Revealed

sounded safe. Who doesn’t need more friends? “We can try.”
    “You could suck my blood if you wanted to.”
    “Aurox! No. No, I do
not
want to suck your blood,” I lied, remembering how utterly, overwhelmingly awesome it had been to suck Heath’s blood
and
how much Heath liked it when I did. I narrowed my eyes at the kid. “Aurox, you don’t have Heath’s memories, do you?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sometimes I say or do things that surprise me because I cannot remember how I know them. There is only one thing I am certain that I have from Heath.”
    I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I heard my mouth saying, “What’s the one thing?”
    “His love for you, Zo.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stark
    “Are you sure we’re still on his trail?” Stark asked the winged immortal’s back between the panting breaths he was taking as he raced after Kalona.
    “Can you not scent his blood?” Kalona glanced over his shoulder and then, obviously seeing that Stark was struggling to keep up with him, slowed to a jog and pointed to the grass of someone’s well-maintained lawn they were cutting through. “There, see where the vampyre’s blood has spattered the ground because it still seeps freely from him? My son did well in clawing his head—head wounds bleed easily and are difficult to staunch.”
    “Yeah, especially if you’re moving as fast as he is.” Stark wiped the sweat from his forehead, jogging beside Kalona. “Who knew Dallas could run like this? I would’ve definitely thought we’d have caught up to him by now. He didn’t have that big of a lead on us. The kid can
move.
I always thought of him as one of those video-games-hands kids—soft and weak unless they’re pretending to be Zorg from the Planet Org, then they can destroy whole worlds with their fat fingers.”
    Kalona furrowed his brow. “Your world still confuses me sometimes, but I can tell you I know why Dallas moves so quickly. He is fleeing for his life.”
    “Hey, Thanatos specifically said you’re
not
supposed to kill him.”
    “That is a shame. It would be just that I finish what my son began,” Kalona said.
    “Can’t say I disagree with you.”
    Kalona held out his hand, stopping Stark. They’d been following Dallas’s trail that led steadily west, and had run straight into busy Riverside Drive. “There.” Kalona pointed across the street to where the slick surface of the Arkansas River glistened in the moonlight. “He thinks to use the water to spread the scent of his blood downstream, and wash away his trail.”
    “Thinks? You mean that won’t work?”
    “Not for me it won’t. Blood still seeps from him—it is him I scent as surely as I scent his trail.”
    “Huh. That’s good,” Stark said. Following the immortal across the four lanes of Riverside Drive, he was glad it was late and cold enough that joggers and bikers weren’t around. Sure, Kalona had put on a long coat, but those wings weren’t exactly inconspicuous.
    Kalona paused after they’d crossed the asphalt bike path, bending to look more closely at the foliage. “Here is where he climbed down to the river.”
    Stark looked at the weeds and sniffed, trying to pick up the sight or scent of Dallas’s blood. All he could smell was the muddy, fishy river. But the immortal seemed sure of himself, so Stark shrugged and followed him down to the river. When they reached the bank, Kalona paused again. This time he squatted. He seemed to be gulping big breaths of air while he stared across the lazily moving water. It’d been pretty dry since the ice storm in December, and the river was shallow, showing big stretches of sand bars between the sluggish water.
    “I didn’t know you were such a good tracker,” Stark said, crouching beside him.
    “I spent eons tracking evil beings that far surpassed this one small vampyre’s ability at subterfuge. It is a skill not easily forgotten,” Kalona said.
    Stark watched him from the corner of his eye and wondered, not for the first time, just exactly what Kalona had done for the Goddess before he’d Fallen. And if he’d been so damn good at his job that centuries later he could still track scarily well, why had he Fallen at all?
    “There!” Kalona pointed. “Do you see him, there, on the log near the far bank?”
    Stark smiled. “I don’t need to see something to hit it. Just give me a little room and get ready to retrieve the asshole after I shoot him, ’cause now I get to do what
I’m
scarily