Hunted House of Night - By Kristin Cast Page 0,115

flames died from my fingers and sped away to the south.

I trudged through the water and ice muck and tromped past Stark, who was staring at me. "What?" I said. "I was tired of almost falling and breaking my butt."

"You're really something, you know." He grinned his cocky, cute Bad Boy smile, and before I could blink, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It wasn't a groping, intrusive kiss filled with possessiveness like I aking m%'d been experiencing with Erik. Stark's kiss was more of a sweet question mark, which I answered with a definite exclamation point.

Sure, I should have been pissed. I should have pushed him away and told him off instead of kissing him back (enthusiastically). I'd like to be able to say that my semi-ho-ish reaction to him was because I'd had so much stress and fear in my life lately that I needed to escape, and his arms were the easiest escape available, which would imply I wasn't actually totally responsible for the fact that I was sucking face with Stark right there in the doorway to the stables.

The truth is less flattering, and yet is still the truth. I didn't kiss him because of stress, or fear, or escape, or because of anything except the fact that I wanted to kiss him. I like him. Really, really like him. I didn't know what I was going to do about him. I didn't know where he would fit in my life--or even how he would fit in my life, especially if I was ashamed to admit my feelings for him in public. I could only imagine the freak-out it would cause among my friends. Not to mention the zillion pissed-off pod girls who would...

And thinking about the zillion pod girls Stark had been biting and whatnot finally splashed cold water on me and I managed to stop kissing him. I gave him a shove so that he stepped out of the doorway. I hurried into the field house, looking around guiltily and then breathing a sigh of relief that we were the only ones loitering and cutting class.

There was a little side room off of the main field house complex, much like the tack room in the stables. It was where the bows and arrows and targets and other field house-ish and sporting equipment and such was housed. I ducked into it with Stark close on my heels, closed the door, and took a few steps away from him. When he gave me that look, that sexy smile of his, and started toward me, I held up my hand like a crossing guard.

"No. You stay over there and I'll stay over here. We need to talk and that's not going to happen if you're close to me," I said.

"Because you can't keep your hands off me?"

"Oh, please. I'm managing to keep my hands off you just fine. I'm not one of your pod girls." "Pod girls?"

"You know, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That's how I think of the girls you bite and mess with their minds so that they're all `Oooh, that Stark, he's just so hot! Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!' It's seriously annoying. And, by the way, if you ever try any of that crap with me, I promise you I will call all of the five elements and we will kick your butt. Count on it."

"I wouldn't try to do that to you, but that's not saying I wouldn't like to taste you. I totally would." His voice had gone all sexy again, and he started to step closer to me.

"No! I'm serious about you staying over there."

"Okay! Okay! What's got your pan ties in such a bunch?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "My pan ties are not in a bunch. All hell happens to be breaking loose around us, in case you hadn't noticed. The House of Night is under the control of something that's prC> T'e aobably a demon. Neferet has turned into something that's probably a lot worse than a demon. My friends and I are not safe. I have no idea how to do what I need to do to begin to make this mess right, and to top it all off I'm falling for a guy who's been with a crapload of the girls on campus and used mind control on them."

"You're falling for me?"

"Yeah, great, isn't it? I already have a vampyre boyfriend and a human guy I've Imprinted. As my grandma would say, my