Revealed

breakfast with our friends, and then we have to be sure all of our fledglings have rooms—especially our red fledglings. Z, we gotta be careful about where those kids spend the daylight hours. I’m with you in thinking Dallas is up to some shit, and I don’t want any of us hurt because he’s a mean little asshole.”

“He seriously has anger control issues,” I said. I tried to pull away from Stark so that I could think better, but he tugged me back down beside him and kept working on my shoulders.

“No, you sit here. We need to talk about stressful stuff, but you gotta learn to relax. The best way I can keep you from stressing totally out is to keep rubbing your shoulders.”

“You may have to keep doing that for the next several days.”

“That’s cool with me,” he said, and kissed my neck, making me shiver—this time in pleasure.

“Well, good. That makes me almost look forward to the next several days,” I said.

“Glad to hear it. And since I’ve got you in a receptive mood, I want you to promise me something.”

“What?” I instantly began to tense up again.

“Stop it.” He kneaded my shoulders harder, causing me to melt under his strong hands. “You know I’d never ask you to promise me anything awful. All I want is for you to keep our circle out of Erin’s funeral.”

“Why? I figured it would be a nice thing to do—maybe even a way Shaunee can have closure. Shaylin’s already shown an affinity for water, so it’s not like there would be a big empty space where Erin used to be.”

“Yeah, well, that was my first thought, too. But that was canceled out by all the hateful crap Dallas said to us last night.”

“You think he’d cause a fight at Erin’s funeral? That’s low, even for him.”

“He wants to fight, that’s for sure, but causing one at the funeral would only get him and his friends in big trouble with Thanatos, and I don’t think he’s ready to be in that much trouble yet. But here’s what I was thinking about—you heard him talking about how Erin didn’t want anything to do with you or your circle, right?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Z, think about it, even when Erin joined the circle it didn’t look to me like she was doing it because she was feeling sorry she’d been such a bitch. What I heard her say was that she didn’t want Aphrodite standing in for her.”

“Yeah, that’s what she said,” I admitted.

“Did her attitude change after I got Dallas out of there? Did she apologize to you, or Shaunee, for the shitty way she’d been treating you guys?”

“No. When she saw the spiders she agreed with me that they’re disgusting and said disgusting things have to go.”

“Z, I don’t like talking bad about a dead kid, and that’s not what I’m meaning to do, but I think it is important to remember that Erin had changed sides before she died, even though she knew that Neferet and Dallas had chosen Darkness over Light.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But it feels wrong to hold that against her now. I mean, Thanatos saw Nyx welcome her to the Otherworld. If the Goddess can forgive her, can’t we?”

“I think there’s a big difference between forgiving her and making her into something she wasn’t just because she’s dead. I might be wrong, but it doesn’t seem healthy to have our group, especially Shaunee, idolizing her.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying, and my gut’s telling me you’re right.”

“See what I mean about not wanting your circle to make a big show at her funeral?”

“I do. Okay, I’m going to talk to Shaunee and be sure her closure comes from knowing Erin is in the Otherworld and at peace with Nyx. I don’t see why Thanatos wouldn’t be cool with leading her funeral.”

“We need to focus on moving forward—not on looking back,” he said.

“Good point. Which reminds me, I better check on Aphrodite and make sure she’s okay, too. The mayor was a crappy dad, but he was her dad. She’s gonna be messed up by this death.”

“Z, Aphrodite was messed up before his death.”

I smacked his leg. “She can be hateful, but she’s still my friend.”

“And why she is, is a mystery to me.”

“Hey, Aphrodite is one of us, and we’re going to need to stand together and be strong for whatever nastiness Neferet is cooking up.”

“I know. I was just mostly kidding. Aphrodite’s a bitch, but she’s our bitch,” he said.

I laughed. “Exactly.”

“Okay, I think you’re noodle-like enough.” Stark squeezed my shoulders one last time, and then kissed me on my neck. “I’m starving. Let’s go get some breakfast and then deal with whatever crazy the day brings.”

“This was the first thing that really made me heart the House of Night,” I said happily as I ladled a gihugic pile of spaghetti onto my plate. “Psaghetti! For breakfast! I love our cafeteria.”

“When you say psaghetti you sound like you’re six years old,” Stark said, bumping my shoulder before he asked the cook to give him the other breakfast choice, the traditional (and boring) scrambled eggs and bacon.

I went to the drink bar and filled up my glass with brown pop—fully leaded—with caffeine—calling back to him, “Not six—nine. That’s when I made up the psaghetti madness song.” I cleared my throat and launched into “Pa-sghe-ti, pa-sghe-ti!” and even did the psaghetti dance on my way to our booth. I was just thinking that maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad. After all, it had started with a shoulder rub and psaghetti! But just as Stark was sliding in next to me I heard a deep, masculine voice echoing my psaghetti madness song.

I didn’t need to look at the cafeteria line to know who was singing. All I needed to do was look at Stark’s face. He’d been grinning at my psaghetti celebration, but that happiness had disappeared from his face, leaving instead a tense, serious expression that made him look frustrated and pissed.

“How old were you when you met Heath?” Stark asked.

“Nine,” I said. It made me feel miserable and helpless, but my gaze wouldn’t stay on Stark’s face. It was drawn to the guy who was still singing my song while he heaped psaghetti on his plate.

I wondered if it would have helped if Aurox hadn’t been so cute. He did a dorky guy version of the dance I’d just done as he headed over to the drink bar.

Nope, I decided, feeling my stomach do the weird butterfly thing it used to do when Heath would walk into a room. Aurox could have looked like a troll and he’d still make my stomach do flip-flops because he shared Heath’s soul.

“Good morning!” Damien came in with Shaunee, Stevie Rae, and Rephaim, who waved and said hi to Stark and me as they hurried to get in line and fill their plates.

They didn’t seem to notice that Stark and I didn’t say anything in return.

“Hey there, Aurox. Wanna sit with us?” I heard Damien give him a cheery invite.

“Sure, that would be great,” Aurox said.

“Awesome—Z and Stark are already at the table. It’s that one over there.” Damien pointed at us, which is when his happy-schmappy expression slid away, and was replaced by an uh-oh look. “Um, that is if there’s enough room and it’s okay with Z and Stark, and, um…” Damien trailed off uncomfortably, his cheeks getting pink.

“Fuck!” Stark said under his breath so that I was the only one who heard him. Then he sat up a little straighter and called, “Yeah, no problem. We got room for Aurox.”

When Aurox sat down directly across from me I focused on shoveling psaghetti into my face.

“So, where’d you learn that song?” Stark shocked the bejezzus out of me by asking Aurox.

“What song?” Aurox answered around a mouthful of noodles.

“Never mind,” Stark muttered.

The long, uncomfortable silence wasn’t broken until Damien and the rest of our group smooshed into the booth.

“Have y’all seen Aphrodite today?” Stevie Rae asked.

I looked up then to see everyone shaking their heads.

“Or Darius?” she added.

More head shaking.

“Crap,” I said. “I need to go check on her. It’s not like her to hermit in her room.”