Revealed

Theory
and, you know, spend some alone time together.” He gave me a halfhearted attempt at his cocky grin.
    “Well, we can still do that. Maybe. If you want to after we talk.”
    “You’re freaking me out,” he said.
    I held my hand out to him. He took it and sat next to me on the bed. “I have to say some things to you that are gonna probably be hard for you to hear, but you don’t need to be freaked.”
    “Because no matter what I’ll always be your Warrior and Guardian?”
    He looked super nervous. I threaded my fingers through his. “Yes, that’s part of it, but there’s also the part about me loving you.”
    “Oh, good. I like that part.”
    “Me, too,” I said. “But I also have to like you.”
    “I thought you just said you did.”
    “No, I just said I loved you. And I do. But you’ve been doing some things lately that I don’t like very much and we have to talk about it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    I decided that if I was going to be honest with myself, I had to be honest with Stark, so I told him the truth—straight out. “I don’t like how you treat me when Aurox is around. You act like a possessive jerk, and I want you to stop.”
    He tried to pull his hand from mine, but I wouldn’t let him. “The point is, I don’t think you
are
a possessive jerk. I like who you really are, and I want you to go back to being that guy, all the time.”
    “Fine. Whatever.”
    “No, Stark. This isn’t gonna work if you’re not honest with me, and with yourself. You’ll always be my Warrior, but if you get all defensive with me and we can’t talk about our problems, it’ll end up that you’ll only be my Warrior and nothing else.”
    “Is that what you want?”
    “Seriously, Stark, think about it. If that was what I wanted, why would you and I be having this conversation?”
    “So, you’re not breaking up with me?”
    “I hope not,” I said.
    He slowly let out a long breath like he was deflating. His shoulders slumped and he stared at the floor between his feet. “Knowing that you love Aurox is driving me fucking crazy, and I’m sorry it’s made me act like a douche. I don’t know what to do about it, though, because I can’t stand to think about you being with him.”
    “Okay, first, I don’t love Aurox. I love Heath. I’ll always love Heath. You know that.”
    “But Aurox has Heath’s soul inside him.”
    “Yep, and I’m glad he does because that’s all that saved Grandma. I’ll always appreciate Aurox for that, but I don’t love him.”
    “You don’t want to be with him? For real?” Stark pulled his gaze from the floor to look at me.
    “I’ve decided I don’t want to be with him. For real,” I said.
    “Why not?” Then, before I could answer him, Stark cut me off, “No—no, nevermind. I don’t care why not. I just care that you don’t want to be with him. I don’t want to know anything more than that.”
    Okay, I’d meant to tell Stark about me tasting Aurox’s blood, and that it was really hard for me when I caught glimpses of Heath peeking out from inside Aurox, and that I did actually still love Heath
and
him. But even with all of those ands I’d decided that I just couldn’t handle having more than one boyfriend at a time. Instead I didn’t get to say any of that because Stark pulled me into his arms.
    “I’m so damn glad you picked me!” he whispered.
    I could feel that he was trembling, so I held him and whispered, “Me, too.” Then he was kissing me with a need that burned so hot that I couldn’t think about what I’d meant to say. All I could think about was his touch and how much I loved him.
    It was later, after the sun had risen and Stark slept soundly beside me, his arm draped across my body, his side pressed intimately against me, that my mind started to work again, and I knew I had to talk to Aurox.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
Zoey
    It wasn’t hard to slide Stark’s arm off me and sneak out of bed. Stark was totally passed out. I didn’t think an exploding bomb would wake him up. Still, I meditated on how sparkly my new phone cover was as I got dressed and tiptoed from the room.
    A bomb might not wake Stark up, but my emotions going crazy probably would.
    Thankfully, no one was around. Even though it was midmorning the sky was the color of a bruise and it smelled like spring thunderstorms. On the way to the field house I noticed the wisteria planted along parts of the school wall was budding up with big purple bunches of blossoms. Then