“Is he alive?” Neferet asked.

Aurox touched him. “Yes.”

Neferet sighed. “I suppose that is for the best, even though it’s slightly inconvenient. You’ll need to go back downstairs and tell Dallas I want the old man’s memory wiped clean. Tell him to implant the suggestion that he was wounded when the school was robbed.” She tapped her chin, considering, and looked down the hallway at the glass cases that held memorabilia and the library beyond with its neat rows of books and gleaming, ornate light fixtures. “No, I have a more amusing idea. Tell Dallas to make the human believe he was wounded when the school was vandalized. Then on the way out, I want you to smash the cases and destroy the library. Do it quickly. I’ll be waiting outside. And I do not like to be kept waiting.”

“Yes, Priestess,” he said.

“As I said, this architecture is wasted on human teenagers…” She laughed as she left the building

Hastily he retraced his path back to the underground lair. As soon as Dallas caught sight of him, the vampyre stood and faced him, putting himself between Aurox and the fledgling pack. The red vampyre’s grimy arm lifted to rest on a metal box that was bolted to the cement wall. Aurox felt the power that thrummed there, coiling, waiting to do his bidding.

“What do you want?” Dallas asked.

“Neferet sent me with a new command for you.”

Dallas took his hand from the metal box. “What does she want me to do?”

“There is a guard who is unconscious near the entry to the school. Priestess does not want him to remember our presence. Instead he is to believe vandals attacked him.”

“Yeah, fine. Whatever,” Dallas said, then before Aurox could turn away he asked, “Hey, what the hell are you?”

The question surprised Aurox. His answer came automatically. “I am Neferet’s to command.”

“Yeah, but what are you?” asked a dark-haired fledgling girl who was peering at him from behind Dallas. “I saw you. You were changing into something with horns and hooves. Are you some kind of demon?”

“No. Not a demon. I am Neferet’s to command.” Aurox turned away then, leaving them behind, but he could not leave their words behind. They followed him down the hallway. He’s a freak, they whispered. Something not right.

He used a desk made of wood and steel to smash and destroy the treasures in the clean, wide hallway. He shattered the ornate fixtures that hung from the room filled with books. While he did that Aurox fed from the fear and anger that lingered in his body. When those emotions were used up he channeled the fear the red vampyre and his fledglings were evoking from the old man as the fledgling he’d wounded drank his blood and the others looked on laughing. When they finished with the guard and wiped his mind clean, Aurox used the vestiges of the disgust the fledglings felt for him to fuel the power he needed until that emotion, too, was gone. Then he unearthed the only emotions he had left. The emotions he’d not fed from, but instead had somehow kept, and claimed as his own. So it was washed in Zoey’s loneliness and sadness and guilt that he finished vandalizing the school and then, changing back to the shell of a boy, Aurox walked heavily from the destruction he had caused and made sure Neferet waited no longer.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stark

Stark’s dream started okay. He’d been on an awesome beach with white sand around him and clear blue water before him. The sun hadn’t burned him at all. Actually, it was just like before he’d been Marked and the sun had felt great on his face and shoulders. He was shooting arrows at a big round bull’s-eye target that magickally absorbed them and then made them reappear in the sand beside him so that he could continue to shoot and shoot and shoot.

He was just thinking how really great the dream would be if Zoey showed up on the beach in a bikini.

Or maybe it would be a European beach and Zoey would show up in a topless bikini. Now that would be even better.

And then, like what happens a lot in dreams, the scene shifted and all of a sudden Zoey was there, only they weren’t on the beach. She was there, curled up in his arms, warm and soft and smelling really good.

“Hey,” she said, smiling up at him. “You’re awake and the sun hasn’t set yet.”

“Yeah.” He grinned at her. “Let me show ya how awake I am.” He kissed her and she tasted sweet. Her body fit with his perfectly. She made that little sighing moan she made when she was really feeling good.

But just as he was really getting into the dream Zoey pulled back from him. He looked questioningly at her, thinking maybe it was going to be an awesome-beyond-awesome dream and she’d do a sexy little strip for him. Then he saw the look on her face. It was wide-eyed terror.

“Stop them!” she yelled. “Stark! Guardian! Help me!”

She was reaching for him as dark, snake-like tendrils dragged her away.

Stark leaped up and the Guardian Sword appeared in his hand. He ran to her, vaulted over her fallen body, and landed smack in the middle of the tendrils of Darkness. Swinging the Guardian Sword he slashed through them over and over again, but where he cut one, two grew to take its place, and both reattached like Velcro to Zoey’s body.

“Stark! Oh, Goddess! Help me!”

“I’m trying! Zoey, I’m doing my best!” But he was making no difference against Darkness. By now, Z was wrapped completely, cocooned like something a giant spider would snack on, and she was conscious and screaming for him to save her.

Stark fought and fought, but there was nothing he could do, and as Darkness pulled her from him, he saw Neferet, the puppet master commanding the black, sticky strings. She stood just out of his sword reach and laughed as she tightened the threads around Zoey until his love, his queen, was strangled, killed, and then absorbed by her enemy.

In the dream Stark stood there, sobbing and lost without his Zoey. In his mind he heard a voice strong and clear: This will happen unless Zoey Redbird publicly breaks from Neferet. She must stand up to the Tsi Sgili and stop these pretenses of a truce between them.

Stark, still shocked and broken from the dream loss of his queen, only heard the words and not the voice. He didn’t think of where the message came from—only the warning itself.

He took a deep breath and woke with Zoey safe, warm, and willing in his arms, and she smiled up at him saying, “Hey, you’re awake and the sun hasn’t set yet.” A terrible, portentous chill shivered through his body. It had been more than a dream—he knew it. Which meant the warning was more than just words—it was prophecy. Stark filled his arms with Zoey, pressing her hard against his body.

“Tell me you’re okay. Tell me you feel fine.”

“I will if you stop smothering me,” she choked out.

He loosened his grip with one of his arms, with the other he ran up and down her back as he looked over her shoulder, being sure there were no tendrils there—no sticky memories from his dream.

“Stark, hey stop.” She grabbed his hand and stared into his eyes. “What the heck is wrong?”

“Massively bad dream. Like of apocalyptic proportions. And then I woke up and you were saying the exact same words you said to me in the dream right before Darkness got you.”

“First, eew, Darkness getting me is disgusting. How’d it happen?”

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“Yes, I most certainly do. It could be a prophetic dream, and if it is I need to know what to avoid.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. Actually, I was trying not to think that, but you’re right.” He leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, trying to shake off sleep and foreboding. “It might be prophetic and you could need to know; Darkness got you like Shelob got Frodo, only worse,” he said.