Chosen (House of Night 3)

"Heath, focus." I channeled the heat that was shimmering through my body into annoyance. "The tunnels. You're supposed to be telling me what you remember."

"Oh, yeah." He grinned his cute, bad-boy smile. "I really don't remember much, that's why I was asking you about it. Just teeth and claws and eyes and such, and then you. It's all kinda like a bad dream. Well, except for the part about you. That part's cool. Hey, Z, did you rescue me?" I rolled my eyes at him and started walking again, dragging him with me. "Yes, I rescued you, dork."

"From what?"

"Jeesh, do you not read the papers? The story was on page two." It had been a lovely, but fictionalized article where they quoted Detective Marx and his very brief and mostly untrue statement.

"Yeah, but it didn't say much. So what really happened?"

I chewed my lip while my mind raced. He didn't remember hardly anything about Stevie Rae and her pack of undead dead thingies. Neferet's mind block was obviously still firmly in place with him. And, I suddenly realized, it needed to stay that way. The less Heath knew about what had happened, the less chance that Neferet would give him a second thought and what would amount to a third mind screwing, which couldn't be good for him. Plus, the kid needed to get on with his life. His human life. And stop obsessing about me and vamp stuff.

"There wasn't much more than the papers said. I dunno who the guy was, just some crazed street person. The same guy who killed Chris and Brad. I found you and used my power over the elements to get you away from him, but you were pretty messed up. He'd, uh, cut you up and stuff. That's probably why you have such weird memories, when you remember anything at all." It was my turn to shrug. "I wouldn't worry about it, or even think about it much if I were you. No big deal, really." He started to say something else, but we'd come to the rear entrance to the park and I pointed to a bench under the first big tree. "How about sitting over there?"

"Whatever you say, Zo." He slung his arm around me and we walked to the bench. As we sat down I managed to slide out from under his arm and angle my body toward him so that my knees were a kind of barrier against him getting too close to me. I took a deep breath and made myself meet Heath's eyes. I can do this. I can do this.

"Heath, you and I can't see each other again."

His forehead wrinkled. He looked like he was trying to figure out a complex math word problem. "Why would you say something like that, Zo? Of course we can see each other again."

"No. It's not good for you. This has to be over between us." I hurried on when he started to protest. "I know it seems hard to not see me, but that's because of our Imprint, Heath. Really. I've been reading up on it. If we don't see each other the Imprint will fade." That wasn't exactly true. The text said sometimes an Imprint will fade due to nonexposure. Well, I was counting on sometimes being this time. "It'll be okay. You'll forget about me and go back to being normal."

As I'd been talking Heath's expression had become more and more serious and his body had gotten very still. I knew because I could feel his heartbeat, and even that had slowed. When he spoke he sounded old. Really old. Like he'd lived a thousand years and knew things I could only guess at.

"I won't forget about you. Not even after I'm dead. And this is normal for me. Loving you is my normal."

"You don't love me. You're just Imprinted with me," I said.

"Bullshit!" he shouted. "Don't tell me I don't love you. I've loved you since I was nine years old. This Imprint thing is just another part of what's been going on between us since we were kids."

"This Imprint thing has to end," I said calmly, meeting his gaze.

"Why? I've told you it's good for me. And you know we belong together, Zo. You have to believe in us." His eyes pleaded with me and I felt my gut twist. He was right about so much. It had been the two of us for so long-and if I hadn't been Marked, we probably would have gone to college together and then gotten married after we graduated. We would have had kids and lived in the suburbs and gotten a dog. We would have had fights once in a while, mostly over him being too obsessed with sports, and then we would have made up when he brought me flowers and teddy bears, like he'd been doing since we were teenagers. But I had been Marked and my old life had died the day the new Zoey was born. The more I thought about it, the more I knew breaking up with Heath was the right thing to do. With me he could never be more than my Renfield, and sweet Heath, the love of my childhood, deserved better than that. I realized what I had to do and how I had to do it.

"Heath, the truth is it's not as good for me as it is for you." My voice was cold and emotionless. "It's not you and me anymore. I have a boyfriend. A real boyfriend. He's like me. He's not a human. He's the one I want now." I wasn't sure if I was talking about Erik or Loren, but I was sure of the pain that clouded Heath's eyes.

