Untamed

some reason, she was important to our Goddess.

Aphrodite's eyes met mine. 'Are you guessing about that, or do you know?'

'I know.' I continued to meet her eyes steadily.

'Promise?' she said.

'Promise.'

'Well, that's nice and all, Aphrodite,' Stevie Rae said, 'but you should keep in mind that you're not exactly normal, either.'

'But I am attractive, properly bathed, and I do not scuttle around in really yucky old tunnels snarling and snapping my teeth at visitors.'

'Which brings up another point. Why were you down in the tunnels?' I asked Aphrodite.

She rolled her eyes. 'Because Miss K 95.5 FM over there just had to cowboy up and follow me.'

'Well, you freaked when your Mark disappeared, and unlike some people, I'm not a witch with a capital B. Plus, it might have kinda been my fault you lost your Mark and it was the right thing to do to make sure you were okay,' said Stevie Rae.

'You bit me, dork,' Aphrodite said. 'Of course it was your fault.'

'I already said sorry 'bout that.'

'Uh, guys, could we please stay on the subject?'

'Fine. I went down to the stupid tunnels because your stupid BFF was going to burn the hell up if we got caught out in the daylight.'

'But how come you stayed away for two days?'

Aphrodite looked uncomfortable. 'It took me a couple days to decide if I should come back at all. Besides that, I had to help Stevie Rae buy some stuff for the tunnels and the freaks down there. Even I couldn't just leave and let them be all'—she paused and shuddered delicately for effect—'all eeeew.'

'We're really not used to having visitors yet,' Stevie Rae said.

'You mean except for the people your friends like to eat?' Aphrodite said.

'Stevie Rae, you really can't let those kids eat people. Not even street people,' I added.

'I know. That's another reason I need to get back to them.'

'You need to bring Merry Maids and a good interior decorating team with you,' Aphrodite muttered. 'I'd offer you the services of my parents' help, but your buds might eat them, and as my mom would say, good illegals are really hard to find.'

'I'm not gonna let the kids eat people anymore, and I'm working on getting the tunnels in order,' Stevie Rae said defensively.

I remembered way too well how creepy those dark, dirty tunnels were. 'Stevie Rae, isn't there someplace else we could figure out for you and your, uh, red fledglings to stay?'

'No!' she said quickly, and then smiled an apology at me. 'See, the thing is that being underground feels right to me, and to them. We need to be inside the earth.' She cut her eyes over at Aphrodite, who was wrinkling her nose at Stevie Rae and making an eew face. 'Yes, I know that's not normal, but I told you I'm not normal!'

'Uh, Stevie Rae,' I said. 'I'm in total agreement with you about the whole nothing wrong with being not normal thing. I mean, look at me.' I flailed my hand about at my many tattoos, which were decidedly not normal. 'I'm Queen of Notnormal Land, but maybe you should explain what you mean by not normal.'

'This should be good,' Aphrodite said.

'Okay, well, I don't really know everything about myself yet. I've only been un-undead and Changed for a few days, but I do have some abilities I don't think normal adult vamps have.'

'Like . . . ,' I prompted when she just sat there chewing her lip.

'Like the kinda 'becomin' part of the stones' thing I did to crawl up the side of the dorm. But I might be able to do that because of my earth affinity.'

I nodded my head, considering. 'It does make sense. I've found out that I can call the elements to me and I can more or less disappear as I become mist and wind and whatnot.'

Stevie Rae brightened. 'Oh, yeah! I remember you were all practically invisible that one time.'

'Yep. So maybe having that ability really isn't that abnormal. Maybe all vamps with affinities for an element can do something like that.'

'Shit, it just figures! You two get all the cool abilities. I get the pain-in-the-ass visions,' Aphrodite said.

'That could be 'cause you're a pain in the ass,' Stevie Rae said.

'What else?' I said before they could start bickering again.

'I'll burn up if I get out in the sun.'

'Still? Are you completely sure?' I already knew the sun was a problem with her from when she had been an undead dead kid.

'She's sure,' Aphrodite said. 'Remember, that's why we had to go down in those nasty tunnels in the first place. The sun was coming up. We were downtown. Stevie Rae freaked out.'

'I knew somethin' bad would happen if I stayed aboveground,' Stevie Rae said. 'So I didn't actually freak—I just was real worried.'

'Yeah, well, you and I will just have to agree to disagree about your mood swings. I say you totally freaked after your arm got some sunshine on it. Check it out, Z.' Aphrodite pointed at Stevie Rae's right arm.

Stevie Rae reluctantly held out her arm and pushed up the sleeve of her blouse. I could see a splotch of red skin across the top of her forearm and elbow, like she'd gotten a bad sunburn.

'That doesn't look so awful. A little sunscreen, dark shades, and a trucker cap and you'll be fine,' I said.

'Uh, no,' Aphrodite spoke up again. 'You should have seen it before she drank the blood. Her arm was seriously unattractive and crispy critter. Drinking the blood made it go from third-degree nastiness to mildly annoying sunburn, but who knows how well that would work if her whole body had been fried.'

'Stevie Rae, honey, let me be clear that I'm not judging, but you didn't eat a street person or anything like that after you caught on fire, did you?'

Stevie Rae shook her head back and forth so hard, her curls whipped around crazily. 'Nuh-uh. On the way to the tunnels, I took the tiniest little detour and borrowed some blood from the downtown Red Cross blood bank.'

'Borrow means 'give back when you're done,'' Aphrodite said. 'And unless you're going to be the first bulimic vampyre, I don't think you'll be giving back the blood.' She gave Stevie Rae a smug look. 'So, actually, you stole it. Which brings us to your BFF's other new ability. This one I witnessed. More than once, actually. And, yes, it was disturbing. She is freakishly good at controlling the minds of humans. Please note that the key part of what I just said is found in the root word, freak.'

'Are you done?' Stevie Rae asked her.

'Probably not, but you may proceed,' Aphrodite said.

Stevie Rae frowned at her, then continued to explain to me. 'Aphrodite's right. It's like I can reach into a human's mind and do things.'

'Things?' I asked.

Stevie Rae shrugged. 'Things like make them come to me, or forget they saw me. I'm not sure what else. I could sorta do it before I'd Changed, but nothing like what I can do now, and I'm really not comfortable with mind control. It just seems so, I dunno, mean.'

Aphrodite snorted.

'Okay, what else? Do you still have to be invited into someone's house to enter?' And then I answered my own question. 'Wait, that must have changed, because I didn't actually invite you in here, and here you are. Not that I wouldn't have invited you in. I definitely would have,' I added quickly.

'I dunno about that one. I walked right into the Red Cross place.'

'You mean you walked right in after you mind-controlled that little lab tech to unlock the door for you,' Aphrodite said.

Stevie Rae blushed. 'I didn't hurt her or anything, and she won't remember any of it.'

'But she didn't invite you in?' I asked.