traffic to a minimumthe kid could have gotten smushed by a car).
His arms were around me and his breath tickled my ear as he hugged me. "Zoey! Oh, baby, I've really missed you!"
I hated that my body instantly responded to him. He smelled like homea sexy, yummy version of homebut home nonetheless. Before I could melt helplessly in his arms I pushed back from him, suddenly aware of just how dark and secluded, intimate even, it was on this shadowy sidewalk.
"Heath, you were supposed to wait for me at Starbucks." Yeah, on their little patio sidewalk area that would be busy with caffeine-aholics and definitely not intimate.
He shrugged and grinned. "I was, but then I felt you coming and no way could I just sit there anymore." His brown eyes sparkled adorably and his hand caressed the side of my cheek as he added, "We're Imprinted, remember? It's you and me, baby."
I made myself take a little half step back so that he wasn't in my personal space anymore. "That's what I have to talk to you about. So let's go back to Starbucks and get a couple drinks and talk." In public. Where I wouldn't be so tempted to pull him off the sidewalk into an alley and sink my teeth in his sweet neck and
"Can't," he said, grinning again.
"Can't?" I shook my head, trying to get rid of the semi-nasty (okay, it probably wasn't semi) scene that had started to play around in my (ho-ish) imagination.
"Can't, 'cause Kayla and the bitch squad picked tonight to go to Starbucks."
"Bitch squad?"
"Yeah, that's what me and Josh and Travis call Kayla and Whitney and Lindsey and Chelsea and Paige."
"Oh, ugh. Since when did Kayla start hanging around with those hateful sluts?"
"Since you got Marked."
Then my eyes narrowed at him. "And why would Kayla and her new friends just happen to pick this particular night to go to Starbucks? And why this Starbucks instead of the one in Broken Arrow that's way closer to where they all live?"
Heath held up his hands like he was surrendering. "I didn't do it on purpose!"
"Do what, Heath?" Jeesh, the kid was such a moron sometimes.
"I didn't know they'd be coming out of the Gap just when I was pulling up in front of Starbucks. I didn't see them till after they saw me. It was too late then."
"Well that explains their sudden desire for caffeine. I'm surprised they didn't follow you down the sidewalk." Okay, yes. I did remember that I was supposed to be breaking up with him, but it still annoyed the crap outta me to think that Kayla was sniffing around him.
"So you don't want to see them, do you?"
"Not no, but hell no," I said.
"Didn't think so. Well, how about I walk you back to your school then." He stepped closer to me. "I remember when we talked on the wall a couple months ago. That was nice."
I remembered, too. I especially remembered that had been the first time I had tasted his blood. I shivered. And then caught myself. I really needed to get a handle on this bloodlust thing. "Heath," I said firmly. "You can't go with me to my school. Haven't you been watching the news? Some idiot human killed a vampyre. Now the place is like an army camp. I had to sneak out to see you, and I can't be gone long."
"Oh, yeah, I did hear about that." He took my hand in his. "Are you okay? Did you know the vamp that was killed?"
"Yes, I knew her. She was my drama professor. And no, I'm not okay. That's one reason I needed to talk to you." I made up my mind. "Come on. Let's cut down this street and go to Woodward Park. We can talk there." Plus, it was a public park smack in the center of midtown Tulsa, it couldn't be too private. At least I hoped it couldn't.
"Cool with me," Heath said happily.
He refused to let loose of my hand, so we started down the side street joined together like we'd been since grade school. We'd only gone a few feet when his voice broke in to me trying not to think about the fact that his wrist was pressed against mine and I could feel that our pulses were beating in time with one another.
"Zo, what happened in the tunnels?"
I gave him a sharp, sideways glance. "What do you remember?"
"Mostly darkness and you."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't remember how I got there, but I do remember teeth and red eyes that glowed." He squeezed my hand. "And I don't mean your teeth, Zo. Plus, your eyes don't glow. They shine."
"They do?"
"Totally. Especially when you're drinking my blood." He'd slowed down so that we were almost standing still when he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. "You know it feels so damn good when you drink me, don't you?"
