Betrayed

The second installment in the House of Night series follows Zoey Redbird, a teenage fledgling vampyre attending the House of Night, a boarding school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where young people Marked by a vampyre tracker undergo the Change, a dangerous transformation that will either turn them into adult vampyres or kill them. Zoey is no ordinary fledgling: The Goddess Nyx has expanded her crescent moon Mark with elaborate sapphire tattoos, and Zoey possesses an unprecedented affinity for all five elements: air, fire, water, earth, and spirit. She has recently been named leader of the Dark Daughters and Sons, the school's most prestigious student organization, after deposing its former leader, Aphrodite.

Zoey's school life centers on her close circle of friends: Damien Maslin, an openly gay student; Shaunee Cole and Erin Bates, nicknamed "the Twins" for their synchronicity despite different racial backgrounds; and Stevie Rae Johnson, Zoey's warm, Oklahoma-accented roommate. A parent visitation night turns painful when Zoey's stepfather, John Heffer, an Elder of the conservative People of Faith, insults the school's beliefs, and Neferet, the High Priestess and Zoey's mentor, orders him to leave. Zoey's mother follows without a word of comfort; only Zoey's grandmother, Sylvia Redbird, a Cherokee woman who calls Zoey u-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa (daughter), offers unconditional love. That same evening, Zoey overhears Aphrodite's parents berating her in the courtyard. Aphrodite's mother slaps her and demands she reclaim the Dark Daughters, while her father, the mayor of Tulsa, reveals they instructed Aphrodite to conceal her prophetic visions as a source of power. Zoey is shaken, realizing Aphrodite's history of withholding life-saving visions was partly her parents' doing.

Zoey channels her energy into restructuring the Dark Daughters, designing a Prefect Council with five ideals tied to the elements. While researching in the media center, she meets Loren Blake, the Vampyre Poet Laureate and a handsome part-time professor who traces her facial tattoo and calls her beautiful, sparking a forbidden attraction. When Zoey confides in Stevie Rae, Stevie Rae asks what this means for Erik Night, Zoey's almost-boyfriend away at an international Shakespeare competition. Meanwhile, Zoey overhears Neferet speaking to Aphrodite with shocking cruelty, claiming Nyx has withdrawn Aphrodite's gift of vision. The local news reports that Chris Ford, a teenager Zoey knew, has been found dead in the Arkansas River, his body drained of blood, and that his cousin Brad Higeons has disappeared.

Events accelerate when Aphrodite has a vision that the I-40 bridge near Webber's Falls will collapse, killing Zoey's grandmother and others. Aphrodite refuses to go to Neferet and demands a binding vampyre oath from Zoey: a future favor in exchange for the details. Zoey swears the oath, warns her grandmother to stay home, and orchestrates a bomb threat with her friends to close the bridge. A barge captain's subsequent heart attack confirms the vision was genuine.

Tulsa homicide detectives, including Detective Marx, arrive to question Zoey after a Dark Daughters leadership necklace is found near Chris Ford's body. During the questioning, Neferet silently directs Zoey to conceal that she previously tasted the blood of her human ex-boyfriend, Heath Luck, during an earlier encounter near the school wall. Zoey also notices Neferet lying about Loren's whereabouts.

Zoey's bond with Heath deepens when she encounters him at a coffee shop. He cuts his own neck with a razor blade, and Zoey's bloodlust overwhelms her. She drinks his blood, triggering intense desire until a security guard interrupts. The experience confirms what her textbook explains: She has Imprinted Heath, creating a supernatural bond through which each can sense the other's emotions and location.

One snowy night near the school's east wall, where Zoey previously glimpsed what she believed were ghosts of dead fledglings, she witnesses something horrifying. A cloaked figure stands at a trapdoor, and when his hood falls, Zoey recognizes Elliott, a fledgling who supposedly died the previous month, his eyes glowing red. Neferet slices her own forearm and lets the creature drink her blood while calling herself "Goddess." Zoey retreats, certain Neferet is concealing something monstrous.

As the Full Moon Ritual approaches, Zoey discovers that each of her friends possesses an elemental affinity: Stevie Rae with earth, Shaunee with fire, Erin with water, and Damien with air. Erik Night returns from his Shakespeare competition having won first place and gives Zoey a beautiful dress for the ritual, deepening her guilt over Heath and Loren. Neferet announces Zoey's Dark Daughters reforms to the school, presenting them as largely her own ideas. Despite this, Zoey's first formal ritual is a triumph, with her friends channeling their elements to create a visible circle of power.

The celebration shatters when Stevie Rae begins coughing blood as her body rejects the Change. Zoey holds her best friend and calls earth to comfort her. Stevie Rae whispers, "I'm not scared anymore, Z" (219), asks Zoey to tell her parents she loves them, and dies in Zoey's arms.

Zoey enters shock. Her friends use their elemental affinities to revive her, and she receives a vision of Stevie Rae walking joyfully into the arms of Nyx. Aphrodite privately warns Zoey not to drink the sedative Neferet provides, explaining that the same medicine suppressed her own emotions and visions for weeks after her roommate, Venus Davis, died. Aphrodite adds a cryptic warning that everything appearing to be light is not necessarily good.

That night, Zoey dreams of four cloaked creatures at the east wall trapdoor. The smallest is a transformed, cruel-eyed Stevie Rae. Heath approaches the wall, and the creatures seize him. Zoey wakes to a news report confirming Heath's disappearance.

After confessing to Erik that she fed from Heath and likely Imprinted him, Zoey uses the blood bond to locate Heath in Prohibition-era tunnels beneath the old Tulsa railroad depot. He is bound, bleeding, and surrounded by undead creatures, including Elliott and Venus, led by the transformed Stevie Rae. Aphrodite arrives at the stables with a vision that Heath will die without intervention and tells Zoey to call her friends to manifest their elements remotely.

Zoey rides through the blizzard to the depot and descends into the tunnels. She calls fire to repel the creatures and incinerates one that attacks Heath, then collapses the tunnel behind them with earth. In the accompanying vision, she glimpses Stevie Rae weeping, a sign her true self survives beneath the cruelty. Stevie Rae returns, begging to be killed and admitting that "the best part of me is still dead" (291). She reveals that Neferet created the undead creatures and warns Zoey to flee because Neferet is coming. Zoey promises to return for her.

At the depot entrance, Neferet intercepts Zoey and Heath. Before the police arrive, she seizes them both, her hands glowing with reddish light, and erases their memories. In a vision, Nyx tells Zoey that "the elements can restore as well as destroy" (298). Detective Marx finds Zoey and drives her toward the school. Realizing her memories have been erased, Zoey stops near the east wall and calls each element to cleanse her mind: wind to blow away darkness, fire to burn it, water to wash it, earth to drain it, and spirit to heal. Her memory returns completely, and new tattoo Marks spread across her back, proof of Nyx's continued favor.

Zoey instructs Marx to report that a human serial killer used the depot to frame vampyres, a cover story protecting Stevie Rae. Back at school, she asks Neferet to examine her new Marks, then embraces her and whispers a warning: Nyx believes Zoey, and this is not over between them. The novel closes as Zoey and her friends light a green candle for Stevie Rae at the feet of Nyx's statue, and Zoey silently promises to go back for her best friend.