"You're crying," he said. "Don't cry."

"I-I can't help it," I said.

"I should have kissed more than your hand . . . thought I'd have more time," he whispered between liquid, panting breaths.

". . . too late now."

I looked into his eyes and completely forgot the rest of the world. In that moment, all I knew was that I was holding Stark in my arms, and I was going to lose him very, very soon.

"It's not too late," I told him. I bent and pressed my lips to his. Stark's arms went around me, still strong enough to hold me tight. My tears mixed with his blood, and the kiss was absolutely wonderful and terrible and over too soon.

He broke his lips from mine, turned his head, and coughed his life's blood onto the ground.

"Shhh," I soothed as tears washed down my face. I held him close and murmured, "I'm here. I've got you."

d.u.c.h.ess whined pitifully and lay down close to her master, staring with obvious fear into his bleeding face. "Zoey, listen before I'm gone."

"Okay, okay. Don't worry. I'm listening to you."

"Promise me two things," he said weakly. He coughed and had to lean away from me again. I supported his shoulders, and when he lay back in my arms he was trembling and so white, he looked almost transparent.

"Yes, anything," I said.

One b.l.o.o.d.y hand reached up and touched my cheek. "Promise that you won't forget me."

"I promise," I said, turning my cheek into his hand. His thumb shakily tried to wipe at my tears, which made me cry even harder. "I couldn't forget you."

"And promise you'll take care of d.u.c.h.ess."

"A dog? But I-"

"Promise!" his voice was suddenly filled with strength. "Don't let them send her to strangers. At least she knows you and can tell I care about you."

"Okay! Yes, I promise. Don't worry," I said.

Stark seemed to crumple in on himself with my last promise. "Thanks. I just wish we . . ." His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes. He turned his head into my lap and put his arm around my waist. Red tears silently washed his face, and he became utterly still. The only part of him that still moved was his fluttering chest as he tried to breathe around the blood that was filling his lungs.

Then I remembered and I felt a rush of hope. Even if I was wrong, Stark had to know.

"Stark, listen to me." He showed no sign of hearing me, and I shook his shoulders. "Stark!"

His eyelids opened halfway.

"Can you hear me?"

Stark's nod was barely perceptible. His b.l.o.o.d.y lips tilted up in a ghost of his sarcastic, c.o.c.ky smile. "Kiss me again, Zoey,"

he whispered.

"You have to listen to me." I bent my head down so that I could speak right into his ear. "This might not be the end for you.

At this House of Night, fledglings die, and then they are reborn to another kind of Change."

His eyes opened farther. "I-I might not die?"

"Not for good. Fledglings have been coming back. My best friend did."

"Keep Duch safe for me. If I can, I'll come back for her, and for you-" His words ran out in a red river of blood hemorrhaging from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.

He couldn't talk anymore, and all I could do was hold him in my arms as his life drained away. It was as he was taking his last, gasping breath that Damien, followed by Dragon Lankford, Aphrodite, and the Twins, burst into the field house.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Aphrodite reached me first. She helped me to my feet as Stark's dead body slid heavily from my lap. "There's blood on your mouth," she whispered, handing me a tissue from her purse.

I wiped my lips and then my eyes, right before Damien ran up to me.

"Just come with us. We'll get you back to the dorm so you can change your clothes," Damien said. He moved to one side of me, taking my elbow firmly in one of his hands. Aphrodite was on my other side and had another viselike grip on my other elbow. The Twins had their arms wrapped around each other's waists, trying hard not to cry.

Some of the Sons of Erebus had arrived with a dark stretcher and a blanket. Aphrodite and Damien were trying to pull me from the building, but I resisted them. Instead I watched, crying silently as the warriors gently picked up Stark's blood-soaked body and laid it on the stretcher. Then they covered him with the blanket, pulling it over his face.

It was then that d.u.c.h.ess lifted her muzzle to the sky and started to howl.

