The Zoey Chronicles: Discovery (Vol. 2) Read Free Page B

awkward. When we ate we didn’t say anything, and afterwards we went straight to bed. I couldn’t understand why he’d kissed me and then immediately pulled away. I kept thinking that it was something that I’d done wrong. Had I tasted weird? Had I been too intense when I grabbed his back? Was I too ugly for him? It was undeniable that he was far, far more attractive than I was. Perhaps he’d only realised that when he got close enough to kiss me.
                 
    Every night I dreamt of it. I replayed it in my mind, how hurt and embarrassed I’d felt. But then one night I dreamt something else. I had another vision.
                 
    A woman stood atop a snowy mountain, alone. She was clad head to toe in thick, wintery clothes, and a sword was strapped to her back. It took me a few minutes to realise that I recognised her. It was the hilt of the sword that did it. It was shiny black and had a small diamond set in the bottom. The diamond glowed a dull green colour. It was the woman from my dream, the one that had delivered the finishing blow to my father.
                 
    The air was filled with snow and the roar of a blizzard, but the woman seemed unaffected as she stood atop the mountain. She drew her sword and held it up to the sky. “Gods of all gods, please give me the strength to reclaim the key and kill all of the humans. Please give me the strength to regroup our soldiers and continue our war. Please give me the strength to be the vampire I need to be.”
                 
    She stared up at the sky as if she really expected it to reply. When it didn’t she sighed and put the sword back on her back. Not for the first time I wondered who the hell she was. Why was I having visions about her? She was clearly the enemy. That much was clear from the fact that she’d killed my father and talked of killing all humans.
                 
    It was strange, but I wasn’t overly angry at her for killing my father. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t known him, I thought. But it saddened me. I wanted to be angry at her, if only to feel something for the man I’d never known. But when she spoke of killing all humans, that angered me. Why would she want to wipe out seven billion people? What possible justification could she have for that?
                 
    She turned away and started to walk down the mountain. She spoke to herself as she did so, in quick, frantic bursts of speech. “One day, we will rise again. The Council of the Undead is stronger with us as its leaders. We are strong. We are the strongest vampires to have ever lived. Benjamin was weak, and deserved to die. Benjamin was a liability. Benjamin was a coward.”
                 
    That did make me angry, furious even. I could feel myself thrashing in my dream, feel sweat blanketing my body, and my heart flutter in anger. I wished that I could somehow enter the dream and attack her. Who did she think she was? Benjamin was weak? The only reason she was able to kill him with that pretty little sword of hers was because Mordrain had weakened him first. Without him, my father would have killed them all. Of that I was sure.
                 
    When she got to the bottom of the mountain there was a group of men waiting for her. I recognised some of them. They were the same men from my previous vision, the men who had watched in gleeful entertainment as my father and Mordrain had fought to the death. “What did the gods say?” one said.
                 
    She looked them over, clenching her jaw. “They said that I am your new leader,” she said. Liar, I thought, even as I was dreaming. Liar. “Bow to me, my children.”
                 
    And to my astonishment they all bowed without question. Is that all it takes to become a leader? You just have to walk up a mountain and say that a god appointed you? It seemed ludicrous to me, but they were bowing