Destined

whole bunch of it. Get ready to find your proof because I know with everything inside me that Neferet has gone over to it.” I almost added that she’s not even mortal anymore. But, no. That was something Thanatos needed to discover for herself. “Oh, and I forgive you. Just promise me you’ll keep your eyes open and when the time comes, you’ll make sure the High Council does the right thing.”

“I give you my oath on it.”

“Good,” I said. And then while Thanatos was calling Grandma I did finally return to sixth hour.

Shaunee

She hadn’t had any idea how much it would suck not to be Erin’s Twin anymore. It was like that one thing— not having Erin as her BFF—changed the whole blueprint of her life.

It was so damn confusing.

When had she lost Shaunee and become Twin? She really didn’t know. They’d been Marked the same day and arrived at the Tulsa House of Night the same exact hour. And they’d been friends right away. Shaunee had thought that had been because they were like soul sisters ’cause it hadn’t mattered that she was black and Erin was white. That she was from Connecticut and Erin from Tulsa. They’d been friends and all of a sudden Shaunee hadn’t felt lonely anymore. Especially ’cause she never had to be alone. Literally. She and Erin were roommates, had the same class schedule, went to the same parties, they only even dated guys who were friends.

By herself in her seat on the bus Shaunee shook her head. She could hear Erin laughing with Kramisha somewhere in the back of the bus. For a second a mean little thought snaked through her mind: guess she’s trading me in for another black girl BFF. But Shaunee stopped that crap right away. It wasn’t about skin color. It never had been. It was about not being able to be alone. Which was super ironic because figuring that out had somehow put her in a position where she was alone.

“Hey, can I sit here?”

Shaunee’s gaze shifted from staring out the window at the lightening pre-dawn sky to Damien standing in the aisle of the bus.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks.” He sat beside her and dropped his heavy book bag between his feet. “I have soooo much homework. How ’bout you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess. Hey, did you see Zoey sixth hour?”

“Not during sixth hour. She has Equestrian Studies and I have business class, but I saw her right after school. Why? What’s up?”

“Did she look okay to you?”

“Okay? Like physically okay or not-stressed-out okay?”

“She’s always stressed out. I mean physically.”

“Yeah, fine. What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” Shaunee said. “It’s just that I, uh, saw her at the beginning of sixth hour. Me and her, we talked over here by the parking lot. Then we went back to class.” She studied Damien, wondering if she should tell him the truth. “Did you feel anything weird about the air tonight?”

Damien cocked his head to the side. “Nothing odd. Well, it was windy, but that’s not really odd for Oklahoma. You know we’re the state where the wind comes sweeping down the plain,” he sang.

“I know that, Mr. Broadway Musical. All I’m saying is the wind was blowing really hard when Z and I split up, and I thought I heard something about tree limbs falling and—”

“A tree limb did fall.” Stark butted in as he and Zoey slid into the seat in front of Damien and Shaunee.

“Yeah, it was all psycho-windy,” Stevie Rae said, sitting beside Rephaim in the seat across the aisle from Damien. “But tellin’ you that would be like tryin’ to tell white about rice.”

“What in the for-shit’s-sake is that supposed to mean?” Aphrodite forced Z to scoot over and perched beside her as Darius did a quick head count and then got in the driver’s seat and started the bus up.

“It means, Hateful, that Damien already knows it was windy today ’cause his affinity is wind. Just like rice is white. I don’t even know what was hard about that analogy,” Stevie Rae said.

“Just. Don’t. Speak,” Aphrodite told Stevie Rae.

“Rice is brown, too,” Shaunee said.

Aphrodite raised a brow. “Did you just make a snarky comment without your Twin?”

“Yeah,” Shaunee said, meeting her gaze steadily.

Aphrodite snorted and looked away, first saying, “It’s about time.”

“About the wind,” Zoey said. “Yeah, it was kinda crazy tonight, and it even broke a branch from one of those old oaks.” She shrugged. “Like Damien said—it’s windy in Oklahoma. Hey, speaking of, Damien, did you know Thanatos had a little wind affinity?”

“Ohmygod! I’m not surprised! Did you see how uber-scary she got today when Dallas said that stupid stuff in class? I couldn’t believe…”

Shaunee let everyone’s words flow around her, but she kept watching Zoey, waiting for her to say something—anything—about what had really happened when the tree limb broke. She knew. She’d seen the whole thing.

As they bounced and bumped their way back to the depot, Shaunee realized Zoey wasn’t going to say anything. Okay, well, maybe she just told Stark what had happened—how she would’ve been smashed under that tree limb if Aurox hadn’t saved her. During the next lull in the conversation, which happened when they paused at a railroad crossing like Super Giant Short Bus Dorks, Shaunee blurted, “Does anyone think it’s weird that Aurox goes to one class and then does nothing but patrol the school all android-like for the rest of the time?”

“There’s a lot that’s super weird about that guy,” Aphrodite said. “But that’s no surprise. He’s Neferet’s boy toy.”

“I don’t think they’re having sex,” Zoey said.

Shaunee studied Z. “Why not?”

“I dunno,” Z said way too nonchalantly. “I guess because Neferet doesn’t act like it. She acts more like he’s her slave.”

Stark chuckled. “Neferet acts like the world’s her slave.”

“I’ll bet Dead Fish Eye Lady really hates it that we’ve all been pulled out of her class,” Aphrodite said.

“You know she does, ’specially ’cause Thanatos is a real good teacher,” Stevie Rae said. “And by the way, I do not appreciate you bein’ so hateful about our very short, very unsexual Imprint in class today. It happened to me, too, and I can tell you that it was no pit bull at a cat party fun time for me, either.”

“Please tell me you didn’t just use another white trash analogy,” Aphrodite said.

Shaunee stayed out of the argument that went on all the way from then until the moment they pulled up in front of the depot. Instead of joining in, she watched Zoey. She also watched Stark. By the time she’d exited the bus she believed two things. One was that Stark had no clue Aurox had saved Zoey’s life that night. The second was that she would have never known about Aurox or Zoey or Stark if she’d still been Twin. Twin would have been too wrapped up in being the other part of someone else to really pay attention to anything or anyone else.

She didn’t know what the hell was going on with Zoey and Aurox, but she knew she was going to keep her eyes and her mind open, and if she could figure it out she would. All on her own. All by herself. Which was suddenly not such a terrible thing. And for the first time since she quit completing Erin’s thoughts, Shaunee smiled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Zoey

So, I hadn’t told Stark about Aurox and the tree limb thing. I mean, seriously, what was the point? Like Stark