his back. She knew the instant his vision had cleared. Those human eyes, tinged with scarlet, found hers.
“Your wing’s messed up again,” she said.
He grunted, and she figured that was his guy word for agreeing with her.
“I better fix it again.” She started to get up and his lifted hand stopped her.
“You shouldn’t move. You should just rest against your earth and regain your strength.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not one hundred percent, but I’m lots better.” She hesitated and then added, “Can’t you tell that?”
“Why would I—” The Raven Mocker’s words ended abruptly. Stevie Rae watched his eyes widen with understanding. “How is it possible?” he said.
“I dunno,” she said, getting up and beginning to unwind the messed-up strips of towels from around him. “I wouldn’t think it’d be possible. But, well, here we are, and here
“An Imprint,” he said.
“Between us,” she said.
Then neither of them said anything.
When she had the tangled mess of bandages straightened out, she told him, “Okay, I’m gonna set your wing back like I had it and re-wrap it. It’s gonna hurt again. Sorry. Of course this time it’ll hurt me, too.”
“Truly?” he said.
“Yeah, well, I kinda know how these Imprint things work, being as I used to have a human Imprinted to me. She knew all sorts of stuff about me. Now I’m Imprinted to you, so it stands to reason that I’ll be knowing stuff about you, which includes when you’re in excruciating pain.”
“Are you still Imprinted to her?”
Stevie Rae shook her head. “Nope, it’s gone, which, I’m sure, will tickle her pink.”
“Tickle pink?”
“Just an expression my mama used to use. It means she’ll be happy we’re not Imprinted anymore.”
“And you? What are you?”
Stevie Rae looked into his eyes and answered honestly. “I’m totally confused about us, but not sorry at all that I’m not Imprinted with Aphrodite anymore. Now, hold still and let me get this over with.” Rephaim stayed perfectly still while Stevie Rae reset his wing. It was she who did the gasping and made the painful exclamations. She who was white and shaky after it was all over. “Dang, wings hurt. Bad.”
Rephaim stared at her, shaking his head. “You did feel it, didn’t you?”
“Sadly, yep, I did. It was almost worse than almost dying.” She met his eyes. “Is it going to get well?”
“It will heal.”
“But?” She felt the word there at the end of his sentence.
“But I do not believe I will ever fly again.”
Stevie Rae’s gaze stayed steady on his. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Maybe it’ll heal better than you think. If you came back to the House of Night with me, I could—”
“I cannot go there.” He hadn’t raised his voice, but the words had a sense of finality to them.
Stevie Rae tried again. “That’s what I used to think, but I’m back there and they accept me. Well, some of them do.”
“It wouldn’t be like that for me, and you know it.”
Stevie Rae looked down. Her shoulders slumped. “You killed Professor Anastasia. She was really nice. Her mate, Dragon, is lost without her.”
“I did what I had to do for my father.”
“And he deserted you,” she said.
“I disappointed him.”
“You almost died!”
“He is still my father,” he said quietly.
“Rephaim, this Imprint. Does it feel like anything to you? Or is it just me who’s had a change?”
“A change?”
“Well, yeah. I couldn’t feel your pain before, and now I can. I can’t tell what you’re thinking, but I can sense things about you, like I think I’d know where you were and what was going on with you even if you were a long way away from me. It’s weird. It’s different than what I had with Aphrodite, but it’s definitely there. Is there anything at all different with you?”
He hesitated a long time before answering her, and when he did speak he sounded confused. “I feel protective of you.”
“Well.” Stevie Rae smiled. “You did protect me from dyin’ up there.”
“That was payment of a debt. This is more.”
“Like what?”
“Like it makes me sick to think about how close you came to dying,” he admitted, his voice defensive and annoyed.
“Is that all?”
“No. Yes. I do not know! I’m not used to this.” He thumped his chest with his fist.
“This what?”
“This
“Maybe we could call it friendship?”
“Impossible.”
Stevie Rae grinned. “Well, I was just tellin’ Zoey that stuff we once thought was impossible might not be so black-and-white.”
“Not black-and-white, but good and evil. You and I are on two opposing sides in the balance of good versus evil.”
“I don’t think that’s set in stone,” she said.
“I am still my father’s son,” he said.
“Well, I wonder where that leaves us?”
Before he could answer her, the sounds of frantic shouting drifted down through the small crack in the earth.
“Stevie Rae! Are you here?”
“That’s Lenobia,” Stevie Rae said.
“Stevie Rae!” Another voice joined the Horse Mistress’s.
“Oh, crap! That’s Erik. He knows his way to the tunnels. If they get down there, all hell’s gonna break loose.”
“Will they shield you from the sunlight?”
“Well, yeah, I’d imagine so. They don’t want me to burn up.”
“Then call them to you. You should go with them,” he said.
Stevie Rae concentrated, waved her hand, and the small crack in the far end of the ceiling of their hiding place trembled and then got bigger. Stevie Rae pressed herself back against the raw ground. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth and called: “Lenobia! Erik! I’m down here!”
Quickly she leaned over, laying her palms against the earth on either side of Rephaim. “Hide him for me, earth. Don’t let him be discovered.” Then she pushed, and like the swirling of water down a drain, the dirt behind him rippled backward, leaving a Raven Mocker— sized cubbyhole, into which he reluctantly crawled.
“Stevie Rae?” Lenobia’s voice came from above them near the crack.
“Yeah, I’m here, but I can’t come out unless you can cover this part of the ground with a tent or somethin’.”
“We’ll take care of that. You just stay down there where you’re safe.”
“Are you okay? Do we need to get something for you?” Erik’s voice asked.
Stevie Rae figured the “something” Erik was asking about was really a bag or ten of blood from the fridge in the tunnels, and no way did she want him going down there.
“No! I’m fine. Just get somethin’ to cover me from the sun.”
“No problem. We’ll be back in a sec,” Erik said.
