Destined

white. It floated on the wind, fluttering before him almost like a bird. He stopped and reached out, plucking it from the night.

So strange, he thought, a floating paper tissue. Without conscious thought, he tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. Shrugging off the odd, foreboding feeling, he kept walking.

Her emotions hit him after he’d taken two more steps.

Sadness—deep, pressing grief. And guilt. There was guilt there in her feelings, too.

Aurox knew it was the young fledgling High Priestess—the Zoey Redbird. He told himself he approached her only because it was wise to observe one’s enemy. But as he got closer—as her feelings flooded him—something unexpected happened within him. Instead of absorbing her emotions and feeding off them, Aurox absorbed them and felt.

He didn’t change. He didn’t begin to morph into the creature of great power.

Instead, Aurox felt.

Zoey’s grief drew him forward, and as he stood in the shadows that surrounded her and watched her sob, her emotion flowed into him, gathered and pooled in a small, quiet, hidden place deep inside his spirit. As Aurox absorbed Zoey’s sadness and guilt, loneliness and despair, something stirred within him in response.

It was utterly unexpected and completely unacceptable, but Aurox wanted to comfort Zoey Redbird. The impulse was so foreign to him that it shocked him into moving instinctively, as if his subconscious directed his body.

He stepped out of the darkness at the same moment she moved, pressing the palm of her hand to a place in the middle of her breast. She blinked, obviously trying to see through her tears, and her eyes found him. Her body straightened and she looked on the verge of bolting.

“No, you need not leave,” he heard himself saying.

“What do you want?” she said, and then she hiccuped another small sob.

“Nothing. I was passing. You were weeping. I heard.”

“I want to be alone,” she said, wiping at her face with the back of her hand and sniffling.

Aurox did not realize what he did next until he, along with the girl, were both looking at his hand and the tissue he’d pulled from his pocket to offer to her.

“Then I will leave you, but you need this,” he said, sounding stiff and foreign to his own ears. “Your face is very wet.”

She stared at the tissue for a moment more before taking it, then she looked up at him. “I snot when I cry.”

He felt his head nod. “Yes, you do.”

She blew her nose and wiped her face. “Thanks. I never have a Kleenex when I need one.”

“I know,” he said. Then he felt his face flush hot and his body go cold because there was absolutely no reason why he should say such a thing. He had no reason to talk to this fledgling enemy at all.

She was staring at him again, with an odd expression on her face. “What did you say?”

“That I must go.” Aurox turned and moved quickly away into the night. He expected the emotions she had made him feel to fade, to flow from him, just as the emotions of others had after he’d absorbed them, used them, cast them aside. But some of Zoey’s sadness stayed with him, as did her guilt and, most peculiarly of all, her loneliness stayed with him pooled in a deep, hidden abyss in his soul.

CHAPTER NINE

Zoey

I stared after Aurox for a long time.

What the hell?

I blew my nose again, shook my head, and looked at the wet, wadded mess of Kleenex in my hand. What game had Neferet’s creature been playing? Had she purposefully sent him out here after me to offer me a Kleenex and mess with my already totally messed-up head?

No, that couldn’t be right. Neferet didn’t know that Aurox giving me a Kleenex would remind me of Heath. No one would know that except Heath. Well, and Stark.

So it had to just be a weird coincidence. Sure, Aurox was some kind of creature of Neferet’s, but that didn’t mean he was immune to the effects of girl tears. He was a guy—at least I was pretty sure he was a guy. And anyway, he might not be one hundred percent one of Neferet’s mindless minions. He might be an okay guy—or at least he might be kinda okay when he wasn’t changing into a killing machine that looked like a bull. Hell, Stevie Rae had found a good Raven Mocker. Who knows what—

And then I realized what I was doing. I was Kalona-ing him. I was seeing goodness where there was none.

“Oh, hell no! I am soooo not going there,” I chastised myself aloud.

“Not going where, Z?” Stark walked into the courtyard, a box of Kleenex in his hand. “Hey, looks like you were snot prepared for a change,” he said, gesturing to my wadded mess of a tissue.

“Uh, I’ll take another one. Thanks,” I said, plucking a couple of tissues from the box and wiping my face again.

“So, where are you not going?” He sat down beside me on the bench. His shoulder brushed mine and I leaned into him.

“I’m just reminding myself not to let the crazy stuff that goes on around here make me crazy—or at least crazier.”

“You’re not crazy, Z. You’re going through some hard things, but you’re gonna be fine,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” I muttered and then another, even more depressing thought struck me. “Um, did you tell the rest of the guys not to treat me all weird because of my mom?”

“I didn’t have to tell them. They’re your friends, Z. They’re gonna treat you like they care about you, not weirdly,” Stark said.

“I know, I know I just…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know how to sift through and put into words the pain and guilt and terrible alone feeling not having a mom had left with me.

“Hey.” Stark stopped and looked down at me. “You’re not alone.”

“Are you listening to my thoughts? You know I don’t like it when—”

He took my shoulders in his hands and gave me a little shake. “It doesn’t take an Oath Bound Warrior’s link to know you’re feeling all by yourself. I don’t know any other kid whose mom is dead, do you?”

“No. Just me.” I bit my lip to keep from bawling. Again.

“See, it’s not tough to figure you out.” He kissed me then. Not with a hot, open mouth, I-want-in-your-panties kiss. Stark’s kiss was soft and sweet and reassuring. When his lips left mine he smiled into my eyes. “But, like I said before, you’re gonna come through all of this just fine and not crazy because you’re smart and strong and beautiful and basically covered with awesomesauce.”

I giggled unexpectedly. “Awesomesauce? Did you seriously just say that?”

“Hell yes I just said it! You are awesome, Z.”

“But awesomesauce?” I giggled again, and felt my stomach begin to unclench. “That’s the dorkiest thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”

He clutched his chest like I’d just stabbed him. “Z, that hurts. I was trying to be romantic.”

“Well, at least you tried,” I said. “Please tell me you didn’t make that word up all by yourself.”

“Nah.” He gave me his cute, cocky grin. “I heard a bunch of third former girls say I was covered with it when they were watching me shoot my arrows in the arena last hour.”

“Reallly?” I raised a brow and gave him the stank eye. “Third former girls?”

The cocky part of his grin faded. “I meant to say unattractive third former girls.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what you meant to say.”

His eyes sparkled. “Jealous?”