Untamed

something being not right?"
    "Yes, Neferet. I readily admit to sensing there was something wrong about the school, but if you'll recall, I was firmly against buying this campus from the Cascia Hall monks five years ago."
    "We needed a House of Night in this part of the country," Neferet insisted.
    "And that is the argument that won the Council over and convinced them to open this House of Night. I didn't agree with it then, and I don't agree with it now. The recent deaths simply prove we should not be here."
    "The recent murders prove we need more of a presence here and all over the world!" Neferet snapped. I heard her draw a deep breath, as if she was working hard to control herself. When she spoke again, her voice was much more subdued. "This bad feeling of which we were speaking—it has nothing to do with being reticent about opening a school. It's different, more malevolent, and it's grown far worse in the recent months."
    There was a long pause before Shekinah answered her. "I do feel a malevolence here, but I cannot name it. It seems hidden, shrouded in something I do not find familiar."
    "I think I can name it," Neferet said.
    "What do you suspect?"
    "I have come to believe it is an evil hidden, shrouded, in the appearance of a child, and that is why it is going to be so hard to expose," Neferet said.
    "I don't understand your meaning, Neferet. Are you saying one of the fledglings is hiding evil?"
    "I don't want to say it, but I'm coming to believe it." Neferet's voice was filled with sadness, like what she was saying was so difficult to admit, she was almost on the brink of tears.
    I knew it was absolutely, utterly, an act.
    "Again I ask you, what do you suspect?"
    "It isn't a what, but a who. Shekinah, sister, it grieves me to say it, but the deep evil I have been sensing, that you have been sensing, too, began to build and intensify with one student's entry to this House of Night." She paused, and even though I knew what she was going to say, it was a shock to hear her actually speak the words. "I'm afraid Zoey Redbird is hiding a terrible secret."
    "Zoey! But she is the most gifted fledgling in history. Not only has no other fledging ever wielded the power of all five elements, but no other fledgling has ever been surrounded by so many gifted peers. Each of her closest friends can manifest one of the elements. How could she possibly be so gifted and be hiding evil?" Shekinah said.
    "I don't know!" Neferet's voice broke, and I could tell she was crying. "I'm her mentor. Can you imagine how much it grieves me to even think these things, let alone say them aloud?"
    "What evidence do you have for your belief?" Shekinah asked, and I was glad to hear that she didn't sound particularly convinced Neferet was on to something.
    "A teenage boy who used to be her lover was almost killed by spirits she conjured just days after she was Marked."
    I blinked in utter shock. Heath and I had been lovers? Not hardly! Neferet knew that. And I hadn't conjured those mean spirits—Aphrodite had. Yes, they'd almost eaten Heath—well, and also Erik—but with the help of Stevie Rae, Damien, and the Twins, I'd stopped them.
    "Then not more than a month later, two more teenage boys, again humans who were, let's just say intimate with her, were abducted and brutally killed—drained of all blood. A third boy, another human close to her, was taken, too. The community was in a frenzy, and that is when Zoey rescued the boy."
    Oh. My. Goddess! Neferet was twisting everything and lying her butt off! It was the nasty undead dead kids who had killed the two Union football players, who I definitely had not been intimate with! Yes, I'd saved Heath (again—sigh), but I'd saved him from her disgusting, bloodsucking (not that there's anything wrong with it) minions!
    "What else?" Shekinah said. I was glad to hear that her voice had remained calm and she still didn't sound like she was convinced Neferet was right about me.
    "This last part is the most difficult for me to admit, but Zoey was special to Patricia Nolan. She spent quite a bit of time with her before she was murdered."
    My head was buzzing. Sure, I'd liked Professor Nolan, and I think she liked me, but I definitely hadn't been special to her, and hadn't spent any extra time with her, either.
    Then I knew what she was going to accuse me of next, even though I could hardly believe it.
    "And I have reason to believe Zoey had become Loren Blake's lover just before he, too, was