Betrayed

'I don't really mind,' I assured her. 'I mean, being leader of the Dark Daughters is an honor.'

'Often things that bring us the most honor can also bring us the most problems.' She paused again and maybe I was imagin­ing it, but she seemed to be trying to decide whether to say more or not. Then she drew her already straight spine up even straighter and continued. 'Neferet is your mentor, and it is only right that you go to her with your confidences, but sometimes High Priest­esses can be difficult to talk with. I want you to know that you can come to me—about anything.'

I blinked in surprise. 'Thank you, Lenobia.'

'I'll put these up for you. Run along. I'm sure your friends are wondering what has happened to you.' She smiled and reached out to take the curry combs from me. 'And feel free to come by the barn to visit Persephone anytime. I have often found that groom­ing a horse can somehow make the world seem less complex.'

'Thank you,' I said again.

As I left the barn I could swear that I heard her call softly after me something that sounded a lot like May Nyx bless and watch over you. But that was just too weird. Of course, it was also too weird that she had said I could talk to her. Fledglings formed spe­cial bonds with their mentors—and I had an extra-special men­tor in the High Priestess of the school. Sure, we liked the other vamps, but if a kid had a problem she couldn't solve on her own, the kid took that problem to his or her mentor. Always.

The walk from the stables to the dorm wasn't a long one, but I took my time, trying to stretch out the sense of peace working with Persephone had given me. I meandered off the sidewalk a little, heading toward the old trees that lined the eastern side of the thick wall surrounding the school grounds. It was almost four o'clock (A.M., of course), and the deepness of the night was beau­tiful lit by the fat setting moon.

I'd forgotten how much I loved walking out here by the school wall. Actually, I'd avoided coming out here for the past month. Ever since I'd seen—or thought I'd seen—the two ghosts.

'Mee-uf-ow!'

'Crap, Nala! Don't scare me like that.' My heart was beating like crazy as I lifted my cat into my arms and petted her while she complained at me. 'Hello—you could have been a ghost.' Nala peered at me and then sneezed right in my face, which I took as her comment on the possibility of her being a ghost.

Okay, the first 'sighting' might have been a ghost. I'd been out here the day after Elizabeth had died last month. She'd been the first of two fledgling deaths to shake the school. Well, more accu­rately, to shake me. As fledglings who could—any of us—drop dead at any time during the four years it took the physiological Change from human to vampyre to happen within our bodies, the school expected us to deal with death as just another fact of fledgling life. Say a prayer or two for the dead kid. Light a candle. Whatever. Just get over it and go on with your business.

It still seemed wrong to me, but maybe that was because I was only a month into the Change and still more used to being hu­man than vamp, or even fledgling.

I sighed and scratched Nala's ears. Anyway, the night after Eliz­abeth's death I'd caught a glimpse of something that I thought was Elizabeth. Or her ghost, 'cause she was definitely dead. So it was no more than a glimpse, and Stevie Rae and I had discussed it without really deciding what was up with it. The truth was that we knew all too well that ghosts existed—the ones Aphrodite had conjured a month ago had almost killed my human ex-boyfriend. So I might very well have seen Elizabeth's newly freed spirit. Of course I might also have caught a glimpse of a fledgling and, be­cause it had been night and I'd only been here for a few days and had, in those few days, gone through all sorts of unbelievable crap, I might have imagined the whole thing.

I came to the wall and turned to my right, meandering along it in the direction that would eventually lead me near the rec hall, and then, in turn, the girls' dorm.

'But the second sighting definitely wasn't my imagination. Right, Nala?' The cat's answer was to burrow her face into the corner of my neck and purr like a lawn mower. I snuggled her, glad she'd followed me. Just thinking about the second ghost still freaked me out. Like now, Nala had been with me. (The similarity made me glance nervously around and step up my meandering.)

