House of Night 09 - Destined

tells me we’re just the next stop on your life journey.”
    “Is she fine with it? I mean, it’s not hurtin’ her, right?”
    A little warmth for the cowboy seeped into her veins and pulsed through her body. “Your mare is fine. She’s happy as long as she’s with you.”
    He tilted his hat back and scratched his forehead. “Well, that’s a relief. It has been hard for me to settle since my ma’s death. The ranch just ain’t the same without—”
    Not far away from them the peaceful morning was shattered by engines and shouting.
    “Well, what in the hell?”
    “I have no idea, but I’m going to find out.” Lenobia stood and began striding toward the sounds of chaos. She noticed Travis stayed right beside her. She glanced at him. “When Neferet interviewed you did she happen to mention some pretty rough things have happened recently at this House of Night?”
    “No, ma’am,” he said.
    “Well, you might want to rethink accepting this job. If you’re looking for peace, this is definitely the wrong place for you.”
    “No, ma’am,” he repeated. “I’ve never run from a fight. Don’t seek them out, neither, but when they find me I don’t run.”
    “Too bad you cowboys don’t carry six-shooters anymore,” she muttered.
    Travis patted the side of his coat and smiled grimly. “Some of us still do, ma’am. Oklahoma has the good sense to be a conceal/carry state.”
    Her eyes widened slightly. “I’m glad to hear it. Just a quick tip: if it has wings like a bird, but red eyes that look human, get ready to shoot it.”
    “You ain’t kidding, are you?”
    “No.”
    Together they followed the noise around the lightening campus and approached the central grounds of the school. As they reached the beautiful front lawn, both of them slowed and then stopped. Lenobia shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
    “You don’t want me to shoot them, do ya?”
    She scowled. “Not yet I don’t.” Then she marched into the middle of the caravan of trucks and flatbeds and lawn equipment and men—decidedly human men—and joined the blurry-eyed, bed-headed, but really angry female vampyre who was facing all of them down.
    “Are you deaf or stupid? I said you’re not touching my grounds, and you’re especially not touching my grounds at this ridiculous time of the day when professors and students are trying to sleep.”
    “Gaea, what’s going on here?” Lenobia put a restraining hand on the vampyre’s arm because she looked like she was going to hurl herself at the poor, confused, clipboard-holding man who had unwisely stepped up as leader of the group. He was staring at Gaea with a mixture of horror and awe, which Lenobia understood. Gaea was tall and slender and unusually attractive, even for a vampyre. She could have been a fabulous successful model, had she not been perfectly content tending to the earth instead.
    “These men, ” Gaea made the word sound as if it tasted bad, “just showed up and started to attack my grounds!”
    “Look, missus, like I said before, we were hired yesterday to be the new lawn service for the House of Night. We weren’t attacking anything—we were mowing the grass.”
    Lenobia bit back a cry of utter frustration. Instead she asked the man, “And who hired you?”
    He looked down at his clipboard. “Name the boss gave me was Neferet. Is that you?”
    Lenobia shook her head. “No, but it is the name of our High Priestess.” She turned to the grounds manager. “Gaea, did you not receive the information that Neferet was going to be hiring humans to work at the House of Night?”
    “I got that information. I just didn’t get the information that the humans would be usurping my position!”
    Of course you didn’t, Lenobia thought grimly, Neferet didn’t want either of us to be prepared for what she was doing, and you’re as protective of your grass and shrubs and flowers as I am of my horses, which is something our manipulative High Priestess is very aware of. Lenobia shook her head, annoyed at Neferet’s checkmate. “No, Gaea,” she explained in her most reasonable voice. “You aren’t being usurped. You’re being helped.”
    Lenobia saw the struggle in Gaea’s eyes. Obviously she, like Lenobia herself, hadn’t wanted human help at all, but going against an edict created by their High Priestess and sanctioned by the Vampyre High Council would create dissension in the school.
    And the ancient vampyre truth was that they shouldn’t be