"If I have to share you, I will." His voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and he looked away from me like he was too embarrassed to meet my eyes. "I'll do whatever it takes not to lose you." It made something inside me break, but I laughed at Heath. "Listen to you! You sound pathetic. Do you know what vampyre men are like?"

"No." His voice had gotten stronger and he met my eyes again. "No, I don't know what they're like. I'm sure they can do all sorts of cool stuff. They're probably big and bad and all that. But I know one thing they can't do that I can. They can't do this."

In a motion so fast I didn't understand what he was doing until it was too late, Heath pulled a razorblade from the pocket of his jeans and slashed a long, deep line down the side of his neck. I knew right away that he hadn't hit an artery or anything like that. The cut wouldn't kill him, but it was pouring blood-hot, sweet, fresh trails of blood down his neck and shoulder. And it was Heath's blood! A scent that I'd been Imprinted to desire above all others. The sweetness of it covered me, brushing against my skin with hot insistence. I couldn't help myself. I leaned forward. Heath tilted his head to the side, stretching his neck so that all of the beautiful, glistening cut was exposed.

"Make the pain go away, Zoey, for both of us. Drink from me and stop the burning before I can't stand it anymore."

His pain. I was causing him pain. I'd read about it in the Advanced Vampyre Sociology book. It warned about the danger of Imprinting and how the blood bond can become so close that not drinking from the human can actually cause him pain.

So I'd drink from him ... just this once more...just to stop his pain ...

I leaned farther forward and rested my hand on his shoulder. By the time my tongue reached out and licked the slick line of red from his neck, my body was trembling.

"Oh, Zoey, yes!" Heath moaned. "You're cooling it. Yes, come closer baby. Take more." He fisted his hand in my hair and pressed my mouth against his neck and I drank from him. His blood was an explosion. Not just in my mouth, but throughout my body. I'd read all of the whys and how-comes about the physiological reaction that takes place between a human and a vampyre when bloodlust consumes them. It was simple. Something Nyx had gifted us with so that both could feel pleasure in an act that could otherwise be brutal and deadly. But flat words on the page of a passionless textbook didn't begin to describe what was happening inside our bodies as I drank from Heath's bleeding neck. I straddled him, pressing the most private part of myself against his hardness. His hands left my hair to hold my hips and he rocked me against him rhythmically as he moaned and panted and whispered for me not to stop. And I didn't want to stop. I didn't ever want to stop. My body was burning, just as his had been. Only my pain was sweet, hot, delicious. I knew Heath was right. Erik was like me and I cared about him. Loren was a real man and powerful and incredibly mysterious. But neither of them could do this for me. Neither of them could make me feel like this ... want like this... desire to take like this...

"Yeah, bitch! Ride him! Make him hurt so gooood!"

"That little white boy don't have nothin' for you. I'll give ya somethin' you can really feel!" Heath's grip on my hips changed and he was in the middle of trying to turn my body away from the jeering voices so he could shield me, but the anger that spiked through me was blinding. My fury was impossible to ignore and my response was immediate. I lifted my face from his neck. Two black guys were just a few feet away and getting closer to us. They were wearing the stereotypical ridiculous sagging pants and stupid, oversized down coats and when I bared my teeth at them and hissed, their expressions changed from sneers to shocked disbelief.

"Get away from us or I will kill you." I snarled at them in a voice so powerful I didn't recognize it as my own.

"She's a fucking bloodsucker bitch!" the shorter of the two said. The other guy snorted. "Nah, bitch got no tattoo. But if she wants somethin' to suck, I'll give it to her."

"Yeah, first you and then me. Her little punk boyfriend can watch and see how it's done." With a mean laugh, they started walking toward us again.

Still straddling Heath, I lifted my one arm over my head. With the other I dragged the back of my hand across my forehead and down my face, wiping off the concealer that hid my identity. That made them stumble to a stop. Then both of my arms were over my head. It was easy to center myself. Filled with Heath's fresh blood, I felt powerful and strong and very, very pissed.

