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“Z, that does not make Aurox a good guy,” Stark said, shaking his head at me.

“You know, people can change,” Nicole suddenly spoke up. We all blinked at her. Obviously I wasn’t the only one of us who had forgotten she was there.

I hated to agree with Nicole, so I just chewed my lip silently and worried.

“Aurox is not a person, nor a guy, good or bad.” In the dark field house, Kalona’s deep voice seemed bomb-like, blasting against my already battered nerves. “Aurox is a Vessel. A creature created to be Neferet’s weapon. Could he have a conscience and the capability to change?” He shrugged. “We can only guess at that. And truly, does it matter? It makes no difference whether a spear has a conscience. What is important is who is wielding the weapon. Neferet, clearly, wields Aurox.”

“How long have you known this?” I rounded on Kalona. Stark was staring at me like I was being irrational, but I didn’t stop myself. Even if I couldn’t figure out how to tell them, I believed I had glimpsed Heath’s soul within Aurox through the Seer Stone. “If you knew what Aurox was, why didn’t you say something before now?”

“No one asked me,” Kalona said.

“That’s crap,” I said, totally displacing my anger and frustration and confusion from myself and the Aurox/Heath puzzle and smacking Kalona with it. “What else have you kept from us?”

“What else would you like to know?” he replied without hesitation. “Just be careful, young Priestess, that you truly want to hear the answers to the questions you ask.”

“You’re supposed to be on our team, remember?” Stark said, stepping between Kalona and me.

“I remember more than you realize, red vampyre,” Kalona said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Stark shot back at him.

“It means you haven’t always been all goody-goody!” Nicole shouted.

“Don’t you dare talk about him!” I hurled my words at her.

“Again you fight yourselves!” Thanatos shouted, the passion in her voice stirring the air around us. “Our enemy has wreaked havoc on our own house. She has committed murder not once, not twice, but over and over. She has allied herself with the greatest evil this world has ever known. Still you strike out at one another. If we cannot unite she has already defeated us.”

Thanatos shook her head sadly. She turned from us back to the bodies of the two cats. The High Priestess knelt beside them and, once again, swept her hand gently over each of them. This time the air above the cats began to shimmer and the glittering outlines of Shadowfax and Guinevere materialized—only they weren’t the adult cats that lay so still and cold on the area floor. They were kittens. Plump, adorable kittens. “Go to the Goddess, little ones,” Thanatos spoke softly, warmly to them. “Nyx and those you love best await you.” Young Shadowfax reached a fuzzy paw out to bat playfully at the edge of Thanatos’s billowy sleeve before both kittens disappeared in a puff of glitter. I could swear I heard the distant sound of Anastasia’s musical laughter, and I imagined she and Dragon must be having a blast welcoming their kittens to the Otherworld.

The Otherworld …

My mom was there, along with Dragon and Anastasia and Jack and, if I’d been wrong about what I’d seen within Aurox, Heath was there, too. I’d been there. I knew the Otherworld existed as surely as I knew I existed. I also knew it was an amazing, magickal place, and even though it hadn’t been my time to die and stay there, the beauty of it still lingered in my mind and my soul, forming a little bubble of wonder and safety that was the complete opposite of what the real world around me had become.

“Would it be so bad if we lost?”

I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud until Stark shook my shoulder. “What are you talking about, Z? We can’t lose because Neferet can’t win. Darkness can’t win.”

I could see his worry and feel his fear. I knew I was freaking him out, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was just so damn tired of everything being a struggle between death and Darkness, love and Light. Why couldn’t it all just end? I’d give anything if it all would just end! “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” I heard myself asking and then kept right on babbling the answer to my own question. “Neferet will kill us. Well, being dead doesn’t seem so awful.” I flailed my hand in the direction of where the kittens had so recently manifested.

“Jeesh, give up much?” Nicole muttered under her breath in disgust.

“Zoey Redbird, death is far from the worst thing that could happen to any of us,” Thanatos said. “Yes, Darkness seems overwhelming now, especially after all we have discovered this night, but there is love and Light here, too. Think of what sadness your words would bring Sylvia Redbird.”

I felt a jolt of guilt. Thanatos was right. There were worse things than dying, and those worse things happened to the people you left behind. I bowed my head and stepped closer to Stark, taking his hand in mine. “I’m sorry. You guys are right. I should never have said that.”

Thanatos smiled kindly at me. “Go back to your depot. Pray. Sleep. Find comfort and guidance in the words Nyx spoke to us: Hold to the memory of the healing that happened here this night. You will need that strength and peace for the upcoming fight.” She hesitated, sighed heavily, and added, “You are so very young.”

I wanted to scream I know! I’m way too young to save the world! Instead I stood there silent, feeling stupid and useless while Thanatos bent and gathered the bodies of Shadowfax and Guinevere to her, wrapping them in her voluminous skirts and holding them closely and gently, as if they were sleeping babies. Then she motioned to Kalona saying, “Come with me. I must tell the Sons of Erebus the sad news of the death of their Sword Master. While I do that I would have you begin building a pyre for Dragon and these little ones. It is at the lighting of that pyre that I will officially proclaim you Death’s Warrior.” Without another look at me, Thanatos walked from the field house. Kalona followed her without glancing at Stark or me.

“Your team, by the way, sucks.” Shaking her head, Nicole walked away, too.

I could feel Stark’s eyes on me. His hand seemed stiff in mine. I looked up at him, sure that he was going to shake me or yell at me or at the very least ask what the hell was wrong with me. Again.

Instead, he opened his arms, said, “Come here, Z,” and he just loved me.

CHAPTER FOUR

Aurox

Aurox ran, not knowing or caring where his body took him. He only understood he had to get away from the circle, from Zoey, before he committed another atrocity. His feet, fully morphed into cloven hoofs, tore the fertile ground, carrying him with inhuman speed through the winter dormant lavender fields. Like the breeze flowing over his body, emotions surged through Aurox.

Confusion—he hadn’t meant to harm anyone, yet he had killed Dragon and perhaps even Rephaim.

Anger—he had been manipulated, controlled against his will!

Despair—no one would ever believe that he hadn’t intended to harm anyone. He was a beast, a creature of Darkness. Neferet’s Vessel. They would all hate him. Zoey would hate him.

Loneliness—and yet he was not Neferet’s Vessel. No matter what had happened that night. No matter how she had managed to control him. He did not, would not belong to Neferet. Not after seeing what he’d seen tonight … feeling what he’d felt tonight.

Aurox had felt Light. Even though he had not been able to embrace it, he’d known the strength of its goodness in the magickal circle, and recognized the beauty of it in the invocation of the elements. Until the sickening threads had claimed and controlled the beast within him, he’d watched, mesmerized, the soul-moving ritual that had culminated in Light washing the touch of Darkness from the land, and from him, though for him that purification had lasted only a moment. Only long enough for Aurox to realize what he’d done. Then the just anger and the understandable hatred the Warriors had felt for him had overwhelmed him, and Aurox had only humanity enough left to flee and to not kill Zoey.

Aurox shuddered and moaned as the change from beast back to boy rippled through his body, leaving him bare footed and bare chested, clothed only in ripped jeans. A horrible weakness overwhelmed his body. Breathing hard and trembling, he slowed, stumbling to a walk. His mind was a war. Self-hatred filled him. Aurox wandered