Revealed (House of Night #11)(20)

“Fuck!” Stark said under his breath so that I was the only one who heard him. Then he sat up a little straighter and called, “Yeah, no problem. We got room for Aurox.”

When Aurox sat down directly across from me I focused on shoveling psaghetti into my face.

“So, where’d you learn that song?” Stark shocked the bejezzus out of me by asking Aurox.

“What song?” Aurox answered around a mouthful of noodles.

“Never mind,” Stark muttered.

The long, uncomfortable silence wasn’t broken until Damien and the rest of our group smooshed into the booth.

“Have y’all seen Aphrodite today?” Stevie Rae asked.

I looked up then to see everyone shaking their heads.

“Or Darius?” she added.

More head shaking.

“Crap,” I said. “I need to go check on her. It’s not like her to hermit in her room.”

“Yeah,” Stevie Rae agreed. “She calls breakfast the beginning of the day’s fashion parade. You know she actually told me once that she could predict which girls were going to turn into their fat, flabby mammas by how much makeup they wore to breakfast?”

“That girl is super crazy,” Shaunee said.

“Is wearing a lot of makeup to breakfast good or bad?” Damien asked.

“I have no clue,” Stevie Rae said. “I try to quit listenin’ if Aphrodite talks too long. She kinda hurts my ears.”

“Is her prediction about the girls part of her prophetic gift?” Aurox asked.

I couldn’t help laughing with everyone else. Well, everyone except Stark. Instead of laughing he was stabbing his scrambled eggs like he was trying to kill them.

“No,” Stevie Rae answered Aurox. “It’s part of her hateful gift, which we’re pretty sure wasn’t given to her by Nyx.”

“Oh, sorry,” Aurox said, looking sheepish. “That was probably a stupid thing to ask.”

“Hey, no worries, roomie,” Damien said, smiling kindly at him. “Aphrodite baffles all of us.”

“Roomie?” I heard myself asking. “You guys are sharing a dorm room?”

“Yes,” Aurox said, meeting my gaze for the first time. “Damien offered, and I did not want to be alone, nor did I wish to share a room with a stranger. The others, well, I often find them staring at me oddly.”

“That would be because you can change into a bull.” Stark’s voice was emotionless.

“I suppose you are correct,” Aurox said. He dropped his gaze from mine and went back to eating.

“Yeah, well, that brings up a subject Stark and I were talking about earlier,” I began.

“Yeah, we were talking when we woke up. Together. In the same bed. Right, roomie?” Stark put special emphasis on the word.

My friends threw worried looks from Stark to Aurox. I frowned. “Stark, everyone knows you and I are sleeping together.”

“Just wanted to be sure,” Stark said, attacking his eggs again.

“Anyway,” I went on, feeling my cheeks getting warm. “Stark and I were saying that it’s important to be sure our red fledglings and vampyres”—I managed to smile at Stevie Rae—“have someplace super safe to sleep until we can get back to our tunnels.”

“Rephaim and I were talkin’ ’bout that when he came back to me and Shaunee’s room after dusk,” Stevie Rae said. “I’m thinkin’ the same thing y’all are—we need to explore the school and find somewhere less aboveground for the kids.”

“And you, too, right?” I asked.

Stevie Rae shared a look with Rephaim before she said, “Well, no. I’m gonna keep roomin’ with Shaunee.”

“Even though I tried to talk her out of it,” Rephaim said.

“Hey, you know I’ll be okay by myself, don’t you?” Shaunee said quickly. “Last night was tough, but I’m better today. I’ll miss her, but I know my Twin’s in a wonderful place. She even said it before she died—her feelings were finally unfrozen. In a weird way I’m glad for her.” Shaunee blinked back tears, but she also smiled.

“I know, but unless we can find a basement-like place here that has an easy exit and entrance for, well, a bird, you’ve got me as a roomie until we go home to the depot tunnels,” Stevie Rae said.

“I remember Dragon saying something about there being storage for old shields and swords in the school’s basement,” Damien said. “So, there has to be something down there that’s at least watertight enough to house Dragon’s precious old weapons. You know he wouldn’t let that stuff be put anywhere it would rust out and get messed up.”

“Well, at least that’s good news. I’ll feel better with all the red fledglings and vamps underground during the day. It just seems that you guys are so exposed otherwise,” I said. Uneasily, I remembered Stevie Rae’s close calls with sunlight and how fried even a small bit of it could make her and Stark and the rest of them. There were new powers that came with being a new type of vampyre, but there was also a pretty intimidating list of new stuff that could kill them.

“I understand what you’re saying, Z, but there is another way to look at the red fledgling housing issue,” Damien said. “I know they rest better if they’re underground, and safe from the sunlight, and a basement would be good for that, but they’d also all be together in a place that most likely only has one entrance and exit. That may not be such a good thing.”