Hunted

I moved quickly, putting myself between the two of them. "Stop it!" I shouted. "I have way too much to worry about right now to also have to pull you two off each other. Jeesh, talk about immature." Both guys kept glaring at each other over my head. "I said, stop it!" And I smacked their chests. That made them blink and shift their attention to me. Now it was my turn to do the glaring. "You know, you two are ridiculous with your puffing up and your testosterone and crap. I mean, I could summon the elements and kick both of your butts."

Heath shuffled his feet and looked embarrassed. Then he grinned at me, like a cute little boy whose mommy had just yelled at him. "Sorry, Zo. I forget you have some major mojo going on."

"Yeah, sorry," Erik said. "I know I don't have anything to worry about with you and him." And he finished with a smirk at Heath.

Heath looked at me like he expected me to say something like well, actually you need to worryway too muhei~, Erik, because I still like Heath, but I didn't. I couldn't. No matter what was going on between Erik and me, Heath was part of my old world, and he fit better in my past than in my present or future. Heath being one hundred percent human meant he was one hundred percent more vulnerable to being seriously hurt if something attacked us.

"Okay, I'm out of here," Heath said into the awkward silence. He spun around and started to walk toward the door to the outside and was almost there when he paused and looked back at me. "But first I really do need to talk to you, Zo. Alone."

"I'm not going anywhere," Erik said.

"No one asked you to," Heath said. "Zo, would you come outside with me for a minute?"

"Hell no," Erik said, moving toward me possessively. "She's not going anywhere with you."

I was frowning up at Erik, about to tell him that he really wasn't the boss of me, when he did something that totally, utterly, and completely pissed me off. He actually grabbed my wrist and jerked me toward him, even though I hadn't taken one step to follow Heath.

An automatic reflex had me yanking my wrist from his grasp.

His blue eyes narrowed at me. At that instant he looked mad and mean, and seemed more a stranger than a boyfriend.

"You're not going anywhere with him," he repeated to me.

My temper spiked. I cannot stand being bullied. It was one of the reasons my mom's new husband and I never got along. At his core, the Step-loser was nothing more than a big bully. Suddenly I was seeing that same attitude reflected in Erik. I knew it would break my heart later, but just then my anger was burning too hot for any other emotion to cool my reaction. I didn't yell. I didn't scream and smack him like I really wanted to. Instead, all I did was shake my head and say in my coldest voice, "Erik, enough. Just because we're back together doesn't mean you can tell me what to do."

"How about does it mean you don't cheat on me again with your human boyfriend?" Erik snapped.

I gasped and took a step back from him like he'd slapped me. "Why the hell do you think you can talk to me like that?" My stomach clenched up so hard I thought I was going to be sick, but I ignored it, meeting Erik's angry glare with a steely stare of my own. "As your girlfriend, you've just pissed me off. As your High Priestess, you've just insulted me. And as someone with a working brain, you've made me wonder if you've lost every bit of your sense. What do you think I'm going to do in the minute or so I'd be alone with Heath standing outside in the parking lot during an ice storm? Lie down and let him do me right there on the cement? Is that really the kind of girl you think I am?"

Erik didn't say anything; he just kept glaring at me.

In the electric silence Heath's chuckle was supermocking. "Hey, Erik, let me give you a little advice about our Zo. She really, really, really doesn't like it when you try to tell her what to do. And that's how she's been since, uh, I dunno, third grade or so. I mean, even before she H kdo me Ngot the vamp mojo from her goddess, she hated to be bossed around." Heath held out his hand to me. "So would ya walk outside with me for just a sec so we can talk without an audience?"

"Yes, yes I would. I think I need some fresh air," I said. Ignoring Erik's pissed-off stare and Heath's offered hand, I stomped over to the metal grating that looked way more closed and secure than it was and with an annoyed shove pushed it aside and walked out into a very nasty winter evening. The blast of cold wet air felt good on my heated face, and I breathed deep, trying to calm down and not shriek my frustration with Erik up into the bruised gray of the sky.

At first I thought it was raining, but pretty quickly I realized it was more like the sky was spitting little pieces of ice. It wasn't coming down thick, but it was constant, and the parking lot, railroad tracks, and the side of the old depot building were already starting to take on the weird magical look of being gilded with ice.

"My truck's just over there." Heath pointed to where his truck was parked at the edge of the deserted parking lot under a tree that had obviously at one time been planted as an ornament near the sidewalk that wrapped around the depot. Years of being ignored and not pruned had really messed with it, though, and instead of fitting neatly into its circular opening in the cement, the tree had grown way bigger than it should have and its roots had broken the sidewalk around it. Its ice-slick limbs swayed precariously close to the old granite building; some of them were actually leaning on the roof. Just looking up at the tree made me cringe. If we got much more ice, the poor old thing was probably going to shatter into zillions of pieces.

"Here," Heath held one side of his coat up over my head. "Come on over to my truck so we can talk out of this mess."