The sound was horrible. d.u.c.h.ess filled the blood-soaked night with sorrow and loneliness and loss. The Twins immediately burst into tears. I heard Aphrodite say, "Oh, G.o.ddess, that's so terrible." Damien whispered, "Poor girl . . . ," and then he, too, began to cry softly. Nala had crouched close to the grief-stricken dog and was watching her with big, sad eyes as if she wasn't sure what to do.

I didn't know what to do, either. I felt weirdly numb, even though I couldn't stop crying, but I was getting ready to pull free of my friends and go to d.u.c.h.ess to try to figure the impossible out, when Jack rushed into the field house. He skidded to a stop.

His mouth fell open in shock. One hand went to his throat, and the other pressed against his mouth, futilely trying to stop his gasp of horror. He stared from the shrouded body on the stretcher, to the b.l.o.o.d.y sand, to the mourning dog. Sniffling, Damien squeezed my arm and then let go of me to start toward his boyfriend when Jack, ignoring everyone and everything else, ran over to d.u.c.h.ess and dropped to his knees in front of her.

"Oh, honey! My heart is just broken for you!" he told the dog.

d.u.c.h.ess dropped her muzzle and looked long and steadily at Jack. I didn't know dogs could cry, but I promise you d.u.c.h.ess was crying. Tears were leaving dark, wet streaks from the corners of her eyes down her face and muzzle.Jack was crying, too, but his voice sounded sweet and steady when he told d.u.c.h.ess, "If you come with me, I won't let you be alone."

The big blond Lab stepped forward slowly, as if she'd aged decades in the past few minutes, and laid her head against Jack's shoulder.

Through my tears, I watched Dragon Lankford touch Jack's back gently. "Take her to your room. I'll call the vet and get something that will help her sleep. Stay close to her-she is grieving just like a cat will who loses her vampyre. She's a loyal girl,"

Dragon continued sadly. "His loss will be hard for her."

"I-I'll stay with her," Jack said, wiping his face with one hand and petting d.u.c.h.ess with his other. Then Jack wrapped both arms around the big dog's neck as the warriors carried Stark's body from the field house.

It was only as they left the building that Neferet showed up. She was looking flushed and breathless. "Oh, no! Who is it?"

"It is the new fledgling, James Stark," Dragon said.

Neferet moved to the gurney and folded the blanket back. Everyone else was looking at Stark, but I couldn't make myself see his dead face, so I didn't take my eyes from Neferet. I was the only one who saw the flash of triumph and pure, undisguisable joy that radiated from her face. Then she drew a deep breath and turned back into a concerned High Priestess, saddened by the loss of a fledgling.

I thought I might throw up.

"Bring him to the morgue. I will see that he is properly tended," Neferet said. Without looking at me, she snapped, "Zoey, be sure the boy's dog is cared for." Then she motioned for the warriors to proceed and followed them from the field house.

For a second I couldn't speak. Her heartlessness mixed with Stark's death had cut me badly. I guess some little part of me, especially at a time like this when something unspeakably awful had just happened, still wished that she was the woman I'd believed her to be when I first met her-the mother who would love me for who I am.

I watched them carry Stark's body out and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. There were people who needed me.

People I'd made promises to. It was time I faced the fact that Neferet had gone bad and stopped being so d.a.m.n weak.

I turned to Damien. "Stay close to Jack tonight. He needs your help more than I do."

"You'll be okay?" Damien asked me.

"I'll take care of her," Aphrodite said.

"So will we," both Twins said together.

Damien nodded, hugged me hard, and then went to Jack. He crouched next to his boyfriend and the dog and, hesitatingly at first, then with more confidence and warmth, began to pet d.u.c.h.ess.

"You're real b.l.o.o.d.y, you know?" Aphrodite said, pulling my attention from the heartbreaking scene of Damien and Jack trying to comfort Stark's dog.

I glanced down at myself. I'd stopped smelling the blood after I'd kissed Stark. I'd put it out of my mind so that the sweetness of it didn't drive me crazy, and I was surprised to see that my clothes were dark and sticky with his lifeblood.

