Stark put his arms around me and pulled me to him. Then he kissed me. Right on the lips. Hard and possessive. One of his hands trailed down my back and rested on my butt as he said, “Right, Z. I’ll see you tonight. During our date. Alone.” He squeezed my butt and then hurried away.
Shaylin handed me the purple spirit candle, and I resisted the urge to throw the thick pillar at him. What the hell was I going to do about Stark? And did he really think acting possessive and telling me what to do was the way to get me to not want to be with another guy? Hell, no!
I pushed aside my irritation and forced a cheerful smile on my face.
“So, let’s get this circle cast,” I said. “Everyone ready?”
As we took our positions I ignored the fact that Shaylin kept watching me, and then I realized that I was going to have to take my position in the center of the circle, which meant I was going to have to stand by Dallas’s decapitated body in the middle of blood-soaked ash and burned earth, and I decided I didn’t care how close Shaylin was watching me or what an ass Stark was acting like. I just kinda froze at the edge of the blood, hating that the smell of it made my mouth water, but the sight made my stomach clench.
“Don’t look at him.” Aurox’s voice had me lifting my gaze from the horrible headless body. He smiled at me from the northernmost part of the circle. “Go to Damien and call air. By the time you have to move to the center you will be strengthened by the elements. You can do it, Zo.”
That last little part of what he said sounded so much like Heath it made my eyes fill with tears. I blinked hard, nodded, and went to Damien.
And Aurox was absolutely right. By the time I moved to the center, lit my purple candle, and called spirit I felt steady and grounded. It wasn’t difficult for me to lead Shaunee in forcing a blast of flame at Dallas’s body. After it was burned to ashes, it felt natural for me to ask Shaylin to have water wash the pyre site, and Damien to have wind blow away the burning stench. Finally, I used Aurox as the conduit for earth. Together we coaxed the ground to sprout fresh green grass where before there had been only ash and blood.
“That’s way better,” I said, standing in the middle of soft green grass and breathing deeply of springtime after I’d closed the circle.
Damien pulled his cell phone from his man purse and checked the time. “Oh, good! We’ve only missed half of third hour. I love lit and Professor Penthesilea.”
“Third hour! That’s fencing for me,” Shaunee said. “I’m outta here. See you guys at lunch.”
We waved bye to her and I sighed. “I wish it was sixth hour.”
“I thought you liked lit class,” Damien said.
“I do, but I don’t like Spanish class, which is fifth hour. So if it was sixth hour I would’ve missed Spanish.” I rubbed my forehead, feeling achy and dizzy again.
“Are you okay?” Shaylin asked.
I looked at her. She was staring at me. Again. Irritation bubbled, along with the rumble of my stomach. The Seer Stone started to heat the center of my chest, which only intensified my irritation. “Shaylin, stop creeping on me!” I hadn’t meant to sound as pissed as my words came out sounding, and I totally hadn’t meant to make Shaylin jump like I’d just smacked her, but that was exactly what happened.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean anything,” she said, almost cringing away from me.
I sighed and my hand found the stone, which had cooled to ordinary rock. “Look, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I have a headache and I’m hungry, that’s all.”
“Well, Z, you just circled. You should ground yourself. Go to the cafeteria and get something to eat,” Damien said, patting my arm. “I’ll tell Professor P where you are. It’ll be fine.”
“You’re right, Damien. Food would definitely help my head.”
“Food or brown pop?” Damien asked, smiling.
“Brown pop is food,” I said.
“Zoey, do you mind if I go to the cafeteria with you?” Aurox asked me.
“Don’t you have to get to class?” I said.
“No. I only go to first hour. Then I patrol the school grounds.”
“Oh, I, uh, didn’t know that,” I said inanely, not sure whether to be envious of him or feel sorry for him.
“Actually, it’s probably a good idea if Aurox ate something, too,” Damien said. “It was his first circle.” He paused and smiled at Aurox. “And you were excellent. Well done you.”
