Then Neferet’s world had changed. She relived the thrill of it—of knowing what was within the cat’s mind. She didn’t hear actual words—cats don’t think in words. She heard emotions, and the emotions told stories. Chloe beamed mischief. Her belly was full and warm and she was sleepy. But most important, the cat looked into her eyes with love and loyalty and joy, and chose Neferet as her own for life.

Pandeia, longtime High Priestess in St. Louis, had not called her a simpleton. Nor had she mocked Neferet when the young fledgling had gone to her, holding a sleeping Chloe, and describing with breathless wonder the dream images she could pull from the little feline’s mind.

“And, High Priestess, I can touch your cat’s mind, too!” Neferet had gushed, pointing to the vampyre’s plump calico lazing on the windowsill. “She is happy, very happy, because she is pregnant!”

The High Priestess’s smile had almost outshined the cook’s mocking. “Dear Neferet, Nyx has granted you a wonderful affinity, a special attachment to cats, the animal most closely associated with our Goddess. Nyx must value you highly to award you such a gift.”

The glorious day faded and Neferet’s experience changed. Months passed as quickly as the Tsi Sgili’s rapid heartbeat.

She was still a fledgling, but older. Her council was valued—first because of her connection to the felines that roamed freely at the House of Night as companions of the fledglings and vampyres. Then because though her affinity had begun with cats, soon it had become apparent that Neferet was able to touch people’s minds almost as easily as she did cats’.

Images lifted from the past, one after another, dizzying in their speed:

“Neferet, it would be helpful if you came to town with me. I need to know if the town is growing restless again at the thought of our full moon rituals,” her High Priestess had asked.

She had gone with Pandeia, opening herself to the onslaught of fear and hatred and envy that the local humans directed at the High Priestess, though they either simpered and tipped their hats to her, or averted their eyes and pretended not to see her.

Neferet began to loathe going to town.

“Neferet, the human Consort of our new professor seems sad; it would be helpful if you could tell me if he wishes to leave, but is fearful to ask,” Pandeia had asked at another time.

Neferet had slipped within the man’s mind. The human hadn’t been sad. He had been unfaithful to his vampyre, and had been sneaking away during the daylight hours while she slept to gamble and whore on riverboats.

The professor had sent him away and quickly forgotten him, moving on to another, more loyal Consort within a fortnight.

But Neferet had found it hard to forget what she had touched within the man’s mind. Lust and envy—greed and desire. It had sickened her.

Seeing how much their High Priestess valued her counsel, others came to her, always seeking the answers hidden beneath the masks of others.

As Neferet relived the experiences, she felt the resentment that had begun within her then. They were all so needy! Even the High Priestess.

“Neferet, tell me if that Son of Erebus Warrior thinks I’m truly beautiful…”

“Neferet, I want to know if my roommate is telling me the truth about…”

“Neferet, tell me…”

“Neferet, I want…”

“Neferet, why does…?”

The Tsi Sgili shivered, though still she did not awake as experience after experience, memory after memory, assaulted her so rapidly that they bled into one another, becoming a collage of need and greed, desire and betrayal, lies and lust.

Darkness saved her. As when she had been Emily, she was drawn to the night-blooming gardens of Tower Grove. The most shadowy places in her House of Night were familiar friends to her. There she could disappear, calling the night to her, so that others looked right over and past her, and never seeing…

Chloe understood. She was intelligent and precocious, and no matter what insipid thought Neferet had overheard, she found a way to make her smile. She whispered to the cat the feelings she was learning never to say aloud—never to show to other fledglings—never, ever to reveal to any vampyre.

“I hate it when Pandeia asks me to listen in to a human’s mind, especially a male human,” young Neferet had told her purring feline. “They are all vile. Their thoughts are obsessed with our bodies—with possessing us—even though their fear is so strong it almost has a scent: sour breath, sweat, and insatiable desire.”

Chloe had touched noses with her and rubbed her face against her cheek, filling her with unconditional love and acceptance.