I glanced around at the gray, soggy landscape. Nothing seemed frightening or freaky--as in half-man, half-bird grossness. It was just wet and cold and empty.

"Okay, yeah," I said, and let Heath lead me over to his truck. I probably shouldn't have let him hold his coat over me and tuck me close to his side while I clutched on to him to keep from falling on the ice-slick pavement, but it felt so familiar and easy to be with him that I didn't even hesitate. Let's face it, Heath's been in my life since I was in grade school. I was literally more comfortable with him than with anyone else in the world, except for my Grandma. No matter what was going on, or not going on, between us, Heath was like family to me. Actually, he's better than the vast majority of my family. It was hard to imagine trying to treat him all formally like he was a stranger. After all, Heath had been my friend before he'd become my boyfriend. But he can never just be my friend again; there'll always be more between us than that, whispered my conscience, but I ignored it. We got to his truck and Heath opened the door for me, the interior smelling of an odd, familiar mixture of Heath and Armor All. (Heath is a neat freak about his truck; I swear you could eat off the seats.) Instead of sliding in, I hesitated. Sitting next to him in the cab of his truck was just too intimate, too reminiscent of the years I had been his girlfriend. So instead, I pulled a little away from him and half sat, half leaned on the end of the passenger's seat, enough out of the icy rain to stay semidry. Heath gave me a sad smile, like he understood that I was doing my best to resist being with him again, and leaned against the insideasse his side Y of the open door.

"Okay, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I don't like you being here. I don't remember everything, but I do remember enough to know that the tunnels down there are bad news. I know you said those undead kids have changed, but I still don't like you being down there with them. It doesn't seem safe," he said, looking serious and worried.

"Well, I don't blame you for thinking it's disgusting down there, but it really has changed. The kids are different, too. They have their humanity back. Plus, it's the safest place for us right now."

Heath studied my face for a long time, then he let out a heavy sigh. "You're the one who's the priestess and stuff like that, so you know what you're doing. It just feels weird to me. Are you sure you shouldn't go back to the House of Night? Maybe this fallen angel guy isn't as bad as you think he is."

"No, Heath, he's bad. Just trust me on this one. And the Raven Mockers are seriously dangerous. It's not safe to go back to school. You didn't see him when he rose out of the ground. It's like he can put a spell on fledglings and vampyres. It's really creepy. You already know how powerful Neferet is. Well, I think Kalona is even more powerful than her."

"That is bad," Heath agreed.

"Yeah."

Heath nodded and didn't say anything. He just looked at me. I looked back at him, and somehow got caught by his sweet, brown-eyed gaze. I'd been sitting there in silence for a while, just looking into his eyes, when I started to be intensely aware of him. I could smell Heath. It was the nice, soapy, Heath smell that I'd grown up with. He was standing close enough to me that I could feel the heat from his body.

Slowly, without saying a word, Heath took my hand and turned it over so that he could look at the intricate tattoos that decorated it. He traced the pattern with one of his fingers.

"It's really amazing that this has happened to you," he said softly, still studying my hand. "Sometimes when I'm waking up in the morning I forget that you've been Marked and you're at the House of Night, and the first thing I think is how much I'm looking forward to knowing you're going to be at the game Friday night watching me play. Or that I can't wait to see you before school getting sausage rolls and your brown pop at Daylight Donuts." He looked up from my hand and into my eyes. "And then I wake all the way up and remember that you won't be there for any of those things. That wasn't so bad when we were Imprinted, 'cause I still felt like I had a chance, that I still had a part of you. But now even that's gone."

Heath made my insides tremble. "I'm sorry, Heath. I--I just don't know what else to say. I can't change any of this."

"Yes, you can." Heath lifted my hand and pressed my palm against his black Broken Arrow Tigers football shirt just over his heart. "Can you feel it beating?" he whispered.

I nodded. I could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, if a little fast. It reminded me of the incredibly delicious blood that was pounding through his veins and how hJm loo good it would feel to take just a tiny little bite of him...And now the pounding of my heart was beating in double time along with his. "Last time I saw you, I said that it hurt too much to love you. But I was wrong about that. The truth is it hurts too much not to love you," Heath said.

"Heath, no. We can't." My voice was rough as I tried to talk through the desire I was feeling for him.

"Of course we can, babe. We're good at being together. We've had lots of practice at it." Heath stepped closer to me. He took the pointing finger of my hand from his chest and ran his thumb lightly over my nicely manicured nail. "Is it true that your fingernails are hard enough that they can cut through skin?"

I nodded. I knew I should walk away and back down to the tunnels and the life that waited for me there, but I couldn't. Heath was also a life that waited for me and right or wrong it was almost impossible for me to walk away from him.

Heath took my finger and lifted it so that my nail was pressed lightly against the soft place where his neck curved into his shoulder.

"Cut me, Zo. Drink my blood again." His voice was deep and harsh with desire. "We're already connected. We'll always be connected. So put the Imprint back between us where it belongs."

