Tempted

his beloved until they met again.
    I squeezed his shoulder once and then, feeling like an intruder, stepped away to allow him some privacy for his grief.
    “Blessed be, Priestess,” he said without lifting his head.
    I probably should have said something mature and wise in response, but just then I was so filled with emotion I couldn’t talk. Stevie Rae was suddenly there beside me, Damien next to her. Erin moved away from Dragon to stand at my other side, and Shaunee stepped into the space beside her. We stood there silently, respectfully, a circle un-cast but present as Shaunee’s magickally enhanced fire took the last of Anastasia’s physical shell.
    The silence that surrounded us was broken only by the sounds of flames and Dragon’s murmured prayers. Which was when a new thought struck me. I glanced around the pyre. Dragon had placed it in the middle of the paved drive that circled between Nyx’s Temple and the main school buildings. It was a good choice—there was plenty of room for the fire. There was also plenty of room for the other professors and fledglings who should have been there, standing beside Dragon and sending prayers to Nyx for Anastasia, as well as her mate, not intruding on his grief, but bearing silent witness that they loved and supported him.
    “No one’s out here with him,” I said quietly, not wanting Dragon to hear the disgust in my voice. “Where the hell is everyone?”
    “He shouldn’t be out here alone,” Stevie Rae said, wiping tears from her face. “It’s just not right.”
    “I was with him until I felt the horses approaching,” Lenobia said, jogging up to join us.
    “What about everyone else?” I asked.
    She shook her head, the disgust I felt was mirrored in her expression. “The fledglings are in the dorms. The professors are in their rooms. Anyone else is in the infirmary—anyone else who would have cared to stand with him, that is.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “How could his students and the professors not care to stand with him?”
    “Kalona and Neferet might be gone, but their poison remains,” Lenobia said cryptically.
    “You need to be in the infirmary,” Aphrodite said, coming up behind us. I noticed she kept her gaze from moving to the pyre or Dragon.
    “Go,” Lenobia said. “I’ll remain here with him.”
    “So will we,” Johnny B said. “He was my favorite professor before, you know.”
    I did know. Johnny B meant before he’d died and then un-died.
    “We’ll all stay with him,” Kramisha said. “It ain’t right that he’s alone, and you and your circle’s got business to take care of in there.” She turned her eyes to the infirmary part of the school building. “Come on,” she called, and the rest of the red fledglings stepped out of the shadows to take places beside Dragon, creating a circle around the pyre.
    “I’ll stay, too,” Jack said. He was crying steadily, but he didn’t hesitate to take his place in the circle the red fledglings were making. Duchess stayed close beside him, her tail and ears down as if she truly understood. Without saying anything, Erik stepped beside Jack. Then Heath surprised me by filling the space next to Erik. He nodded at me solemnly before bowing his head.
    I wasn’t sure of my voice, so I simply turned and, with my circle following me, along with Aphrodite, Stark, and Darius, we reentered the House of Night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Zoey

    The school’s infirmary wasn’t very big. Actually, it was only three little hospital-like rooms on one of the floors of the professors’ building. So it was no surprise that there were hurt kids spilling out of the rooms. Not that it wasn’t shocking to see an additional three pallets, each filled with a hurt fledgling, scattered in the hallway. The wounded kids blinked in surprise as my group and I paused in the entrance.
    “Zoey?” I looked up from trying not to stare at the hurt kids—and not to smell the blood that seemed to hang in the air around us—to see two vampyres hurrying toward me. I recognized them as Neferet’s assistants, kinda like the equivalent of nurses, and had to think hard to remember that the tall blonde called herself Sapphire, and the short, Asian one was Margareta. “Were you injured, too?” Sapphire asked, looking me over quickly.
    “No, I’m fine. We’re all fine,” I assured her. “Actually, we’re here to help.”
    “Without a healer we’ve done all that