Untamed (House of Night #4)(33)

He snorted sarcastically. "You'd think so, wouldn't you, but that's not how it works. One time I thought it was perfectly safe for me to do a little practice shooting. I went to the park that was next to our House of Night. No one was around to distract me; I made sure of that. I found a big old oak and set up a bull's-eye in front of what I decided was the center of the tree."

He was looking at me like he expected a response, so I nodded. "You mean like the middle of the trunk?"

"Exactly! That's what I thought I was aiming at--something that was the center of the tree. But do you know what the center of a tree is sometimes called?"

"No, I really don't know too much about trees," I said lamely.

"Neither did I. I looked it up afterwards. The ancient vampyres, the ones with earth affinities, called the center of the tree its heart. They believed that sometimes animals, or even people, could represent the heart of a particular tree. So I shot, thinking about hitting the center or heart of the tree." He didn't say any more; he just stared down at his bow.

"Who did you kill?" I asked softly. Without actually thinking about it, I lifted my hand and rested it on his shoulder. I'm not even sure now why I touched him. Maybe it was because he looked like he needed the touch of another person. And maybe it was because, despite his admission and the danger he represented, I was still drawn to him.

He covered my hand with his, and his shoulders drooped. "An owl," he said brokenly. "The arrow just burst out of its chest. It was perched on one of the top inside branches of the oak. It screamed all the way to the ground."

"The owl was the heart of the tree," I whispered, fighting the insane urge I had to pull him into my arms to comfort him.

"Yeah, and I killed it." He looked up and met my eyes then. I thought I'd never seen a gaze so haunted by regret, and as the two animals at his feet comforted him and, at least for Nala, acted way more intuitively than usual, the thought flitted through my mind that Stark might very well have more gifts than just hitting whatever he aimed at, but I used some sense and didn't say anything. Like he needed more gifts to worry about? Stark kept talking. "See? I'm dangerous, even when I don't mean to be."

"I think I do see," I said carefully, still trying to calm him with my touch. "Maybe you should put up your bow and arrow, at least until you really have a handle on this gift of yours."

"That's what I should do. I know it is. But if I don't practice--if I stay away from shooting and try to forget about it--it's like a part of me is being ripped away. I can feel something inside me dying." He dropped his hand from mine and stepped back so that we weren't touching any longer. "You should know this part of it, too; I'm really just a coward because I can't stand that pain."

"It doesn't make you a coward to want to avoid pain," I said quickly, following the small voice that whispered in my mind. "It makes you human."

"Fledglings aren't human," he said.

"Actually, I'm not too sure about that. I think the best part of everyone is human, whether they're fledglings or vampyres."

"Are you always so optimistic?"

I laughed. "Oh, hell no!"

His smile was less sarcastic and more real this time. "You don't make me think of Debbie Downer, but I haven't known you for very long."

I grinned back at him. "I'm not exactly that pessimistic, or at least I didn't used to be." My smile faded. "I guess you could say that recently I haven't been as upbeat as usual."

"What happened recently?"

I quickly shook my head. "More stuff than I can go into."

He met my eyes, and I was surprised by the understanding in his. Then he surprised me even more by stepping close to me again and brushing a strand of my hair back from my face. "I'm a good listener if you need to talk. Sometimes an outsider's opinion can be a good thing."

"Wouldn't you rather not be an outsider?" I asked, trying not to be too thrown off by the nearness of his body and how easy it seemed for him to get close to me and under my skin.

He shrugged, and his smile turned sarcastic again. "It's easier that way. It's one reason I wasn't pissed about being moved from my House of Night."

"I wanted to ask you about that." I paused. Pretending I needed to pace to think, I moved away from him a little while my mind hopped from how attracted to him I was to trying to figure out how to frame questions that wouldn't make him think things he shouldn't think, especially around Neferet. "So you mind if I ask you something about you coming here?"

"You can ask me anything, Zoey."

I looked up and met his brown eyes and saw way more in his statement than those simple words. "Okay. Well, did they move you because of what happened with Will?"

"I think so. I don't know for sure. All the vamps at my old school would say was that the High Priestess here requested my transfer to her House of Night. It happens sometimes when fledglings have special gifts other schools need or want." His laugh was humorless. "I know for a fact our House of Night has been trying to steal that big-time actor you guys have, what's his name? Erik Night?"

"Yeah, Erik Night's his name. He's not a fledgling anymore. He's gone through the Change." I seriously didn't want to think about Erik while I was feeling so attracted to Stark.