Heath's voice had gotten deep and husky, and his lips felt like fire against my skin. I wanted to lean into him and get lost in him and sink my teeth into him and
CHAPTER 18
"Heath, focus." I channeled the heat that was shimmering through my body into annoyance. "The tunnels. You're supposed to be telling me what you remember."
"Oh, yeah." He grinned his cute, bad-boy smile. "I really don't remember much, that's why I was asking you about it. Just teeth and claws and eyes and such, and then you. It's all kinda like a bad dream. Well, except for the part about you. That part's cool. Hey, Z, did you rescue me?"
I rolled my eyes at him and started walking again, dragging him with me. "Yes, I rescued you, dork."
"From what?"
"Jeesh, do you not read the papers? The story was on page two." It had been a lovely, but fictionalized article where they quoted Detective Marx and his very brief and mostly untrue statement.
"Yeah, but it didn't say much. So what really happened?"
I chewed my lip while my mind raced. He didn't remember hardly anything about Stevie Rae and her pack of undead dead thingies. Neferet's mind block was obviously still firmly in place with him. And, I suddenly realized, it needed to stay that way. The less Heath knew about what had happened, the less chance that Neferet would give him a second thought and what would amount to a third mind screwing, which couldn't be good for him. Plus, the kid needed to get on with his life. His human life. And stop obsessing about me and vamp stuff.
"There wasn't much more than the papers said. I dunno who the guy was, just some crazed street person. The same guy who killed Chris and Brad. I found you and used my power over the elements to get you away from him, but you were pretty messed up. He'd, uh, cut you up and stuff. That's probably why you have such weird memories, when you remember anything at all." It was my turn to shrug. "I wouldn't worry about it, or even think about it much if I were you. No big deal, really." He started to say something else, but we'd come to the rear entrance to the park and I pointed to a bench under the first big tree. "How about sitting over there?"
"Whatever you say, Zo." He slung his arm around me and we walked to the bench.
As we sat down I managed to slide out from under his arm and angle my body toward him so that my knees were a kind of barrier against him getting too close to me. I took a deep breath and made myself meet Heath's eyes. I can do this. I can do this.
"Heath, you and I can't see each other again."
His forehead wrinkled. He looked like he was trying to figure out a complex math word problem. "Why would you say something like that, Zo? Of course we can see each other again."
"No. It's not good for you. This has to be over between us." I hurried on when he started to protest. "I know it seems hard to not see me, but that's because of our Imprint, Heath. Really. I've been reading up on it. If we don't see each other the Imprint will fade." That wasn't exactly true. The text said sometimes an Imprint will fade due to nonexposure. Well, I was counting on sometimes being this time. "It'll be okay. You'll forget about me and go back to being normal."
As I'd been talking Heath's expression had become more and more serious and his body had gotten very still. I knew because I could feel his heartbeat, and even that had slowed. When he spoke he sounded old. Really old. Like he'd lived a thousand years and knew things I could only guess at.
"I won't forget about you. Not even after I'm dead. And this is normal for me. Loving you is my normal."
"You don't love me. You're just Imprinted with me," I said.
"Bullshit!" he shouted. "Don't tell me I don't love you. I've loved you since I was nine years old. This Imprint thing is just another part of what's been going on between us since we were kids."
"This Imprint thing has to end," I said calmly, meeting his gaze.
"Why? I've told you it's good for me. And you know we belong together, Zo. You have to believe in us."
His eyes pleaded with me and I felt my gut twist. He was right about so much. It had been the two of us for so longand if I hadn't been Marked, we probably would have gone to college together and then gotten married after we graduated. We would have had kids and lived in the suburbs and gotten a dog. We would have had fights once in a while, mostly over him being too obsessed with sports, and then we would have made up when he brought me flowers and teddy bears, like he'd been doing since we were teenagers.
But I had been Marked and my old life had died the day the new Zoey was born. The more I thought about it, the more I knew breaking up with Heath was the right thing to do. With me he could never be more than my Renfield, and sweet Heath, the love of my childhood, deserved better than that. I realized what I had to do and how I had to do it.
