Revealed (House of Night #11)(65)

“It?”

I frowned at him. “See, that’s exactly what Heath would have said. I used a complex sentence and lost you.”

“Sorry, Zo.”

“You just did it again! And the it I’m scared of is that I can’t make myself believe that you and Heath aren’t turning into the same kid.”

“Oh.” He paused and I could practically see the wheels turning inside his head. “You still love Heath?”

I met his gaze and told him the absolute truth. “I’ll always love Heath.”

He didn’t look away from me, so when his grin started I saw the beginnings of it and how it made his eyes sparkle with familiar Heath mischief. “That’s good,” he said.

“No, that’s confusing, especially because Stark is my Warrior as well as my boyfriend,” I said.

“But did you not love Heath and Stark together before?”

“Well, yeah, but it was pretty complex. And stressful. For all three of us.”

“Yet you still loved them.”

He hadn’t phrased it like a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah, and what I’m trying to get you to understand is that I think it’s just too hard to love more than one guy at the same time. I can tell you for sure what Stark would say about me trying that again.”

“Stark was kind to me last night.”

“Well, Stark and Heath ended up being friends. Sort of.”

“Then perhaps we can all be friends again,” he said.

Friends sounded safe. Who doesn’t need more friends? “We can try.”

“You could suck my blood if you wanted to.”

“Aurox! No. No, I do not want to suck your blood,” I lied, remembering how utterly, overwhelmingly awesome it had been to suck Heath’s blood and how much Heath liked it when I did. I narrowed my eyes at the kid. “Aurox, you don’t have Heath’s memories, do you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sometimes I say or do things that surprise me because I cannot remember how I know them. There is only one thing I am certain that I have from Heath.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I heard my mouth saying, “What’s the one thing?”

“His love for you, Zo.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Stark

“Are you sure we’re still on his trail?” Stark asked the winged immortal’s back between the panting breaths he was taking as he raced after Kalona.

“Can you not scent his blood?” Kalona glanced over his shoulder and then, obviously seeing that Stark was struggling to keep up with him, slowed to a jog and pointed to the grass of someone’s well-maintained lawn they were cutting through. “There, see where the vampyre’s blood has spattered the ground because it still seeps freely from him? My son did well in clawing his head—head wounds bleed easily and are difficult to staunch.”

“Yeah, especially if you’re moving as fast as he is.” Stark wiped the sweat from his forehead, jogging beside Kalona. “Who knew Dallas could run like this? I would’ve definitely thought we’d have caught up to him by now. He didn’t have that big of a lead on us. The kid can move. I always thought of him as one of those video-games-hands kids—soft and weak unless they’re pretending to be Zorg from the Planet Org, then they can destroy whole worlds with their fat fingers.”

Kalona furrowed his brow. “Your world still confuses me sometimes, but I can tell you I know why Dallas moves so quickly. He is fleeing for his life.”

“Hey, Thanatos specifically said you’re not supposed to kill him.”

“That is a shame. It would be just that I finish what my son began,” Kalona said.

“Can’t say I disagree with you.”

Kalona held out his hand, stopping Stark. They’d been following Dallas’s trail that led steadily west, and had run straight into busy Riverside Drive. “There.” Kalona pointed across the street to where the slick surface of the Arkansas River glistened in the moonlight. “He thinks to use the water to spread the scent of his blood downstream, and wash away his trail.”

“Thinks? You mean that won’t work?”

“Not for me it won’t. Blood still seeps from him—it is him I scent as surely as I scent his trail.”

“Huh. That’s good,” Stark said. Following the immortal across the four lanes of Riverside Drive, he was glad it was late and cold enough that joggers and bikers weren’t around. Sure, Kalona had put on a long coat, but those wings weren’t exactly inconspicuous.

Kalona paused after they’d crossed the asphalt bike path, bending to look more closely at the foliage. “Here is where he climbed down to the river.”

Stark looked at the weeds and sniffed, trying to pick up the sight or scent of Dallas’s blood. All he could smell was the muddy, fishy river. But the immortal seemed sure of himself, so Stark shrugged and followed him down to the river. When they reached the bank, Kalona paused again. This time he squatted. He seemed to be gulping big breaths of air while he stared across the lazily moving water. It’d been pretty dry since the ice storm in December, and the river was shallow, showing big stretches of sand bars between the sluggish water.

“I didn’t know you were such a good tracker,” Stark said, crouching beside him.