away.
“Well, I’m glad you did make it in time.” I kept my own voice calm—my emotions under control. The last thing I needed was Stark to come charging up. “And you can put your hands down. I’m not gonna bite you or anything like that.”
He lowered his hands and shoved them into his jeans pockets. “I did not mean to knock you down. I did not mean to hurt you,” he said.
“That limb would have done a lot worse. Plus, it was a good tackle. Heath would have approved.” I said the words and then clamped my mouth shut. Why in the hell was I talking about Heath to him?
Aurox just looked all-around confused.
I sighed. “What I mean is, thank you for saving me.”
He blinked. “You are welcome.”
I started to get up and he held out a hand to help me. I looked at it. It was a perfectly normal hand. It had no hoof-ness about it. I slid my hand in his. Our palms pressed together and I knew I hadn’t imagined it. His touch did radiate the same heat as the seer stone.
As soon as I was on my feet I pulled my hand from his.
“Thanks,” I said. “Again.”
“You are welcome.” He paused and almost smiled. “Again.”
“I better get back to sixth hour.” I broke the silence that had begun to settle between us. “I have a mare to finish grooming.”
“I must continue to patrol,” he said.
“So, the only class you have to go to is first hour?”
“Yes, as Neferet commands,” he said.
I thought he sounded strange. Not exactly sad, but kinda resigned and still a little awkward.
“Okay, well. I’ll see you first hour tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. He nodded. We turned from each other and started to walk our separate ways, but something about first hour tugged at my mind and wouldn’t leave me alone. I stopped and called to him. “Aurox, hang on.” Looking curious, he came back to meet me beside the broken limb. “Uh, that question you wrote down today, was it for real?”
“For real?”
“Yeah, like, do you really not know what you are?” I asked.
He hesitated what felt like a long time before answering me. I could see that he was thinking and maybe weighing what he should and shouldn’t tell me. I was getting ready to say something clichéd (and untrue) like, “don’t worry—I won’t tell anyone” when he finally spoke.
“I know what I am supposed to be. I do not know if that is all that I truly am.”
Our eyes met and this time I did clearly see sadness there. “I hope Thanatos helps you find your answers.”
“As do I,” he said. Then he surprised me by adding, “You do not have a mean spirit, Zoey.”
“Well, I’m not the nicest girl in the world, but I try not to be mean,” I said.
He nodded, like what I’d said made sense to him.
“Okay, well, I’m really going now. Good luck with the rest of your patrol.”
“Have a care when you walk under trees,” he said, then he jogged away.
I looked up at the tree. The wind had gone from wild and crazy to gentle and barely noticeable. The old oak appeared strong and steady and totally unbreakable. As I walked back to sixth hour I thought about how deceiving appearances could be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I’d meant to go to back to class. Straight to sixth hour. Really. Contrary to my recent actions, I’m usually not a class cutter. I mean, it just never made much sense. Like the homework wouldn’t be there when I got back to class the next day? Uh, it would, plus the lovely added bonus of being in trouble.
Let me just say ugh to in-house and all other weird ineffective high school punishment systems that stick good kids in a study hall with frequent offender/gang members. Like that’s not gonna just cause more problems?
Anyway, I’d made it about halfway to the stables when Thanatos seemed to materialize from the shadows beside the sidewalk, making me jump and put my hand over my heart to be sure it didn’t pound from my chest.
“I did not mean to startle you,” she said.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a spooky kind of a day,” I said, and then remembering how the wind had swirled around her when she’d gotten pissed at Dallas, I added, “Hey, do you have an air affinity?” She lifted a brow at me, and I also remembered how super scary and powerful she was and said, “Unless it’s none of my business. I don’t mean to sound rude or anything.”
“It is not rude to ask, and my closeness with air is no secret. It is not a true affinity. I cannot call the element, though it often manifests when I have need of it. I have long thought that air stays close to me because of my true affinity.”
“Death?” Now I was really curious. “I’d think spirit would stay close to you because of your affinity.”
“That does seem logical, but my affinity has only to do with helping the dead pass on, and sometimes soothing the living who have been left behind.” We walked slowly, falling into an easy rhythm beside one another as we talked. “The dead move like the wind, or at least they do as they manifest to me. They are ethereal, diaphanous. They appear to have no real substance, though they are, indeed, very real.”
“Like wind,” I said, understanding. “It’s real. It can move things. But you can’t see it.”
“Exactly. Why do you ask about air?”
“Well, it’s been acting kinda crazy today. I wondered if you felt anything weird going on with it.”
“As in it being manipulated?”
“Yeah, definitely,” I said.
“No, I could not say that I have felt air being manipulated.” She glanced up at the branches of the closest tree where the wind, gently, lazily, had them swaying in time to a slow, silent tune. “Seems all is quiet now.”
“Yeah, it does.” And I wondered if maybe it wasn’t the element air that was responsible for the branch almost smooshing me.
“Zoey, I must ask you two things: first a question, and then your forgiveness.”
“You can ask me anything you want.”
“The question first, then I shall explain. I would like to ask that you join me in a class discussion tomorrow.” She held up her hand to stop me as I opened my mouth to answer her with an “okay, whatever.” “You should know the discussion will be about recovering from the death of a parent.”
All of a sudden my throat felt really dry. I swallowed and then said, “That’s gonna be hard for me to talk about ’cause I haven’t gotten over my mom’s death.”
Thanatos nodded and then, not unkindly, said, “Yes, I realize that. But there are several other students who have also not recovered from losing a parent, though yours is the only loss, thus far, due to death.”
“Huh?”
“Three other students asked the same question as did you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You must know it is a universal experience for those of us who complete the Change. We are not immortal, but we will outlive our human parents. Many of us choose to sever ties with the mortals from our childhood early in our vampyre lives. That seems to make the eventual loss less painful. Some of us maintain relationships with the people from our past—for some of us
