Check out our episode here! (featuring Untamed, Hunted and Tempted)
Tempted by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Tempted starts right after the end of Hunted. This one though is told from different points of view. Still mostly Zoey, but now Stevie Rae, Aphrodite, Rephaim, Heath and Stark have a few chapters, too. Anyway… Zoey and co just banished Neferet and Kalona and Zoey gathers up the Nerd Herd and gets everyone organized, but Stevie Rae notices she's very tired and takes over. She and some red fledglings and Heath and Erik go out around the abbey to make sure there are no Raven Mocker corpses anywhere, and she finds Rephaim, gravely injured. She sets his wing and helps him down into the tunnels. She doesn’t tell anyone about this, nor does she tell anyone about the other red fledglings that are down there and that they’re still terrible. That’s probably going to come back to haunt her later, right?
Zoey is left to take care of Stark, who refuses to drink her blood, and Grandma Redbird. Grandma talks to Zoey about being A-ya's reincarnation, and says that A-ya was created to love Kalona, so it makes sense that Zoey is so attracted to him. Then she goes down into the root cellar of the abbey and finds that Stevie Rae has connected it to the tunnels that connect to the depot using her Earth affinity. She has a memory of being A-ya and is freaked out, but brushes it off. They all get together and talk about the Raven Mockers and throwing some bodies away in a dumpster and Stevie Rae kind of stands up for them, which everyone thinks is weird since they’re murderers after all. But, they didn’t choose to be products of rape, so maybe they can choose to be good. (Everyone scoffs at this, but like… that’s the whole theme of this series, choosing good over evil.)
Erik finds her and wants to spend time with her, but she’s all wrapped up in other things, which makes Erik mad, so she breaks up with him (finally, he’s an ass). Don’t worry, she’s still got Stark and Heath and Kalona that she can have boy-trouble with. She finally makes it to her room she’s sharing with Aphrodite and has a dream with Kalona that ends with her jumping off a cliff to get away from him. Aphrodite has a vision at the same time of Kalona and Neferet at the Vampyre High Council trying to convince them that Neferet should be the new High Priestess and that Kalona is Erebus come to earth. She also sees two endings to Kalona. One, Zoey joins with Kalona and he burns up all the humans. Two, she doesn’t join him and instead kills him. Alerted by Zoey's panic, Stark climbs up to her room and sleeps there to guard her from further intrusions. Aphrodite leaves and takes Darius to Stark's abandoned room. Aphrodite realizes she loves Darius and he pledges his Warrior’s Oath to her. Aww!
They decide that they should return to the House of Night and find that Anastasia Lankford, Dragon’s wife and a professor at the House of Night, was killed by Rephaim. The Nerd Herd helps to burn her body at a funeral pyre and then they go to the infirmary to see if anyone else needs healing. Only a few kids helped when the Raven Mockers attacked. Everyone else blames Zoey for everything and they’re really weird and angry. The Nerd Herd gets together in Zoey’s room to figure out what they’re supposed to do next. Kramisha wrote another poem and with that and Aphrodite’s visions, they realize that Kalona and Neferet really are at the Vampire High Council on the Isle of San Clemente and that they plan on getting back to the old ways of the vampyres. Zoey has another dream with Kalona where he shows her his past. She realizes that if she stays with him, the world will end as they know it, and if she chooses to reject him and stay with Nyx, Kalona will "die" and the world will be safe. Zoey really thinks he can be saved though, just like Stark and Stevie Rae.
They decide to go to Venice to see the High Council but Stevie Rae stays behind to take care of the red fledglings good and bad (and Rephaim, come on.) Upon arriving, they learn that Neferet claims to be Nyx Incarnate and Kalona claims to be Erebus. It is revealed that Zoey's destiny is to face Kalona alone, meaning that only she can save the world. The Council is pretty distrusting of Zoey, mainly because of her age and because they kind of believe Neferet and Kalona. They decide to reconvene the next day.
Meanwhile, Stevie Rae goes to try to convince the bad red fledglings again to come to the good side. They, however, have found Rephaim and plan to use him to trap Stevie Rae on the roof so she’ll burn up in the sun and die. Rephaim goes through with the plan because he doesn’t really have much of a choice since he’s still quite injured. The bad reds tell Stevie Rae that they found a dead Raven Mocker on the roof so she goes up there to see if it’s Rephaim and they knock her out and trap her. She starts to burn (and so does Aphrodite in Venice) and Rephaim protects her with his wings and gets her to safety. She drinks his blood and they imprint, which is weird, but kind of makes Aphrodite happy. The Nerd Herd calls her to see what’s up and she makes up a story about bonkin’ her head and gettin’ stuck on the roof. AND THEY BELIEVE HER.
Back in Venice, Heath and Zoey talk about the stresses of everything going on Zoey sends Heath to find Stark because he ran off earlier when she said she wanted to try to save Kalona. Heath discovers Neferet and Kalona in a secret conversation where Neferet talks about killing the professors and how Kalona can’t be with both she and Zoey. Kalona discovers Heath who uses his imprint to call to Zoey for help. She arrives just in time to see Kalona snap Heath’s neck. Stark also arrives, but he’s also too late. Zoey throws a huge ball of Spirit at Kalona which causes her soul to shatter. She meets Heath in Otherworld. AKA they’re dead? Well, Heath is, but Zoey’s not. But she’s still in Otherworld? Uh oh.