Tempted

utterly disgusted. “Try not to be so naïve. Anyway, just don’t do something stupid because you’re feeling all
Lifetime Movie of the Week
and in love with Stark.”
    “Give it a rest, would ya? I won’t do anything stupid!” I leaned over and blew out the fat pillar candle that was on the end table between our beds.
    The darkness of the room was comforting, and when neither of us had said anything for a little while I felt myself beginning to drift off, until Aphrodite’s voice snapped me back to über-aware.
    “Are we going back to the House of Night tomorrow?”
    “I think we have to,” I said slowly. “No matter what, the House of Night is our home, and the fledglings and vampyres there are our people. We have to go back to them.”
    “Well, you better get some sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to land right in the middle of what one of my mom’s ex-military assistants would call a huge cluster fuck,” Aphrodite said in her best happily sarcastic tone.
    As usual, Aphrodite was as right as she was annoying.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Zoey

    After Aphrodite’s gloomy, but probably accurate, prediction I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but exhaustion caught up with me. I closed my eyes and then, for a little while there was blissful nothingness. Sadly, bliss didn’t ever seem to last very long in my life.

    In my dream the island was so blue and beautiful it dazzled me. I was standing on . . . I looked around . . . the roof of a castle! One of those real old-looking castles, made of big blocks of rough stone. The roof was massively cool. Framing it were those stone-sticking-up-things that looked like a giant’s teeth. There were plants everywhere on the roof. I even noticed lemon and orange trees, branches all heavy and full of sweet-smelling fruit. In the center of everything was a fountain in the shape of a beautiful naked woman whose hands were lifted over her head, and from those cupped hands flowed crystal water. Something about the stone woman looked familiar, but my gaze kept getting pulled from the gorgeous rooft op garden to the even more awesome view that stretched around the castle.
    Holding my breath, I moved to the edge of the roof and looked down and down and down and out at the brilliant blue of the sea. The water was beyond beautiful. It was the color of dreams and laughter and perfect summer skies. The island itself was made of jagged mountains, covered in unusual-looking pine trees that reminded me of giant umbrellas. The castle was at the very top of the highest of the island’s mountains, and as I peered down in the distance I could see graceful villas and a pretty little town.
    Everything was bathed in the blue of the sea, which gave the place a sense of magick. I inhaled the breeze, smelling salt and oranges. The day was sunny—the sky utterly clear of clouds, but in my dream the brightness of it didn’t bother my eyes at all. I loved it! It was a little cool, and more than a little windy, but I didn’t care. I liked the crispness of the breeze against my skin. At that moment the island was the color of aquamarines, but I could imagine how it would look as dusk approached and the sun no longer ruled the sky. The blue would deepen, darken, and change to sapphire.
    My dreaming self smiled. Sapphire . . . The island would turn the exact color of my tattoos. I tilted back my head and threw my arms wide, embracing the loveliness of this place I’d created out of my sleeping imagination.
    “So it seems I cannot escape you, even when I flee your presence,” Kalona said.
    He was behind me. His voice crawled across the skin of my back, up over my shoulders, and wrapped around my body. Slowly, I let my arms drop to my sides. I did not turn around.
    “You’re the one who sneaks around in people’s dreams, not me.” I was glad my voice sounded calm and über-under-control.
    “So you are still unwilling to admit you are drawn to me?” His voice was deep and seductive.
    “Look, I didn’t try to find you. All I meant when I closed my eyes was to sleep.” I spoke almost automatically, avoiding his question and willing myself not to remember the last memory I’d had of his voice and his arms around me.
    “You are obviously sleeping alone. Were you with someone else, it would be much more difficult for you to be touched by me.”
    I suppressed the confused longing his voice made me feel and filed away that little bit of info—sleeping with someone
did
make it more difficult for