P.C. Cast - Hunted

So my face proclaimed that I was a vampyre, but my body said I was still a fledgling. And the rest of my tattoos? Well, that was something that had never happened before—not to a fledgling and not to a vamp, and even now I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what it meant.

“Wow, Z, they’re amazing,” Damien’s voice came from beside me. Hesitantly, he touched my palm.

I looked up from my hands to his friendly brown eyes, searching them for any trace of a change in the way he saw me. I looked for signs of hero worship or nervousness or, even worse, fear. And what I had seen was just Damien—my friend—and the warmth of his smile.

“I felt it happening before, when we first got down here. I—I guess I just forgot,” I said.

“That’s our Z,” Jack said. “Only she could forget something that’s practically a miracle.”

“More than practically,” Shaunee said.

“But it’s a Zoey miracle. They happen pretty much all the time,” Erin said matter-of-factly.

“I can’t keep a tattoo and she’s covered in them,” Aphrodite said. “Figures.” But her smile took the bite from her words.

“They are the Mark of our Goddess’s favor, showing that you are, indeed, traveling the path she would choose for you. You are our High Priestess,” Darius spoke solemnly. “The one Nyx has Chosen. And, Priestess, I need your aid with Stevie Rae.”

“Ah, hell,” I muttered, chewing my lip nervously and balling my hands into fists, hiding my exotic new tattoos.

“Oh, for crap’s sake! I’ll stay and help,” Aphrodite marched over to where Stevie Rae was sitting on the edge of her bed. “Blood and pain don’t bother me at all as long as they’re not mine.”

“I should take this closer to the entrance to the tunnels. I’d probably have more luck getting reception there,” Erik said, and without so much as a glance at me, or a word about my new tattoos, he disappeared through the blanket door.

“You know, I think food really was a good idea,” Damien said, taking Jack’s hand and starting to follow Erik out of the room.

“Yeah, Damien and I are gay. That means that we are guaranteed to be good cooks,” Jack said.

“We’re with them,” Shaunee said.

“Yeah, we’re not as convinced about the genetics of gay good cooking. We’d better supervise,” Erin said.

“The blood. Don’t forget the blood. Laced with wine, if you have it. She’ll need it to recover,” Darius said.

“One of the refrigerators is full of blood. Then find Venus,” Steve Rae said, grimacing again as Darius took an alcohol wipe and began to clean the dried blood on her back from the skin around the protruding arrow. “She likes wine. Tell her what you need and she’ll get it for you.”

The Twins hesitated, passing a look between each other. Erin spoke for both of them. “Stevie Rae, are the red kids really okay? I mean, these are the kids who killed the Union football players and grabbed Z’s human boyfriend, aren’t they?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I said, but they ignored me.

“Venus just helped Erik,” Stevie Rae said. “And Aphrodite stayed here for two days. She’s still in one piece,” Stevie Rae said.

“Yeah, but Erik is a big, healthy male vamp. He’d be hard to bite,” Shaunee said.

“Even though he is definitely yummy,” Erin said.

“True, Twin.” Both of them had given me apologetic shrugs before Shaunee continued. “And Aphrodite is so damn nasty that no one would want to bite her.”

“But we’re little bits of vanilla and chocolate. We’d tempt even the nicest bloodsucking monster,” Erin said.

“Your mom’s a bloodsucking monster,” Aphrodite said, smiling sweetly.

“If y’all don’t stop bickering, I’m gonna bite you!” Stevie Rae yelled, then winced again and made little panting sounds as she tried to breathe through the pain.

“Guys, you’re making her hurt herself, and you’re giving me a headache.” I said it quickly, getting more and more worried about how bad Stevie Rae looked by the second. “Stevie Rae says the red fledglings are okay. We just escaped from all hell breaking loose at the House of Night with them and they didn’t try to eat any of us on the way here. So make nice, and go find Venus, like Stevie Rae said.”

“Z, that’s not a big mark in their favor,” Damien said. “We were running for our lives. No one had time to eat anyone.”

“Stevie Rae, once and for all—are the red fledglings safe?” I asked.

“I really wish y’all would concentrate on being nicer and accepting them. You know it’s not their fault they died and then un-died.”

“See, they’re fine,” I said. It was only later that I would remember that Stevie Rae never really answered my question about whether the red fledglings were really safe.

“All right, but we’re holding Stevie Rae responsible,” Shaunee said.

“Yeah, if one of them tries to chomp on us, we’re going to have words with her about it after she’s better,” Erin said.

“Blood and wine. Now. Less talking. More doing,” Darius said bluntly.

They all scurried out of the room, leaving me with Darius, Aphrodite, and my best friend, currently en brochette.

Hell.

“Seriously, Darius. Can’t we do this another way? Some other more hospital-like way. In a hospital. With doctors and waiting rooms for friends to wait in while the…the…” I’d made a semi-panicky gesture at the arrow sticking through Stevie Rae’s body. “While the stuff is fixed.”

“There may be a better way, but not under these conditions. I have limited supplies down here, and if you took a moment to think about it, Priestess, I do not believe you would want any of us to go aboveground to one of the city hospitals tonight,” Darius said.

I chewed my lip silently, thinking that he was right but still trying to come up with a less horrifying alternative.

“No. I’m not going back up there. Not only is Kalona free, along with his totally gross bird babies, but I can’t get caught aboveground when the sun rises, and I can feel that sunrise isn’t that far away. I don’t think I could survive it already hurting like this. Z, you’re just gonna have to do it,” said Stevie Rae.

“You want me to push on the arrow while you hold her still?” Aphrodite asked.

“No, watching it will probably be worse than helping with it,” I said.

“I’ll do my best not to scream too loud,” Stevie Rae said.

She’d been serious, which made my heart squeeze then, just like it did now as I thought back. “Oh, honey! Scream all you want. Hell, I’ll scream along with you.” I looked at Darius. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

“I will cut off the feathered end of the arrow that is still protruding from the front of her chest. When I do that, you take this,” he handed me a wad of gauze that was wet with alcohol, “and press it over the cutoff end. When I have a good grip on the front of the arrow I’ll tell you to push. Push hard while I pull. It shouldus said q I come out fairly easily.”

“But it might hurt just a little?” Stevie Rae said, sounding faint.

“Priestess,” Darius rested his big hand on her shoulder. “This will hurt quite a bit more than a little.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Aphrodite said. “I’ll be holding on to you so you don’t flail about as you writhe in pain and mess up Darius’s plan.” She hesitated, and then added, “But you need to know if you go all crazy from agony and bite me again , I’m going to knock the shit right out of you.”

“Aphrodite. I’m not gonna bite you. Again,” Stevie Rae said.

“Let’s just get this over with,” I said.