Read Online Hidden (House of Night Novels) by P. C. Cast - Free Book Online Page B

will work itself out comment, and turn back into Mr. I’m Jealous of a Dead Guy.
    I put my hand over the small round stone that hung on a slender silver chain around my neck and dangled innocently between my breasts. It felt normal—like any other necklace I could have worn. It wasn’t radiating weird heat. I pulled it from under my T-shirt and slowly lifted it. I drew a deep, fortifying breath, and peeked through it at Stark.
    Nothing strange happened. Stark stayed Stark. I turned the necklace a little and took a peek at Nala. She stayed a fat, sleeping, orange cat.
    I put the Seer Stone back under my shirt. What if I had imagined it? Seriously. How could Heath be in Aurox? Even Thanatos said he’d been created by Darkness through the sacrifice of my mom. He was a Vessel—a creature under the control of Neferet.
    But she’d needed to kill Shadowfax to totally control him, and he had asked those questions about what he really was to Thanatos.
    Okay, but does any of that make a difference? Aurox wasn’t Heath. Heath was dead. He’d gone on to a deeper realm of the Otherworld that I hadn’t been able to go because Heath was dead.
    Reflecting my restlessness, Stark stirred, frowning in his sleep. Nala cat grumbled again. No way did I want either of them awake again, I got quietly out of bed and tiptoed from the room, ducking under the blanket Stark and I used as a door.
    Brown pop. I needed a serious dose of brown pop. Maybe I’d get lucky and there would be some Count Chocula and uncurdled milk left, too. Yum, just thinking about it made me feel a little better. I could seriously heart me some breakfast cereal.
    I shuffled down the dimly lit tunnel, following it past turn-offs and other blanket-covered doorways behind which my friends rested as we waited for the sun to set, until I entered the alcove which was the common area we used as a kitchen. The tunnel sorta dead-ended there, making room for some tables, laptops, and a few full-sized fridges. “There’s gotta be some brown pop left in here somewhere,” I muttered to myself, as I rummaged through the first fridge.
    “It’s in the other one.”
    I made a stupid-sounding squeak and jumped. “Jeesh, Shaylin! Don’t lurk like that. You almost scared the pee outta me.”
    “Sorry, Zoey.” She went to the second of the three fridges, and pulled out a can of fully leaded, totally loaded with sugar and caffeine brown pop, handing it to me with an apologetic smile.
    “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” I sat in the closest chair and sipped my pop, trying not to sound as grumpy as I felt.
    “Yeah, well, I’m tired and all. I can feel the sun hasn’t set yet, but I got a lot on my mind. Know what I mean?”
    I gave a little snort. “I super know what you mean.”
    “Your color’s kinda off.” Shaylin made the comment as nonchalantly as if she’d just said something as normal as mentioning the color of my shirt.
    “Shaylin, I don’t really get this color stuff you talk about.”
    “I’m not sure how much of it I really get, either. All I know is that I see it and if I don’t think about it too much it usually makes sense to me.”
    “Okay, give me an example of how it usually makes sense to you.”
    “That’s easy. I’ll use you as my example. Your colors don’t change very much. Most of the time you’re purple with silver flecks. Even when you were getting ready to go to the ritual at your grandma’s place, and you knew it was gonna be a hard thing to watch, your colors stayed the same. I checked because…” Her voice trailed off.
    “You checked because?” I prompted.
    “Because I was curious. I checked the nerd herd’s colors before you left, but, well, I just realized how invasive that sounds.”
    I furrowed my forehead at her. “It’s not like you’re reading our minds or anything like that. Is it?”
    “No!” she assured me. “But the longer I have this True Sight stuff, and the more I practice it, the more real it gets for me.