Hunted

at the Twins (and was getting ready to step in and tell everyone to shut up), so I saw the brief flash of what looked like a mixture of embarrassment and discomfort cross Aphrodite’s face before she got a handle on her expression and said coolly, “Nerd herd, this is Venus. Dorkamese Twins and Damien, you should remember my ex-roommate who died about six months or so ago.”

“Actually, it seems reports of my death were premature,” the pretty blonde said smoothly. Then something totally bizarre happened. Venus paused and sniffed the air. I mean she literally lifted her chin and took several short, sharp sniffs in Aphrodite’s general direction. The red fledglings that still clustered together behind her followed her lead, and I watched them sniff, too. Then Venus’s blue eyes widened and in a very amused voice she said, “Well…well…well…how interesting.”

“Venus, do not—” Stevie Rae began, but Aphrodite cut her off.

“No. It doesn’t matter. Everyone might as well know.”

With a mean smile the blonde continued. “I was just going to say how interesting it is that Stevie Rae and Aphrodite have Imprinted.”

CHAPTER 4

I had to clamp my jaws shut to keep from gasping along with the Twins.

“Ohmigod! Imprinted! Really?” Jack blurted.

Aphrodite shrugged. “Apparently.” I thought she looked way too nonchalant, and she was totally avoiding even glancing in Stevie Rae’s direction, but I think almost everyone else in the room was fooled by her “whatever” attitude.

“Well, spank me and call me your baby!” Shaunee said.

“Make that a double spanking, Twin,” Erin chimed in. And then the two of them burst into semi-hysterical giggles.

“I think it’s interesting.” Damien spoke up so he could be heard over the cackling Twins.

“Me, too,” Jack said. “In a freaky, ohmigod way.”

“Sounds like Karma has finally caught up with Aphrodite,” Venus said with a sneer that made her beauty turn reptilian.

“Venus, Aphrodite just saved my life. Again. And it’s really not right that you’re being ugly to her,” Stevie Rae said.

Aphrodite finally looked at Stevie Rae. “Do not start doing that.”

“Doin’ what?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Standing up for me! We may have somefuckinghow Imprinted, and that’s bad enough. But Do. Not. Go. All. BFF. On. Me!” she said slowly and distinctly.

“Your bein’ hateful will not change this,” Stevie Rae said.

“Look, I’m just going to play like this never happened.” A wave of giggles from the Twins had Aphrodite glaring their way. “Dorkamese Twins, I will figure out a way to smother both of you while you sleep if you do not stop laughing at me.”

Naturally, the Twins erupted into louder guffaws.

Turning her back on them, Aphrodite faced me. “So, like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted times ten: pain-in-the-ass Venus, this is Zoey, the super fledgling I’m sure you’ve heard so much about, and Darius, the Son of Erebus warrior who you will not be sneaking around with, and Jack. He won’t be sneaking around with you, either, but mostly because he’s gay as a French pastry. His other half is Damien, the guy who is staring at me like a fucking science project. You already know that the Twins are the laughing heads over there.”

I could feel Venus’s eyes on me, so I managed to tear my gaze from Aphrodite (Imprinted! To Stevie Rae!) to look at her. Sure enough, she was staring at me with an intense expression that made me instantly defensive. I was still trying to decide whether my negative reaction to Venus was because she was (obviously) a bitch, because she had been skulking around the tunnels with Erik, or because I had a bad feeling about the red fledglings in general when she spoke up.

“Zoey and I have already met, but it was unofficial. Seems last time I saw her she was trying to kill us.”

I put a hand on my hip and met her cold, blue-eyed stare. “While we’re taking this trip down Memory Lane, you might want to get a clue. I wasn’t trying to kill anyone. I was trying to save a human kid you guys were trying to eat. Unlike you, I would have much rather been at IHOP munching on chocolate chip pancakes than football players.”

“That doesn’t make the girl you killed any less dead,” Venus said as the red fledglings behind her stirred restlessly.

“Z? You killed someone?” Jack asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Venus beat me to it. “She did. Elizabeth No Last Name.”

“I had to,” I said simply, speaking to Jack and ignoring Venus and the red fledglings, even though something about them had the little hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. “They weren’t letting Heath and me out of here alive.” Then I turned my attention back to Venus. She had an icy beauty. Venus was sleek and sexy in a pair of tight designer jeans and a simple cropped black tank that had a rhinestone skull’s head on it. Her hair was long and thick and the kind of blond that looked golden. In other words, she was definitely attractive enough to hang with Aphrodite, which was saying something, because Aphrodite is totally gorgeous. And, like Aphrodite used to be, Venus was obviously a hateful bitch, and probably had been one before she died and un-died. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Look, I told you guys to back off and let us out of here. You didn’t. I did what I had to then to protect someone I cared about—and you all should know I’d do it again.” My eyes shifted from Venus to the fledglings behind her while I stifled the urge to reach for a couple of the elements and have wind and fire put a little added punch to my threat.

Venus glared back at me.

“Okay, y’all have got to learn to get along. Are you remembering that the entire outside world might be against us, or at least filled with scary booger monsters?” Stevie Rae sounded tired but herself. She sat up, gingerly straightening her Dixie Chicks T-shirt and slowly leaning back against the pillows Darius had propped behind her. “So, like Tim Gunn on Project Runway would say, let’s make it work.”

“Ooooh, I love that show,” Jack gushed.

I heard a couple of the red fledglings mumble agreement and decided Stevie Rae might have had a point during one of our many trash TV arguments: Reality shows could make the world a better place and bring peace to all mankind.

“Making it work sounds good to me.” Even though my internal alarm was still warning me that all was not sweetness and light with the red fledglings, I smiled at Stevie Rae, who dimpled back at me. Okay, she obviously believed we could figure out a way to get along. So maybe my alarm system was misfiring simply because Venus was a hateful bitch, and not because she and the rest of them were evil incarnate.

“Good. So, first, could I please have a refill of that blood and wine? Heavy on the blood part.” She held her empty glass out toward the Twins, who gratefully moved closer to Stevie Rae’s bed and farther away from the group of red fledglings. I noticed Damien and Jack, with Duchess by his side, had also managed to make their way over to where I was standing. “Thanks,” she said when Erin took her glass. “And there’re some scissors in the drawer over there so you don’t have to rip it open with your teeth.” She gave me a little eye roll. While Erin and Shaunee were busy getting Stevie Rae more bloody wine, she studied the little group of red fledglings. “Look, we already talked about this. You know y’all are gonna have to make nice with Zoey and the rest of the kids.” She glanced up at Darius and smiled, “Well, kids and vamps, that is.”

“Hey, excuse me, guys. I need to get through.”

I’d bristled automatically as Erik pushed through the crowd at the door. If someone (Venus) tried to bite him, someone (me) was gonna kick her ass. Period.

Ignoring the tension in the room, Darius said, “What does the radio report is happening in the world above?”

Erik shook his head. “I can’t get anything in. I even went up into the basement. Nothing but static. Couldn’t