"Heath, the truth is it's not as good for me as it is for you." My voice was cold and emotionless. "It's not you and me anymore. I have a boyfriend. A real boyfriend. He's like me. He's not a human. He's the one I want now." I wasn't sure if I was talking about Erik or Loren, but I was sure of the pain that clouded Heath's eyes.
"If I have to share you, I will." His voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and he looked away from me like he was too embarrassed to meet my eyes. "I'll do whatever it takes not to lose you."
It made something inside me break, but I laughed at Heath. "Listen to you! You sound pathetic. Do you know what vampyre men are like?"
"No." His voice had gotten stronger and he met my eyes again. "No, I don't know what they're like. I'm sure they can do all sorts of cool stuff. They're probably big and bad and all that. But I know one thing they can't do that I can. They can't do this."
In a motion so fast I didn't understand what he was doing until it was too late, Heath pulled a razorblade from the pocket of his jeans and slashed a long, deep line down the side of his neck. I knew right away that he hadn't hit an artery or anything like that. The cut wouldn't kill him, but it was pouring bloodhot, sweet, fresh trails of blood down his neck and shoulder. And it was Heath's blood! A scent that I'd been Imprinted to desire above all others. The sweetness of it covered me, brushing against my skin with hot insistence.
I couldn't help myself. I leaned forward. Heath tilted his head to the side, stretching his neck so that all of the beautiful, glistening cut was exposed.
"Make the pain go away, Zoey, for both of us. Drink from me and stop the burning before I can't stand it anymore."
His pain. I was causing him pain. I'd read about it in the Advanced Vampyre Sociology book. It warned about the danger of Imprinting and how the blood bond can become so close that not drinking from the human can actually cause him pain.
So I'd drink from himjust this once morejust to stop his pain
I leaned farther forward and rested my hand on his shoulder. By the time my tongue reached out and licked the slick line of red from his neck, my body was trembling.
"Oh, Zoey, yes!" Heath moaned. "You're cooling it. Yes, come closer baby. Take more."
He fisted his hand in my hair and pressed my mouth against his neck and I drank from him. His blood was an explosion. Not just in my mouth, but throughout my body. I'd read all of the whys and how-comes about the physiological reaction that takes place between a human and a vampyre when bloodlust consumes them. It was simple. Something Nyx had gifted us with so that both could feel pleasure in an act that could otherwise be brutal and deadly. But flat words on the page of a passionless textbook didn't begin to describe what was happening inside our bodies as I drank from Heath's bleeding neck. I straddled him, pressing the most private part of myself against his hardness. His hands left my hair to hold my hips and he rocked me against him rhythmically as he moaned and panted and whispered for me not to stop. And I didn't want to stop. I didn't ever want to stop. My body was burning, just as his had been. Only my pain was sweet, hot, delicious. I knew Heath was right. Erik was like me and I cared about him. Loren was a real man and powerful and incredibly mysterious. But neither of them could do this for me. Neither of them could make me feel like thiswant like this desire to take like this
"Yeah, bitch! Ride him! Make him hurt so gooood!"
"That little white boy don't have nothin' for you. I'll give ya somethin' you can really feel!"
Heath's grip on my hips changed and he was in the middle of trying to turn my body away from the jeering voices so he could shield me, but the anger that spiked through me was blinding. My fury was impossible to ignore and my response was immediate. I lifted my face from his neck. Two black guys were just a few feet away and getting closer to us. They were wearing the stereotypical ridiculous sagging pants and stupid, oversized down coats and when I bared my teeth at them and hissed, their expressions changed from sneers to shocked disbelief.
"Get away from us or I will kill you." I snarled at them in a voice so powerful I didn't recognize it as my own.
"She's a fucking bloodsucker bitch!" the shorter of the two said.
The other guy snorted. "Nah, bitch got no tattoo. But if she wants somethin' to suck, I'll give it to her."
"Yeah, first you and then me. Her little punk boyfriend can watch and see how it's done." With a mean laugh, they started walking toward us again.
Still straddling Heath, I lifted my one arm over my head. With the other I dragged the back of my hand across my forehead and down my face, wiping off the concealer that hid my identity. That made them stumble to a stop. Then both of my arms were over my head. It was easy to center myself. Filled with Heath's fresh blood, I felt powerful and strong and very, very pissed.