“When I am High Priestess I will only use my powers when I want to. I do not agree with Pandeia and the rest of them. Just because I’m gifted, that doesn’t mean I must be at their beck and call. I was given the power, not them. It should be mine to do with as I wish.”

Instead of snuggling against her, as usual, the little cat’s ears pricked and she stood, perching on Neferet’s lap and peering out into the night-cloaked gardens of the House of Night.

In her den, the Tsi Sgili moaned aloud, not wanting to relive what happened next, but not able to escape from the visions of her past.

The Tower Grove House of Night had lush grounds that stretched for more than two hundred secluded acres around the main campus. The grounds were, of course, meticulously tended, but it was the early twentieth century, and St. Louis was still known as the gateway to the wild west. The gardens were home to more than water features and night-blooming flowers.

Chloe scented the air.

Neferet breathed deeply with the little cat. When she arched her back, growling ferociously, Neferet had bared her teeth, too, sharing her rage that an intruder had entered her House of Night.

It wasn’t until Chloe had leaped from her lap that Neferet had come to herself and knew fear. She raced after her cat.

The bobcat had been hunting rabbits and had chased one to ground not far from the dark corner in which Neferet and Chloe had been sitting. Frustrated at losing his prey, the big male had sprayed around the clearing, marking it as his own.

Chloe burst into the male’s territory. Shrieking a warning, the bobcat faced the little tabby. Yowling and spitting, Chloe flew at the male, all claws and teeth.

“No!” Neferet screamed along with Chloe as the bobcat struck once, twice, swatting the little cat as if she were an annoying insect, and slicing her belly, neatly disemboweling her.

The huge beast, easily three times the size of Chloe, was closing on where the tabby lay gutted, twitching and bleeding, when Neferet reached the clearing.

Rage filled the fledgling, and she charged the animal, screaming in wordless hatred, hands raised in claws, and teeth bared.

The bobcat’s ears flattened against his skull. His yellow eyes met Neferet’s blazing emerald gaze. What he saw there gave him pause. As quickly as his instinct to kill had been ignited, his instinct for self-preservation took over, and the feline backed away, fading into the foliage.

Neferet rushed to her cat. Chloe was still alive. Her little heart raced and she was panting in panic and pain. “No! Goddess, no!” Neferet ripped her dress and tried to push the intestines back into the cat’s belly, and staunch the terrible flood of blood. “Help her, Nyx! Please, if I am as important to you as everyone says I am, please, I beg of you, help her!” Filled with her cat’s pain and her own despair, Neferet cried into the night. “Help her, Goddess! Please help!”

The air above the clearing had shimmered with silver light that glittered like stars come to earth, and a woman materialized beside the dying cat. Her hair was long and as white as the full moon. She wore a dress the color of dusk and a headdress covered in gossamer silver strung with diamonds.

Within the den, the Tsi Sgili’s restlessly twitching body stilled. Her breathing became shallow. Her naked skin was chill and so pale she seemed almost transparent as she relived her first meeting with Nyx.

“Daughter, you are important to me,” the Goddess had told her. “And not only because I can see great power within you. I love you, as I do all of my children, because of your true self—that within you which is vulnerable and wounded, yet brave enough to continue to live and grow and love.”

“Then please, Goddess. Save Chloe. She is the most important thing in my life. I love her,” Neferet had begged.

Nyx had raised her arms, and the silk that draped them had shimmered like moonlight on water.

“I give you one final gift—that of the ability to soothe others’ pain with your touch. Let it teach you compassion to temper the budding power within you.” Nyx pressed her hands over her heart, and then she bent forward and placed her palms against Neferet’s head.

Within the cold, dark den, Neferet relived the infilling of that divine touch and her breath stopped in remembrance. The Goddess’s touch had not filled her with power. It had filled her with gentleness.

“Oh, blessed be, Nyx!”

“It is the Goddess! Blessed be, Goddess of Night!”

Joyous cries came from all around Neferet as vampyres and fledglings, following her calls for help, had found the clearing.