House Of Night - Amethyst's POV

Chapter Thirty - One

I don't really remember what happened next, but I woke up to Dite shaking me. I rubbed at my eyes as the streaks of sun pierced them. Her blue ones pecked at me, daring me to explain. That's when I saw Arcos, snuggled up next to me, one arm arcoss my stomach. He was making cute little snoring noises and I wanted to enjoy it, but Aphrodite was staring at me.

"What?" I asked innocently and half asleep. It was too early for this. Why the heck was Dite up anyways? The day time was when we slept. Had she just gotten home? I knew there was a party tonight, er last night, but why would I go?

"He's back?!" She exclaimed in a hushed whisper, careful not to wake him up. 

"Uh, yeah he came through our window last night." I rolled over to go back to sleep, but she pulled my arm.

"So where was he?" That reminded me of my hatred for Neferet. I was seething from the inside out. "Woah, remind me to never get you angry again." She joked, but I saw how serious her eyes were. My blood was to the point of boiling. I wanted to get out of the bed and run right to Neferet and do something I might regret.

"She took him, with someones help. We need to find out who helped her." I looked back at Arcos and how innocent he looked when he was asleep. He was skinnier and his parlor was lighter. I felt the need to reach out for him like I could keep him safe somehow. "We need to keep him here. We can't tell anyone he's back, except for Zoey and the rest." Dite nodded. "She can't take him again." I didn't want Neferet to know that Arcos was with me. I didn't want her to know that he was at the HON because what if she took him again? She needed to think he ran away and was far away.

"What if she already knows he's here? There are hundreds of people walking around the campus at all hours." I had already thought about this. Arcos was smart and practically invisible in the night. I bet everything that no one saw him come to the campus or up the tree to my window.

"I really doubt anyone saw him." He was older than us too and further in the fledgling process than us. I had only been here a few weeks and I already felt more Vampyr than ever. I couldn't imagine what Arcos felt. I wonder if he felt any human at all.

"But you're not certain." I gave her a pressed look.

"No, but I'm certain that we need to stop Neferet." She didn't say anything for a long time and I started to twist back into the position I was in before she woke me. Sleep was already tugging me back.

"Do you think her made-Vampires helped her?" That woke me right awake.

"What?" I hissed into the air.

"Well, you know how Nyx made us?"

"Yeah, but--

"And you feel close to Nyx, right?"

"Well, yeah, but--

"And you would do anything if she came down right now and told you to, right?"

"Not anything, but--

"Then that's what happened. Arcos didn't see Neferet, did he?" I thought about this. It was almost genius, using her minions to do her dirty work. We didn't know anything about the made-Vampires and their powers. They might have already turned full-fledged Vampire or they could be a lot more powerful than us. We had no clue.

"I think you're right. It does make sense for Neferet to use them like that." It was sick, but it was very Neferet-like to do that. "Let's wait till night to tell the others." My eyes were closed, but I think she nodded because I heard her go to her bed. The springs from the mattress screamed out, signaling that she was laying down.

I couldn't sleep, at least not right away because of what Dite and I had been talking about. What if while Arcos was taken Neferet made more made-Vampires? We didn't know what had gone on while he was gone. Part of me was afraid that if I fell asleep someone would come and take him again. My fingers grabbed him, held him close to me, and after a few minutes like that I slowly drifted into dreamland.