"Wind come to me," I commanded. My hair began lifting in the breeze that swirled restlessly around me. "Blow them the hell outta here!" I flung my hands out toward the two men, letting my anger explode with my words. The wind obeyed instantly, crashing into them with such force that they were swept, yelling and cussing, off their feet and hurled away from me. I watched with a kind of detached fascination as the wind dropped the two men down in the middle of Twenty-first Street.
I didn't even flinch when the truck hit them.
"Zoey, what did you do!"
I looked down at Heath. His neck was still bleeding and his face was pale, his eyes wide and shocked.
"They were going to hurt you." Now that I'd flung the anger out of me I was feeling weird, kinda numb and confused.
"Did you kill them?" His voice sounded all wrong, scared and accusing.
I frowned at him. "No. All I did was get them away from us. The truck did the rest. And anyway, they might not be dead." I glanced back at the road. The truck had come to a skidding, tire-squealing halt. Other cars had stopped, too, and I could hear people shouting. "And Saint John's Hospital is like less than a mile down the street." Sirens started wailing not far away. "See, the ambulance is coming already. They'll probably be okay."
Heath pushed me off his lap and scooted away from me, pressing the sleeve of his sweater against the cut on his neck. "You have to leave. There will be cops all over here pretty soon. They shouldn't find you here."
"Heath?" I lifted my hand toward him, but dropped it when he flinched away from me. The numbness was fading and I had started to shake. My god, what had I just done? "Are you afraid of me?"
Slowly, he reached out, taking my hand and pulling me to him so he could wrap his arm around me. "I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid for you. If people find out all the stuff you can do, II don't know what might happen." He leaned back a little, not taking his arm from around me, but looking into my eyes. "You're changing, Zoey. And I'm not sure what you're changing into."
My eyes filled with tears. "I'm becoming a vampyre, Heath. That's what I'm Changing into."
He touched my cheek, and then he used his thumb to wipe away the rest of the concealer so that my Mark was completely visible. Heath bent to kiss the crescent moon in the middle of my forehead. "I'm okay with you being a vampyre, Zo. But I want you to remember that you're still Zoey, too. My Zoey. And my Zoey isn't mean."
"I couldn't let them hurt you," I whispered, really shaking now as I realized how cold and horrible I'd just been. I might have just caused the deaths of two men.
"Hey, look at me Zo." Heath took my chin in his hand and forced me to meet his eyes. "I'm almost six one. I'm a kick-ass starting quarterback for a 6A school. OU is offering me a full-ride football scholarship. Would you please remember that I can take care of myself?" He let loose of my chin and touched my cheek again. His voice was so serious and grown-up that he suddenly reminded me weirdly of his dad. "When I was away with my parents, I did some reading up on your vampyre goddess, Nyx. Zo, there's a lot of stuff written about vampyres, but I didn't find anything that said your goddess is mean. I think you should keep that in mind. Nyx has given you a bunch of powers, and I don't think she'd like it if you used them in the wrong way." His eyes glanced over my shoulder to the distant road and the awful scene that was playing out there. "You shouldn't be mean, Zo. No matter what."
"When did you get so old?"
He smiled. "Two months ago." Heath kissed my lips softly, and then stood up, pulling me to my feet. "You gotta get out of here. I'm gonna go back the way we came. You should probably cut through the rose gardens and get back to school. If those guys aren't dead they're gonna talk, and that's not gonna be good for the House of Night."
I nodded. "Okay, yeah. I'll get back to the school." Then I sighed. "I was supposed to break up with you."
His smile turned into a full grin. "Not happening, Zo. It's you and me, baby!" He kissed me good and hard, and gave me a little shove in the direction of the Tulsa Rose Garden, which bordered Woodward Park. "Call me and we'll meet next week. 'Kay?"
" 'Kay," I mumbled.
He started to back away so that he could watch me leave. I turned and walked toward the rose garden. Automatically, like I'd been doing it for decades, I called mist and night, magic and darkness, to cover me.
