Hunted (32 page)

“Becca.” My voice was cold. “Her name is Becca.”

“Okay, so her name is Becca.”

His expression had hardened. He didn't look scary and red-eyed, but he did look like a complete jerk, and I was just tired enough for that to really piss me off.

“You attacked her. You forced yourself on her. Look, it's pretty simple. If you don't want people to say bad things about you, then you need to stop doing bad things,” I said.

His eyes flashed and I saw a red light in their depths. “She would have liked it. If you and the warrior had come along five minutes later, you would have seen her all over me.”

“Are you kidding me? You actually think mind control is foreplay?”

“Was she upset when you saw her inside? Or was she talking about how hot I am and how much she wanted me?” Stark hurled the questions at me.

“And you think that makes what you did okay? You messed with her mind to get her to want to be with you. By any definition that's a violation, and it's wrong.”

“You kissed me right after that, and I didn't have to mess with your mind!”

“Yeah, well, I've been having some seriously questionable taste in guys lately. But I can promise you that right now I have absolutely no desire to hurl myself into your arms.”

He stood abruptly, shoving away from my bed. “I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. I am what I am, and nothing can change that.” Totally pissed, he started striding toward the door.

“You can change that.”

I said the words softly, but they seemed to shimmer in the air between us and wrap around Stark, pulling him to a stop. He just stood there for a while, fists clenched at his side, head slightly bowed as if he was fighting with himself. With his back still to me he said, “See, that's what I mean. When you say things like that to me, you make me
feel
again.”

“Maybe that's because I'm the only person who's telling you the truth right now.” As I spoke, I got one of my gut-deep feelings that let me know I was saying the words Nyx would have me speak. I drew a long breath and tried to center myself, and even though I was tired and hurt and confused about many things, I followed the thread that had been unraveled before me and tried to sew together the shredded cloth of Stark's humanity.

“I don't think you're a monster, but I also don't think you're just a nice guy. I see what you are, and I believe in what you could choose to be. Stark, don't you understand? Kalona and Neferet are keeping you like this because they're using you. If you don't want to turn into a creature of their creation, then you're going to have to choose a different way and fight against them, and against the darkness they surround themselves with.” I sighed, searching for the right
words.

“Don't you see, evil will win if good people do nothing.” I must have struck a nerve with Stark, because he slowly turned around to face me.

“But I'm not good people.”

“You were a good guy before all of this. I know you were. I didn't forget, just like I promised you. And you can be a good guy again.”

“When I hear you say it, I almost believe it.”

“Believing it is the first step. Acting on it is the second.” I paused, and he didn't say anything, so I filled the dead air with some of the babble that was drifting through my mind. “Have you stopped to think about why we keep coming together?”

His smile was completely Bad Boy. “Yeah, I thought it was because you're so damn hot.”

I tried, unsuccessfully, not to grin back at him. “Well, yeah, I mean besides that.”

He shrugged. “You being hot is enough for me.”

“Thanks, I guess. But that's not exactly what I meant. I was thinking it has something to do with Nyx and your being important to her.”

Stark's smiled faded instantly. “The Goddess couldn't want anything to do with me. Not anymore.”

“I think you'd be surprised. Remember Aphrodite?”

He nodded. “Yeah, kinda. She's that really stuck-up chick who actually thinks she's a love goddess.”

“That's Aphrodite. She and Nyx are like this.” I crossed my fingers.

“Are you sure?”

“Totally,” I said, and couldn't stop the humongous yawn that overtook me. “Sorry. I didn't get much sleep lately. Between the stress going on around here, me getting hurt, and some seriously bad dreams, sleep has not been very friendly to me.”

“Can I ask you something about your dreams?”

I shrugged and nodded sleepily.

“Has Kalona been in them?”

I blinked in surprise at him. “Why would you ask that?”

“He does that. Gets in people's dreams.”

“He's been in your dreams?”

“Nah, not me, but I've overhead the fledglings talking, and he's definitely been in their dreams, only they liked it a lot more than you do.”

I thought about how sexy Kalona could be and how easy it would be for me to give in to his hypnotic appearance. “Yeah, I'll just bet they do.”

“I want to tell you something, but I don't want you to think I'm making it up just so I can hit on you,” he said.

“What is it?” He was looking massively uncomfortable, as if what he was about to say made him really nervous.

“It's harder for him to get into your dreams if you're not sleeping alone.”

I stared hard at him. He was right. It sounded like something a guy would make up to get into a girl's bed (and panties).

“I wasn't sleeping alone the first time it happened,” I said.

“You were with a guy?”

I felt my cheeks start to get warm. “No. I was with my roommate.”

“It has to be a guy. It's like he doesn't want to compete or something.”

“Stark, that sounds like utter bullpoopie.”

He smiled. “Is ‘bullpoopie' really a word?”

“It's
my
word,” I said. “And how the hell would you know this little tidbit about Kalona?”

“He talks a lot around me. It's almost like he doesn't notice I'm there sometimes. I heard him and Rephaim talking about the dreams. Kalona said he was thinking about putting Raven Mocker guards up between the girls' and guys' dorms to keep them apart, but he decided he wouldn't because he really wasn't having an issue with controlling the fledglings—with or without being in their dreams.”

“Gross,” I said. “What about the professors? Are they all under his control, too?”

“Apparently. At least none of them have stood up against him or Neferet.”

I expected Stark to start to get defensive with my questioning, but
he didn't seem to mind and was talking to me like it was no big deal to let me know this stuff. So I decided to see how much I could find out. “What about the Sons of Erebus? I saw one when we first came on campus but haven't even seen him since.”

