Burned

“But you said Kalona was kicked out of there by Nyx. How could he go back?”

Rephaim’s eyes widened. “His body was banished.”

“And his body’s still in this realm! It’s his spirit that’s returned,” Stevie Rae finished for him.

“Yes! Neferet has forced him to return. I know my father well. He would never skulk back to Nyx’s Otherworld. He has too much pride. He would only return if the Goddess herself asked it of him.”

“How do you know that for sure? Maybe he’s going after Zoey because he finally gets it that she’ll never be with him, and, like a scary, psycho stalker, he’d rather see her dead than with someone else. That could’ve pissed him off bad enough that his pride could handle a little skulkin’.”

Rephaim shook his head. “Father will never believe Zoey won’t eventually choose him. A-ya did, and part of the maiden still lives within Zoey’s soul.” He paused, and before Stevie Rae could ask her next question, added, “But I know how you can be certain. If Neferet is using him, she will have Father’s body bound by Darkness.”

“Darkness? You mean like the opposite of light?”

“In a way that is what it is. It’s hard to define because that type of pure evil is ever-changing, ever-evolving. The Darkness of which I speak is sentient. Find someone who can perceive beings from the spirit realm, and that person should be able to see the chains the Tsi Sgili formed to bind Father, if they are there at all.”

“Can you sense the spirit world?”

“I can,” he said, meeting her gaze without faltering. “Would you have me give myself up to your Vampyre High Council?”

Stevie Rae chewed her bottom lip. Would she? It would be giving Rephaim’s life for Zoey’s, and maybe even her own because she’d have to go with him, and there was no way the mega-powerful vamps on the High Council wouldn’t be able to tell they were Imprinted. She would die for Zoey—of course she would. But it’d be nice if she didn’t have to. Plus, it’s not like Zoey would want her to die. Well, it also wasn’t like Zoey would want her to have saved and then Imprinted with a Raven Mocker. Heck, no one would want that. Goddess knows she didn’t even want it. Well, not most of the time anyway.

“Stevie Rae?”

She jolted out of her inner argument to see Rephaim studying her. “Would you have me give myself to your Vampyre High Council?” he repeated solemnly.

“Only as our last option, and if you go, that means I go, too. And, heck, the High Council probably wouldn’t even believe anything you tell them. But you said all we need is someone who is good with the spirit realm, like good enough that they can sense the Darkness and spirit stuff, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s a whole gaggle of powerful vamps on the High Council. One of them has to be able to do that.”

He cocked his head to the side. “It would be unusual for a vampyre to have the ability to sense the dark forces the Tsi Sgili is wielding. That is one reason Neferet has been able to keep up her charade for so long. Truly being able to identify hidden Darkness is a singular skill. Sensing such evil is difficult unless you are familiar with it.”

“Yeah, well, the High Council vamps are supposed to be all that. One of them has to be able to do it.” She spoke with much more confidence than she felt. Everyone knew the High Council vamps were chosen because of their honor and integrity and basically their all-around goodness, which didn’t so much go with being familiar with Darkness. She cleared her throat. “Okay, well, I gotta go back to the House of Night and make a call to Venice,” she said firmly. Then her gaze went to his arm and the wing held limp in stained bandages behind it. “You’re hurting pretty bad, huh?”

He gave a short nod.

“Okay, well, are ya done eatin’?”

He nodded again.

She swallowed hard, remembering the shared pain of bandaging that broken wing before. “I need to go find the medical supplies. Sadly, they’ll probably be in that security office I sent the dorky guard to, which means I’m gonna have to zap his little pea brain again.”

“You could sense his brain was small?”

“Did ya see how high-waisted his pants were? No one under the age of eighty with a big brain wears grandpa pants pulled all the way to their underarms. Pea brain, I’m just sayin’.”

Then, surprising both of them, Rephaim laughed.

I like the sound of his laughter. And before her own brain could clue her mouth in to being quiet, she smiled, and said, “You should laugh more. It’s nice.”

Rephaim didn’t say anything, but Stevie Rae couldn’t decipher the odd look he gave her. Feeling kinda uncomfortable, she hopped down from her kitchen stool, and said, “Well, I’m gonna go get the first-aid stuff, fix up your wing as best I can, get food and things together for you, and then go back and start making some super long-distance calls. Hang here. I’ll be right back.”

“I’d prefer to come with you,” he said, standing carefully while he held his arm against his side.

“It’d probably be easier on you if you just stayed here,” she said.

“Yes, but I’d prefer to be with you,” he said quietly.

Stevie Rae felt a weird little jolt deep inside her at his words, but she shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, and said, “ ’Kay, suit yourself. But don’t whine if it hurts you to walk around.”

“I do not whine!” The look he gave her was so filled with guy pride that it was her turn to laugh as they left the kitchen, side by side.

Stevie Rae

Driving home, Stevie Rae should have been thinking about Zoey and devising her next plan of attack. But that was easy. She’d call Aphrodite. No matter what tragedies were going on in the world, Aphrodite would have her pointy little nose in the middle of everything, especially since it had to do with Zoey.

So Stevie Rae’s next step in her Save Z Plan was already figured out, leaving her mind wide open to think about Rephaim.

Resetting that dang wing had been awful. She still felt the phantom ache of it all through her right shoulder and her back. Even after she’d found the jar of numbing lidocaine and spread that all down his wing and his messed-up arm, she could still feel the deep, sick pain of its brokenness. Rephaim hadn’t said one word during the entire ordeal. He’d turned his head away from her, and right before she touched his wing, he’d said, “Would you do that talking thing you do while you bandage it?”

“Just exactly what talkin’ thing do you mean?” she’d asked.

He’d glanced over his shoulder, and she could have sworn there was a smile in his eyes. “You talk. A lot. So go ahead and do it. It’ll give me something more annoying to think about than the pain.”

She’d harrumphed at him, but he’d made her smile. And she did talk to him the entire time she’d cleaned, bandaged, and reset his badly broken wing. Actually, she’d babbled in big bursts of verbal diarrhea, saying nothing and everything as she rode the tide of pain with him. When she was finally done, he’d followed her, slowly, silently, back to the abandoned mansion, and she’d tried to make the closet more comfortable by stuffing in blankets she’d grabbed from the museum’s staff lounge.

“You need to go. Don’t worry about this.” He’d taken the last blanket from her and then practically collapsed into the closet.

“Look, I put the sack of food right here. It’s stuff that won’t go bad. And remember to drink lots of the water and juice. Hydrating’s good,” she’d said, feeling suddenly worried about leaving