House of Night 09 - Destined

but definitely not what Thanatos meant:
    The truth is I need my mom and I’d give just about anything to have her alive and on my side again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
    Aurox
    Aurox left the House of Night campus quickly, being sure he was well ahead of the school bus. It was, by human standards, very late and the roads were nearly empty. He was glad for the directions from the voice in his vehicle. Glad that he had time to drive and think without the worry of being discovered following an all too diligent Darius.
    Neferet had ordered that he thwart the forthcoming ritual and the death spell Thanatos meant to cast, though she’d made it clear he wasn’t to kill any of the Priestesses in doing so. Aurox was not surprised that he was grateful for that one small caveat. For a moment while Neferet had been speaking her commands to him he’d believed she was going to task him with murdering Zoey. The thought had made him feel sick, although according to Priestess he did not have the ability to feel anything. He was a vessel. The emotions of others fueled his strength, but once used, the feelings were meant to dissipate.
    Then why, since the moment he’d been alone with Zoey when she’d been weeping about her mother’s death, did he still feel sadness, a deep, pressing despair, guilt, and recently something else, something new? Aurox felt loneliness.
    He could almost hear Priestess’s mocking laughter.
    “Yes, I feel!” he shouted, and his voice echoed within the speeding vehicle, as if he was alone in a cave—always alone. “I do feel, even though Priestess says I do not.” He smashed his fist in the dashboard, not minding that his knuckles split and the leather dented. “I feel her sadness. I feel her fear. I feel her loneliness. Why? Why does Zoey Redbird make me feel?”
    We each decide what we are by the life choices we make. Thanatos’s voice seemed to be there with him in the car. Our actions define us, and will keep defining us until even after death.
    “I was created to serve Neferet.” Could Thanatos be correct, even for a creature such as him?
    More of the High Priestess’s words came to him as if answering his question.
    “… the future need not be dictated by the past .”
    The voice in the car spoke then, dissipating Thanatos’s wisdom. It told him to turn right and within half a mile he was to arrive at his destination. Aurox completed the turn, but then he steered the car through the ditch and did not stop it until he was sure it was parked well away from passing headlights and prying eyes. He got out of the car and, moving silently and quickly, Aurox paralleled the quaint gravel lane, which led to a modest home.
    Aurox halted before he came to the home, and not just because he needed to use the concealment of the small orchard adjacent to the house and the large lavender field that framed it. He halted because of the sight of the scorched circle within the winter-sleeping herbs. He knew that burning. It was not from fire that the land was charred and the lavender destroyed. It was from a cold burn—a frigid destruction.
    Darkness has been here. Aurox told himself. And then he understood. Neferet and the white bull did this deed. They killed Zoey Redbird’s mother.
    Something slipped inside him then, as if a wheel that had been stuck, struggling in the muck and the mud, had finally broken free. Aurox’s legs felt weak, and he sat heavily with his back leaning against the rough bark of one of the trees, waiting … watching … but doing nothing.
    Dragon
    Looking up Zoey’s home address had been quick and easy. Her grandmother’s farm was only an hour or so away. He waited until the school bus left campus, and then followed slowly, being certain the ever-vigilant Darius did not notice him in the rearview mirror. Dragon didn’t need to stay close to the bus. He knew where he was going. He knew what he must do.
    Duty was everything.
    His task was to keep the school and its students safe.
    A dragon protects its own.
    That’s all he had left—the dragon.
    “Your death has broken me
    The dragon is all I have left to be.”
    His own words taunted him. “I was telling you the truth!” he shouted to the emptiness. “Anastasia, you’re gone. I have nothing left except the dragon and my duty.”
    “If you are not my mate, kind and true,
    how will I ever again find you?”
    Anastasia’s answer seemed to drift around him, bringing with it the fecund scent of the land bordering the mighty