Destined

Lenobia could feel her head shaking back and forth and her heart racing.

“No,” she said, trying to get her breathing under control. “This can’t be. I can’t do this.”

His beautiful, olive-flecked eyes looked dazed. “Lenobia, girl. Let’s talk this out. There’s somethin’ here that we can’t ignore. It’s like we—”

“No!” Lenobia called the steely control that she’d commanded for centuries to her, cloaking her desire and need and fear in anger and coldness. “Do not presume. Humans are attracted to our kind. What you felt was what any man would feel if I deigned to kiss him.” She forced herself to laugh, this time the sound was utterly devoid of joy. “Which is why I do not make a habit of kissing human men. It will not happen again.”

Without looking at Travis or Bonnie, Lenobia strode away. Her back was to them, so they couldn’t see that she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep the sob from escaping. She opened the side door to the stables so hard that it slammed against the stone building. She didn’t pause. She went straight to her room that rested over her horses, closed and locked the door behind her.

Then, and only then, Lenobia allowed herself to weep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Neferet

Things were going very well.

The red fledglings were causing problems.

Dallas hated Rephaim with an intensity that was simply lovely.

Gaea was all in a tizzy about the lawn humans. So much so that she’d forgotten to lock the side maintenance gate and one of the street people who usually frequented Cherry Street had somehow been compelled to stagger down Utica Street and through the unlocked gate and onto campus.

“And he’d promptly almost been carved in two by Dragon, who is seeing Raven Mockers in every shade and shadow,” Neferet practically purred.

She tapped her chin contemplatively. She hated that Thanatos had invaded her House of Night. But the positive side of the High Council’s interfering ways was that forcing all of those special students into one classroom was acting like dry twigs on coals.

“Chaos!” Neferet laughed. “It is going to cause something to ignite.”

The Darkness that was her constant companion slithered closer, wrapping itself caressingly around her legs.

During the passing period the hour before, she’d overheard two of Zoey’s ridiculous friends talking. It seemed the Twins, Shaunee and Erin, were having a falling-out that was affecting the entire herd.

Neferet snorted sarcastically. “Of course it would. None of them are truly strong enough to stand on their own. They huddle together like the sheep they are, trying to stay safe from the wolf.” She would enjoy seeing how that little drama played itself out. “Perhaps I should befriend Erin in her time of need…” she mused aloud.

Neferet smiled and opened the heavy velvet drapes that usually covered the large mullioned window of her private quarters from the prying eyes of the school. She opened the window, inhaling deeply of the brisk, warm breeze. Neferet closed her eyes and opened her senses. She scented the wind for more than the familiar smells of incense from the temple and the newly cut winter grass. Neferet opened her mind to taste the aromas of emotion that roiled and lifted from the House of Night and its inhabitants.

She was intuitive in a literal and not so literal sense. At times she could, indeed, read actual thoughts. At times she could only taste emotions. If those emotions were strong enough, or the person’s mind weak enough, she could even glimpse mental images—pictures of the thoughts that lived within the mind.

It was easier when she was close to the person, physically and emotionally. But it wasn’t impossible to sift through the night and glean things, especially a night as filled with emotion as was this one.

Neferet concentrated.

Yes, she tasted sorrow. She sifted through it and recognized the banal emotion from Shaunee and Damien and even Dragon, though vampyres were always harder to read than fledglings or humans.

Neferet’s thoughts turned to humans. She tried to inhale Aphrodite—to touch even a slight bit of emotion from the girl, and she failed. Aphrodite had always been as unreadable to her as Zoey.

“No matter.” She damped her irritation. “There are other humans at play in my House tonight.”

Neferet thought of Rephaim—thought of the strong lines of his face that so clearly mimicked those of his father’s—thought of the infatuation that had led him to his human form …

Again, nothing.

She could not find Rephaim, though she knew he must be filled with readable emotions. So strange. Humans were usually such easy prey. Humans …

Neferet smiled as she focused her attention on a more-interesting human. The cowboy—the one she’d chosen so carefully for poor, dear, repressed Lenobia.

What was it the Horse Mistress had said when they’d first met and Lenobia had thought them friends? Ah, Neferet remembered. They’d been talking of human mates and how neither had a desire for one. Neferet hadn’t admitted that they curdled her stomach—that she could never allow a human to touch her without doing him violence—never again. Instead she’d simply listened as Lenobia confessed: I loved a human boy once. When I lost him, I almost lost myself. I can never let that happen again, so I prefer to stay away from humans altogether.

Neferet closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and dug her long, pointed fingernails into the palm of her left hand. As the blood welled and then dripped, she offered it to the searching shadows, thinking of the cowboy she’d planted in the soil of Lenobia’s manure-ridden arena.

Lend Dark power to me

So that his emotions I can see!

The pain in her palm was nothing compared to the onrush of icy power she received. Neferet controlled it and focused it at the stables. She was justly rewarded. She could feel the human cowboy’s warmth and compassion— his joy and desire. And then she laughed aloud because she could also feel his hurt and confusion, along with the backwash of what could only be Lenobia’s heartbreak.

“It’s so delicious! Everything is going according to my plans.”

Absently, Neferet brushed away the more aggressive of the threads of Darkness and licked the wounds on her palm, closing them. “That is all for now. Wait until later for more.” She laughed at their reluctance to quit feeding from her. She commanded them easily. They know my true allegiance, my true sacrifice, is only for him—the white bull. Just the thought of him—of his magnificent power—made Neferet shiver with longing. He was all a god or goddess should be; there is much I can learn from him.

Neferet decided it then. She would make an excuse to the much-too-curious Thanatos and leave the school before dawn. She had to be with the white bull—she needed to absorb more of his power.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the night, letting the thought of her Consort, Darkness himself, woo her. And for a moment Neferet believed she was almost happy.

Then she intruded. She always intruded.

“Seriously, Shaunee, you can’t stay here.”

Neferet’s lip lifted in a sneer as she opened her eyes and looked down through her window to the sidewalk below. Zoey had caught the black girl by her arm and was obviously trying to stop her from going out to the parking lot.

“Look, I gave it a try, but today was hell. Really hell. So I’m gonna go get the bag I packed from the depot and left on the short bus, and I’m gonna move into my old dorm room.”

“Please don’t,” Zoey said.

“I have to. Erin keeps hurting my feelings over and over.” Neferet thought the girl was very near tears. Her weakness disgusted the Tsi Sgili. “And anyway, why does it matter?”

“It matters ’cause you’re one of us!” Neferet hated the honest warmth in Zoey’s voice. “You can be pissed at Erin. You can even stop being BFFs, but you can’t let your whole life explode because of it.”

“It’s not me who’s exploding. It’s her,” Shaunee said.