Thanks again to all of my loyal reviewers!!! Especially the ones who took more than 20 seconds out of their life to write a long, detailed review on why they liked my story. You know who you are ;) This time you guys get a brownie! ▓▌

Oops, I burned it a little.

I think you guys are gonna love this chapter! It makes things super intense!

PS, I don't know what EPA means. I mean, except Environmental Protection Agency and/or Exotic Plant Aromas, but neither of those exactly fit with this story XD


As Zoey slowly materialized in front of them, Stevie Rae could hear murmurs of elation from her friends. When all of Zoey was finally there, she was slightly translucent, 'cause she wasn't really there. It was just her spirit, or soul, or whatever you wanna call it. Then she spoke.

"Is this another dream?"


Zoey

So I was floating around in nothingness, when I suddenly felt like I was being blown somewhere else. Quickly after that, I could sense an invisible fire guiding me the same way the wind was carrying me. Along with the fire came a feeling of waves gently caressing my skin, and the mild current pulling me ever-faster in the same direction. The sudden smell of wheat hit my nose and kept me on my steady path. A few moments later the nice scent of wheat became rancid and smoky as if it was being burned…or maybe the inedible part of it was being burned…the chaff?…

My thoughts of the discussion Kalona and I had had what seemed like weeks ago, but what must have been only a few days ago, left my mind as I seemed to spin as if down a drain. However, rather than feeling sucked downwards, I felt like I was being pushed one way, then another, until all of me was in one place. My gut told me that I was whole, but not, and a glance downward proved my hypothesis correct. I could see myself, just barely at first, but I got clearer and clearer as I felt myself fill with a spiritual high.

"Zoey!" the Twins squealed in unison when at last I was fully there. Stevie Rae looked excited and uneasy at the same time. Aphrodite was examining her nails in a totally lame attempt to seem nonchalant. Damien's face lit with triumph, and Jack bounced on his feet. I was kind of confused. What kind of dream was this? I was still pretty see-through—it didn't look like I was going to become completely solid after all— and that made me wary. Whose dream was this? I ruled out Stevie Rae, because I'd just come from one with her; the Twins, because theirs would take place in a mall, I'm sure; and Aphrodite because…well, because. I immediately looked to Damien, because he seemed to be the most likely.

"Is this your dream?"

He looked at me strangely, and said "No," in a way that clearly stated that he doubted my mental stability. I sighed impatiently.

"Well, then whose dream is it? Or is this my imagination? Goddess, I'm going crazy," I muttered mostly to myself, but the others seemed to hear it as well. Then a flickering light caught my attention, and I noticed for the first time the intricate line of light connecting my friends. They must have cast a circle, I presumed, and then it hit me. Well, duh. All those sensations that had led me here, they were the elements. I briefly wondered who had represented Spirit with me gone, and spotted Aphrodite with the purple candle.

A wave of child-like jealousy gripped me for a moment, before I distastefully shook it off. Of course they would have to have a replacement, because I obviously was not there, being as I was the object of summoning. Or so I assumed, based on their reactions to my arrival.

"It's nobody's dream, it's not your imagination, and I have my doubts about your sanity," Aphrodite recited in a bored tone. I rolled my eyes at her, bringing them to rest on Stevie Rae, who smiled at me timidly.

"You have some explaining to do," I said quietly, hopefully so no one else could hear. I had tried to walk closer to her, but something was keeping me in place. I noticed with annoyance that every time someone in the circle stepped to the side even the slightest bit, I moved a little with them.

"So, what ha—" Damien began curiously just before the door slammed open, and a familiar red vampyre joined our group.

"Darius told me that Stevie Rae just arrived. Is she in here?" Stark said emotionlessly as his blank eyes moved around the circle. They halted on Stevie Rae, who then waved at him and told him that she was, indeed, here. He almost turned to leave when his dead eyes met mine, and the vacant expression on his face turned to one of disbelief as he looked me over. I wasn't surprised that it had taken this long to notice me; I was pretty dang see-through, and the circle that had brought me here made me stand unnaturally still, but not uncomfortably so.

"Stark," I whispered hoarsely through my abruptly burning throat. Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes, but I franticly blinked them away. We did not need more drama, not now. Stark's gaze shifted around the circle, as if he was unsure if he was dreaming or being tricked. When he met all smiling faces—with the exception of Aphrodite's, naturally—a teensy smile tugged at the corners of his pale lips, then the corners of his tired-looking eyes. He started towards me, but didn't come any closer than three feet away. His eyes suddenly looked distrustful.

"The last time I touched you," he began slowly, "You disappeared."

