Chosen

heartbeat was under my skin and I could feel my pulse pounding in time with his. I could feel his passion along with mine and hear his desire roaring inside my head.
    And then, somewhere in the back of my jumbled mind I heard Heath screaming, "Zoey! No!"
    My body jerked in Loren's arms. "Ssh," he whispered. "It's okay. It's better this way, love, much better. Being Imprinted with a human is too difficult—it has too many ramifications."
    My breath was coming fast and hard. "Is it broken? Has my Imprint with Heath been broken?"
    "It has. Our Imprint has replaced it." He rolled so that I was under his body. "Now let's finish it. Let me make love to you, baby."
    "Yes," I whispered. My lips found Loren's chest again, and as I drank from him, Loren made love to me until our world exploded in blood and passion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

    I was lying on top of Loren in a delicious fog of sensation. His hand caressed a long sweep down my back, stroking over and over the line of my tattoos.
    "Your tattoos are exquisite. Like you," Loren said.
    I sighed happily and nuzzled against him. Turning my head, I was mesmerized by our reflection in the floor-to-ceiling studio mirrors. We were naked and there were smudges of blood on both of our bodies, which were twined together intimately, my long black hair only partially covering us. The filigree of my tattoos looked exotic stretching from my face and neck down along the line of my curving spine to my lower back. The thin film of sweat on my body made them glisten like sapphires.
    Loren was right. I was exquisite. And he'd been right about us. It didn't matter that he was older and a full-grown vampyre (and a professor at my school). What we had together went beyond all of that. What we had was really special. More special than what I felt for Erik. Even more special than Heath.
    Heath…
    The sleepy, satisfied feeling left me like someone had splashed cold water on my skin. My gaze went from our reflection to Loren's face. He was watching me with a slight smile curving the corners of his lips. God, he was so dang gorgeous I couldn't believe he was mine. Then I mentally shook myself, and asked the question I had to have answered. "Loren, is really true that my Imprint with Heath is broken?"
    "Yes, it's really true," he said. "You and I have Imprinted, and that severed your link with the human boy."
    "But I read the Vamp Soc book, and it only talked about how painful and hard it is to break an Imprint between a vampyre and a human. I don't understand how it could have happened so easily, and it didn't say anything about one Imprint breaking another."
    His slight smile spread and he gave me a sweet, soft kiss. "You'll learn that there's a lot the textbooks don't teach about being a vampyre."
    That made me feel young and stupid and more than a little embarrassed, which he instantly picked up on.
    "Hey, I didn't mean anything. I remember how confusing it was not to really understand what it is you're Changing into. It's okay. It happens to all of us. And now you have me to help you."
    "I just don't like not knowing," I said, relaxing again in his arms.
    "I know. So here's the deal with breaking that Imprint. You and the human did have a bond, but you're not a vampyre. You haven't completed your Change." He paused and then added a firm "Yet. So it wasn't a full-blown Imprint. When you and I shared our blood, that bonding overwhelmed the lesser one." His smile turned sexy. "Because I am a vampyre."
    "Did it hurt Heath?"
    Loren shrugged. "Probably, but the pain doesn't last. And in the long run it's better this way. The entire vampyre world will be open to you very soon, Zoey. You will be an extraordinary High Priestess. There won't be a place for a human in that world."
    "I know you're right," I said, trying to sort through everything in my mind and remembering how sure I'd been earlier that night that I had to break up with Heath. It was really a good thing that my being with Loren had broken the Imprint with Heath. It was easier this way—for both of us. Another thought had me saying, "It's a good thing that I wasn't Imprinted with you and Heath at the same time."
    "That would be impossible. Nyx had made it so that we Imprint singly. I suppose it's to keep us from making an army of Imprinted human minions."
    I was startled as much by the sarcastic tone of his voice as by what he'd just said. "I would never have thought about doing that," I said.
    Loren laughed softly. "There are many