The Casts really know how to undermine the intensity of a situation:
The ground beneath my feet, soaked through with Stevie Rae’s blood, began to shudder, rippling like it was no longer solid earth but had suddenly turned to water. Through panicked cries, I heard Aphrodite’s voice again, as calm as if she was only yelling at Damien and the Twins about their fashion choices.
“Move in to us, but don’t break the circle!”
Stevie Rae agrees with Aphrodite and assures Zoey she’s not dying…again. Zoey tells Erik and Venus (who????) to make sure Stevie Rae stays part of the circle. So I guess Venus is going to be a more prominent character in this story now?
But will Erik want to help Zoey and probably get back together with her until she starts dating undead Stark?
“Make your choice now,” I said. “You’re either with us or with Neferet and the rest of them.”
Erik didn’t hesitate. “I made my choice when I volunteered to be your consort tonight. I’m with you.”
Well, that was easy.
Also based on some context and some Googling, Venus is Aphrodite’s former friend who is now a red fledgling. The more you know.
We started to move as a group, taking small steps over the bucking earth, having to be ultra-careful with Stevie Rae and the candles and the circle that seemed so important to maintain. You’d think at least Shekinah would have said something to us, but it seemed we existed in a weird little bubble of serenity amidst a world suddenly awash in blood and panic and chaos. We kept moving away from the tree, following the wall, slowly and carefully making progress.
I find this mental image absolutely hysterical. Everything around them is going insane and they’re like making sure to keep holding hands and candles and gingerly taking steps towards…something.
SUDDENLY KALONA BURSTS FORTH FROM THE GROUND AND REVEALS HOW SEXY HE IS.
“Oh, Goddess!” The cry was ripped from me at my first sight of Kalona. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. His skin was smooth and completely unmarred, and was gilded with what looked like the kiss of the sun’s loving rays. His hair was as black as his wings, and fell loose and thick around his shoulders, making him look like an ancient warrior. His face—how can I ever fully describe his beautiful face? It was like a sculpture come to life, and it made even the most handsome mortal, be he human or vampyre, look like a sickly, unsuccessful attempt at imitation of his glory. His eyes were the color of amber, so perfect, they were almost golden. I found myself wanting to get lost in them. Those eyes called to me . . . he called to me . . .
Do you guys think if Left Behind’s Carpathia met Kalona they would just be mesmorized by one another and agree to be the Sexiest Men Alive together?
Also, I love watching the Casts struggle to describe just how hot Kalona is. “He’s so sexy he makes other sexy people look way less sexy!”
Zoey almost breaks the circle to go make out with Kalona because she’s Zoey, but then he calls forth his Raven Mockers, and she’s like, “Nah.”
They shrieked and circled their father, who laughed and held his arms up higher so that their wings could caress him.
It’s always such a shame when hot people have ugly children, isn’t it? I wonder if Kalona is always a little disappointed that the Raven Mockers aren’t attractive. Damn that “ancient rape”!
Neferet tries to act like everything is great and that this man is not clearly evil:
“This is Erebus, come to earth finally!” Neferet proclaimed. “Bow to Nyx’s consort, and our new Lord on earth.”
Shekinah looks skeptical about all of this, so Neferet kills her with the flick of her wrist…somehow:
Before Shekinah could break through the crowd and confront the risen angel, Neferet lifted her hand and made a slight flicking motion with her wrist. It was a gesture so small and insignificant that had I not been watching for it, I would not have seen it. Shekinah’s eyes went wide, she gasped, grabbed her neck, and then crumpled to the ground. The Sons of Erebus rushed to her body.
Good thing that was so easy and that it makes sense that Neferet didn’t just also kill Zoey as soon as she realized what a threat she was to her evil plans.
Zoey gets great cell reception in the circle, so she calls Sister Mary Angela and urges her to get herself and Grandma to safety. Neferet turns her attention to the gang, but they see the trap door that I forgot existed is opened by Darius! UG AND JACK.
“It is already open,” said a familiar voice. I glanced behind me at the wall to see Darius standing beside a cracked trapdoor that seemed to appear magically in the bricks and rock. And, with a huge rush of relief, I saw that Jack was standing beside the warrior, bawling his eyes out, but in one piece with Duchess close to his side.
Fuck’s sake, I thought Jack might get left behind. I can’t. Matthew, you take over.
And so the end begins! Fun fact: I just finished Untamed earlier this afternoon. Ugh. It took me forever to finish the book, and that didn’t include the numerous times I ran off to rant about the book to my poor friends or fact check things (because it’s the Casts). Also, somewhere around halfway through the book I got tired of shouting “NO SLUT-SHAMING!”/”STOP SLUT-SHAMING YOURSELF!” at the series in general, so that’s my first Overly Long Gag retired for good.
Can I just say, Neferet is even worse than I’d thought she was as a villain now that I’ve read the books myself. I once compared her in a rant to Cinder Fall, one of the antagonists in the animated web series RWBY, but reading the last few chapters of Untamed kind of changed my opinion. Cinder Fall, I’d like to partially rescind my comments about you being a better-written version of Neferet. You’re a better Neferet in general than Neferet herself.
Kalona’s description…I just couldn’t. I spent a good five minutes grumbling about the fact that Kalona’s physical description upholds common ideas about “true” masculine beauty. For starters, I’m sick and tired of seeing people follow up mentions of long hair on men with any variant of “BUT IT MAKES THEM LOOK MASCULINE/SEXY OKAY”. And in any case comparing Kalona to “a sculpture come to life” sounds awfully lazy. Why not tell us how his facial features are striking? =_______= And don’t get me started on the whole “HIS SKIN IS SOOOOO PERFECT” bit.
It did give me an idea, though. What if Kalona’s appearance as described by Zoey is only what Zoey herself sees? After all, beauty is subjective and, as the cliché goes, in the eye of the beholder, and cultural and societal norms can dictate what you consider beautiful or not and why. So what if other people–ah, sorry, CISWOMXN–saw Kalona differently? If Kalona only targets heterosexual ciswomxn (since, as far as I can tell, the Casts never talk about whom they consider womxn and why/how), it’d make sense that he’d take on appearances that appeal to each individual. Which means that the rest of us who aren’t attracted to Kalona will see either something hilariously underwhelming or an eldritch abomination.
I vote underwhelming just so I can spite the Casts’ hamfisted attempt at talking about sexuality. (One of my favorite games to play: when I see comments about how a particular character is so handsome no womxn can resist him, I always say, “You’ve obviously never met me.” Asexual pride!)
RIP Shekinah. You were as useless as you were flat and uninteresting.
Shekinah who?
That one lady who stood around so there wouldn’t be an empty spot in a room. She also had some tiny part-time job in vampyre ressources or something like that, I heard.
RIP Shekinah: so dense was she that she probably wouldn’t have noticed her own death if she didn’t die.