P.C. Casr - Chosen

"Don't hurt him," I whispered, ignoring the tears that washed my cheeks.

"Ah, baby, don't worry. I won't hurt him. I'll just have a little talk with him." He took me into his arms, and even though my body, my heartbeat, the very essence within me wanted to be close to him, I forced myself to pull away. "I have to go," I said.

"Yeah, okay. I should go, too."

As he handed me my clothes and we dressed, I told myself that he was only hurrying away from me because he needed to find Erik, but thinking about being separated from Loren made my stomach feel like a pit with nasty black stuff boiling around in it. The cut over my breast where he'd tasted my blood stung. And besides that, my body was sore in private places it'd never, ever been sore before. I glanced at the wall of mirrors. My eyes were puffy and red. My face was blotchy and my nose was pink. My hair was a nappy mess. I looked like hell, which wasn't surprising, because I felt like hell.

Loren took my hand and we walked through the empty rec hall. At the door he kissed me again before opening it.

"You look tired," he said.

"I am." I glanced at the rec hall clock, shocked to see that it was only two thirty in the morning. It seemed like several nights had passed in the space of just a couple hours.

"Go to bed, love," he said. "We'll be together again tomorrow."

"How? When?"

He smiled and caressed my cheek, tracing the path of my tattoo. "Don't worry. We won't be apart long. I'll come to you after both of us get some sleep." His touch was warm against my skin. Of its own will, my body leaned toward him as his fingers traced their way intimately down the curve of my neck while he recited:

"I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Has led me — who knows how? —

To thy chamber-window, sweet!"

His touch made me tremble and his words made my heart speed up and my head dizzy. "Did you write that?" I whispered as he kissed my neck.

"No, Shelley did. Hard to believe he wasn't a vampyre, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh," I said, not really listening.

Loren chuckled and hugged me. "I'll come to you tomorrow. I promise."

We walked out together, but separated soon as he headed in the direction of the boys' dorm and I walked slowly toward my own dorm. There weren't many fledglings or vamps around, and I was glad. I didn't want to run into anyone just then. It was a dark, cloudy night and the old-time gaslights hardly touched the darkness around me. I didn't mind, though. I wanted to be covered in night. It somehow soothed the rawness in my nerves that being physically separated from Loren caused.

I wasn't a virgin anymore.

The fact hit me with a weird zing. Things had happened so fast I hadn't really had time to think about it, but I'd done it. Man, I needed to talk to Stevie Rae—even the undead version of Stevie Rae would want to hear about this. Did I look different? No, that was stupid. Everyone knew you couldn't tell by just looking at someone. Or not usually. Well, I'm not exactly a normal teenager (as if there really is such a thing). I better take a good long look in the mirror when I got back to my room.

I'd just turned up the sidewalk that went to the front of my dorm, and was readying myself for what I was going to say to my friends, who were probably hanging out watching movies or whatnot. I couldn't tell them about Loren and me, of course, but I did need to make up a story about breaking up with Erik. Or maybe I didn't. Loren was going to talk to him, so Erik probably wouldn't say much of anything to anyone. I could just say we had to break up because of his Change, and leave it at that. No one would be surprised that I'd be too upset to talk about it. Yeah, that's what I'd do.

Suddenly one of the shadows under a good-smelling cedar tree shifted and then stepped in front of me.

"Why, Zoey?" Erik said.

My body felt frozen as I looked up at Erik. His Mark was still a surprise. It was unique and incredible and made him look even more handsome.

"Why, Zoey?" He repeated when I just stood there staring at him like a speechless moron.

"I'm so sorry Erik!" I managed to blurt. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't want you to find out like that."

"Yeah," he said coldly. "Finding out my girlfriend, who has been playing oh-so-innocent with me, is really a slut would have been no problem if you'd, I don't know, advertised it in the school paper. Yeah, that would have been way better."

I flinched at his hateful tone. "I'm not a slut."

"Looked like you were doing a good imitation of one. And I knew it!" he yelled. "I knew there was something going on between you two! But I was so damn stupid I believed you when you said it wasn't true." His laugh was completely humorless. "God, I'm an idiot."

"Erik, we didn't mean for this to happen, but Loren and I are in love. We tried to stay away from each other, but we just couldn't."

"You have got to be kidding! You actually believe that asshole loves you?"

"He does love me."

Erik shook his head and laughed humorlessly again. "If you believe that, then you're stupider than I am. He's using you, Zoey. There's only one thing a guy like him wants from a girl like you, and he got it. When he's had enough of it, he'll dump you and move on."

"That's not true," I said.

He kept talking as if I hadn't spoken. "Damn, I'm glad I'm out of here tomorrow, even though I would like to be here to say told-you-so when Blake dumps you."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Erik."

"You know, you might be right," he said in a cold, hard voice that made him sound like a stranger. "I sure as hell didn't know what I was talking about the whole time I was saying you and I were going out, and the whole time I was telling everyone how great you are and how happy I was that you were with me. I actually thought I was falling in love with you."

My stomach twisted. I felt like his words were stabbing me in the heart. "I thought I was falling in love with you, too," I said softly, blinking my eyes hard to keep from crying.

"Bullshit!" he yelled. He sounded mean even though I could see tears filling his eyes. "Stop playing games with me. And you think Aphrodite is a hateful bitch? You make her look like a fucking angel!"

He started to back away from me. "Erik, wait. I don't want it to end like this between us," I said, feeling tears spill over and fall down my cheeks.

"Stop crying! This is what you wanted. This is what you and Blake planned."

"No! I didn't plan this!"

Erik shook his head back and forth, blinking hard. "Leave me alone. It's over. I never want to see you again." Then he practically ran away from me.

My chest felt tight and hot and I couldn't seem to stop crying. My feet started moving, carrying me to the only place I could go—to the only person I wanted to see. Somehow on the way to the poet's loft I got myself together. Okay, not really together, but at least I looked normal enough to keep anyone who walked by me (like two vamp warriors and a couple of fledglings) from stopping me and asking what was wrong. I'd managed to quit crying. I'd run my fingers through my hair and pulled it forward over my shoulders so that it partially covered my blotchy face.

I didn't hesitate when I came to the building that held the on-campus faculty quarters. I just took a big, deep breath and prayed silently that no one would see me.

As soon as I was inside I realized that I shouldn't have worried so much about being seen. It wasn't set up like a dorm. There was no big meeting room as you walked in where vamps hung out and watched TV like fledglings. It was just a big, stone-floored hallway that had closed doors leading off of it. The stairs were on my right and I hurried up them. I knew Loren might not be back at his room yet. He might still be looking for Erik. But that was okay. I'd curl up in his bed and wait for him. At least that way I would kinda be close to him again. My body felt stiff and unfamiliar as I walked out of the stairwell on the top floor and headed to the one large wooden door not far away from me.