Marked (House of Night, Book 1): A House of Night Novel

by P. C. Cast

  Slowly, he took his finger from my chin and, as he had earlier that night, he traced the shape of a pentagram softly over my darkened Mark. I liked the way his finger felt against my skin—warm and a little rough. I also liked that being near him didn’t set off all the weird reactions I’d had to being close to Heath. I mean, I couldn’t hear Erik’s blood beating or see the pulse in his neck jumping. Not that I’d mind if he kissed me. . . .

  Hell! Was I becoming a vampyre slut? What was next? Would no male of any species (which might even include Damien) be safe around me? Maybe I should avoid all guys until I figured out what was going on with me and knew I could control myself.

  Then I remembered that I had been trying to avoid everyone, which is why I was out here in the first place.

  “What are you doing out here, Erik?”

  “I followed you,” he said simply.

  “Why?”

  “I figured I knew what Aphrodite had pulled in there and I thought you might need a friend. You’re rooming with Stevie Rae, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, I thought about finding her and sending her out here to you, but I didn’t know if you’d want her to know about . . .” He paused and made a vague gesture back in the direction of the rec hall.

  “No! I—I don’t want her to know.” I stumbled over the words, I said them so fast.

  “That’s what I thought. So, that’s why you’re stuck with me.” He smiled and then looked kinda uncomfortable. “I really didn’t mean to listen in between you and Heath. Sorry about that.”

  I focused on petting Nala. So, he’d watched Heath kiss me, and then saw the whole blood thing. God, how embarrassing . . . Then a thought struck me and I glanced up at him, smiling ironically. “I guess that makes us even. I didn’t mean to listen in between you and Aphrodite, either.”

  He smiled back at me. “We’re even. I like that.”

  His smile made my stomach do funny things. “I wouldn’t really have flown down and sucked Kayla’s blood,” I managed to say.

  He laughed. (He had a really nice laugh.) “I know that. Vampyres can’t fly.”

  “It freaked her out, though,” I said.

  “From what I saw, she deserved it.” He waited a beat and then said, “Can I ask you something? It’s kinda personal.”

  “Hey, you’ve seen me drink blood from a cup and like it, puke, kiss a guy, lick his blood like I’m a puppy, and then bawl my eyes out. And I’ve seen you turn down a blow job. I think I can manage to answer a kinda personal question.”

  “Was he really in a trance? He looked like it and he sounded like it.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably and Nala complained at me till I petted her quiet.

  “It seemed like he was,” I finally managed to say. “I don’t know if it was a trance or not—and I totally didn’t mean to put him under my power or anything freaky like that—but he did change. I dunno. He’d been smoking and drinking. He might have just been high.” I heard Heath’s voice again, rising from my memory like a cloying mist: Yes . . . whatever you want . . . I’ll do whatever you want. And I saw that intense look he’d given me. Hell, I hadn’t even known Heath the Jock was capable of that kind of intensity (at least off the football field). I knew for sure he couldn’t spell the word (intensity, not football).

  “Had he been like that the whole time, or just after you . . . um . . . started to—”

  “Not the whole time. Why?”

  “Well, that rules out two things that could have been making him act weird. One—if he was just high then he would have been like that the whole time. Two—he might have been acting like that because you’re really pretty, and that alone could make a guy feel like he’s in a trance around you.”

  His words made something flutter low in my stomach again—something that no guy had made me feel before. Not Heath the Jock, or Jordon the Sloth, or Jonathan the Stupid Band Kid (my dating history isn’t long, but it’s colorful).

  “Really?” I said like a moron.

  “Really.” He smiled very unmoronically.

  How could this guy like me? I’m a blood-drinking dork.

  “But that wasn’t it either, because he should have noticed how hot you look even before you kissed him, and what you’re saying is that he didn’t seem entranced until after blood came into the picture.”

  (Entranced—hee hee—he actually said entranced.) I was too busy grinning stupidly at his use of complex vocab to think before I answered him. “Actually, it happened when I started to hear his blood.”

  “Say again?”

