“No, Heath, he’s bad. Just trust me on this one. And the Raven Mockers are seriously dangerous. It’s not safe to go back to school. You didn’t see him when he rose out of the ground. It’s like he can put a spell on fledglings and vampyres. It’s really creepy. You already know how powerful Neferet is. Well, I think Kalona is even more powerful than her.”
“That is bad,” Heath agreed.
“Yeah.”
Heath nodded and didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. I looked back at him, and somehow got caught by his sweet, brown-eyed gaze. I’d been sitting there in silence for a while, just looking into his eyes, when I started to be intensely aware of him. I could smell Heath. It was the nice, soapy, Heath smell that I’d grown up with. He was standing close enough to me that I could feel the heat from his body.
Slowly, without saying a word, Heath took my hand and turned it over so that he could look at the intricate tattoos that decorated it. He traced the pattern with one of his fingers.
“It’s really amazing that this has happened to you,” he said softly, still studying my hand. “Sometimes when I’m waking up in the morning I forget that you’ve been Marked and you’re at the House of Night, and the first thing I think is how much I’m looking forward to knowing you’re going to be at the game Friday night watching me play. Or that I can’t wait to see you before school getting sausage rolls and your brown pop at Daylight Donuts.” He looked up from my hand and into my eyes. “And then I wake all the way up and remember that you won’t be there for any of those things. That wasn’t so bad when we were Imprinted, ’cause I still felt like I had a chance, that I still had a part of you. But now even that’s gone.”
Heath made my insides tremble. “I’m sorry, Heath. I—I just don’t know what else to say. I can’t change any of this.”
“Yes, you can.” Heath lifted my hand and pressed my palm against his black Broken Arrow Tigers football shirt just over his heart. “Can you feel it beating?” he whispered.
I nodded. I could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, if a little fast. It reminded me of the incredibly delicious blood that was pounding through his veins and how good it would feel to take just a tiny little bite of him…And now the pounding of my heart was beating in double time along with his.
“Last time I saw you, I said that it hurt too much to love you. But I was wrong about that. The truth is it hurts too much not to love you,” Heath said.
“Heath, no. We can’t.” My voice was rough as I tried to talk through the desire I was feeling for him.
“Of course we can, babe. We’re good at being together. We’ve had lots of practice at it.” Heath stepped closer to me. He took the pointing finger of my hand from his chest and ran his thumb lightly over my nicely manicured nail. “Is it true that your fingernails are hard enough that they can cut through skin?”
I nodded. I knew I should walk away and back down to the tunnels and the life that waited for me there, but I couldn’t. Heath was also a life that waited for me and right or wrong it was almost impossible for me to walk away from him.
Heath took my finger and lifted it so that my nail was pressed lightly against the soft place where his neck curved into his shoulder.
“Cut me, Zo. Drink my blood again.” His voice was deep and harsh with desire. “We’re already connected. We’ll always be connected. So put the Imprint back between us where it belongs.”
He pressed my fingernail harder against his neck. We were both breathing heavily now. When my nail broke through his skin, making a small scratch on his neck, I watched, mesmerized, as an exquisitely thin ribbon of scarlet sprang up against the paleness of his skin.
The smell hit me then, the utterly familiar scent of Heath’s blood. The blood I’d once Imprinted as my own. Nothing can compare to the scent of fresh human blood, not another fledgling’s and not even an adult vampyre’s blood is as compelling, as hypnotically desirable. I felt myself leaning toward him.
“Yes, babe, yes. Drink from me, Zo. Remember how good it feels?” Heath whispered while his hand on my waist pulled me into him.
Couldn’t I just take one little taste? So what if I Imprinted with Heath, again? Hell, of course, we’d Imprint. And that’s not so bad. I loved being Imprinted with him. He’d liked it, too, until—
Until I’d broken the Imprint along with his heart and quite possibly irreparably damaged his soul.
I shoved him away and lurched out of the cab of the truck, stepping quickly around Heath. The icy rain actually felt good as it fell on my face, cooling the heat of my bloodlust.
“I have to go back, Heath,” I said, trying hard to get my breathing and my racing heart under control. “You have to go back, too, where you belong. And that’s not here.”
“Zoey, what’s wrong?” He took a step toward me, and I moved one more step away from him. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. It’s—It’s not you, Heath.” I pushed my wet hair back from my face. “You’re great. You’ve always been great, and I do love you. That’s why this can’t happen between us again. Imprinting with me isn’t good for you, especially not right now.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about what’s good for me and what’s not?”
“Because you don’t think straight when it comes to me and you!” I shouted. “Remember how painful it was when our Imprint broke? Remember how you said it made you feel like you wanted to die?”
“Then don’t break it again.”
“It’s not that simple. My life isn’t that simple anymore.”
“Maybe you’re just making it too complicated. There’s you. There’s me. We love each other, and we have since we were kids, so we should be together. The end,” he said.
“Life isn’t a book, Heath! There’s no guarantee of a happy ending,” I said.
“I don’t need a guarantee if I have you.”
“That’s just it. You don’t have me, Heath. You can’t. Not anymore.” I shook my head and held up my hand to stop him when he started to say something else. “No! I can’t do this right now. I just want you to get in your truck and go back to B.A. I’m going to go back down there. To my people and my vampyre boyfriend.”
“Oh, please! You and that vamp asshole? No way are you going to put up with his crap, Zo.”
“This isn’t just about Erik and me. The truth is you and I can’t happen, Heath. You need to forget about me and go on with your life. Your human life.” I turned my back on him and made myself walk away. When I heard him following me, I didn’t look back. I just yelled, “No! I want you to leave, Heath, and I don’t want you to come back. Ever.”
I held my breath and heard his footsteps stop. I still didn’t look at him. I was afraid if I did that, I would turn around, run back to him, and hurl myself into his arms.
I was almost to the old metal grate when I heard the first croaking caw. The sound stopped me like I’d run into a brick wall. I whirled around. Heath was standing in the freezing rain under the tree just a few feet from his truck. I spared hardly a glance for him. My eyes darted up into the dark branches of the ice-bowed tree.
Within the shadows of the naked boughs a darkness stirred. It reminded me of something, and I blinked, staring at it and trying to remember where I’d seen something like it before. Then the image shifted…changed…I gasped as it became more visible. Neferet! She was clinging to a thick, ice-slick branch that leaned against the roof of the depot. Her eyes blazed crimson and her hair whipped around her crazily, like she had been caught in a sudden wind.
Neferet smiled at me. Her expression was so purely evil that I felt frozen in place.
Then, as I stared up in horror, her image shifted again, wavered, and where the image of the tainted High Priestess had been, there was now a huge Raven Mocker. The thing perched on the side of the depot roof wasn’t human and it wasn’t animal. It was a terrible mutated mixture of both. It was staring at me with eyes the color of blood and the shape of a man’s. Its human arms and legs were naked, looking vile and perverted emerging from the body of a gigantic raven. I could see its forked tongue and the glistening saliva that dripped hungrily from that horrible maw.