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Shaylin’s eyes widened.

Aphrodite rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, obviously preparing to say something hateful. Then she stopped, stared above her for one long moment, before glancing at Shaylin and saying, “Looks like you’re getting your wish. The rainclouds are clearing.” Then Aphrodite tossed her hair and twitched off.

Shaylin shook her head. “Total nutjob,” she muttered to herself as she made her way to the girls’ dorm. “Nyx, I don’t know you very well, and I don’t want you to think I’m rude or blasphemous or anything like that, but Aphrodite as your Prophetess? Why?”

“No one knows, and I think that includes Aphrodite herself.”

Shaylin jumped in surprise as Erik Night stepped from the shadows of a nearby oak tree.

“Erik! What are you doing out here?” Shaylin’s hand went to her throat. She imagined Erik could see how hard her pulse pounded there, and not just because he’d startled her. Her first view of him was always the same—his absolute, total, tall/dark/handsomeness was obvious and distracting. But then she got a glimpse of his colors and they weren’t nearly as attractive. Shaylin had decided he was like one of those gorgeously painted pieces of pottery that you’d like to use to toss a salad in or whatever, but if you flipped the piece over you’d see the WARNING: DO NOT USE TO SERVE FOOD label.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m out here procrastinating.” His smile was a zillion-watt lightbulb. Shaylin could see why almost one hundred percent of the fledgling girls were in love with him. The problem was, she could also see more than his gorgeousness.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I’ll let you get back to your procrastination. See ya.”

“Hey.” He touched her arm, just for a moment as she walked past him, coaxing her to pause. “I thought we were friends.”

Shaylin studied him. When Erik had Marked her his colors were mostly made up of an indecisive, pea green that overshadowed the bright flashes of something that might have been golden, like the rays of the sun, but were too fleeting for her to be sure. Other than that he’d just been kinda foggy and wishy-washy. She hadn’t paid much attention to his colors the past few days, so when she focused, Shaylin was surprised to see that, even though his green was still there, it had lightened and now it didn’t bring to mind mushy peas. Instead it reminded her of turquoise, like pretty sea foam green turquoise. And all around the green-blue the foggy mishmash of gray had lifted, revealing a solid tan, like the sand of a beautiful, untouched beach. Feeling a little like she’d fallen into deep water, Shaylin tried not to look nervous and blurted, “Yeah, we are friends, but that’s all.”

“I didn’t ask for anything else, did I?”

Shaylin met his eyes. They were bright and blue, and spent way too much time wandering south to her boobs. Of course, saying something like “you totally want to be friends with benefits” sounded way too much like something Aphrodite would say. So instead she chose a nicer answer. “No, you haven’t asked for anything else.”

He smiled again. “So, we can be friends?”

It was hard not to smile back at him, and truthfully, she couldn’t think of a reason not to. Shaylin grinned and nodded. “Yep, friends.”

“Awesome! How about I walk you to wherever you’re going? I can procrastinate just as well with you as I can by myself.”

“What are you procrastinating about?” Shaylin avoided the question of where she was going and just kinda meandered in the general direction of the dorms. Slowly.

“Lesson plans,” he said with a sigh. “I really hate writing them. You know, I never meant to be a professor.”

“Yeah, everyone knows that. You were meant to be a movie star,” Shaylin said. She spoke in an offhand manner. She hadn’t meant to be patronizing or sarcastic, but the hurt in his blue eyes said she’d probably sounded both.

“Yeah,” he repeated in a clipped voice, turning his gaze away from her and stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Everyone knows that.”

“Hey, but this Tracker thing is just a little speed bump in the road to Hollywood, right? What are you, twenty-one?”

“Nineteen. I just completed the Change a few months ago. Why? Do I look old?”

Shaylin laughed. “Twenty-one isn’t old.”

“It is if you have to add four years onto it, and I’ve just started a four-year Tracker job.”

“Does being a Tracker mean you have to stay at the House of Night in Tulsa?”

“Trying to get rid of me?” He only sounded about half kidding.

“No, of course not,” she assured him. “What I meant is, can’t you transfer to the West Coast and still be a Tracker? There must be a House of Night nearer to Hollywood than this.” As they talked, Shaylin realized that Erik didn’t sound like a pissed-off, spoiled brat. He just sounded tired and frustrated and maybe even kinda depressed.

“I already looked into it. The answer I got was weird and a little creepy.” He paused and sent her a sideways glance. “Well, probably creepier for the kids who are being Tracked than for me.”

“Been there—done that. It wasn’t so creepy. Actually, you were kinda funny,” she said.

Erik frowned. “I was supposed to be powerful and confident and maybe a little scary.”

“So, you want to be creepy?”

That made him laugh. “No, not really. And the actual Marking isn’t the creepy part anyway, or at least it’s not supposed to be. The part that’s definitely not normal is that there’s something in my blood that keeps me anchored to this place. Yeah, I can travel, but only if it’s because my blood’s calling me to Mark a kid who belongs at this House of Night.”

“So, you’re kinda like a GPS.”

“I suppose.” Erik didn’t sound thrilled about it. “Hey, but enough about me. Where are you going?”

Shaylin swallowed around the dryness in her throat and said the first lie that came to her mind. “I’m going to the dorm. Aphrodite asked me to pick up some of her stuff from her room.”

“She asked, as in please would you? Or she commanded, as in ‘Get my stuff or I’ll rubber band your hands together and shove you in a boiling pot like my mom’s chef would cook a lobster!’”

Shaylin giggled. “Your acting skills either went way up or way down in my opinion, because you sound entirely too much like Aphrodite.”

He shuddered. “I’ll try not to do that again.”

“But in answer to your question—it was more like the second example than the first.”

“Big surprise. So, I’ll walk you to the dorm. Okay?”

Shaylin met his eyes. What could it hurt? “Okay,” she said.

Erik

“I think I agree with you about the lesson plan stuff. It must be super boring to have to figure out what you’re going to teach—write it down—turn it in—then teach it. Talk about overkill,” Shaylin said.

“Tell me about it,” Erik said dryly. “We’re going into Shakespeare. I love the plays, but it was a lot cooler when I just got to act and didn’t have to be a damn robot for the school’s High Council. Yeah, lesson plans are boring. Writing them sucks.”

He had to keep reminding himself to stop looking at Shaylin’s boobs. Okay, but in his defense, she was wearing a white T-shirt that was sheer enough that it was obvious she had on a hot pink bra under it. And that bra had little black bows in the middle part and on the straps.

“So, which play will you teach in the Shakespeare class?” she was asking him.

Look at her face and concentrate! “Shakespeare class?”

She gave him a look that said she thought he was an idiot—and he had to agree with her because when he forced himself not to glance at her pink-bra-ed boobs he got all distracted by her thick mane of dark hair that curled and waved and looked like it would be soft as silk if he just—

“Oh, yeah, Shakespeare class. Definitely a comedy. There’s way too much tragedy in the world today.”

“Which one?”

She looked honestly interested, so he heard himself admitting, “I’m torn. My favorite is The Taming of the Shrew, but when you think about it and really look at Kate’s last speech, it doesn’t go