TheDarkestShinobi: I always have too much going on in my story that I feel the reader needs to know to stay in the first person. I tried, I really did, but I work best in the third. I'll keep things with Zoey in the first, but I will shift into third a bit, like I have in previous chapters.

A few days ago I read Burned and Tempted. I will pretend I have not.

Also, I need someone to talk to, if Leslie Grace is still around, this is my formal invitation to have you back on the team. I need someone to bounce ideas off of, some aspects of the story would be spoiled, yes, but you'd have a say in where the story goes if I'm at a crossroads.

Prime example, I have a steamy scene in my head, and I'm not entirely sure who to give it to. Another example, I have a 'passage' that Kira gave Heath, should I put it in or make it a separate story and post a link here?

I need someone to throw ideas at, otherwise I'm just throwing them and I might not pick them up. Send me a message!

Also, go to my page and vote for the Tumblr idea

Chapter Start

"Stay with me."

I turned to him, my white ghostly gown swaying with me. He looked back down at me, smiled, and looked away.

"I will speak only truth now, so no matter what you know this." I nodded. "I want only two things. One, the world, I want to rule the world, take it back to the older ways. Two," he paused before looking straight at me, turning his body so that we were face to face, chest to chest, heart to heart. "I want something even more valuable than the world."

"I want you, Zoey."

Zoey, not Aya.

"I want you by my side forever."

How could I say no? If I banished him again, I'd go back to being hungry thirsty beat and alone. Erik left. Heath left. Kalona was still here.

"Nyx…" was the only thing I could whisper. I could not abandon her, even if she had appeared to abandon me. She came to me when I danced, she had to still be looking out for me in some way. I couldn't turn my back on her and her gifts like Neferet did. Kalona dropped to his knees.

"I know what she means to you, and rejecting her is the only way for us to truly, truly be together, but for now I shall be content to hear you vow to stay with me."

"Forever?" I asked, voice still shaky. He smiled in response and I frowned.

"I don't know about forever," I started with a smile "but I will stay, here, with you."

He kissed me and everything was not quite right, but not wrong.

.

His eyes open so abruptly he feels like he was falling. He needed to get to Zoey, now. He rolled off the bed, stumbling as he did so. Like a puppy on new limbs, he hit the wall before righting himself, soon after running into another wall because he couldn't stop on time. He bounded down the flight of stairs in a leap, but had no time to be shocked. He kept sprinting, as if the ball were firmly tucked away and he had a lane, only this time, there was much more at stake than a game.

He felt his body trying to morph under him, but he won't let it. A man running blindly might draw attention, but a wolf would cause panic. He didn't know if the power to stop the wolf came from him or Kira, but he didn't have time to think. He leaped over a gate and saw the school.

Faster. Faster still.

He charged right in, and as he crossed a line he felt something come undone, like he'd just destroyed a giant spider web.

Someone was running towards him, arms waving about wildly. She was a blonde and that's all he cared to note. He stalked forward, no longer running but growling. He had to gain control again before he burst. She comes up to him and moves to do something, but before he's made a conscious decision to move, he has her pinned to the wall with one hand.

"Let go of me you walking blood bank!" He doesn't respond. Can't respond. He can't think. He growls again. What happened to the control he had running over here? She struggled against him and he could feel parts of his body straining, starting to change.

"I'm Aphrodite, Zoey's friend." Heath tilted his head. "She's been missing for three days, you have to help me find her." His hand released, she dropped to the floor and he turned away from her, and right into Darius' fist.

Thankfully the hit allowed him to reel in control of his body. He lay on the floor for a few seconds, just breathing. "Although I should have hit you harder, I did not hit you hard enough to justify your recovery time."

"He's a human." She said as if in his defense while wrapping her hand in Darius', way too proud to ever admit he scared her.

"No." Heath responded as he stood, "Not human, not anymore." She wanted to ask but he didn't let her. "I can smell my Night, you will help me find her."

"duh," she said, feeling like smacking Heath in the back of the head, but she got the feeling it wasn't Heath she was talking too, not entirely.

It seems just like a flash sometimes, her visions.

She stumbles into Darius arms.

Stevie Rae comes to mind, Earth, so much dirt and layers of rock. She can hear Zoey screaming as the rocks fall, trying to claw out. Then there is a man, someone else, someone new and he makes her think off only darkness. He's climbing through the rock beneath her and she gets the feeling he'll never let her out.

Her eyes sting, she closes them and tells Darius to carry her. He does without a peep and she tells Heath that Zoey is underground, and a prisoner and they are running out of time.

.

Neferet grabs her head and screams in pain as her barrier is shattered. No one comes in for her, and after a moment, she notices she is on the floor and her covers are too. Her head is cloudy, but one thing is sure, something here had the power to shatter her shield and she could not let it go unpunished, and uninhibited. She needed to regain control.

She stood, using a hand against the wall and one on her head to steady herself. She took a few deep breaths and realizes what this is all about. She almost lets out a growl at the absurdness. Zoey Redbird. It would always have something to do with Zoey Redbird. She storms away from the bed and towards the door when the haze she just shook off comes back and sends her body crashing to the floor and her into darkness.