It had not been long after the second kid had drowned in his own lung tissue and bled out right in front of my Lit class. I shud­dered, remembering how awful it had been—especially because of my gross attraction to his blood. Anyway, I'd watched Elliott die. Then later that day Nala and I had run into him (almost lit­erally) not far from where we were right now. I'd thought he was another ghost. At first. Then he'd tried to attack me, and Nala (precious kitten) had launched herself at him, which had made him leap over the twenty-foot wall and disappear into the night, leaving Nala and me totally freaked out. Especially after I noticed that my cat had blood all over her paws. The ghost's blood. Which made no damn sense.

But I hadn't mentioned this second sighting to anyone. Not my best friend and roommate Stevie Rae, not my mentor and High Priestess Neferet, not my totally delicious new boyfriend, Erik. No one. I'd meant to. But then all the stuff had happened with Aphrodite ... I'd taken over the Dark Daughters … started dating Erik ... been extremely busy with school … blah, blah, one thing led to another and here I was a month later and I hadn't said any­thing to anyone. Just thinking about telling someone now sounded lame in my own mind. Hey, Stevie Rae/Neferet/Damien/Twins/ Erik, I saw the specter of Elliott last month after he'd died and he'd been really scary and when he tried to attack me Nala made him bleed. Oh, and his blood smelled all wrong. Believe me. I'm way into good-smelling blood ( just another freakish thing about me, most fledglings have no bloodlust). Just thought I'd mention it.

Yeah, right. They'd probably want to send me to the vamp equivalent of a shrink, and oh, boy, wouldn't that help me to in­still confidence in the masses as the new leader of the Dark Daughters? Not hardly.

Plus, the more time passed, the easier it was for me to convince myself that maybe I'd imagined some of the Elliott encounter.

Maybe it hadn't been Elliott (or his ghost or whatever). I didn't know every single one of the fledglings here. There could be an­other kid here who had ugly, bushy red hair and pudgy, too white skin. Sure, I hadn't seen that kid again, but still. And about the weird-smelling blood. Well, maybe some fledglings had weird-smelling blood. Like I could possibly be an expert in one month? Also both 'ghosts' had glowing red eyes. What had that been about?

The whole thing was giving me a headache.

Ignoring the jumpy, spooky feeling this entire chain of thought was causing, I started to turn resolutely from the wall (and from the subject of ghosts and such) when a movement caught at the corner of my eye. I froze. It was a shape. A body. It was somebody. The person was standing under the enormous old oak I'd found Nala in last month. His or her back was to me, and he or she was leaning against the tree, head bowed.

Good. It hasn't seen me. I didn't want to know who or what it was. The truth was that I already had enough stress in my life. I didn't need the addition of ghosts of any type. (And, I promised myself, this time I was going to tell Neferet about the weirdly bleeding ghosts that hung out by the school's wall. She was older. She could deal with the stress.) Heart pounding so loud that I swear the sound of it was drowning out Nala's purr, I slowly and quietly started backing away, telling myself firmly that I was never going to walk out here in the middle of the night alone again. Ever. What was I, mentally impaired? Why couldn't I learn the first, or even the second time?

Then my foot came down squarely in the middle of a dry branch. Crack! I gasped. Nala grumbled a very loud complaint (I was inadvertently squashing her to my bosom). The head of the figure under the tree snapped up and it turned around. I tensed to get ready to either scream and run from a red-eyed malevolent ghost, or to scream and fight a red-eyed malevolent ghost. Either way a scream would definitely be involved, so I sucked in air and—'Zoey? Is that you?'

The voice was deep, sexy, and already familiar. 'Loren?'

'What are you doing out here?'

He made no move to come closer to me, so out of pure awk­ward fidgeting I grinned as if I hadn't been scared poo-less just seconds ago, shrugged nonchalantly, and joined him under the tree. 'Hi,' I said, trying to sound grown. Then I remembered that he'd asked me a question and I was glad that it was dark enough that my blush wasn't totally obvious. 'Oh, I was walking back from the stables and Nala and I decided to take a long-cut.' A long- cut? Had I really said that?

I thought he'd looked tense when I'd walked up to him, but this made him laugh and his completely gorgeous face relaxed. 'A long-cut, huh? Hello again, Nala.' He scratched the top of her head and she rudely, but typically, grumbled at him and then leaped neatly from my arms to the ground, shook herself, and still grumbling, padded