Loved (The House of Night Other World #1)

by P.C. Cast

Her mother—the ice queen socialite—would use her daughter’s pain. She’d figure out some way to exploit her. Again. “She’d try to. I’m not a scared kid anymore who wants her mommy’s love and approval.” She spoke slowly, emphatically, tasting each word. “She might still be able to hurt me, but she can’t use me.”

Darius was her Warrior. They shared a bond through which he could feel her emotions, and the last thing she wanted was for him to feel how badly her mother could still hurt her. Aphrodite refused to give Frances LaFont that much power.

Aphrodite allowed herself to cling to him—to inhale his warmth and his scent—to be immersed in his unconditional love.

in case you’ve forgotten. I love you. Always.” “I’ll never forget. Always.”

what is our greatest power?” “Love,” I said automatically. “Always, love.” “Indeed,” Lenobia said.

“Son, I will never revisit the past. I cannot bear the remembrance of what I allowed Darkness to do.”

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Aphrodite feels things deeply, personally—even though she doesn’t often feel safe enough to show her feelings.

“Mother. Once and for all. I. Am. Not. Human.” Aphrodite didn’t yell. She didn’t do anything except stand up to her bat-shit-crazy mom.

“I was wrong about the vision,”

Many people do not want to embrace joy—not in this lifetime.

“Why would someone not want to embrace joy?”

“Because a life filled with depression—sadness and stress and the tumult and drama that comes with such a life—can be addicting. After you live with it long enough, you only feel normal if you are mired in darkness.

I mean the darkness that is an absence of joy, of lightness of spirit, of happiness. Depression is an abyss—a pit fro...

You must truly want everything that the absence of sadness brings with it—all the victories and defeats of a life lived open to the endless possi...

“Then believe in yourself. Believe you are brave and worthy of such joy.”

“Yes. I want to heal. I want to live a life filled with joy.”

I would love Jack no matter what body he returned to me in—male, female—it just wouldn’t matter. He would still be my true love.

Those are the mother-daughter rules.”

“I believe that rule holds only when a mother truly acts like one,”

I’m not going to see her for her sake. I’m going for me.

“Oh, good Goddess! You’re eighty-eight!” His smile widened to a grin. “I am.” “Good thing I’ve always like older men,” she said.

Is everything all right with you?”

I will not cry. “Again, no. But I’m used to it. My mother poisons everything she touches.

“It means you’re the daughter of an unpleasant woman.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be in anyone’s service! Maybe I don’t deserve to be in anyone’s service! Maybe that’s what my vision was really about. I’m not human. I’m not vampyre. I’m nothing except an idiot who isn’t even good enough for her mother to love.”

“Snap the hell out of it! Your mom is awful. She’s always been awful. So stop letting her fuck with your head.”

“Ooooo, you said hell and fuck. It really must be the zombie apocalypse.”...

“Oh, for shit’s sake—the front door wasn’t locked. I was pulling instead of pushing.” She started to laugh and laugh.

She covered her face and wept inconsolably—wept for her dead father; wept for her hateful, absentee mother who would soon be dead; wept for her lost childhood; and finally, wept for herself.

“It’s not that I’m not good enough for my mother to love. No one—no child, no husband, no job—would ever be good enough for her because she wasn’t ever good enough for herself. Her life disappointed her over and over again, because it was broken. It was broken because she was broken. She is broken.”

“I can’t fix her. I can’t make her love me. I can only fix myself—love myself. And I have to let Mother go, and let the pain she created in my life go with her, or I will become her. I have to let her go.”

She put her face in her hands and began to weep again, but this time her tears were an outpouring of relief and release because it was at that moment Aphrodi...

“Daughter, I have been waiting to see if you would choose healing or self-destruction. I am infinitely please...

With trembling fingers she watched her reflection trace the incredibly beautiful tattoo pattern of exploding blue and red fireworks that framed her eyes in a perfect mask.

“This is the part of my prophetic gift to you that had to wait until you were wise enough to wield it.” “Forgive me, Nyx, but I still don’t understand.”

“Just as Zoey Redbird bridges two worlds—the ancient one of the first of my children, and today’s hectic, mad, modern world—so, too, do you bridge worlds.”

“No, daughter. I mean the worlds of my red and blue Marked children. From the moment you sacrificed a piece of your humanity to save Stevie Rae and my children Marked in red, you have been on this path. I hoped that you would be strong enough to heal your past and wise enough to seek a new future—my hope has come to fruition today.” “So, I’m a bridge?”

“Yes, but you are also truly a vampyre—fully Changed.”

“Thank you. Those two words aren’t enough, but they are all I have. Thank you, Nyx. I won’t let you down. I won’t be my mother, and I won’t let her hurt me anymore.”

“I know you won’t, Daughter. But do you not wish to know the extent of your prophetess gifts?” “There’s more than this gorgeous Mark and those visions I get?”

“Please tell me you took away the bloody tears, pain, and blindness that goes with them.” “No, Daughter. I cannot tell you that, for with every gift comes a price, and the price for your visions is pain. There is a price for your new gift, too, though I...

In these modern worlds where blue and red vampyres collide, I require a Prophetess of Judgment—someone whose past has taught them that not everything that is beautiful is good—and not everything that is plain is bad, for darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.”

You, my wise, witty, irreverent Daughter, are my divine intervention.”

I have granted you the gift of humanity and second chances.

“I’m not really that smart, and I screw up and hurt people’s feelings. Constantly, actually. Even when I don’t mean to.” “Yes, you are very human. That is part of what I appreciate about you. And you speak your mind clearly with very little niceties. I find that essential in a prophetess. You have a unique wisdom that I appreciate. Depend on that wisdom and depend on your heart.”

“My heart?” “When you know it here,” the goddess touched Aphrodite’s forehead gently. “As well as here,” her hand rested briefly on Aphrodite’s breast, over her heart. “Then the answer you seek will be the correct one.”

“You said every gift comes with a price. What’s the price I pay for this gift?” “Each time you give someone a second chance, you give away a piece of your gift of judgment. You’ll see it happen, for part of your Mark will fade until finally, one day, it will disappear completely leaving you as you were before.”

“Before you were Marked at all. When your tattoo is gone, so too will your term as my prophetess be gone, and you may live out the rest of your life as a human mortal, revered and loved by every House of Night in this world and any other you choose to touch until you die peacefully, surrounded by your children and loved ones, and you return to me.”

“Children?” “Many—and grandchildren as well as great grandchildren. You will be beloved by generations of your blood. Your life will be so filled with love and Light and laughter that it will drown out the...

“And what of your mother? Will you gift her with a second chance?”