  Ah, crap. I hadn’t meant to say that. I cleared my throat. “Heath started to change when I heard the blood pounding through his veins.”

  “Only adult vamps can hear that.” He paused and then, with a quick smile added, “And Heath sounds like the name of a gay soap opera star.”

  “Close. He’s BA’s star quarterback.”

  Erik nodded and looked amused.

  “Uh, by the way, I like what you changed your name to. Night is a cool last name,” I said, trying to hold up my end of the conversation and say something even slightly insightful.

  His smile widened. “I didn’t change it. Erik Night is the name I was born with.”

  “Oh, well. I like it.” Why didn’t someone just shoot me?

  “Thanks.”

  He glanced at his watch and I could see that it was almost six thirty—in the A.M., which still seemed freaky.

  “It’ll be getting light soon,” he said.

  Guessing that this was our cue for us to go our separate ways, I started to gather my feet under me and get a better hold on Nala so I could stand up, and I felt Erik’s hand under my elbow, steadying me. He helped me up and then just stood there, so close that Nala’s tail was brushing against his black sweater.

  “I’d ask if you wanted to get something to eat, but the only place serving food right now is the rec hall, and I don’t think you want to go back there.”

  “No, definitely not. But I’m not hungry anyway.” Which, I realized as soon as I said it, was a big lie. At the mention of food I was suddenly starving.

  “Well, do you mind if I walk you back to your dorm?” he asked.

  “Nope,” I said, trying to be nonchalant.

  Stevie Rae, Damien, and the Twins would totally die if they saw me with Erik.

  We didn’t say anything as we started walking, but it wasn’t an awkward, uncomfortable silence. Actually, it was nice. Once in a while our arms would brush against each other and I thought about how tall and cute he was and how much I’d like him to hold my hand.

  “Oh,” he said after a while, “I didn’t finish answering your question before. The first time I tasted blood at one of the Dark Daughters’ rituals I hated it, but it got better and better each time. I can’t say I think it’s delicious, but it’s grown on me. And I definitely like the way it makes me feel.”

  I looked sharply at him. “Dizzy and kinda weak-kneed? Like you’re drunk, only you’re not.”

  “Yeah. Hey, did you know it’s impossible for a vamp to get drunk?” I shook my head. “It’s something about what the Change does to our metabolism. It’s even tough for fledglings to get wasted.”

  “So drinking blood is the way vamps get wasted?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose. Anyway, drinking human blood is forbidden for fledglings.”

  “Well then why hasn’t anyone clued the teachers in on what Aphrodite’s up to?”

  “She’s not drinking human blood.”

  “Uh, Erik, I was there. Blood was definitely in the wine and it came from that Elliott kid.” I shuddered. “And what a gross choice he was, too.”

  “But he’s not human,” Erik said.

  “Wait—it’s forbidden to drink human blood,” I said slowly. (Oh, hell! That’s what I’d just done.) “But it’s okay to drink another fledgling’s blood?”

  “Only if it’s consensual.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Sur
e it does. It’s normal for our bloodlust to develop as our bodies Change, so we need an outlet. Fledglings heal quickly, so there’s no real chance of someone getting hurt. And there aren’t any aftereffects, like when a vamp feeds off a living human.”

  What he was saying was banging through my head like the annoying, too-loud music that blared in Wet Seal, and I grasped the first thing I could think clearly about. “Living human?” I squeaked. “Tell me you don’t mean versus feeding off a corpse.” I was feeling a little nauseous again.

  He laughed. “No, I mean versus drinking blood harvested from the vamps’ blood donors.”

  “Never heard of such a thing.”

  “Most humans haven’t. You won’t learn about it until you’re a fifth former.”

  Then some more of what he’d said broke through the confusion that was my mind. “What did you mean by aftereffects?”

  “We just started learning about it in Vamp Sociology 312. Seems that when an adult vampyre feeds from a living human, there can be a very strong bond formed. It’s not always on the part of the vamp, but humans become infatuated pretty easily. It’s dangerous for the human. I mean, think about it. The blood loss alone isn’t a good thing. Then add that to the fact that we outlive humans by decades, sometimes even centuries. Look at it from a human’s point of view; it would really suck to be totally in love with someone who never seems to age while you get old and wrinkled and then die.”