“Hey, thanks Damien.” A grin broke over Aurox’s face, making his eyes sparkle a little too familiarly.
How the hell could moonstone-colored eyes remind me of Heath’s?
“Zo, you don’t mind if I go with you, do you?”
I realized I’d been staring at Aurox—while Shaylin and Damien and Aurox had been staring at me—and I blinked. “No, that’s fine. You’ll have to hurry, though. I should try to make at least the last few minutes of lit class. Just because it’s not math doesn’t mean I’m great at it.” With Aurox following, I practically jogged away, saying a quick bye to Damien and Shaylin.
The cafeteria was deserted, but I could hear pots and pans clattering in the distance from the kitchen, and something smelled delicious. My mouth was watering like crazy when Aurox said, “If you get our drinks I’ll go back to the kitchen and see what’s ready to eat.”
I said okay without thinking about it, and went straight for the brown pop, sucking down a glass before I even left the drink dispenser. My head was a little clearer when I carried two big glasses to the table my group usually sat at. Sipping the cold brown goodness, I thought about how strange it was that some rooms totally changed when they were empty. Like, the cafeteria was usually loud and filled with kids and food, but right now, half an hour before lunch, it seemed unusually big and almost alien, as if it echoed with the ghosts of kids not here, but still, somehow, watching me.
It gave me a seriously creepy feeling.
“I got you grilled cheese sammiches and tomato poop.” Aurox smiled happily as he slid in beside me, plopping a tray filled with soup and sandwiches in front of us.
All I could do was stare at him.
His smile faded. He looked at the grilled cheese and soup, and then at me. “I thought you would like this. I can take it back. They have turkey and cheese, too, and the cook said they’re almost done making cobb salads.”
“It’s not that. I love grilled cheese. And the soup.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Grilled cheese sammiches and tomato poop. Why did you call them that?”
His brow scrunched. “It just came out of my mouth. That’s not what you call them?”
“Aurox, it’s what I’ve called them since grade school. It’s also what Heath called them. It was our favorite lunch because our school made seriously crappy spaghetti.”
“Psaghetti,” he said softly.
My mind told me to tell him to shut up and eat, but my mouth said, “We only call it that when it’s good. Psaghetti madness can’t happen with crappy spaghetti.” I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop myself. “There’s a song and a dance that go with psaghetti madness, too.”
“I know.”
“What else do you know?” I felt hot and cold at the same time.
“That I want to touch you so badly that sometimes I think I might die if you don’t let me,” he said.
My stomach butterflied. “I’m with Stark.”
“I know, and I think you should take a chill pill about that.”
Chill pill! When he said that he sounded so much like Heath I couldn’t breathe.
Neither of us said anything, and then he reached slowly up toward me. One of my hands was resting on the table between us. Gently, he turned it over. With one finger he softly traced the filigree pattern of the tattoo that covered my palm.
“These were gifts from Nyx,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You have more special tattoos.” He moved his finger from my palm to my face, where he stroked the repeated pattern there.
His finger was warm and it brought alive my nerves so that everywhere he touched I tingled. He followed the line of my neck down to the deep vee of my BDG T-shirt, and began to trace the tattoo that stretched over the puckered scar, which ran from one of my shoulders to the other.
“This almost killed you,” he whispered.
“Almost.” The word came out breathy, like I was trying to talk and jog at the same time.
His fingertips still on my body, his eyes met mine. “You Imprinted with Heath and he saved you. That is why this didn’t kill you.”
“Yes.”
“You drank his blood.”
It was too hard to speak, so I just nodded.
“Zo, I want you to drink my blood.”
“Heath, uh, Aurox,” I stuttered, “I can’t. It would hurt Stark and—”
My words broke off when he lifted the knife and pricked the tip of the finger that had been touching my chest. A single drop of scarlet welled. The scent of his blood washed over and through me. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t fledgling or vampyre. It was magick.
