Revealed

said.
    “I’m not anyone’sss mate,” Aurox said and belched. Then he laughed. His speech was giving him trouble, but he felt good. Really good.
    “Dude, why are you laughing?”
    “It’s not fucking funny that you’re keeping this shit to yourself.”
    Aurox finished the third cup of beer in one long gulp. “I was laughing at the bubbles in my head.”
    Zack frowned. “Lightweight. You better not have far to drive to get home.”
    “Don’t have to drive,” Aurox said happily.
    “Then you
do
stay here!” Zack said.
    Aurox blinked several times, trying hard to focus on the boy. “Sssometimes I do,” he slurred.
    “Okay, look, we’re not kidding. We could be into the bloodsucking. They don’t even need to pay us,” Jason said.
    “But not with guys. I can’t go there,” Zack said.
    “Oh, for sure. Not guys,” Jason agreed. “But chicks, yes. Totally yes.”
    “So, what do we have to do?” Zack asked.
    Aurox’s head was filled with amazing little bubbles, and his legs felt funny—like they were too heavy. But his mind seemed to be working fine. He knew the boys shouldn’t be out there, and he knew he—for sure—shouldn’t have run into them. But all that came out of his mouth was, “Wwwwait. Thinking.”
    Jason sighed and took another swig of beer. “Maybe having his blood sucked so much fucks up his alcohol tolerance level.”
    “I don’t give a shit, as long as I get more than my blood sucked,” Zack said.
    “I hear ya on that,” Jason said.
    They stared at Aurox.
    Aurox was considering and rejecting options. While he considered, he held out his cup to be refilled.
    “Are you sure? You’re gettin’ pretty wasted,” Jason said.
    “Thinking,” Aurox slurred.
    Zack shrugged. “Give him more. He said he’s not drivin’.”
    Aurox thought about his options while he drank. He could morph part way into the bull creature and scare the two boys away. Or, he could just pick them up and toss them toward the road, and growl. Either way they’d be scared way.
    He’d keep their beer, though.
    But as he thought about it more Aurox realized scaring the boys was probably a bad idea. The House of Night was already on lockdown. It wouldn’t be good for the school if the boys were scared enough to go to the human authorities.
    What Aurox needed was to turn back time and
not
to have run into them. He’d still like to keep the beer, though. He really liked the beer.
    Everything else needed to be wiped away from the night. Gone. Forgotten. Never happened. Except for the beer.
    Zack leaned closer to Aurox. “Hey, you okay in there?”
    “You want to give us a number to call or whatever? Like we said, we won’t tell nobody.”
    That’s when Aurox got the idea. It was a good one, too. It would fix the problem with the boys who had found the hole,
and
it would show Stark that he wasn’t his enemy—that he actually wanted to be his friend. Plus, he’d get to keep the beer. He grinned at the boys. “No number. Wait here. I’ll bring ’em to you.”
    “Seriously!” Zack said.
    “Vampyres?” Jason seemed more skeptical.
    “Not females. I’ll bring vampyre-donor-ssspecialist vampyre,” Aurox stumbled over the words.
    “Uh, we said we weren’t into guys,” Jason said.
    “No, dude, shut up! He’s gonna get the guy who’ll take us to the chicks,” Zack said. “You just can’t walk in and do this shit like it’s nothing. There’s rules that have to be followed. Right, Heath?”
    “Yes,” Aurox said. “We will follow the rules.” He stood and held his cup out for another refill. Then he pointed at Zack and at Jason. “You. And you. Stay. I’ll be back with the vampyre and the rules.”
    Holding his full cup carefully, Aurox crouched, and then sprang up to land on the top of the twelve foot wall.
    “That was awesome!” Jason said.
    “No wonder they keep this shit quiet. If everyone knew that you got, like, superpowers from vamp sucking there’d be a line around the fucking school to get in!” Zack said.
    “Stay,” Aurox said. Holding the red cup carefully, he dropped down into the school grounds.
    He meant to run swiftly to the field house. That was where the entrance to the basement was, and that was where he thought Stark would probably be, helping the red fledglings get settled in. But Aurox’s run was more of a sideways jog. And instead of a swift, stealthy entrance to the field house, the doorknob was turning wrong and when he finally managed to open it,