Revealed

“For what?”

His smooth brow furrowed. “I believe I said something impolite to you last night.”

“You believe?”

“My memory seems impaired. I can only remember pieces of what I said.”

“Aurox, getting wasted does a lot more than just impair your memory. It can make you sick and make you do and say stupid things. You don’t need to apologize to me, just don’t get drunk again.”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache, which I was pretty sure he did have. “But, Zo, beer’s really good.”

I felt like he’d smacked me in the gut. “How do you do that?”

His hand dropped from his forehead and he gave me a totally confused look. “Like the taste of beer?”

“No!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Sound just like Heath.”

“Do I?”

“Not most of the time, but you did just then, when you called me Zo.”

Aurox blinked a few times, then he said, “I am sorry I offend you.”

“You don’t offend me. You confuse me,” I said.

“You confuse me, too,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I feel things for you that I know are wrong.”

“Wrong feelings? Like what?” I held my breath while he answered.

“I am drawn to you. I care about you. I think about you. Often,” he said slowly. “And I know those feelings are wrong because you loathe me.”

I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t loathe him, hell, I didn’t even dislike him, but he held up his hand, stopping my words.

“No, I understand why you loathe me. It’s not because you are a bad person. You are a really good person —a special person. It’s not your fault you feel like you do.” Aurox started to back away from me. “I just wanted to apologize for anything impolite I said last night. I’ll leave you alone now.”

“Aurox, hang on. Don’t go anywhere. I need to say something to you.” I motioned for him to follow me over to one of the many stone benches that were positioned under the huge oaks on the school grounds. “Okay, sit with me a sec and let me figure out how to say this right.”

He sat beside me. Well, not really beside me. Mostly he perched on the very end of the bench, as far away from me as possible. I sighed.

“All right. Here goes.” I took a long breath and blurted, “I feel as drawn to you as you are to me. I think about you. Wait, no, that’s not right. I make myself not think about you because I’m thinking about you.” I sighed again. “Like that’s not confusing. Anyway, here’s the deal—I’m seventeen, and inside of you is the soul of the kid I’ve loved for almost half of my life. But you’re not that kid, which is what I tell myself all the time, and mostly I can believe it. Then you’ll do something like sing the psaghetti song, or call me Zo with that one tone of voice that only Heath had, or get stupid drunk and say something that’s totally Heath-like, and I’m scared I can’t make myself believe it anymore,” I finished in a rush.

“It?”

I frowned at him. “See, that’s exactly what Heath would have said. I used a complex sentence and lost you.”

“Sorry, Zo.”

“You just did it again! And the it I’m scared of is that I can’t make myself believe that you and Heath aren’t turning into the same kid.”

“Oh.” He paused and I could practically see the wheels turning inside his head. “You still love Heath?”

I met his gaze and told him the absolute truth. “I’ll always love Heath.”

He didn’t look away from me, so when his grin started I saw the beginnings of it and how it made his eyes sparkle with familiar Heath mischief. “That’s good,” he said.

“No, that’s confusing, especially because Stark is my Warrior as well as my boyfriend,” I said.

“But did you not love Heath and Stark together before?”

“Well, yeah, but it was pretty complex. And stressful. For all three of us.”

“Yet you still loved them.”

He hadn’t phrased it like a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah, and what I’m trying to get you to understand is that I think it’s just too hard to love more than one guy at the same time. I can tell you for sure what Stark would say about me trying that again.”

“Stark was kind to me last night.”

“Well, Stark and Heath ended up being friends. Sort of.”

“Then perhaps we can all be friends again,” he said.

Friends sounded safe. Who doesn’t need more friends? “We can try.”

“You could suck my blood if you wanted to.”

“Aurox! No. No, I do not want to suck your blood,” I lied, remembering how utterly, overwhelmingly awesome it had been to suck Heath’s blood and how much Heath liked it when I did. I narrowed my eyes at the kid. “Aurox, you don’t have Heath’s memories, do you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sometimes I say or do things that surprise me because I cannot remember how I know them. There is only one thing I am certain that I have from Heath.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I heard my mouth saying, “What’s the one thing?”

“His love for you, Zo.” 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Stark

“Are you sure we’re still on his trail?” Stark asked the winged immortal’s back between the panting breaths he was taking as he raced after Kalona.

“Can you not scent his blood?” Kalona glanced over his shoulder and then, obviously seeing that Stark was struggling to keep up with him, slowed to a jog and pointed to the grass of someone’s well-maintained lawn they were cutting through. “There, see where the vampyre’s blood has spattered the ground because it still seeps freely from him? My son did well in clawing his head—head wounds bleed easily and are difficult to staunch.”

“Yeah, especially if you’re moving as fast as he is.” Stark wiped the sweat from his forehead, jogging beside Kalona. “Who knew Dallas could run like this? I would’ve definitely thought we’d have caught up to him by now. He didn’t have that big of a lead on us. The kid can move. I always thought of him as one of those video-games-hands kids—soft and weak unless they’re pretending to be Zorg from the Planet Org, then they can destroy whole worlds with their fat fingers.”

Kalona furrowed his brow. “Your world still confuses me sometimes, but I can tell you I know why Dallas moves so quickly. He is fleeing for his life.”

“Hey, Thanatos specifically said you’re not supposed to kill him.”

“That is a shame. It would be just that I finish what my son began,” Kalona said.

“Can’t say I disagree with you.”

Kalona held out his hand, stopping Stark. They’d been following Dallas’s trail that led steadily west, and had run straight into busy Riverside Drive. “There.” Kalona pointed across the street to where the slick surface of the Arkansas River glistened in the moonlight. “He thinks to use the water to spread the scent of his blood downstream, and wash away his trail.”

“Thinks? You mean that won’t work?”

“Not for me it won’t. Blood still seeps from him—it is him I scent as surely as I scent his trail.”

“Huh. That’s good,” Stark said. Following the immortal across the four lanes of Riverside Drive, he was glad it was late and cold enough that joggers and bikers weren’t around. Sure, Kalona had put on a long coat, but those wings weren’t exactly inconspicuous.

Kalona paused after they’d crossed the asphalt bike path, bending to look more closely at the foliage. “Here