Awakened

Stevie Rae stood there, silent and struggling with her own insecurities. Neferet ignored her and crouched beside Damien, taking his hand and forcing him to look at her. “Damien, I know you are in shock, but you must get control of yourself and tell us how this happened to Jack.”

Damien blinked blindly at Neferet, and then Stevie Rae saw his vision clear and he focused on her. He snatched his hand from hers. Shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, he started sobbing, “No! No! No!”

That was it. Stevie Rae had had enough. She didn’t care if the whole damn universe couldn’t see through Neferet’s bullshit. She wasn’t gonna let her terrorize poor Damien.

“What happened? You’re asking what happened? Like it’s just a coincidence that Jack is murdered at the same time you show up back here at school?” Stevie moved back to Damien’s side, taking his hand. “You can trick-or-treat the blind-as-bats High Council. You can even talk some of these good folks into believin’ you’re still on our side, but Damien and Zoey and”—she paused when she heard two very similar gasps of horror as the Twins ran up. “—and Shaunee and Erin and Stark and I. We do not effing believe you’re a good guy. So why don’t you explain what happened here?”

Neferet shook her head, looking sad and tragically beautiful. “I feel sorry for you, Stevie Rae. You used to be such a sweet, loving fledgling. I do not know what happened to you.”

Stevie Rae felt rage rush through her. Her body trembled with the force of it. “You know better than anyone on this earth what happened to me.” She couldn’t help herself. The anger was too much. Stevie Rae started to move toward Neferet. At that moment she wanted nothing so much as to wrap her hands around the vampyre’s throat and press and press and press until she no longer breathed—was no longer a threat.

But Damien didn’t loosen his hold on her hand. That link of touch and trust between them, as well as Damien’s broken whisper, held her back. “She didn’t do it. I saw it happen and she didn’t do it.”

Stevie Rae hesitated, glancing down at Damien. “What do you mean, honey?”

“I was way over there. Just outside the field house door. Duchess wouldn’t let me jog. She kept pulling me back toward here. I finally gave in to her.” Damien’s voice was rough and he spoke in sharp bursts of words. “She made me worried. So I was looking. I saw it.” He started to sob again. “I saw Jack fall from the top of the ladder and land on the sword. There was no one around him. No one at all.”

Stevie Rae turned to Damien and pulled him into her arms. As she did so she felt two more pairs of arms enfolding them as the Twins joined their circle, holding them tightly.

“Neferet was with us in the Council Chamber when this horrible accident happened,” Dragon said solemnly, touching Jack’s hair gently. “She was not responsible for this death.”

Stevie Rae couldn’t look at Jack’s poor broken body, so she was watching Neferet when Dragon spoke. Only she saw the flash of smug victory that passed over her face, quickly replaced by a practiced look of sadness and concern.

She killed him. I don’t know how, and I can’t prove it right now, but she did. Then, as quickly as that thought formed, another came on its heels: Zoey would believe me. She’d help me figure out how to expose Neferet.

Zoey has to come back.

CHAPTER NINE

Zoey

So, Stark and I had done it.

“I don’t feel any different,” I told the nearest tree. “I mean, except for feeling closer to Stark and kinda sore in unmentionable places, that is.” I walked over to a little stream that bubbled cheerily through the grove and peered down. The sun was in the process of setting, but it had been an unusually clear, cold day on the island and the sky still held enough of its dramatic coral and gold light that I could see my reflection. I studied myself. I looked like, well, me. “Okay, so technically I’d done it once before, but that had been a whole different thing.” I sighed. Loren Blake had been a giant mistake. James Stark was totally different, as was the commitment we’d made to each other. “So, shouldn’t I look different now that I am in a Real Relationship?” I squinted at my reflection. Didn’t I look older? More experienced? Wiser?

Actually, no. The squint just made me look nearsighted. “And Aphrodite would probably say it’ll give me wrinkles, too.”

A little pang went through me as I remembered saying bye to Aphrodite and Darius the night before. She’d been predictably sarcastic, and more than a little bitchy about me not going back to Tulsa with her, but our hug had been tight and genuine, and I knew I’d miss her. I already missed her. I missed Stevie Rae and Damien, Jack and the Twins, too.

“And Nala,” I told my reflection.

But did I miss them enough to go back to the real world? Enough to face everything from resuming school to possibly fighting Darkness and Neferet?

“No. No, you don’t.” Saying it made it even truer. I could feel some of the I miss them being diluted by the serenity of Sgiach’s island. “It’s magick here. If I could send for my cat, I swear I’d stay forever.”

Sgiach’s laughter was soft and musical. “Why is it we tend to miss our pets more than we miss people?” She was smiling as she joined me at the stream.

“I think it’s ’cause we can’t Skype them. I mean, I know I can go back to the castle and talk to Stevie Rae, but I’ve tried doing the computer video thing with Nala. She just looks confused and even more disgruntled than she usually does, which is pretty darn disgruntled.”

“If cats understood technology and had opposable thumbs, they’d rule the world,” said the queen.

I laughed. “Don’t let Nala hear you say that. She does rule her world.”

“You’re right. Mab believes she rules her world, as well.”

Mab was Sgiach’s giant, long-haired black and white tuxedo cat who I was just getting to know. I think she was possibly, like, a thousand years old and mostly stayed only semi-conscious and barely moving on the end of the queen’s bed. Stark and I had started calling her Dead Cat, but not within Sgiach’s hearing.

“By world you mean your bedroom?”

“Exactly,” Sgiach said.

Both of us laughed, and then the queen walked over to a large moss-covered boulder not far from the stream. She sat gracefully and patted the chair-sized area next to her. I joined her, wondering vaguely if my movements would ever be graceful and regal like hers—and doubting it.

“You could send for your Nala. Vampyre familiars fly as companion animals. It would only be a matter of showing her vaccination record to get her into Skye.”

“Wow, seriously?”

“Seriously. Of course that means you would need to commit yourself to staying here for at least several months. Cats don’t travel particularly well—and moving them from one time zone to another, and then back again, really isn’t good for them.”

I looked into Sgiach’s eyes and said exactly what I was thinking, “The longer I stay here the more I’m sure that I don’t want to leave, but I know it’s probably irresponsible of me to hide from the real world like that. I mean”—I hurried on when I saw the concern grow in her gaze—“it’s not like Skye isn’t real and all. And I know I’ve been through a bunch of bad stuff lately, so it’s okay for me to take a break. But I am still in school. I suppose I do have to go back. Eventually.”

“Would you feel that way if school came to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Since you’ve come into my life I’ve begun to reflect on the world—or rather on how disassociated I’ve become from it. Yes, I have the internet. Yes, I have satellite TV. But I don’t have new followers. I don’t have student Warriors and young Guardians. Or at least I didn’t until you and Stark arrived. I find that I’ve missed the energy and input from young minds.” Sgiach looked away from me and deeper into the grove. “Your arrival here has awakened something that was sleeping on my island. I feel a change coming in the world, greater than the