Burned

you’re okay—we’re okay.”
    “Well, this’ll help.” Stevie Rae was upending the baggie when Lenobia came in the room.
    “Hey, Lenobia—check out Sleeping Beauty finally waking up,” Dallas said.
    Stevie Rae guzzled the last bloody drop and turned to the door, but the hello smile she’d already put on her face froze at her first glimpse of Lenobia.
    The Mistress of Horses had been crying. A lot.
    “Ohmygoodness, what is it?” Stevie Rae was so shaken by seeing the usually strong professor in tears that her first reaction was to pat the bed next to her, inviting Lenobia to sit with her, just like her mama used to do when she’d hurt herself and come crying to be fixed.
    Lenobia took several wooden steps into the room. She didn’t sit on Stevie Rae’s bed. She stood at the foot of it and drew a deep breath as if readying herself to do something really terrible.
    “Do you want me to go?” Dallas asked hesitantly.
    “No. Stay. She might need you.” Lenobia’s voice was rough and thick with tears. She met Stevie Rae’s eyes. “It’s Zoey. Something’s happened.”
    A jolt of fear zapped Stevie Rae in the gut, and the words burst from her before she could stop them. “She’s fine! I talked to her, remember? When we were leavin’ the depot, before all that daylight andpain and stuff caught up to me, and I passed out. That was just yesterday.”
    “Erce, my friend who serves as assistant to the High Council, has been trying to contact me for hours. I’d foolishly left my phone in the Hummer, so I didn’t speak to her until just now. Kalona killed Heath.”
    “Shit!” Dallas gasped.
    Stevie Rae ignored him and stared at Lenobia.
Rephaim’s dad had killed Heath!
The sick fear in her gut was getting worse and worse by the second. “Zoey’s not dead. I’d know it if she was dead.”
    “Zoey’s not dead, but she saw Kalona kill Heath. She tried to stop him and couldn’t. It shattered her, Stevie Rae.” Tears had started to leak down Lenobia’s porcelain cheeks.
    “Shattered her? What does that mean?”
    “It means her body still breathes, but her soul is gone. When a High Priestess’s soul is shattered, it is only a matter of time before her body fades from this world, too.”
    “Fades? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Are you tryin’ to tell me she’s going to disappear?”
    “No,” Lenobia said raggedly. “She’s going to die.”
    Stevie Rae’s head started to shake back and forth, back and forth. “No. No. No! We just gotta get her here. She’ll be fine then.”
    “Even if her body returns here, Zoey isn’t coming back, Stevie Rae. You have to prepare yourself for that.”
    “I won’t!” Stevie Rae yelled. “I can’t! Dallas, get me my jeans and stuff. I gotta get outta here. I gotta figure out a way to help Z. She didn’t give up on me, and I’m not givin’ up on her.”
    “This isn’t about you.” Dragon Lankford spoke from the open doorway to the infirmary room. His strong face was drawn and haggard with the newness of the loss of his mate, but his voice was calm and sure. “It’s about the fact that Zoey faced a grief she could not bear. And I do understand something about grief. When it shatters a soul, the path to return to the body is broken, and without the infilling of spirit, our bodies die.”
    “No, please. This can’t be right. This can’t be happening,” Stevie Rae told him.
    “You are the first red vampyre High Priestess. You have to find the strength to accept this loss. Your people will need you,” Dragon said.
    “We don’t know where Kalona has fled, nor do we know Neferet’s role in all of this,” Lenobia said.
    “What we do know is that Zoey’s death would be an excellent time for them to strike against us,” Dragon added.
    Zoey’s death . . .
The words echoed through Stevie Rae’s mind, leaving behind shock and fear and despair.
    “Your powers are vast. The swiftness of your recovery proves that,” Lenobia said. “And we will need every power we can harness to meet the darkness I feel certain is going to descend upon us.”
    “Control your grief,” Dragon said. “And take up Zoey’s mantle.”
    “No one can be Zoey!” Stevie Rae cried.
    “We’re not asking you to be her. We’re only asking you to help the rest of us fill the void she leaves,” Lenobia said.
    “I have—I have to think,” Stevie Rae said. “Would y’all leave me alone for a while? I want to get dressed and think.”
    “Of