Tempted

she said with forced nonchalance.
    “Probably a good idea in case some humans actually go outside during the day. Want some help?”
    “No,” she answered too quickly, and then made herself shrug. “What with my super red vamp skills and all it’ll just take me a second. Not a big deal.”
    “Well, okay then.” Erik started to walk away, but hesitated. “Hey, you might want to give some extra attention to the blood marks at the edge of the tree line by the condos next door and the road. It was pretty nasty down there.”
    “Okay, yeah, I know the place.” She sure did.
    “Oh, and, where did you say Zoey was?”
    “Uh, Erik, I don’t believe I said.”
    Erik frowned, waited, and when Stevie Rae just continued to look at him, finally asked, “Well? Where is she?”
    “Last time I saw her she was talkin’ to Heath and Sister Mary Angela in the hall outside the basement. But my guess is by now she’s checked on Stark and is in bed. She looked tired as hell.”
    “Stark . . .” Erik muttered something unintelligible after the kid’s name, and turned back toward the abbey.
    “Erik!” Stevie Rae called while she silently cussed herself out ’cause it was stupid for her to have mentioned Heath or Stark. She waited until he looked over his shoulder at her and then said, “As Z’s BFF, let me give ya a little piece of advice: she’s been through too much today to want to deal with boyfriend issues. If she’s with Heath it’s because she’s making sure he’s okay—not because she’s all lovey-dovey with him. Same goes for Stark.”
    “And?” Erik said, his face expressionless.
    “
And
that means you should get something to eat, change your clothes, and take your butt to bed
without
trackin’ her down and buggin’ her.”
    “She and I are
together
, Stevie Rae. We’re going out. So how could her boyfriend caring enough about her to want to be with her be considered ‘buggin’ her’?”
    Stevie Rae suppressed a smile. Zoey was going to eat him for breakfast, spit him out, and go on about her day. She shrugged. “Whatever. I’m just givin’ ya a little advice, that’s all.”
    “Yeah, well, later.” Erik turned and stomped off to the abbey.
    “For a smart guy, he sure makes some stupid choices,” Stevie Rae said softly as she watched his broad back disappear. “’Course me sayin’ that about him is what my mama would say was a hog callin’ a skunk stinky.”
    Sighing, Stevie Rae’s gaze moved reluctantly down to the row of big trash bins half camouflaged by their placement next to the nuns’ carport. She averted her eyes, not wanting to think about the terrible crumpled bodies that had been dumped there. “With the trash.” She said the words slowly, as if they each held their own weight. Stevie Rae admitted to herself that Zoey and Sister Mary Angela might have been partially right in their mini counseling session with her, but that didn’t make what they’d said any less annoying.
    Okay, sure, she’d overreacted, but the guys putting the bodies of the Raven Mockers in the trash had really jolted her, and not just because of
him.
Her eyes slid over to the shed that sat silently beside the green house.
    What they had done with the bodies of the Raven Mockers had bothered her because she didn’t believe in life being devalued—any kind of life. It was a dangerous thing to think you were godlike and could decide who was worthy of life and who wasn’t. Stevie Rae knew that better than the nun or Zoey ever could. Not only had her life, well, actually, her
death
been messed with by a High Priestess who had begun believing she was actually a goddess, but Stevie Rae had once thought
she
had the right to snuff out lives according to her own needs or whims. Just remembering how it had been when she’d been caught up in that anger and violence made her feel sick. She’d left those dark times behind her—she’d made a choice for good and light and the Goddess, and that was the path she was staying on. So when anyone decided a life meant nothing,
any
life, it upset her.
    Or at least that was what Stevie Rae told herself as she started walking across the abbey grounds, heading totally
away
from the garden shed.
    Keep it together, girl . . . keep it together . . .
she kept repeating over and over as she detoured quickly down the ditch and into the tree line, heading directly for the bloodstains she remembered all too well. She found a thick, broken branch that still had a bunch