“I do, but I can promise you I won’t be your girlfriend if I’m ashamed to be with you in front of my friends. You can’t be wrong around everyone else and right around me. What you really are is how you act most of the time. I see that there’s still good in you, but that good will eventually be blotted out by the darkness that’s there, too, and I’m not going to hang around to see that happen.”
He looked away from me. “I knew that was how you felt before, but I didn’t think it would bother me so much to hear you say it. I don’t know if I can make the right choice. When I’m with you, I feel like I can. You’re so strong, and you’re good.”
I blew out a big sigh. “I’m not that darn good. I’ve messed up a lot. Sadly, I’ll probably keep messing up. A lot. And you were the strong one last night, not me.”
He met my eyes again. “You are good. I can feel it. You’re good down deep in your heart, where it counts.”
“I hope I am. I try to be.”
“Then do this for me, please.” He closed the few feet between us before I could stop him again. At first he didn’t touch me. He just kept staring into my eyes. “You haven’t completed the Change yet, but even the Sons of Erebus call you Priestess.” Then he dropped to one knee, and looking up at me, he fisted his right hand over his heart.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m pledging myself to you. Warriors have done it for ages—pledged themselves, body, heart, and soul, to protect their High Priestesses. I know I’m just a fledgling still, but I believe I qualify as Warrior already.”
“Well, I’m just a fledgling still, too, so we match.” My voice shook, and I had to blink fast to clear the tears that were pooling in my eyes.
“Do you accept my pledge, my lady?”
“Stark, do you understand what you’re doing?” I knew about a warrior’s pledge to a High Priestess, and it was an oath that often bound him to her service for his entire life, and was often harder to break than an Imprint.
“I do. I’m making a choice. The right choice. I’m choosing good over evil, light over darkness. I choose my humanity. Do you accept my pledge, my lady?” he repeated.
“Yes, Stark, I do. And in Nyx’s name I bind you to the Goddess’s service, as well as to mine, because to serve me is to serve her.”
The air around us shimmered and there was a brilliant flash of light. Stark cried out and seemed to crumple in on himself, falling at my feet with a moan.
I dropped to my knees beside him, pulling at his shoulders, trying to see what was wrong. “Stark! What happened? Are you—”
With a wonderfully joy ouimme was oft s cry he looked up at me. Tears were running freely down his face, but his smile was radiant. Then I blinked and realized what I was seeing. His crescent had been filled in and expanded. Two arrows faced the crescent. They were decorated with intricate symbols that seemed to glow with their new scarlet color against the white of his skin.
“Oh, Stark!” I reached out and gently traced the tattoo that forever Marked him as an adult vampyre—the second adult red vampyre there had ever been. “It’s beautiful!”
“I’ve Changed, haven’t I?”
I nodded, and the tears overflowed my eyes and fell down my cheeks. And then I was in his arms, kissing him, and our tears mingled together as we laughed and cried and held each other.
The bell that signaled the end of fifth hour made us jump. He helped me to my feet and, smiling, wiped the tears from my cheeks and his own. Then reality broke through my happiness, and I realized everything that had to go along with this new and amazing Change.
“Stark, when a fledgling Changes, there is some kind of ritual he has to go through.”
“Do you know the ritual?”
“No, only vamps do.” Then I had a thought. “You have to go to Dragon Lankford.”
“The fencing instructor?”
“Yeah. He’s on our side. Tell him I sent you to him. Tell him you’ve pledged yourself as Warrior in my service. He’ll know what to do for you.”
“Okay, will do.”
“But don’t let anyone see that you’ve Changed.” I didn’t know why it was important to me, but I knew he needed to keep hidden until after he reached Dragon. I looked around the storage room until I found a TU trucker’s cap, which I stuck on Stark’s head. With a little more searching I found a towel, which I rolled up and tucked around his neck. “Pull this up”—I tugged the towel into place—“and keep this brim down. You won’t look too weird. I mean, there’s an ice storm out there. Just get to Dragon without being seen.”
He nodded. “What’ll you be doing?”
“I’ll be planning our escape from here. Dragon and his wife are in on it, and I think the Horse Master, Lenobia, is, too. So get back here as soon as you can.”
“Zoey, don’t wait for me. Get away from here. Get far, far away.”
“What about you?”
“I can come and go whenever I want. I’ll find you, don’t worry. My body won’t be with you all the time, but you’ll always have my heart. I’m your warrior, remember?”
I smiled and touched his cheek. “I’ll never forget. I promise. I’m your High Priestess and you’ve pledged yourself to me. That means you have my heart, too.”
“Then both of us better stay safe. A heart’s a hard thing to live without. I should know. I’ve tried it,” he said.
“But no more,” I said.
“No more,” he agreed.
Stark kissed me with such gentleness that he took my breath away. Then he took a step back, fisted his hand over his heart, and bowed formally to me. “I’ll see you soon, my lady.”
“Be careful,” I said.
“And if I can’t be careful, I’ll be quick.” He threw me his cocky grin and ducked out of the door.
When he was gone I closed my eyes, fisted my hand over my heart, and bowed my head. “Nyx,” I whispered, “I was telling him the truth. He has my heart. I don’t know how that’s going to turn out, but I ask that you keep my warrior safe and thank you for giving him the courage to make the choice for good.”
Nyx didn’t suddenly appear before me, and I hadn’t expected her to. But I did feel a brief, listening silence in the air around me, and that was enough. I knew the Goddess’s hand was on Stark. Protect him…strengthen him…oh, and could you please help me figure out what I’m going to do about him… I prayed silently until the sixth-hour bell rang.
“Okay, Zoey,” I told myself. “Let’s break out of this place.”
CHAPTER 29
When I rushed into the stables late, Lenobia gave me a chilly look and said, “Zoey, you have a stall to muck.” She tossed me a pitchfork and pointed me toward Persephone’s stall.
I muttered my apologies and my “yes, ma’am—right away, ma’am” and hurried into the stall of the mare I considered my own for as long as I was in school at the House of Night. Persephone whickered a soft greeting to me and I went straight to her head, stroking her face and kissing her velvet muzzle, and basically telling her that she was the prettiest, smartest, best horse in the known universe. She lipped my cheek, blew in my face, and seemed to agree with my opinion.
“She loves you, you know. The mare has told me so.”
I turned to see Lenobia standing just inside the door of the stall, leaning against the wall. I sometimes forget how exceptionally beautiful she is, so at times like this, when I really look at her, I’m surprised again at her uniqueness. She is strength packaged delicately. Her silver-white hair and slate-gray eyes are the most striking things about her, well, except for the incredible tattoos of rearing horses that Marked her as a vampyre. She was wearing her usual outfit of a crisp white shirt and tan riding slacks tucked into English riding boots. Except for the tattoos and the silver goddess embroidered over her heart, she looked like something that should be in a chic Calvin Klein ad.
“You can really talk to them?” I’d suspected as much, but Lenobia had never been so blunt about her abilities before now.