  Again I thought about the dazed but intense way Heath had looked at me, and I knew that, no matter how hard it might be, I’d have to tell Neferet everything.

  “Yep, that would suck,” I said faintly.

  “Here we are.”

  I was surprised to see that we’d stopped in front of the girl’s dorm. I looked up at him.

  “Well, thanks for following me—I think,” I said, with a wry smile.

  “Hey, any time you want someone to butt in when he’s not invited, I’m the guy for you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks.” I hefted Nala up on my hip and started to open the door.

  “Hey, Z,” he called.

  I turned back.

  “Don’t give back the dress to Aphrodite. By her including you in the circle tonight she formally offered you a position in the Dark Daughters, and it’s tradition that the High Priestess in training gives a gift to the new member on her first night. I don’t imagine you’ll want to join, but you still have the right to keep the dress. Especially because you look so much better in it than she ever did.” He reached forward and took my hand (the one that wasn’t clutching my cat), and turned it over so that my wrist faced up. Then he took his finger and traced the vein that was close to the surface there, making my pulse jump crazily.

  “And you should also know that I’m the guy for you if you decide you might like to try another sip of blood. Keep that in mind, too.”

  Erik bent and, still looking in my eyes, he lightly bit the pulse point at my wrist before kissing the spot softly. This time the fluttery feeling in my stomach was more intense. It made the inside of my thighs tingle and my breathing deepen. His lips still on my wrist he met my eyes and I felt a shiver of desire pass through my body. I knew he could feel me tremble. He let his tongue flick against my wrist, which made me shiver again. Then he smiled at me and walked away into the pre-dawn light.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  My wrist was still tingling from Erik’s totally unexpected kiss (and bite and lick), and I wasn’t sure I could speak yet, so I was relieved that there were only a few girls in the big entry room, and they did little more than glance at me before they went back to watching what sounded like America’s Next Top Model. I hurried into the kitchen and plunked Nala down on the floor, hoping she wouldn’t run off while I made a sandwich. She didn’t; actually she followed me around the room like a little orange dog, complaining at me in her weird non-meow. I kept telling her “I know” and “I understand” because I figured she was yelling at me about what a moron I’d been tonight, and, well, she was right. Sandwich made, I grabbed a bag of pretzels (Stevie Rae had been right, I couldn’t find any decent junk food in any of the cabinets), some brown pop (I don’t really care what kind, just so that it’s brown and not diet—eesh), and my cat, and I slipped up the stairs.

  “Zoey! I’ve been so worried about you! Tell me everything.” Curled up in bed with a book, Stevie Rae was obviously waiting up for me. She was wearing her pajamas that had cowboy hats all over the drawstring cotton pants, and her short hair was sticking out on one side as if she’d fallen asleep on it. I swear she looked about twelve years old.

  “Well,” I said brightly. “Looks like we have a pet.” I turned so that Stevie Rae could see Nala squished against my hip. “Here, help me before I drop something. If it’s the cat she’ll probably never stop complaining.”

  “She’s adorable!” Stevie Rae leaped up and rushed over to try to take Nala from me, but the cat clung to me as though someone would kill her if she let go, so Stevie Rae took my food instead and set it on my bedside table.

  “Hey, that dress is amazing.”

  “Yeah, I changed before the ritual.” Which reminded me that I was going to have to give it back to Aphrodite. Fine. I was not keeping the “gift,” even though Erik had said I should. Anyway, returning it seemed like a good time to “thank” her for “forgetting” to clue me in about the blood. Hag bitch.

  “So . . . how was it?”

  I sat on my bed and gave Nala a pretzel, which she promptly started batting around (at least she’d stopped complaining), then I took a big bite of sandwich. Yes, I was hungry, but I was also buying time. I didn’t know what I should tell Stevie Rae, and what I shouldn’t. The blood thing was just so confusing—and so gross. Would she think I was awful? Would she be scared of me?

