Tempted

assignments online. I’ll stay caught up. You can even help me. Or, better yet, Damien can help me. No offense, Zo, but I think he’s a better student than you are.”
    “I
know
he is, but that’s beside the point. Your parents will never let you go.”
    “They can’t stop me. I’m eighteen.”
    “Heath, please. I already feel bad enough about all the poo I’ve brought into your life. Don’t make me responsible for screwing up your last semester of school, getting you grounded until you leave for college,
and
putting your life in danger.”
    “I’ve told you before I can take care of myself,” he said.
    “Fine, let’s compromise. Call your parents when we get up and askthem if you can come to Italy with me. If they say yes, then you come with me. If they say no, you stay here and get your butt back to class.”
    “Do I have to tell them about Kalona and that stuff?”
    “I don’t think it’s smart for the general public to know there’s a fallen immortal and a crazy ex–High Priestess trying to take over the world. So, no, you don’t have to tell them that part.”
    He hesitated and then said, “Okay, I can live with that.”
    “Promise?”
    “Promise.”
    “Good, because I’ll be listening to the whole conversation so you won’t be able to bullpoopie me.”
    “You know that’s not a real word, Zo.”
    “It’s
my
real word. Go to sleep, Heath.”
    He tightened his arms around me. “I heart you, Zo.”
    “I heart you, too.”
    “I’ll keep you safe.”
    I fell asleep with Heath’s arms around me and a smile on my face, my last conscious thought was about how strong he felt and that I’d have to tell him I really appreciated how buff he’d been keeping himself.
    My next thought was not conscious and it was totally not soothing:
What in the hell am I doing on the roof of this castle again?

CHAPTER THIRTY

Zoey

    It was the same castle rooft op; there was no doubt about it. The orange trees were filled with fat fruit that scented the cool breeze. In the center was the same fountain shaped like a naked woman with water cascading from her raised hands. Seeing her twice, I realized why she looked familiar. She reminded me of Nyx, or at least of one of the faces I’d seen the Goddess wear. And then I remembered what I’d learned about this place—that it was the ancient site of the original Vampyre High Council, so it totally made sense that the fountain would look like our Goddess. I wanted to sit beside it and breathe deep the smell of citrus and the sea air. I didn’t want to turn where my gut was telling me to turn—and see who I knew I was going to see. But, like the snowball down the mountain, I couldn’t seem to control the avalanche that was happening to me, so I turned in the direction my soul was leading me.
    Kalona knelt by the edge of the castle’s toothlike roof. His back was to me and he was on his knees. He was dressed, or rather,
un
dressed, like he’d been the last time we’d been here—he had on jeans and that was it. His dark wings spread down around him, leaving only his bronze shoulders visible. His head was bowed, and he didn’t seem to know I was there. As if I couldn’t stop them, my feet moved toward him, and as I approached, I realized that he was kneeling exactly where I’d been standing when I’d flung myself off the rooftop.
    I wasn’t far from him when I saw his shoulders tense. His wings rustled and then his head lifted and he glanced over his shoulder.
    He was crying. Tears made wet paths down his face. He looked crushed, broken, completely defeated. But the instant he saw me his expression changed. His face was suff used with such incredible joy that my breath literally caught at his incomparable beauty. He stood, and with a shout of happiness strode toward me.
    I thought he would pull me into his arms, but at the last second he checked himself so that he only lifted one hand as if he was going to touch my cheek, but his fingers stopped short of my skin, hesitated there for an instant, and then, without touching me, his hand dropped back to his side.
    “You came back.”
    “Dreams aren’t real. I didn’t die,” I said, though it was hard for me to speak.
    “The realm of dreams is part of the Otherworld; don’t ever underestimate the power of what happens here.” He wiped his face with the back of his hand and, surprising me again, gave an embarrassed little chuckle. “I must seem foolish to you. I knew you weren’t dead, of