“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” I said. Something about Erce was annoying me. Okay, she was Lenobia’s friend, so I wanted to like her, but since Aphrodite’s freak-out she’d stepped in and been acting like she was seriously the boss of me and all my friends. I’d insisted Darius stay with Aphrodite, so I’d basically watched without saying much as Erce had droned on and on about the rules of the High Council and What Not to Do.
Okay, a fallen immortal and a rogue ex—High Priestess were trying to manipulate the Vampyre High Council. Wasn’t clueing them in to that a little more important than being polite?
Of course, Damien, Jack, and the Twins all chimed in with innocent, intimidated “okays.”
“I’m gonna be back here behind you, sitting next to Damien and Jack. I’m not feeling the love in this place for humans, so I’m keeping a low profile,” Heath said.
I saw Stark exchange a long look with him. “You watch her back,” he said.
Heath nodded. “I’ll always have her back.”
“Good. I’ll focus on everything else,” Stark said.
“Got it,” Heath said.
And they weren’t kidding. They weren’t being sarcastic or testosteroney or overly possessive guy-like. They were so worried that they were working together.
That made me really, really paranoid.
I know it was ridiculous and immature, but I felt a terrible longing for my grandma. I wished with everything inside me that I was curled up in her cottage back at her Oklahoma lavender farm, eating popcorn that was too buttery, watching a marathon of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, and the worst thing I had to worry about was how much I totally didn’t get geometry.
“The Vampyre High Council!”
“Remember to stand up!” Erce whispered over her shoulder to me.
I squelched an eye roll. The big room fell absolutely silent. I stood up with everyone else, and then gawked as seven of the most perfect creatures I’d ever seen strode into the room.
All of the High Council were women, but that much I’d known already. Our society is matriarchal, so it figures that its governing council would be female. I knew that they were old, even for vampyres, and they were. Of course you couldn’t tell their age from just looking at them. All you could tell was how incredibly beautiful and amazingly powerful they were. On one hand it gave me a little squee of pleasure to see proof that even though vamps did age and, eventually die, they didn’t get all grossly Shar-Pei—looking and full of wrinkles. On the other hand, the sense of power they exuded was totally intimidating. Just thinking about speaking in front of them, let alone the rest of those in the cathedral, grim, silent vampyres, made my stomach want to turn itself inside out.
Stark covered my hand with his and squeezed. I held tight to him, wishing I was older and smarter and, quite frankly, a better public speaker.
I heard the sound of someone else entering the room and glanced over to see Neferet and Kalona walking confidently down the stairs to fill two empty places in the same bottom row tier we were on, only the two of them sat directly in front of the High Council. As if they’d waited for them to arrive, the Council sat down, signaling to us it was okay to sit, too.
It was hard not to stare at Neferet and Kalona. She’d always been beautiful, but in just the couple of days since I’d last seen her, she had changed. The air around her seemed to vibrate with power. She was wearing a dress that reminded me of ancient Rome, flowing like a toga. It made her look like a queen. At her side Kalona was spectacular. It sounds stupid to say that he was only half dressed: He had on black slacks—no shirt—no shoes, but he didn’t look stupid. He looked like a god who had decided to walk the earth. His wings swept around him like a cape. I knew everyone’s eyes were on him, but when he looked at me and our gazes met, the world fell away and there was just Kalona and me.
The memory of our last dream blazed between us. I saw in him Nyx’s Warrior, the incredible being who had stood beside her and then fell because he loved her too much. And in his eyes I saw vulnerability and a clear question. He wanted to know if I could believe him. In my mind I heard his words: What if I’m only evil with Neferet? What if the truth is that if I were with you, I could choose good?
My mind heard the words and rejected them again. My heart was something else. He’d touched my heart, and even though I was going to have to deny him—to pretend that he hadn’t gotten to me—for that moment I wanted him to see the truth in my eyes. So I showed him my heart and let my eyes tell him what I knew I never could.
Kalona’s response was to smile with such gentleness that I had to look quickly away.
“Zoey?” Stark whispered.
“I’m okay,” I whispered back automatically.
“Stay strong. Don’t let him get to you.”
I nodded. I could feel people looking at me with even more than their normal curiosity for my added tattoos. I glanced over my shoulder to see Damien, Jack, and the Twins all gawking at Kalona. Then I caught Heath’s eye. He wasn’t looking at Kalona. He was staring at me, obviously worried. I tried to smile at him, but the expression felt more like a guilty grimace.
Then a Council member spoke, and I was relieved to focus my attention on her.
“The High Council is convened for this special session. I, Duantia, call us to order. May Nyx lend her wisdom and guidance to us.”
“May Nyx lend her wisdom and guidance to us,” intoned the rest of the room.
During Erce’s briefing she’d told us the names of the Council members, and described each of them, and from her I knew that Duantia was the senior member, so it was her job to call it to order and to decide when the session would close. I stared at her. It was unbelievable that she was several hundred years old, and except for the intense confidence and power she commanded, her only outward sign of age was that her thick brown hair was streaked with silver.
“We have further questions for Neferet and the being who calls himself Erebus.” I saw Neferet’s green eyes narrow just the slightest, though she nodded graciously to Duantia.
Kalona stood and bowed to the Council. “Merry meet again,” he greeted Duantia and nodded to each of the other six Council members. Several of them nodded back to him.
“We have questions about your origins,” Duantia said.
“It is natural that you would,” Kalona said.
His voice was deep and rich. He sounded humble and reasonable and very, very honest. I think I, along with almost everyone present, wanted to listen to him, whether we believed what he said or not.
And then I did something that was silly and totally childish. Like a little girl I closed my eyes and prayed one prayer to Nyx harder than I’d ever prayed before in my life. Please let him speak only the truth. If he tells the truth, maybe there is hope for him.
“You say that you are Erebus come to earth,” said Duantia.
I opened my eyes to see Kalona smile and respond with, “I am, indeed, an immortal being.”
“Are you Nyx’s consort, Erebus?”
Tell the truth! I screamed in my head. Tell the truth!
“I once stood at Nyx’s side. Then I fell to earth. Now I am here at—”
“At the side of the Goddess Incarnate,” Neferet interrupted, standing beside Kalona.
“Neferet, we already know your viewpoint of who this immortal is,” Duantia said. She didn’t raise her voice, but her words were sharp, their warning clear. “What we want is to hear more from the immortal himself.”
“As any consort would, I bow to my vampyre mistress,” Kalona said, bowing slightly to Neferet who flashed him a triumphant smile that made me clench my teeth.