He pressed my fingernail harder against his neck. We were both breathing heavily now. When my nail broke through his skin, making a small scratch on his neck, I watched, mesmerized, as an exquisitely thin ribbon of scarlet sprang up against the paleness of his skin.

The smell hit me then, the utterly familiar scent of Heath's blood. The blood I'd once Imprinted as my own. Nothing can compare to the scent of fresh human blood, not another fledgling's and not even an adult vampyre's blood is as compelling, as hypnotically desirable. I felt myself leaning toward him.

"Yes, babe, yes. Drink from me, Zo. Remember how good it feels?" Heath whispered while his hand on my waist pulled me into him.

Couldn't I just take one little taste? So what if I Imprinted with Heath, again? Hell, of course, we'd Imprint. And that's not so bad. I loved being Imprinted with him. He'd liked it, too, until--

Until I'd broken the Imprint along with his heart and quite possibly irreparably damaged his soul.

I shoved him away and lurched out of the cab of the truck, stepping quickly around Heath. The icy rain actually felt good as it fell on my face, cooling the heat of my bloodlust.

"I have to go back, Heath," I said, trying hard to get my breathing and my racing heart under control. "You have to go back, too, where you belong. And that's not here."

"Zoey, what's wrong?" He took a step toward me, and I moved one more step away from him. "What did I do?"

"Nothing. It's--It's not you, Heath." I pushed my wet hair back from my face. "You're great. You've always been great, and I do love you. That's why this can't happen between us again. Imprinting with me isn't good for you, especially not right now."

"Why don't you let me worry about what's good for me and what's not?"

"Because you don't think straight when it comes to me and you!" I shouted. "Remember how painful it was when our Imprint broke? Remember how you said it made you feel like you wanted to die?"

"Then don't break it again."

"It's not that simple. My life isn't that simple anymore."

"Maybe you're just making it too complicated. There's you. There's me. We love each other, and we have since we were kids, so we should be together. The end," he said.

"Life isn't a book, Heath! There's no guarantee of a happy ending," I said.

"I don't need a guarantee if I have you."

"That's just it. You don't have me, Heath. You can't. Not anymore." I shook my head and held up my hand to stop him when he started to say something else. "No! I can't do this right now. I just want you to get in your truck and go back to B.A. I'm going to go back down there. To my people and my vampyre boyfriend."

"Oh, please! You and that vamp asshole? No way are you going to put up with his crap, Zo."

"This isn't just about Erik and me. The truth is you and I can't happen, Heath. You need to forget about me and go on with your life. Your human life." I turned my back on him and made myself walk away. When I heard him following me, I didn't look back. I just yelled, "No! I want you to leave, Heath, and I don't want you to come back. Ever."

I held my breath and heard his footsteps stop. I still didn't look at him. I was afraid if I did that, I would turn around, run back to him, and hurl myself into his arms.

I was almost to the old metal grate when I heard the first croaking caw. The sound stopped me like I'd run into a brick wall. I whirled around. Heath was standing in the freezing rain under the tree just a few feet from his truck. I spared hardly a glance for him. My eyes darted up into the dark branches of the ice-bowed tree.

Within the shadows of the naked boughs a darkness stirred. It reminded me of something, and I blinked, staring at it and trying to remember where I'd seen something like it before. Then the image shifted...changed...I gasped as it became more visible. Neferet! She was clinging to a thick, ice-slick branch that leaned against the roof of the depot. Her eyes blazed crimson and her hair whipped around her crazily, like she had been caught in a sudden wind.

Neferet smiled at me. Her expression was so purely evil that I felt frozen in place.

Then, as I stared up in horror, her image shifted again, wavered, and where the image of the tainted High Priestess had been, there was now a huge Raven Mocker. The thing perched on the side of the depot roof wasn't human and it wasn't animal. It was a terrible mutated mixture of both. It was staring at me with eyes the color of blood and the shape of a man's. Its human arms and legs were naked, looking vile and perverted emerging from the body of a gigantic raven. I could see its forked tongue and the glistening sa sape liva that dripped hungrily from that horrible maw.

"Zoey, what's going on?" Heath said. And before I could tell him not to, he followed my gaze, looking up at the icy limbs that rested against the roof of the depot. "What the fuck?" But as I saw the realization of what the creature must be cross his face, the bird thing turned its glowing red eyes from Heath to me.

"Zzzzzoey?" It breathed my name, its voice sounding wrong and flat and utterly inhuman. "We havvvve been loooooking for you."

My body felt frozen. My mind was screaming inside my head they've been looking for me! But nothing came out of my mouth--no warning to Heath. Not even the shrill girl scream that filled my throat.

"My father will be very pleassssssed when I presssssent you to him," the Mocker hissed, spreading his wings as if he was preparing to fly down and snatch me up.

"I'll have to say `hell no' to that little messed-up plan of yours," Heath yelled.