"Yeah, but I came back," I answered soothingly. "I'm okay."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then closed his eyes.

"You kept your promise," Stark said after a moment. "But I can't feel you through my warrior's bond."

A soft "Hmm," from Damien reminded me that Stark and I weren't the only ones in the room. I looked at my feet in embarrassment, and wondered if the sudden warmth in my cheeks could bee seen by the others. When I looked up again, I saw four pairs of curious eyes looking at me. Aphrodite was still acting indifferent, and Stark and Stevie Rae had had a dream with me in it already. Which made me wonder exactly how much time I had here.

As if on cue, I became dizzy, but it was stronger than the previous times. I was nauseous, and had to put my hands to my head to stop the world from spinning.

"Zoey? Are you okay?"

"What's wrong with her, Twin?"

"Try to stay with us, Zoey!"

I subdued the vertigo as best I could, pushing it into the farthest corner of my mind that I could, and stood up straight again. I guess I hadn't realized that I'd keeled over. I didn't start glowing, so I guess that means I'd stopped the…transformation? That was all I could think to call it, anyway.

"Yeah," I breathed, "I'm okay."

"You said 'the last time I touched you'; does that mean you've seen Zoey since…you know," Damien inquired, addressing Stark.

"Yeah," Stark and I answered at the same time.

"Me too," Stevie Rae added.

"How? And why didn't you mention it before now?" Shaunee asked crossly.

"In a dream, and I only just woke up," Stark added defensively, and more like his old self.

"Me too," Stevie Rae repeated, "And I just arrived, so ya'll can't be upset with me. I only just had the dream on the jet."

"Sooo, does that mean that Zoey, can, like—"

"—enter people's dreams? Cool!" Erin began, and Shaunee finished for her.

"I don't know," I stated softly, "It seems like more than that too me. I met with Heath twice, Stevie Rae once, Stark once, and…" I hesitated, not knowing how they'd react to the other person. Uh, dark, fallen angel thing. I swallowed, and at last admitted, "Kalona."

This, of course, caused everyone to talk at once, and for me to lose my very unstable control on the dizziness. The talking came to a stand-still as I saw my skin begin to glow, shedding an eerie light on the surrounding people. The Twins, Damien, Jack, and a now very interested Aphrodite jumped to my rescue—or might I say doom—and tried to help me with whatever was happening.

"No!" I heard Stark shout, and at the same time Stevie Rae said earnestly, "Try to keep her with us with your elements, guys!"

"Just try again some other time!" I cried as five people grabbed at me at once, and I became a shower of shimmering dust.


Floating, floating, floating….not floating. Back in that cursed ballroom thing with Kalona. I saw him dressing his still bleeding wound with a scrap of material ripped from his pants—well, now they were capris—and he was too distracted by it to notice me appear suddenly in a corner of the room. I held my nose and swiftly ducked under a table covered in a sheet, like those ones to protect stuff from dust. I've never understood those. Dust is so not dangerous. Unlike the guy I was hiding from underneath a dust-protected table.

As I watched him from under the table, he stood up, brushing the remaining bits of glass off of himself. He stretched his wings, and unexpectedly crouched down and picked something up off the ground. I couldn't see what it was, but I got a glimpse of it just as he placed it in his pocket. It just looked like a piece of material that he'd ripped off from his pants to stop his bleeding.

A stifled rustling came from behind me, and my leg began to tremble slightly. I gasped while I stifled a shriek as I lifted my leg and a rat skittered away from me. It stopped after a few inches, turned back to me, and squeaked as if telling me off for sitting on him. I jumped away from it and hit my head on the table above me, creating a loud, resounding thud as the table connected with my head.

"Crap," I whispered franticly as I heard rapid footsteps heading in my direction. I shimmied farther over and away from where the noise had come from, as I tried to remember any doors leading out of this room. There had been big, solid doors at the end of the ballroom, but the door I'd burned through to get in here was closer.

"A-ya, please, I know how we can be together," His voice rang clear in the large, empty room.

A hand grasped the bottom of the sheet, and I tensed up, getting ready to run. As the hand whipped the sheet from the table, I jumped to my feet and dashed out the door, Kalona hard on my heels. When we came to the familiar intersection, I took the smallest passageway, hoping it was too thin for him to fly through. I heard him grunt in irritation and assumed I had done the right thing. With this newfound optimism came newfound speed, and my legs pumped faster than I thought they ever had before. Kalona kept right up with me.

It was a while before I saw another intersection of hallways, but when I reached it the smallest hallway was barred off for construction. They were widening it. How quaint. I chose the one on the right, and turned sharply, hoping it would throw him off.

