Revealed

“I do have faith, young fledgling. I have faith that Nyx forgives those who deserve her forgiveness,” he said.

“You don’t think you deserve her forgiveness, do you?”

“I know I do not.” He bowed his head slightly to her. “Stand watch over your friend. I will disturb you no longer.” Then he faded into the darkness.

Shaunee turned back to the pyre and raised her other hand. She took a step even closer, closed her eyes, and let her element flood through her, and as she did so she spoke a prayer that lifted with the smoke to Nyx.

“Goddess, this is my good-bye to Erin. I know she’s with you, and finally at peace. Thank you for loving her and taking care of her. Also, thank you for loving Kalona and taking care of him, too, because no matter what, I know you don’t just turn your back on the people you love.”

“You think you’re so fucking much better than me, don’t you?”

Dallas’s voice jolted her, and Shaunee couldn’t say anything for several moments while she controlled her element. The flaming pyre reflected her shock, and had Shaunee not focused and brought it under control, its natural course would have been to consume Dallas.

When she had her element under control again and was able to turn her attention to Dallas, the stupid kid was just standing there, smirking at her and looking like the dickwad he was, totally oblivious to the fact that she had just saved his idiot life.

“No, Dallas, I don’t think I’m better than you. The truth is, I don’t think much about you at all,” she said.

“Erin thought you were an uptight bitch,” he said.

Shaunee bit her lip instead of lashing out at him. She could have fried him with her fire, or with her words. But she didn’t want to do either, especially over Erin’s pyre. So, she thought about it for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then said the nicest thing she could think of. “Are you sure you knew what Erin really thought about anything?”

“I fucked her! Of course I knew what she thought.” He took a couple of steps out of the shadows toward Shaunee, and his smirk became a sneer. “Unless you’re tellin’ me you used to fuck her, too.”

Shaunee stared at him, too shocked by the mean ignorance in his words to know what to say.

“Shiiiiit! I knew you two were abnormally close. You did fuck her! And she didn’t even tell me. That’s a damn shame. The three of us, we could’ve had a good time.”

The flame that had been building inside Shaunee turned white hot. Her mind cleared. She trapped Dallas with one look.

“I didn’t like you when you were with Stevie Rae. You always felt wrong to me. Plus, you’re too short,” she couldn’t help adding. Then she refocused and made herself tell the truth, without name-calling or spiteful comments. She channeled fire, but instead of burning him, Shaunee scorched him with the truth. “For her entire life, Erin’s biggest desire was to find anybody, anything, who could make her feel something. You were just the last in a long list of anybodies. I understood how vulnerable and messed up she was, and I really cared about her, even after she wasn’t my best friend anymore. If you really cared about her, you’ll show it by staying here with me until sunrise and respecting her memory, even though she’s gone.”

Dallas couldn’t seem to look away from her. His eyes filled with tears and then overflowed. Shaunee thought she might have glimpsed the real boy for a second—the boy who might have actually been able to love Erin. Then he blinked and wiped his cheeks with the back of his sleeve. His lip curled. “You’re as stupid as Erin used to say you were. I can’t stay here until sunrise. I’m a red vampyre. The sun will burn me up.”

Shaunee’s element filled and calmed her. She would not return his hateful words with more poison. “You always know when it is dawn. You could stay until just before the sun rises, and then leave. I’ll wait the rest of the time with her. Erin would appreciate it.”

“I thought you said I was just the last in a long list of anybodies,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have said that—it was mean of me, and it’s not right to fight over Erin’s pyre. Dallas, I’m sorry.”

His laugh was sarcastic. “You’re not sorry, you’re weak. Erin knew that when she left you. Just like I knew it when I left Stevie Rae.”

“You didn’t leave Stevie Rae. Stevie Rae fell in love with Rephaim. She left you, and you couldn’t handle it. That’s when you turned to Darkness, and you’re still turned there.”

“Fuck Stevie Rae! Fuck all of you! Your friends are the reason Erin’s dead!” Dallas yelled, taking a threatening step toward her.

Shaunee lifted one hand. A wall of heat channeled through her, crackling between them. Shielding his face with his arm, Dallas staggered away. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done! You’ll all pay for what you’ve done!”

Stark

“That kid is gonna be hurtin’ for certain tomorrow,” Stark said as he came into Zoey’s old dorm room. There were only ten minutes or so until dawn, and he felt dragged to the ground by weariness deep within him.

“That took you forever. I was really getting worried you wouldn’t be back before sunrise,” Zoey said, sitting up in bed and putting down the book she’d been reading.

“Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t just leave him all messed up like that.” He smiled at Z and went over to the sink. “Is Shaunee okay?”

Zoey looked annoyed at the question. “Yeah, she seems fine. Well, she’s sad and all, but that’s normal. She’s staying with the pyre until after the sun rises. I guess Dallas came by and made some kind of stupid scene, which is totally like him, but Shaunee handled it.”

“You didn’t think you needed to stay with her?”

“Shaunee? At the pyre?” Zoey frowned at him.

“Yeah. You are her High Priestess.”

“Well, technically, as long as we’re stuck here at the House of Night, Thanatos is her High Priestess, not me. And Shaunee said she told Thanatos she wanted to stay by the pyre by herself. Thanatos respected her wishes—I figured I should, too. Do you have a problem with that?”

Stark cupped water in his hands, rinsing soap out of his face while he tried to figure out how to talk to Z. She’d been so damn touchy since the whole thing on the balcony had happened showing that Aurox was Heath and Heath was Aurox. It made him feel like he was living with a porcupine!

“No,” he finally said. “No problem with it at all. Z, I wasn’t trying to fight with you. I just wanted to know about Shaunee.”

“Erin’s funeral’s over. Shaunee’s fine. That’s about it. I want to know what really happened with Aurox and those human boys. I couldn’t tell what the hell Heath was talking about.”

Stark’s stomach tightened. “You mean Aurox.”

“Yeah, Aurox.” Zoey frowned. “That’s what I said. So, what’s going on?”

Stark was too tired to argue with her, so he ignored her Freudian slip, even though it made his heart hurt. “Two guys somehow found a hole in the school’s wall—not very far from here, actually. They were drinking and looking for hot vampyres.” That’s about it.” He repeated her words, pulled his shirt off, and started to brush his teeth.

“Stark, seriously? You’re leaving out massive details.”

He shrugged, and spoke through the toothbrush, hoping she’d get the clue and stop with the interrogation. “No big deal. I used my red vamp superpowers to make them believe I was a cop and that they got lucky. I didn’t haul them to jail, charge them with public intoxication, and call their parents. And they think the House of Night is on my patrol, so I’ll be looking for them every night from here on out, which means they won’t be back.”

“Well, that’s good.”

She didn’t say anything else for as long as it took him to finish brushing his teeth and get in bed, but he knew from the way she was chewing her lip and scrunching her forehead that she had lots more to say. Plus, he could feel her tension. He could always feel her tension. He realized he should rub her shoulders and try to get her to relax, but he couldn’t quite get past the reason for her tension.

Aurox was Heath. Zoey loved Heath.

And that hurt Stark’s feelings and made him feel like shit.

So, he lay down next to her and blew out the little flicking gas lamp, wishing with everything inside him that