"Wind come to me," I commanded. My hair began lifting in the breeze that swirled restlessly around me.

"Blow them the hell outta here!" I flung my hands out toward the two men, letting my anger explode with my words. The wind obeyed instantly, crashing into them with such force that they were swept, yelling and cussing, off their feet and hurled away from me. I watched with a kind of detached fascination as the wind dropped the two men down in the middle of Twenty-first Street.

I didn't even flinch when the truck hit them.

"Zoey, what did you do!"

I looked down at Heath. His neck was still bleeding and his face was pale, his eyes wide and shocked.

"They were going to hurt you." Now that I'd flung the anger out of me I was feeling weird, kinda numb and confused.

"Did you kill them?" His voice sounded all wrong, scared and accusing. I frowned at him. "No. All I did was get them away from us. The truck did the rest. And anyway, they might not be dead." I glanced back at the road. The truck had come to a skidding, tire-squealing halt. Other cars had stopped, too, and I could hear people shouting. "And Saint John's Hospital is like less than a mile down the street." Sirens started wailing not far away. "See, the ambulance is coming already. They'll probably be okay." Heath pushed me off his lap and scooted away from me, pressing the sleeve of his sweater against the cut on his neck. "You have to leave. There will be cops all over here pretty soon. They shouldn't find you here."

"Heath?" I lifted my hand toward him, but dropped it when he flinched away from me. The numbness was fading and I had started to shake. My god, what had I just done? "Are you afraid of me?" Slowly, he reached out, taking my hand and pulling me to him so he could wrap his arm around me. "I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid for you. If people find out all the stuff you can do, I-I don't know what might happen." He leaned back a little, not taking his arm from around me, but looking into my eyes. "You're changing, Zoey. And I'm not sure what you're changing into."

My eyes filled with tears. "I'm becoming a vampyre, Heath. That's what I'm Changing into." He touched my cheek, and then he used his thumb to wipe away the rest of the concealer so that my Mark was completely visible. Heath bent to kiss the crescent moon in the middle of my forehead. "I'm okay with you being a vampyre, Zo. But I want you to remember that you're still Zoey, too. My Zoey. And my Zoey isn't mean."

"I couldn't let them hurt you," I whispered, really shaking now as I realized how cold and horrible I'd just been. I might have just caused the deaths of two men.

"Hey, look at me Zo." Heath took my chin in his hand and forced me to meet his eyes. "I'm almost six one. I'm a kick-ass starting quarterback for a 6A school. OU is offering me a full-ride football scholarship. Would you please remember that I can take care of myself?" He let loose of my chin and touched my cheek again. His voice was so serious and grown-up that he suddenly reminded me weirdly of his dad. "When I was away with my parents, I did some reading up on your vampyre goddess, Nyx. Zo, there's a lot of stuff written about vampyres, but I didn't find anything that said your goddess is mean. I think you should keep that in mind. Nyx has given you a bunch of powers, and I don't think she'd like it if you used them in the wrong way." His eyes glanced over my shoulder to the distant road and the awful scene that was playing out there. "You shouldn't be mean, Zo. No matter what."

"When did you get so old?"

He smiled. "Two months ago." Heath kissed my lips softly, and then stood up, pulling me to my feet. "You gotta get out of here. I'm gonna go back the way we came. You should probably cut through the rose gardens and get back to school. If those guys aren't dead they're gonna talk, and that's not gonna be good for the House of Night."

I nodded. "Okay, yeah. I'll get back to the school." Then I sighed. "I was supposed to break up with you." His smile turned into a full grin. "Not happening, Zo. It's you and me, baby!" He kissed me good and hard, and gave me a little shove in the direction of the Tulsa Rose Garden, which bordered Woodward Park. "Call me and we'll meet next week. 'Kay?"

" 'Kay," I mumbled.

He started to back away so that he could watch me leave. I turned and walked toward the rose garden. Automatically, like I'd been doing it for decades, I called mist and night, magic and darkness, to cover me.

"Wow! Cool, Zo!" I heard him yell from behind me. "I love you, baby!"

"I love you, too, Heath." I didn't turn around, but whispered into the wind and willed it to carry my voice to him.