Tempted

command he couldn’t ignore, but instead I sounded breathy and weak.
    “Stop?” He chuckled again. “It seems you have lost your truth. You do not wish I would stop. Your body yearns for my touch. You cannot deny it. So shake off this foolish re sis tance. Accept me and your place by my side. Join me and together we will create a new world.”
    I swayed toward him, but managed to whisper, “I can’t.”
    “If you do not join me you will be my enemy, and I will burn you with the rest of the chaff.” As he’d been speaking his gaze had moved from my face down to my breasts. Now he cupped both of them in his hands. His amber eyes had gone all soft and looked unfocused as he caressed me, sending icy waves of unwanted desire through my body, and sickness through my heart, my mind, and my soul.
    I was trembling so hard my words sounded shaky. “This is a dream . . . only a dream. This is not real.” I spoke as if to convince myself.
    His lust for me made him even more seductive. He smiled intimately at me while he continued to stroke my breasts. “Yes, you dream. Though there is truth and reality here, as well as your deepest, most secret desires. Zoey, in this dream you are free to do anything you wish—
we
can do anything you wish.”
    It’s just a dream.
I repeated the words to myself.
Please, Nyx, let the power of this next truth wake me up.
    “I do want to be with you,” I said. Kalona’s smile was fierce with victory, but before he could lock me within his immortal and all-too-familiar embrace, I added, “But the truth is no matter how bad I want you, I’m still Zoey Redbird and not A-ya, and that means in this lifetime I have chosen to follow Nyx. Kalona, I will not betray my Goddess by giving in to you!” As I shouted the last words I threw myself backward, so that I fell from the roof of the castle and plummeted toward the rocky seashore far, far below.
    Through my screams I could hear Kalona crying my name.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Zoey

    I sat straight up in bed, screaming like someone had just tossed me into a pit of spiders. My ears were ringing and my body was shaking so hard that I thought I would be sick, but somewhere through my panic I realized mine wasn’t the only voice screaming. I peered around in the darkness, made myself shut up, sucked air, and tried to get my bearings. Where the hell was I? At the bottom of the sea? Smashed dead on the rocks of the island?
    No . . . no . . . I was at the Benedictine Abbey . . . in the dorm room they’d assigned me with Aphrodite . . . who was currently in the bed across from me screaming like a crazy woman.
    “Aphrodite!” I yelled over her shrieks. “Stop! It’s me. Everything’s okay.”
    Her scream broke off, but she was breathing in short little panicky gasps. “Light! Light!” she said, sounding like she’d taken up residence in the Land of Panic Attacks. “I need light! I need to see!”
    “Okay—okay! Hang on.” Remembering the pillar candle on the end table between our beds, I fumbled awkwardly around until I felt a lighter. I had to steady my right hand by grasping my wrist with my left so that I could get the candle lit, and still it took five tries before the wick caught and the warmth of candlelight illuminated Aphrodite’s ghostly white face and completely blood-filled eyes.
    “Ohmygod! Your eyes!”
    “I know! I know! Shit! Shit! Shit! I still can’t see,” she sobbed.
    “Don’t worry—don’t worry—this happened last time. I’ll get you a wet cloth and a drink of water, just like I did before and—” mywords shut off as I realized the exact meaning of Aphrodite’s scarlet eyes, and I froze halfway between the bed and the sink. “You had another vision, didn’t you?”
    She didn’t say anything. She just put her face in her hands and nodded while she sobbed.
    “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” I kept repeating over and over as I hurried to the sink, grabbed a hand towel, soaked it in cold water, and filled up one of two nearby glasses. Then I rushed back to Aphrodite. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands. Her sobs had gone from hysterical snot-crying to pitiful little gasps. I reached around behind her and plumped her pillows. “Here, drink this. Then I want you to lie back so I can put this wet towel across your eyes.”
    She took her hands from her face and reached blindly for the glass. I guided her to it and then watched as she guzzled down the whole thing.