P.C. Cast - Burned

“Uh, how about that blood baggie?” she said quickly.

“Oh, yeah.” Dallas shrugged off her rejection, but his cheeks were unnaturally pink when he handed her the bag. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinkin’. I know you’re hurt, and ya don’t feel like, er, well, you know . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked super uncomfortable.

Stevie Rae knew she should say something. After all, she and Dallas did have a thing together. He was sweet and smart, and he proved he understood her by standing there, looking all sorry, and kinda lowering his head in an adorable way that made him look like a little boy. And he was cute—tall and lean, with just the right amount of muscles and thick hair the color of sand. She actually liked kissing him. Or she used to.

Didn’t she still?

An unfamiliar sense of unease kept her from finding the words that would make him feel better, so instead of speaking, Stevie Rae took the baggie from him, tore open the corner, and upended it, letting the blood drain down the back of her throat and expand like a mega shot of Red Bull from her stomach to energize the rest of her body.

She didn’t want to, but somewhere deep inside her, Stevie Rae weighed the difference between how this normal, mortal, ordinary blood made her feel—and how Rephaim’s blood had been like a lightning strike of energy and heat.

Her hand shook only a little when she wiped her mouth and finally looked up at Dallas.

“That better?” he asked, looking unfazed by their strange exchange and like his familiar, sweet self again.

“Could I have one more?”

He smiled and held another baggie out to her. “Already ahead of you, girl.”

“Thanks, Dallas.” She paused before slurping down the second one. “I don’t feel totally one hundred percent right now. Ya know?”

Dallas nodded. “I know.”

“We okay?”

“Yep,” he said. “If you’re okay—we’re okay.”

“Well, this’ll help.” Stevie Rae was upending the baggie when Lenobia came in the room.

“Hey, Lenobia—check out Sleeping Beauty finally waking up,” Dallas said.

Stevie Rae guzzled the last bloody drop and turned to the door, but the hello smile she’d already put on her face froze at her first glimpse of Lenobia.

The Mistress of Horses had been crying. A lot.

“Ohmygoodness, what is it?” Stevie Rae was so shaken by seeing the usually strong professor in tears that her first reaction was to pat the bed next to her, inviting Lenobia to sit with her, just like her mama used to do when she’d hurt herself and come crying to be fixed.

Lenobia took several wooden steps into the room. She didn’t sit on Stevie Rae’s bed. She stood at the foot of it and drew a deep breath as if readying herself to do something really terrible.

“Do you want me to go?” Dallas asked hesitantly.

“No. Stay. She might need you.” Lenobia’s voice was rough and thick with tears. She met Stevie Rae’s eyes. “It’s Zoey. Something’s happened.”

A jolt of fear zapped Stevie Rae in the gut, and the words burst from her before she could stop them. “She’s fine! I talked to her, remember? When we were leavin’ the depot, before all that daylight and pain and stuff caught up to me, and I passed out. That was just yesterday.”

“Erce, my friend who serves as assistant to the High Council, has been trying to contact me for hours. I’d foolishly left my phone in the Hummer, so I didn’t speak to her until just now. Kalona killed Heath.”

“Shit!” Dallas gasped.

Stevie Rae ignored him and stared at Lenobia. Rephaim’s dad had killed Heath! The sick fear in her gut was getting worse and worse by the second. “Zoey’s not dead. I’d know it if she was dead.”

“Zoey’s not dead, but she saw Kalona kill Heath. She tried to stop him and couldn’t. It shattered her, Stevie Rae.” Tears had started to leak down Lenobia’s porcelain cheeks.

“Shattered her? What does that mean?”

“It means her body still breathes, but her soul is gone. When a High Priestess’s soul is shattered, it is only a matter of time before her body fades from this world, too.”

“Fades? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Are you tryin’ to tell me she’s going to disappear?”

“No,” Lenobia said raggedly. “She’s going to die.”

Stevie Rae’s head started to shake back and forth, back and forth. “No. No. No! We just gotta get her here. She’ll be fine then.”

“Even if her body returns here, Zoey isn’t coming back, Stevie Rae. You have to prepare yourself for that.”

“I won’t!” Stevie Rae yelled. “I can’t! Dallas, get me my jeans and stuff. I gotta get outta here. I gotta figure out a way to help Z. She didn’t give up on me, and I’m not givin’ up on her.”

“This isn’t about you.” Dragon Lankford spoke from the open doorway to the infirmary room. His strong face was drawn and haggard with the newness of the loss of his mate, but his voice was calm and sure. “It’s about the fact that Zoey faced a grief she could not bear. And I do understand something about grief. When it shatters a soul, the path to return to the body is broken, and without the infilling of spirit, our bodies die.”

“No, please. This can’t be right. This can’t be happening,” Stevie Rae told him.

“You are the first red vampyre High Priestess. You have to find the strength to accept this loss. Your people will need you,” Dragon said.

“We don’t know where Kalona has fled, nor do we know Neferet’s role in all of this,” Lenobia said.

“What we do know is that Zoey’s death would be an excellent time for them to strike against us,” Dragon added.

Zoey’s death . . . The words echoed through Stevie Rae’s mind, leaving behind shock and fear and despair.

“Your powers are vast. The swiftness of your recovery proves that,” Lenobia said. “And we will need every power we can harness to meet the darkness I feel certain is going to descend upon us.”

“Control your grief,” Dragon said. “And take up Zoey’s mantle.”

“No one can be Zoey!” Stevie Rae cried.

“We’re not asking you to be her. We’re only asking you to help the rest of us fill the void she leaves,” Lenobia said.

“I have—I have to think,” Stevie Rae said. “Would y’all leave me alone for a while? I want to get dressed and think.”

“Of course,” Lenobia said. “We will be in the Council Chamber. Meet us there when you are ready.” She and Dragon left the room silently, grief-stricken but resolute.

“Hey, are you okay?” Dallas moved to her, reaching out to take her hand.

She only let him touch her for a moment before she squeezed his hand and withdrew. “I need my clothes.”

“I found ’em there in that closet.” Dallas jerked his head toward the cabinets on the opposite side of the room.

“Good, thanks,” Stevie Rae said quickly. “You gotta leave so I can get dressed.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, watching her closely.

“No. I’m not okay, and I’m not gonna be as long as they keep sayin’ Z’s gonna die.”

“But, Stevie Rae, even I’ve heard about what happens when a soul leaves a body—the person dies,” he said, obviously trying to say the harsh words gently.

“Not this time,” Stevie Rae said. “Now go on outta here so I can get dressed.

Dallas sighed. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

“Fine. I won’t take too long.”

“Take your time, girl,” Dallas said softly. “I don’t mind waiting.”

But as soon as the door shut, Stevie Rae didn’t jump up and throw on her clothes like she’d meant to. Instead her memory was too busy flipping through her Fledgling Handbook 101 and stopping at a super-sad story about an ancient soul-shattered High Priestess. Stevie Rae couldn’t remember what had caused the priestess’s soul to shatter—she didn’t remember much about the story, actually—except that the High Priestess had died. No matter what anyone had tried to do to save her—the High Priestess had died.