Untamed (House of Night #4)(3)

Damien's a tall, really cute guy with excellent bone structure whose brown eyes were usually warm and expressive but were, at this moment, wary and more than a little cold. "A flappy ghost thing?" he said. "Sorry, I have no clue what you're talking about."

My heart squeezed at the strangerlike tone of his voice, but I told myself that at least he'd answered my question. "On the way here from the stables, something kinda attacked me. I couldn't really see anything, but it was cold and it put a big welt on my hand." I lifted my hand to show him--and there was no welt there anymore.

Great.

Shaunee and Erin snorted together. Damien just looked really, really sad. I was opening my mouth to explain that there had been a welt there just a few minutes ago, when Jack rushed up.

"Oh, hi! I'm so sorry I'm late but when I put on my shirt I found a ginormic stain right on the front of it. Can you believe that?" Jack said as he hurried up with his tray of food and sat at his place beside Damien.

"A stain? It's not on that lovely blue long-sleeved Armani I got you for Christmas, is it?" Damien said, scooting over to make room for his boyfriend. "Ohmigod, no! I'd never spill anything on that one. I just love it and--" His words came to a staggering halt when his eyes flitted from Damien to me. He gulped. "Oh, uh. Hi, Zoey."

"Hi, Jack," I said, smiling at him. Jack and Damien are together. Hello. They're g*y. My friends and I, along with anyone who's not narrow-minded and utterly judgmental, are cool with that.

"I didn't expect to see you," Jack babbled. "I thought you were still . . . uh . . . well . . ." He trailed off, looking uncomfortable and blushing a pretty pink.

"You thought I was still hiding in my room?" I supplied for him.

He nodded.

"No." I said firmly, "I'm done doing that."

"Well, la-te-da," Erin began, but before Shaunee could do her usual chime-in act, a blatantly sexy laugh coming from the door behind us made everyone turn and gawk.

Aphrodite twitched into the room, laughing while she batted her eyes at Darius, one of the youngest and hottest of the Sons of Erebus Warriors who protected the House of Night, and did an excellent hair flip. The girl always had been good at multitasking, but I was totally shocked at how nonchalant and utterly cool and collected she looked. Only two days ago she'd been almost dead and then utterly freaked because the sapphire- colored outline of a crescent moon--which appeared on all fledglings' foreheads, Marking them as having begun the Change that would either end in becoming a vampyre or in becoming dead--had disappeared from her face.

Which meant she had somehow turned back into a human.

Chapter Two

Okay, I'd thought she'd turned back into a human, but even from where I was sitting I could see that Aphrodite's Mark had returned. Her cold blue eyes swept the cafeteria as she gave the watching kids a stuck-up sneer before turning her attention back to Darius and letting her hand linger on the big warrior's chest.

"It was ever so sweet of you to walk me to the dining hall. You're right. It shouldn't have taken two days to cut my vacation short. With all the craziness going on around here, it's best to stay on campus where we can be protected. And since you say you'll be stationed at the door of our dorm, that is definitely the most safe and attractive place to be." She practically purred at him. Jeesh, she was stank. Had I not been so surprised to see her, I would have made appropriate gagging noises. Loud, obvious ones.

"And I must return to my posting there. Good night, my lady," Darius said. He gave her a very sharp bow, which made him look like one of those romantic, handsome knights, minus the horse and the shining armor, from back in the day. "It is a pleasure to serve you." He smiled at Aphrodite one more time before turning neatly on his heel and leaving the cafeteria.

"And I'll just bet it would be a pleasure to service you," Aphrodite said in her nastiest voice as soon as he was out of earshot. Then she turned around to face the gawking, silent room. She lifted one perfectly waxed brow and gave everyone her patented Aphrodite sneer. "What? You look like you've never seen gorgeous before. Hell, I was only gone a couple of days. Your short-term memory should be better than that. Remember me? I'm the gorgeous bitch you all love to hate." When no one said anything, she rolled her eyes. "Oh, whatever." She twitched to the salad bar and began to fill her plate as the noise dam finally broke and all the kids made rude sounds and turned back to their food dismissively.

To the uninformed, I'm sure Aphrodite looked like her usual haughty self. But I could see how nervous and tense she actually was. Hell, I understood exactly how she felt --I'd just walked through the gauntlet myself. Actually, I was currently stuck in the middle of it along with her.

"I thought she'd become human again," Damien said under his breath to all of us. "But her Mark's back."

"Nyx's ways are mysterious," I said, trying to sound wise and High Priestess in Training?ish.

"I'm thinking Nyx's ways are another M-word, Twin," Erin said. "Can you guess it?"

"Majorly messed up?" Shaunee said.

"Exactly," Erin said.

"That's three words," Damien said. "Oh, don't be such a schoolteacher," Shaunee told him. "Plus, the point is Aphrodite is a hag, and we were kinda hoping Nyx dumped her when that Mark of hers disappeared."