Untamed

had definitely given me something to think about.
    So I was pondering much deeper religious stuff than was my norm, and literally up to my elbows in cat stuff when the door chimed cheerily and in walked Stevie Rae.
    We grinned at each other. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to see my best friend not dead. Not even undead. She looked like my Stevie Rae again with her short curly blond hair, her dimples, and her familiar Roper jeans with a button-up shirt (sadly) tucked into them. Yes, I love the girl. No, she doesn't have very good fashion sense. And no, I was not going to let what was Aphrodite being her usual bitchy self make me doubt my BFF.
    "Z! Ohmygood ness, I've missed you! Hey, did you hear the news?" she said all in a rush in her adorable Okie twang.
    "News?"
    "Yeah, about the—"
    But she was interrupted by a sharp rap on the window of Sister Mary Angela's office. The nun's silver brows lifted questioningly. I pointed to Stevie Rae and mouthed, my friend . The nun drew a little pretend crescent moon in the middle of her forehead with her finger and then pointed at Stevie Rae (who was staring at Sister Mary Angela with her mouth unattractively flopped open). I nodded vigorously. The prioress gave me a quick nod, smiled, and waved a welcome to Stevie Rae, and then went back to her phone-calling.
    "Zoey!" Stevie Rae whispered. "That's a nun."
    "Yes," I said in a normal voice. "I know. Sister Mary Angela runs this place. There are two more nuns back in the cat room with Aphrodite and the Son of Erebus she's keeping busy with some seriously disgusting flirting."
    "Bleck! Aphrodite and her flirting is so nasty. But, more importantly, nuns?" Stevie Rae blinked in confusion. "And they know we're fledglings and stuff?"
    I guessed she was referring to herself with the and stuff comment, so I nodded. (Well, I certainly wasn't going to try to explain to the nuns about red vamps.) "Yep. Apparently they're okay with us 'cause they think Nyx is just another form of the Virgin Mary. Plus it seems nuns are not into judging others."
    "Well, I like the whole not-judging part, but Nyx and the Virgin Mary? Ohmygood ness, that is the weirdest thing I've heard in a long time."
    "Which must make it majorly weird, 'cause I imagine being dead and then undead you heard some very weird stuff," I said.
    Stevie Rae nodded solemnly and said, "So weird that, like my daddy would say, it'd knock a buzzard off a meat wagon."
    I shook my head, grinned, and threw my arms around her. "Stevie Rae, you crazy kid, I've missed you!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    Our big hug was broken up by an annoying waterfall of Aphrodite giggles tumbling down the hall from the cat room to us. Stevie Rae and I rolled our eyes together.
    "What did you say she was doin' back there, and with who?"
    I sighed. "We were only allowed to leave campus with an escort from the Sons of Erebus, so this warrior named Darius—"
    "He must be hot if Aphrodite is makin' such a fuss over him."
    "Yeah, he's definitely hot. Anyway, Darius said he'd escort me and Aphrodite. She said she'd keep him busy so that we could talk."
    "Bet that's a real hardship for her," Stevie Rae said sarcastically.
    "Please—we all know she's kinda skanky," I said.
    "Kinda?"
    "I'm trying to be nice," I said.
    "Oh, right. Okay. Me, too. So she's keeping this hot warrior busy so me and you can talk."
    "Yeah, and—"
    Two more raps on the window had Stevie Rae and me looking up at Sister Mary Angela, who said, "Less talk—more work!" loud enough for us to hear her through the glass.
    Stevie Rae and I nodded briskly like we were scared of her. (Uh, who isn't scared of nuns?)
    "You go through the box and pull out all of those little grayand-pink polka-dotted mice—the ones stuffed with catnip—and hand them to me. I'll keep clicking them into the inventory thing," I said, holding up the weird gun-looking apparatus the nun had taught me how to work. "We'll talk while I count cat toys."
    "Okey-dokey." Stevie Rae began pawing through the big brown UPS box.
    "So what were you saying about some news?" I asked, clicking off the mice she handed me like I was a shooter at one of those back-in-the-day arcade games.
    "Oh, yeah! You will not believe it! Kenny Chesney is comin' in concert to the new BOK Arena!"
    I looked at her. And looked at her some more. And then some more. Without saying anything.
    "What? Ya know I love me some Kenny Chesney."
    "Stevie Rae," I finally managed. "With all of the crap going on, I do not