"Wow! Cool, Zo!" I heard him yell from behind me. "I love you, baby!"
"I love you, too, Heath." I didn't turn around, but whispered into the wind and willed it to carry my voice to him.
CHAPTER 19
Yep, I was seriously messed up. Not only had I not broken up with Heath, but I had probably made our Imprint even stronger. Plus, I may have caused two men to be killed. I shivered, feeling more than a little sick. What in the hell had happened to me? I'd been drinking Heath's blood and having a horny old good time (jeesh, I was becoming such a ho-bag), and then those men had started messing with us and it was like something inside of me freaked and changed from Regular Zoey to Psycho Killer Vampyre Zoey. Was that what happened? Did vamps freak when the human they'd Imprinted was threatened?
I remembered in the tunnels how pissed I'd been when Stevie Rae's "friends" (not that she was actually buddies with those disgusting undead dead kids) had attacked Heath. Okay, I'd even gotten violent, but I hadn't felt such a powerful urge to wipe them off the face of the earth! Just remembering the anger that had rushed through me as the two men had started toward us (Heath) to give us (Heath) a hard time was enough to make my hands start to shake again.
Clearly there was just too much vampyre stuff that I didn't know about. Hell, I'd even taken notes and memorized some of the chapter on Imprinting and bloodlust, but I was starting to see that there was lots of stuff the oh-so-educational textbook had left out. What I needed was an adult vamp. Fortunately, I knew one I was sure would be very happy to volunteer to be my teacher.
I'm sure there were lots of things he'd be ever so pleased to teach me.
I thought about those things, which was easy to do when I was filled with Heath's delicious, sexy blood. My body still tingled with heat and power and sensations I knew I didn't have a clue about, but I craved more of. A lot more of.
There was no denying that Loren and I had a thing. It was different than the thing Heath and I had, and even different than the thing Erik and I had. Crap. I had too many things going on in my life.
Basically, I floated to Aphrodite's parent's garage apartment in a kind of horny, power-filled, yet confused haze and was so distracted by, well, sex that I didn't think about the fact that I appeared to be nothing more than mist and darkness until I was actually standing in the living room of the apartment watching Stevie Rae stare with wet, red-tinged eyes at the TV screen and sniffle. I glanced at the TV and realized she was watching a Lifetime Movie of the Week. It looked like the one about the mom who knew she was dying of some horrid disease and she had to race against time (and commercial breaks) to find a new family for her zillions of overly perky children.
"Talk about depressing," I said.
Stevie Rae's head whipped around as she crouched in a feral, defensive pose after leaping behind the couch where she hissed and snarled at me.
"Ah, crap!" I instantly shooed away darkness and whatnot, so that I was solid, visible me again. "Sorry, Stevie Rae. I forgot I'd gone all Bram Stoker."
She peered over the couch at me, eyes glowing and fangs bared, but she'd stopped hissing.
"Uh, relax. It's just me." I lifted the canvas bag and shook it so the blood sloshed nastily. "Your meals on wheels."
She stood up and narrowed her eyes. "You shouldn't do that."
I raised my eyebrows at her. "Shouldn't do what? Bring you blood or turn into mist and darkness."
Stevie Rae snatched the canvas bag I was dangling in her direction. "Sneak up on me. It could be dangerous."
I sighed and sat on the couch, trying to ignore the fact that she was already gulping down the first bag of blood. "If you ate me the way my life sucks right now, you'd be doing me a favor."
"Yeah, I'll bet. I remember how tough it was to be alive. All filled with dating drama and ohmygoodness, what should I wear to school. Real awful, unlike the stress of being dead and then undead but still feeling mostly dead." Stevie Rae spoke in the cold, sarcastic voice that was totally different from the way she used to sound, which suddenly annoyed the crap right outta me. Like I didn't have stress in my life just because I wasn't dead? Or undead? Or whatever.
"Professor Nola was killed last night. It looks like some of the People of Faith crucified her and chopped her head off and left her out by the trapdoor on the east wall with a lovely note about not suffering a witch to live. I think that my step-loser might be involved, but I can't say anything about it because my mom is covering for him, and if I rat him out she'll probably go to jail forever. I just sucked Heath's blood and got interrupted by some gang wannabes who I think I might have kinda sorta accidentally killed, and Loren Blake and I have been making out. So, how was your day?"