  I swallowed and decided to steer the conversation to a safer topic. “Erik Night walked me home.”

  “Get out!” She bobbed up and down on the bed like a country jack-in-the-box. “Tell me everything.”

  “He kissed me,” I said, crinkling my eyebrows at her.

  “You have got to be kidding! Where? How? Was it good?”

  “He kissed my hand.” I decided quickly to lie. I didn’t want to explain the whole wrist/pulse/blood/bite thing. “It was when he said good night. We were right in front of the dorm. And, yes, it was good.” I grinned at her around another mouthful of sandwich.

  “I’ll bet Aphrodite shit puppies when you left the rec hall with him.”

  “Well, actually, I left before him and he caught up with me. I’d, uh, gone for a walk along the wall, which is where I found Nala,” I scratched the cat’s head. She curled up next to me, closed her eyes, and started purring. “Actually, I think she found me. Anyway, I had climbed up on the wall because I thought she needed rescuing, and then—and you will not believe this—I saw something that looked like Elizabeth’s ghost, and then my almost-ex-boyfriend from SIHS, Heath, and my ex-best friend showed up.”

  “What? Who? Slow down. Start with Elizabeth’s ghost.”

  I shook my head and chewed. Through bites of sandwich I explained. “It was really creepy and really weird. I was sitting up there on the wall petting Nala, and something caught my attention. I looked down and there was this girl standing not too far away from me. She looked up at me, with red glowing eyes, and I swear it was Elizabeth.”

  “No way! Were you totally freaked?”

  “Totally. The second she saw me she gave this horrible shriek and then ran off.”

  “I would have been scared shitless.”

  “I was, only I hardly had time to think about it when Heath and Kayla showed up.”

  “What do you mean? How could they be here?”

  “No, not here, they were outside the wall. They must have heard me trying to settle Nala down after she completely freaked at Elizabeth’s ghost, because they came running up.”

  “Nala saw her, too?”

  I nodded.

  Stevie Rae
shivered. “Then she must have really been there.”

  “Are you sure she’s dead?” My voice was almost a whisper. “There couldn’t have been some mistake made and she’s still alive but wandering around the school?” It sounded ridiculous, but not much more ridiculous than me seeing an actual ghost.

  Stevie Rae swallowed hard. “She’s dead. I saw her die. Everyone in class did.”

  She looked like she was going to cry and the whole subject was creeping me out, so I shifted to a less scary topic. “Well, I could be wrong. Maybe it was just some kid with weird eyes who looked like her. It was dark, and then Heath and Kayla were suddenly there.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “Heath said they came to ‘bust me out.’ ” I rolled my eyes. “Can you imagine?”

  “Are they stupid?”

  “Apparently. Oh, and then Kayla, my ex-best friend, made it obvious that she’s after Heath!”

  Stevie Rae gasped. “Slut!”

  “No kidding. Anyway, I told them to leave and not come back, and then I got upset, which is when Erik found me.”

  “Aww! Was he sweet and romantic?”

  “Yeah, he was, kinda. And he called me Z.”

  “Ooooh, a nickname is a seriously good sign.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “So then he walked you back to the dorm?”

  “Yeah, he said that he’d take me to get something to eat, but the only thing that was still open was the rec hall, and I didn’t want to go back there.” Ah, crap. I knew right away that I shouldn’t have said that much.

  “Were the Dark Daughters awful?”

  I looked at Stevie Rae with her big deer-like eyes, and knew I couldn’t tell her about drinking blood. Not yet. “Well, you know how Neferet was sexy and beautiful and classy?”

  Stevie Rae nodded.

  “Aphrodite did basically what Neferet did, but she looked like a ho.”

  “I’ve always thought that she was really nasty,” Stevie Rae said, shaking her head in disgust.

  “Tell me about it.” I looked at Stevie Rae and blurted, “Yesterday, right before Neferet took me here to the dorm I saw Aphrodite trying to give Erik a blow job.”