Tempted

THREE

Zoey

    “Is he going to be okay?” I tried to whisper so I wouldn’t wake Stark and was, apparently, unsuccessful, because his closed eyelids fluttered and his lips tilted up slightly in a painful ghost of his cocky half smile.
    “I’m not dead yet,” he said.
    “And I’m not talking to you,” I said in a much more irritated voice than I’d intended.
    “Temper,
u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya
,” Grandma Redbird rebuked me gently as Sister Mary Angela, prioress of the Benedictine nuns, helped her into the little infirmary room.
    “Grandma! There you are!” I hurried to her and helped Sister Mary Angela ease her into a chair.
    “She’s just worried about me.” Stark’s eyes were closed again but his lips still hinted at a smile.
    “I know that,
tsi-ta-ga-a-s-ha-ya.
But Zoey is a High Priestess in training and she must learn to control her emotions.”
    Tsi-ta-ga-a-s-ha-ya! That would have made me laugh out loud if Grandma hadn’t looked so pale and frail, and if I hadn’t been so, well, worried in general.
“Sorry, Grandma. I should watch my temper, but it’s kinda hard when the people I love most keep almost dying!” I finished in a rush and had to draw a deep breath to steady myself. “And shouldn’t you be in bed?”
    “Soon,
u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya,
soon.”
    “What does
tsi-ta-ga-a-s-
whatever mean?” Stark’s voice was thick with pain as Darius spread a thick cream over his burns, but in spite of the wound he sounded amused and curious.
    “
Tsi-ta-ga-a-s-ha-ya,”
Grandma corrected his pronunciation, “means rooster.”
    His eyes glimmered with humor. “Everyone says you’re a wise woman.”
    “Which is less interesting than what everyone says about you,
tsi-ta-ga-a-s-ha-ya,”
Grandma said.
    Stark barked a quick laugh and then sucked air painfully.
    “Be still!” Darius commanded.
    “Sister, I thought you said you guys had a doctor here.” I tried not to sound as panicky as I felt.
    “A human doctor cannot help him,” Darius said before Sister Mary Angela could respond. “He needs rest and quiet and—”
    “Rest and quiet are fine,” Stark interrupted him. “Like I said before: I’m not dead yet.” He met Darius’s eyes and I saw the Son of Erebus shrug and nod his head briefly, as if he’d conceded some point to the younger vampyre.
    I should have just ignored the little interplay between them, but my patience had evaporated hours before. “Okay, what aren’t you telling me?”
    The nun who’d been assisting Darius shot me a long, cold look and said, “Perhaps the injured boy needs to know his sacrifice was not made in vain.”
    The nun’s harsh words gave me a jolt of guilty shock that closed my throat and didn’t let me respond to the hard-eyed woman. The sacrifice Stark had been willing to make was his life for mine. I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. What was my life worth? I was just a kid—barely seventeen. I’d messed up over and over again. I was the reincarnation of a girl created to trap a fallen angel, and that meant deep inside my soul I couldn’t help loving him, even when I knew I shouldn’t . . . couldn’t . . .
    No. I wasn’t worth the sacrifice of Stark’s life.
    “I already know it.” Stark’s voice didn’t waver; suddenly he sounded strong and sure. I blinked my vision free of tears and met his eyes. “What I did was just part of my job,” he said. “I’m a Warrior. I’ve sworn my life into the service of Zoey Redbird, High Priestessand Beloved of Nyx. That means I’m working for our Goddess and being knocked to the ground and burned a little really doesn’t mean shit if I helped Zoey beat the bad guys.”
    “Well said,
tsi-ta-ga-a-s-ha-ya,”
Grandma told him.
    “Sister Emily, I relieve you of your infirmary duties for the rest of the night. Please send Sister Bianca here in your stead. I believe you should, perhaps, spend some time in quiet contemplation of Luke 6:37,” said Sister Mary Angela.
    “As you wish, Sister,” the nun said and hurried from the room.
    “Luke 6:37? What’s that?” I asked.
    “ ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven,’” my grandma said. She was sharing a smile with Sister Mary Angela when Damien knocked softly on the half-open door.
    “Can we come in? There’s someone who really needs to see Stark.” Damien glanced over his shoulder and made a
stay-there
motion behind him. The soft
woof!
that came in