The old Stevie Rae flickered inside this one's red eyes. "Ohmygoodness," she said.
"Yeah."
"You've been making out with Loren Blake?" As usual, Stevie Rae got to the heart of the juiciest gossip. "What was it like?"
I sighed and watched her start on her second bag of blood. "It was amazing. I know this is going to sound totally ridiculous, but I think we might really have something together."
"Just like Romeo and Juliet," she said between swallows.
"Uh, Stevie Rae, let's use a different analogy, shall we? R&J didn't end so well."
"I'll bet he tastes good," she said.
"Huh?"
"I mean his blood."
"I wouldn't know."
"Yet," she said, and reached for another bag o' blood.
"Speaking of. You'd better slow down on the blood drinking. Neferet called in the Vamp's Sons of Erebus warriors and it's pretty hard to sneak out of school right now. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back here with more tasty bloody goodness."
A shiver passed through Stevie Rae's body. She had been looking almost normal, but at my words her expression flattened out and her eyes reddened.
"I can't stand it much longer."
She'd spoken in such a low, strained voice that I almost didn't hear her.
"Is it that big of a deal, Stevie Rae? I mean, can't you just ration yourself or something?"
"It's not like that! I can feel it slipping away more and more each day each hour."
"What's slipping away?"
"My humanity!" she practically sobbed.
"But, honey," I scooted over and put my arm around her, ignoring the weird way she smelled and the fact that her body was so rocklike. "You're better. I'm here now. We'll figure this out."
Stevie Rae looked into my eyes. "Right now, I can feel your pulse. I know every time your heart beats. There's something inside of me that is screaming at me to rip your throat open and drink your blood. And that something is growing stronger." She pulled away from me, moving to press herself against the end of the couch. "I can put on the old Stevie Rae's face, but it's only part of the monster in me. I just do it so that I can hunt you."
I took a deep breath and refused to look away from her. "Okay, I know some of that is true. But I don't believe all of it, and I don't want you to believe all of it either. Your humanity is still there, inside you. Yeah, it might be getting buried, but it's still there. And that means we're still best friends. Plus, think about it. You don't have to hunt me. HelloI'm right here. Not exactly hiding."
"I think you might be in danger from me," she whispered.
I smiled. "I'm tougher than you think, Stevie Rae." Moving slowly so I didn't startle her, I reached out and put my hand over hers. "Draw on the power of earth. I believe you're different than the rest of the, uh" I paused, trying to figure out what to call them.
"Gross undead dead kids?" Stevie Rae supplied.
"Yeah. You're different from the rest of the gross undead dead kids because of your affinity with the earth. Draw on that and it will help you fight whatever is going on inside you."
"Darknessit's all darkness inside me," she said.
"It's not all darkness. The earth is in there, too."
"Okayokay" she panted. "The earth. I'll remember. I'll really try."
"You can beat this, Stevie Rae. We can beat this."
"Help me," she said, suddenly squeezing my hand so hard I almost cried out. "Please, Zoey, help me."
"I will. I promise."
"Soon. It has to be soon."
"It will be. I promise," I repeated, not having a clue how I was going to keep my promise.
"What are you going to do?" Stevie Rae asked, eyes desperately locked with mine.
I blurted the only thing that came into my brain. "I'm going to cast a circle and ask for Nyx's help."
Stevie Rae blinked. "That's it?"
"Well, our circle is powerful and Nyx is a goddess. What more do we need?" I sounded way surer than I felt.
"You want me to represent earth again?" Her voice quivered.
"No. Yes." I paused guiltily, wondering what I was supposed to do about Aphrodite. It had been clear when she manifested earth that she was supposed to join our circle. But would it freak Stevie Rae out to see her place filled by someone she definitely considered an enemy? Plus, no one except Aphrodite knew about Stevie Rae, which is how I needed to keep it until I was ready for Neferet to know I knew about her. Issues. I definitely had issues. "Uh, I'm not sure. Let me think about it, okay?"