Awakened by P C Cast

The excerpts focus on High Priestess Zoey Redbird and her Guardian, Stark, who must leave their sanctuary on the Isle of Skye to return to the Tulsa House of Night after their friend Jack is brutally murdered, a crime engineered by the fallen High Priestess Neferet. While attempting to consolidate power, Neferet performs a dark ritual requiring the sacrifice of Zoey’s estranged mother, Linda, in order to create a new, controlled weapon—a mystical Vessel—for her battle against Light. Simultaneously, the burgeoning connection between Stevie Rae and the Raven Mocker Rephaim is tested as he attempts to reconcile his past service to Darkness with his growing humanity. At Jack’s funeral, the Goddess Nyx intervenes, bestowing a difficult consequence upon Rephaim that restricts his human form to nighttime, and revealing that the soul essence of Zoey’s late consort, Heath Luck, has chosen to inhabit Neferet's Vessel, thereby giving the weapon a fatal flaw. Ultimately, Zoey and her core circle of friends and red fledglings refuse to stay under Neferet's authority and leave the main school grounds to establish their own stronghold against the intensifying evil.