The library was in the front center area of the school in a cool multilevel room that had been built to mimic the turret of a castle, which fit in well with the theme of the rest of the school. The whole thing looked like something out of the past. That was probably one of the reasons it had attracted the attention of the vamps five years ago. Then it had been a stuck-up rich kids' prep school, but it had originally been built as a monastery for the Saint Augustine People of Faith monks. I remember that when I asked how the prep school had been talked into selling to the vamps Neferet had told me that they'd made them a deal they couldn't refuse. The memory of the dangerous tone her voice had taken still made my skin crawl.
"Me-eeh-uf-ow!"
I jumped and almost peed on myself. "Nala! You scared the crap outta me!"
Unconcerned, my cat launched herself into my arms, and I had to juggle notebook, purse, and small (but chubby) orange cat. All the while Nala complained at me in her grumpy old lady cat voice. She adored me, and she'd definitely chosen me as her own, but that didn't mean that she was always pleasant. I shifted her, and pushed open the door to the media center.
Oh—what Neferet had told my stupid step-loser John had been the truth. Cats do roam free all over the school. They often followed "their" kid to class. Nala, in particular, liked to find me several times a day. She'd insist I scratch her head, complain a little at me, and then take off and go do whatever cats did with their free time. (Plot world domination?)
"Do you need help with her?" the media specialist asked. I had only met her briefly during my orientation week, but I remembered her name was Sappho. (Uh, she wasn't the real Sappho—that vampyre poet had died like a thousand years ago—right now we were studying her work in Lit class.)
"No, Sappho, but thank you. Nala doesn't really like anyone except me."
Sappho, a tiny dark-haired vamp whose tattoos were elaborate symbols Damien had told me were Greek alphabet glyphs, smiled fondly at Nala. "Cats are such wonderfully interesting creatures, don't you think?"
I moved Nala to my other shoulder and she grumbled in my ear. "They're definitely not dogs," I said.
"Thank the Goddess for that!"
"Do you mind if I use one of the computers?" The media center was lined with row after row of books—thousands of them—but it also had a very cool, up-to-date computer lab.
"Of course, make yourself at home and feel free to call on me if you can't find what you need."
"Thanks."
I picked a computer that sat on a nice big desk and clicked into the Internet. This was something else that was way different than my old school. Here there were no passwords and no Internet filtering program that restricted sites. Here students were expected to show some sense and act right—and if they didn't it's not like the vamps, who were almost impossible to lie to, wouldn't find out. Just thinking about trying to lie to Neferet made my stomach hurt.
Focus and stop messing around. This is important.
Okay, so an idea had been milling around in my head. It was time to see if there was anything to it. I pulled up Google and typed in "private preparatory schools." Zillions came up. I started narrowing. I wanted exclusive and upper class (none of those stupid "alternative academies" that were really just holding pens for future criminals—ugh). I also wanted old schools, ones that had been around for generations. I was looking for something that had passed the test of time.
I easily found Chatham Hall, which was the school Aphrodite's parents had thrown in her face. It was an exclusive East Coast prep school and, man, did it look stuck-up. I clicked out. Any place Aphrodite's freak parents approved of would not be something I wanted to use as a role model. I kept searching ... Exeter ... Andover ... Taft ... Miss Porter's (really—hee hee—that's the school's name) ... Kent ...
"Kent. I've heard that name before," I told Nala, who had curled up on top of the desk so that she could watch me sleepily. I clicked into it. "It's in Connecticut—that's why it's familiar. This is where Shaunee had been going when she was Marked." I browsed through the site, curious to see where Shaunee had spent the first part of her freshman (or third former) year. It was a pretty school—there was no denying that. Stuck-up, sure, but there was something about it that seemed more welcoming than the other prep schools. Maybe it was just because I knew Shaunee. I kept going through the site—and suddenly sat up straighter. "This is it," I muttered to myself. "This is the kind of stuff I need."
I pulled out my pen and notebook paper and got busy taking notes. Lots of notes.
If Nala hadn't hissed a warning, I would have jumped out of my skin when a deep voice spoke behind me.
"You look completely engrossed in that."
I glanced over my shoulder—and froze. Ohmygod.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. It was just so unusual to see a student writing feverishly in longhand, rather than pecking away at the computer keys, that I thought you might be writing poetry. You see, I prefer to write poetry longhand. The computer is just too impersonal."
Stop being such a moron! Speak to him! My mind screamed at me. "I—uh—I'm not writing poetry." God, that was brilliant.
"Oh, well. Doesn't hurt to check. Nice talking with you."
He smiled and started to turn away and my mouth finally managed to work a little more correctly. "Uh, I think computers are impersonal, too. I've never really written poetry, but when I write something that's important to me I like to do it like this." Totally dorklike, I held up my pen.
"Well, maybe you should try writing poetry. Sounds like you might have the soul of a poet." He held out his hand. "Usually about this time of day I come by and give Sappho a break. I'm not a full-time professor because I'm only here for one school year. I just teach two classes, so I have extra time. I'm Loren Blake, Vampyre Poet Laureate."
I grasped his forearm in the traditional vampyre greeting, trying not to think about how warm his arm was, how strong he felt, and how alone we were in the empty media center.
"I know," I said. Then I wanted to slit my throat. What an idiotic thing to say! "What I mean is I know who you are. You're the first male Poet Laureate they've named in two hundred years." I realized I was still grasping his arm and let go of him. "I'm Zoey Redbird."
His smile made my heart flop around inside my chest. "I know who you are, too." His gorgeous eyes, so dark they looked black and bottomless, sparkled mischievously. "You're the first fledgling to have a colored-in, expanded Mark, as well as the only vamp, fledgling or adult, to have an affinity for all five of the elements. It's nice to finally meet you face-to-face. Neferet's told me a lot about you."
"She has?" I was mortified that my voice squeaked.
"Of course she has. She's incredibly proud of you." He nodded at the empty seat beside me. "I don't want to interrupt your work, but do you mind if I sit with you a little while?"
"Yeah, sure. I need a break. I think my butt's asleep." Oh, God, just kill me now.
He laughed. "Well then, would you like to stand while I sit?"
"No, I'll—uh—just shift my weight." And then I'll hurl myself out the window.
"So, if it's not too personal, may I ask what you're working so diligently on?"
Okay, I needed to think and talk. Be normal. Forget that he was easily the most heart-stoppingly beautiful man I'd ever been near in my entire life. He's a professor at the school. Just another teacher. That's all. Yeah, right. Just another teacher who looked like every woman's dream of The Perfect Man. And I did mean Man. Erik was hot and handsome and very cool. Loren Blake was a whole other universe. A totally off-limits, impossibly sexy universe I was not allowed access to. As if he saw me as anything but a kid anyway. Please. I'm sixteen. Okay, almost seventeen, but still. He's probably at least twenty-one or something. He was just being nice. More than likely he wanted a closer look at my freaky Marks. He could be collecting research for a highly embarrassing poem about the-