"I need to get these clothes off," I said, sounding way shakier than I'd meant to sound. "I need a shower."

"Come on. I'll let you visit the spa," Aphrodite said.

"Spa?" I asked stupidly, not able to wrap my mind around what the h.e.l.l she was saying. Stark had just died in my arms and she wanted me to go to a spa?

"Didn't you know I redid my bathroom shower?"

"Maybe Z wants to shower in her own room," Shaunee said.

"Yeah, maybe she wants her own stuff around her," Erin said.

"Yeah, well, maybe she doesn't want to remember that the last time she showered off blood, alone, in her own room, was after her best friend died in her arms," Aphrodite said. Then she added smugly, "Besides, I know for d.a.m.n sure she doesn't have a step-in marble Vichy shower in her room, because mine is the only one on campus."

"Vichy shower?" I said, feeling a little like I was walking through a bad dream.

Shaunee sighed. "It's like a little slice of heaven."

Erin gave Aphrodite an appraising look. "You have one in your bathroom?"

"Part of the perks of being filthy rich and very, very spoiled," Aphrodite said.

"Uh, Z," Erin said slowly, moving her gaze from Aphrodite to me. "Maybe you should go to her spa. A Vichy shower is excellent for relieving stress."

Shaunee wiped her eyes and sniffled the last of her tears. "And we all know you got you some stress to deal with tonight."

"Okay, yeah. I'll go to Aphrodite's room to clean up." I moved woodenly out the door and walked between Aphrodite and the Twins.

I felt Stark's kiss on my lips all the way back to the dorm as the surreal croaking of ravens filled the night.

A Vichy shower turned out to be four big, fat shower heads (two from the ceiling and two from the sides of Aphrodite's marble shower) that poured a gazillion tons of soft, hot water all over my body all at the same time. I stood there and let it run down my body and wash Stark's blood from me. I watched the water turn from red to pink to clear, and something about the absence of his blood made me start to cry again.

It seemed ridiculous because I'd only known him for what was really only an instant in time, but I felt Stark's absence like it was a hole in my heart. How could that be? How could I miss him so much when I hadn't really known him? Or maybe I had known him-maybe there's something that happens between some people at a level that goes beyond time measurements and what society thinks is proper. Maybe what had happened between Stark and me in those few minutes in the field house had been enough to have our souls recognize each other.

Soul mates? Was that even possible?

When my head ached from crying and my tears finally ran out, I got wearily out of the shower. Aphrodite had a big white bathrobe hung up on the bathroom door, which I slipped on before I went out into her ritzy room. Not surprisingly, the Twins had left.

"Here, drink this." Aphrodite handed me a gla.s.s of red wine.

I shook my head. "Thanks, but I don't really like alcohol."

"Just drink it. It's more than just wine."

"Oh . . ." I took it and sipped gingerly, like I thought it might explode. And it did-all inside my body. "There's blood in it."

I didn't sound accusing. She knew that I'd already known what the "more than wine" comment meant.

"It'll help you feel better," Aphrodite said. "So will this." On the end table beside the chaise longue she pointed me to was a Styrofoam to-go box opened up to show a big greasy Goldie's cheeseburger and a larger order of fries with a bottle of brown pop-fully caffeinated and sugared, waiting next to it.

I gulped the last of the blood spiked wine and, surprising myself with how starving I felt, started wolfing down the burger.

"How did you know I love Goldie's?"

"Everyone loves Goldie's burgers. They're terrible for you, so I figured you needed one."

"Thanks," I said through a full mouth.

Aphrodite grimaced at me, delicately plucked a fry off my plate, and then plopped down on her bed. She let me eat for a while and then, in a voice that was uncharacteristically hesitant, she asked, "So, you kissed him before he died?"

I couldn't look at her, and the burger suddenly tasted like cardboard. "Yeah, I kissed him."

"Are you okay?"

"No," I said softly. "Something happened between us and . . ." My voice trailed away as I couldn't find the words.

"What are you going to do about him?"