"A-ya!" Kalona growled from behind me. I didn't look to check, but I think my little maneuver had slowed him down a little. I saw a door at the end of the hallway before me, and sped up even faster, determined to reach it in time to slam and lock it in his face. I reached it, whipped it open, slammed it shut, and kept running. I had expected it to be a new room, and it was. However, I was most definitely not expecting there to be a giant curtain in my way, and so was completely unprepared for the heavy, red drape that engulfed me as I tried to run through the room.

I struggled with it, trying to escape, which of course made me get tangled up it. I heard the door open, and held my breath, hoping he might not notice the giant red curtain laying on the floor. Yeah, right. I heard his stupid, gloating laugh—which hurt my ego and my chances of escape—and immediately began to fight with my unintentional captor once again. Two huge arms wrapped around me, curtain and all, and set me down a moment later on something soft. I felt him fiddling with the thick cocoon around me, and made it almost impossible for me to move. He then found my head and released it from the red drape, pulling it off roughly and leaving my hair all messy.

I tried to squirm my arms out of my prison, to no avail. He had made it tighter, and impossible to escape from. I glared at him as he smiled at what I assume was my untidy hair, and I tried to blow it out of my eyes. His hand came down and brushed it aside, caressing my face in the same movement. I shivered at his cold touch.

From what I saw around me, I guessed that we were in a bedroom. Oh, Goddess. He had placed me on a bed, but perpendicular to the traditional way of laying in one. I felt the bed sink as he sat next to me.

"A-ya, now that I have you where I want you, I am now going to show you how we can truly be together," Kalona began, reminding me ironically of the 'I gotcha where I wantcha, and now I'm gonna eatcha!' joke that everyone thought was so funny when you were a kid. Eatcha. Great. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the fabric I had seen him place there earlier. I wondered what he planned on doing with that. A gag? A blindfold? A handkerchief? I smiled slightly at the last one. Yeah, a jean hankie.

Instead of gagging, blinding, or wiping my snot with it—and, just to let you know, I did not have snot on me—he unfolded it. And I gasped. Because what was inside scared me to death. I knew what he was going to do, even before he spoke.

"You are a very unusual fledgling," he murmured, holding out the large, rather sharp shard of glass so it shone in the light. "You have imprinted with two others before; that boy and the professor Neferet killed."

His words sliced fear through me faster than the glass splinter would slice him. He'd just admitted that Neferet was behind the murder of Loren Blake, the professor at the House of Night I had had an affair with. And also his intent scared me. I swallowed as he brought the razor-sharp edge of the sliver of glass closer to his throat.

"Please," I plead in a small, quivering voice, "Please don't."

My words actually seemed to have the desired effect. He halted for a moment, and just looked at me, then the shard of glass.

"I have to," He finally declared. "It's the only way we can truly be together."

And with his words he swiftly drew the sliver of glass across his throat, drawing a small well of blood. I, not having my hands to cover my nose, quickly ceased to breath. He lowered his neck down towards me, at the same time slowly unraveling me from the thick curtain. When I could hold my breath no longer, I tried to shove him away from me with my newly-freed hands, but he didn't budge. My lungs burned as I tried to hold my breath longer. I tightened my lips as his neck lowered to mere millimeters away, and the world grew hazy from lack of oxygen. Or, if I was lucky, an escape route.

Then, three terrible things happened at once:

1) I could not hold my breath any longer, and I opened my mouth to suck in much-needed air.

2) A single drop of his blood dripped down from his close neck, and into my now opened mouth.

3) I loved it. I couldn't help but love it. I was addicted before it touched my tongue.

I ungraciously wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer to me. His body, now warm, relaxed, and he fell onto the bed next to me. When I licked his cut, it began to drip blood faster and faster, but it still wasn't fast enough. I felt it the second our imprint formed, but that just made me want his blood all the more. Part of me—the rational Zoey—screamed for me to stop or the world would end, but the other part,—the irrational A-ya—who was the bigger part, the one in complete control, told me to get closer to him and drink deeper.

I dug my nails into the back of his head as I tried to draw him closer, but he was already too close. I heard him sigh as I drank intensely, and he whispered in my ear:

"Now, you are mine…"


And here's where I stop. It got a little awkward for me to write, so I just stopped writing. And, no they do not have sex. Just yummy blood. I don't write sex stuff, so it will most certainly NOT be in this story. Even what I did write was pushing my limits.

Okay, and this is something I am confused about: Is Kalona a vampyre? I don't remember it ever saying…

Hehe. I love working in the title in subtle ways. Hehe. Didja catch it?

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