.

Her twin suddenly seems to be drowned out by this heat.

Shaunee almost is suffocated by the heat of someone else and is immediately curious. She wasn't the be all end all of fire, but no one had been able to touch her like that. Her fire was feeding off of someone else's fire, someone else's energy. Her nature is stirring, and nothing she does can calm it. Her twin touches her and relief flows into her like an ocean's wave. But the heat is still there, lingering. Shaunee doesn't know if it's a threat, but she knows it's interesting enough to investigate.

Her twin agrees.

.

The Grand Canyon.

I have hiking boots on, and I'm sure Kalona does too. We've been walking for hours, but I don't have a single ache. He's got lunch in a basket, but we can't stop yet. We're heading straight towards the peak and we aren't going to stop a second before.

"What was life like, I mean what did you do before…" I waved my hand around. He laughed .

"Before?"

"Before me." Well, before Aya

"Nothing I'm proud of." He said clearly not wanting to talk about it, but I had to know. Something inside couldn't let it lie. I had to know the truth, all of it. "I was a high priest, once upon a time,"

"Priest?"

"Yes, I'm the reason they are no others." He paused and I waited. "The world was changing, history became legend, legend became myth, and we were all but forgotten, the first children of the night."

A child of the night? He had no mark.

"I wanted to bring us back into the light, and the only way we can do that is to take it back. People do not willing hand over power once they have it. The world should be restored."

"You don't bear Nyx's mark." And what about that whole power crazy thing you just said!?

"No. We had other, less subtle gifts." He spread his large black wings before folding them behind his back. "they used to be white, before I lost her favor."

"How did you do that?"

He paused.

He didn't want to tell me, which made it terrible. I tried to remember what my grandmother said about him but I couldn't. He was an evil being; this must be what got him there. I took deep breaths as he stared off and suddenly I had to know. Nothing could be worse than speculation.

"Tell me."

"Our highest priestess was one who devoted her entire life to Nyx and therefore could never be with a man." Okay, so he seduced her? No. That wouldn't make him evil. Unless…

"You raped her!"

"Yes." No lie, no evasion. I sank to my knees. He reached for me and I flinched. "Don't touch me." I said firmly, and he listened. His story wasn't over though, was it? I looked up at him and he tried to smile, but my look told him better. "What else happened?"

"The next priestess took her spot, and I was cursed."

Oh goddess. I did not want to know. No. Stop now. I don't need to hear this.

"I made sure none of them could have the spot." I was sick. The splatter made me jump, but not as much as the gut wrenching in my stomach. I felt an arm around me and thrashed.

"Let me go you monster!" he didn't "stop it! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Now!" I screamed, I cried. When he placed me down I curled up and refused to talk to him. Monster. He was a rapist. He stole their most precious thing from them, their virtue for Nyx. He was evil, he was a monster. He tried to steal me from Nyx. I almost let him.

And there was a part of me, Aya or not, that loved him still.

"I need to be alone."

And then I was.

.

Heath stopped when he felt her.

Whoever she was, she was running towards him, and the energy humming through his body spiked. He let out a loud growl and Aphrodite groaned. Darius chuckled.

"Can we chill with this whole animal thing? It's getting old." She had no idea, he thought, but he waited. It would only be another few seconds now.

"Shaunee? Erin?" The two bounded to them, but Heath and Shaunee paused as they looked at each other.

"It's you," She almost touched him, but something held her back. Erin bounded by the two of them, using her hand to push Heath out of her way to ask Aphrodite if she was okay

"We need to find Zoey now." Heath said, sounding like himself again. He swore her touch calmed him, and the other, the one who didn't touch him… would she excite him? Later. Zoey now.

"She's somewhere in here."

"Under." Aphrodite said, trying to shift unsuccessfully and all of them entered the building.

.

"We can't get it open." Shaunee wailed as she slumped. Heath was trying to get excited again, but he couldn't. He looked over to the girls, and saw Darius and Aphrodite wasting their energy. He tilted his head.

"Shaunee, come here, everyone else take a step back."

As she drew closer he felt something stirring again between them. He reached out her hand.

"What?"

"Touch me." She shot him a look that asked if he was crazy and her twin matched the expression, but neither said a word. "Think of fire and touch me." Her dark warm hand grabbed his wrist and he exploded in front of them all.

He was the wolf. The wolf would save Zoey. He could hear them screaming and yelling, he could hear it very well now that he was a giant wolf but he paid them no mind. The smell of her was ever stronger now, his night, his Zoey, his girl. He used all of his strength and the door began to give. They were murmuring now.

The steel screamed before breaking and the girl slumped against the wall made his heart wrench. He picked her up by her shirt with his mouth, and refused to let anyone have her, but he did let Daruis rearrange her on his back.

At last he had Zoey back. No matter what, it would all be okay now.

TDS: so that tumblr poll on my page, and my companionship, and thoughts on the chapter? See you soon!