Check out our episode here! (featuring Untamed, Hunted and Tempted)
Hunted by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
After what happened at the end of Untamed, you might think that Stevie Rae is dead, but she’s not! The Nerd Herd plus Erik and Darius sneak off campus to the tunnels underneath Tulsa where they should be safe from Kalona because he doesn’t want to go underground anymore ever. The red fledglings have been hanging out down there and it’s much nicer now! They have rooms and access to the old train depot with showers and refrigerators and things! Zoey and the Nerd Herd form a circle and heal Stevie Rae. The arrow shot by Stark did not hit her heart but she still lost a lot of blood, so Aphrodite, since she’s human, lets Stevie Rae feed on her to heal and then they become imprinted. Erik and Zoey get back together, but he’s really forceful when they start kissing which freaks Zoey out. She just had sex like, a few days ago, with her teacher. She’s not ready for anything else right now. Kalona takes this not-ready-for-anything-right-now opportunity to start getting into Zoey's dreams to seduce her, and calls her A-ya. Hey… that’s the name of the mud maiden who trapped him inside the earth… Uh oh.
One of the red fledglings that’s been living in the tunnels is Kramisha, who writes prophetic poetry. Since Loren Blake, former poet laureate, is dead and Neferet has gone crazy, this makes Zoey the unofficial High Priestess of the House of Night, and Zoey gives Kramisha the title of Poet Laureate. One of Kramisha's poems says that Kalona and Neferet will be banished (not killed or defeated or whatever, banished) when Night, Humanity, Blood, Spirit and Earth come together. Since they’re capitalized, Damien surmises that these are people, but Zoey doesn't know who they are.
Heath arrives at the tunnels because even though their imprint is broken and he previously said he wanted nothing to do with her (in the last book but we didn’t mention it), he’s worried about her what with all the creepiness happening around town. She did call and tell him to get underground (also last book, but again… just mentioning it now), but of course he comes to find her instead. Zoey goes outside to talk to him, which makes Erik angry/jealous. While she’s outside, she’s attacked by a Raven Mocker because of course she is because they’re supposed to be hiding underground. SHEESH. Zoey drinks from Heath to heal and they Imprint again.
Zoey’s still pretty weak, so Darius suggests that Zoey needs to be around more adult vampires (I guess he, Erik and Stevie Rae aren’t enough?) and that they need to go back to the House of Night. Neferet had been trying to get them to go back anyway, so surely everything’s going to be fine when they get back, right? When they get back to school, Darius gets into a fight with a Raven Mocker, Rephaim, who is Kalona’s first and favorite son. Most of the fledglings and vampyres have turned away from Nyx and are worshipping Neferet as Nyx Incarnate and Kalona as Erebus, Nyx’s Consort and Warrior. All this is fine. Totally fine. While they’re at the school, Zoey convinces Stark to come back to the good side and he does, then he pledges himself to Zoey as her Warrior and then completes the change to adult Red Vampyre. Everyone still thinks he’s terrible though because he’s kind of rapey on a kid before he changes and he’s also still working with Kalona and Neferet.
Zoey talks to Lenobia, her equestrian studies teacher, and finds out that she, the fencing teacher, Dragon Lankford, and his wife Anastasia, teacher of Spells and Rituals, are not hypnotized by Kalona and they think Neferet is evil. Lenobia helps Zoey decipher the Kramisha-poem and together they work out that Zoey is Night, Stevie Rae is Blood, Aphrodite is Humanity, Sister Mary Angela is Spirit and Grandma Redbird is Earth. With this figured out, they plan a diversion to escape the school on horseback and go to the nun’s abbey, which is a holy place, and where they are going to banish Kalona and Neferet.
Kalona, Neferet, Stark, and a bunch of Raven Mockers, arrive shortly thereafter. Kalona calls Zoey A-ya some more and she says that although she was A-ya in another life, she is now her own person and rejects Kalona’s advances. Neferet orders Stark to shoot Zoey, but he says that Zoey is his heart and aims at her while thinking of himself. Uh oh. He can’t miss. He’s going to shoot himself in the heart! Zoey realizes this and uses all her elements to stop the arrow. It explodes, knocking Stark out and branding his heart with a broken arrow at the same time. Zoey follows the poem and as Night, she and the others, Humanity, Blood, Spirit, and Earth, complete the spell and banish Neferet and Kalona and they fly away. After the banishment, Zoey’s bird scar gets covered with tattoos because of course her tattoos spread again. Zoey’s sad because Kalona is gone, but she knows the fight isn’t over yet and that she’ll see him again.