“There aren't many of them left,” Stark said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a bunch of them are dead. When Shekinah fell, Ate freaked and led an attack against Kalona, even though I don't think Kalona was the one who killed her.”

“He didn't. Neferet killed Shekinah.”

“Huh. Well, that figures. Neferet is a vindictive bitch.”

“I thought you were one of her minions.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know that?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I remember something you said right before I died. You tried to warn me to be careful around Neferet.”

“Yeah, I remember that, too.”

“Well, you were right.”

“Stark, she's changing, isn't she? I mean she's not just a vamp High Priestess anymore,” I said.

“She's not normal, that's for sure. Her powers are bizarre. I swear she can spy on people better than Kalona can.” He looked away from me, and when he met my eyes again, his were shadowed by a soul-deep sadness. “I wish you had been there instead of Neferet.”

“Been there?” I asked, even though the tightening in my gut told me I knew exactly what he meant.

“You'd been watching my body, hadn't you? With that camera thing.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Jack installed it. I didn't want to leave you alone and that was the best way I could think of to keep an eye on you. Then my grandma was in an accident and things got crazy . . . I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry, too. It would have turned out differently if it had been you instead of her I opened my eyes to see.”

I wanted to ask him questions about what exactly happened with the whole dying and un-dying thing, as well as question him further about Neferet, but his face was closed off and his eyes were filled with pain.

“Look,” he said, abruptly changing the subject, “you want to get some sleep. I'm tired, too. What if we sleep together?
Just
sleep together. I promise I won't try anything.”

“I don't think so,” I said.

“You'd rather have Kalona show up in your dreams again?”

“No, but I, well, I, uh, don't think you sleeping with me is a good idea.”

His expression got hard and cold again, but I could see the pain that was still in his eyes. “Because you don't think I'll keep my promise.”

“No, because I don't want anyone to know you've been here,” I said honestly.

“I'll leave before anyone knows,” he said quietly.

And suddenly I knew my response to him could be what tipped him over in the struggle for his humanity. The last two lines of Kramisha's poem echoed through my mind: “Humanity saves her / Will she save me?” I knew what I had to do.

“Okay, fine. But you really have to get out of here early before anyone sees you.”

His eyes widened in surprise, and then his lips tilted up in his cocky Bad Boy smile. “You mean it?”

“Sadly, yes. Now come over here because I'm about to fall asleep in the middle of talking to you.”

“Cool! I don't have to be told twice. I'm a monster, not a moron.” He moved quickly back to the bed.

I scooted over, dislodging Nala, which pissed her off. Grumbling, she padded to the end of the bed, made three quick circles, and I swear she was asleep again before her head was pillowed on her paws.
I looked from her to Stark and hastily threw my arm across his side of the bed before he could tuck himself in.

“What?” he said.

“First you have to get rid of that bow and arrow business that's practically growing on your back.”

“Oh, okay.” He pulled over his head the leather contraption that held the bow and quiver of arrows to his back and dropped them on the floor beside the bed. When I still didn't move my arm, he said, “What now?”

“You are so not getting in my bed with your shoes on.”

“Crap. Sorry,” he muttered, kicking off his shoes. Then he looked down at me. “Want me to take anything else off?”

I frowned up at him. Like he wasn't hot enough already in his black T-shirt, his jeans, and his cocky smile? But no way was I going to tell him that. “No. You may not take anything else off. Jeesh, just get in here. I'm seriously tired.”

As he slid into bed beside me, I realized just how small my bed was when I was sharing it with a guy. I had to remind myself that I really was tired and that the whole point of Stark sleeping with me was for me to get some rest.

“Turn off the light, would ya?” I asked him, sounding way more nonchalant than I felt.

He reached over and snapped the light off.

“So, you think you'll be going to class tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Then, because I really didn't want to talk about why I might be going to class so soon after I'd been hurt so badly, I added, “And I have to remember to look through the Hummer Darius drove us in here with. I think I left my purse in it. Or at least I hope I did, 'cause having a lost purse really sucks.”

“Now that scares me,” Stark said.

“What scares you?”

“Chicks' purses. Or at least all the weird stuff you people keep inside of them.”

“Us people? Jeesh. We're girls, and purses just have girl stuff in them.” His normal-sounding guyness was making me smile.

“There's no
just
about purse stuff,” he said. And I swear I felt him shudder.

I laughed out loud this time. “My grandma would say that you're a conundrum.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“A conundrum is something that's puzzling, even kinda paradoxical. For instance, here you are this macho, dangerous, warrior guy who can't miss anything he shoots at, but you're totally squeed out by girls' purses? It's like they're your spiders.”

He chuckled. “My spiders? What's that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I don't like spiders. At all.” I shuddered like he'd just done.

“Oh, I get it. Yeah, purses are my spiders. Really big spiders you can open up and they're filled with a whole nest of baby spiders.”

“Okay! Okay! You're totally grossing me out. Let's change the subject.”

“Sounds good to me. So . . . I think you have to be touching whoever you're sleeping with for this to really work.” His voice sounded weirdly intimate coming from the darkness beside me.

“Yeah, sure.” My stomach felt all fluttery, and not just because we'd been talking about spiders.

His sigh was heavy and long-suffering. “I'm telling you the truth. Why do you think it doesn't keep him away if you're just sleeping with a roommate? You have to be touching. A guy and a girl. I guess a guy and a guy would work, too, if it was like Damien and his boyfriend. Or even a girl and a girl if they were into each other.” He paused. “I think I'm babbling.”

“I think you are, too.” Actually, babbling was usually what I did when I was nervous, and it was refreshing to meet someone else who was a nervous babbler.

“You really don't have to be scared of me. I'm not going to hurt you.”