Burned

voice and the strange lethargy in his body almost as much as he hated the effect Neferet’s icy beauty had on him.

“I imagine most of the vampyres on the island know it. Typically for her, Zoey’s spirit wasn’t exactly quiet in its leave-taking. I wonder, though, how many of the vampyres also felt the blow the chit dealt you just before she departed.” Neferet tapped her chin contemplatively with one long, sharp fingernail.

Kalona remained silent, struggling to center himself and draw together the ragged edges of his torn spirit, but the earth his body pressed against was too real, and he had not the strength to reach above and feed his soul from the wispy vestiges of the Otherworld that floated there.

“No, I don’t imagine any of them felt it,” Neferet continued, in her coldest, most calculating voice. “None of them are connected to Darkness, to you, as I am. Is that not so, my love?”

“We are uniquely connected,” Kalona managed, though he suddenly wished the words were not true.

“Indeed . . .” she said, still distracted by her thoughts. Then Neferet’s eyes widened as a new realization came to her. “I have long wondered how it was that A-ya managed to wound you, such a physically powerful immortal, badly enough that those ridiculous Cherokee hags could entrap you. I believe little Zoey has just provided the answer you’ve so carefully withheld from me. Your body can be damaged but only through your spirit. Isn’t that fascinating?”

“I will heal.” He put as much strength as possible in his voice. “Return me to Capri and the castle there. Take me to the rooft op, as close to the sky as I can be, and I will regain my strength.”

“I imagine you would—were I so inclined to do that. But I have other plans for you, my love.” Neferet lifted her arms, extending them over him. As she continued to speak she began weaving her long fingers through the air, creating intricate patterns, like a spider spinning her web. “I will not allow Zoey to interfere with us ever again.”

“A shattered soul is a death sentence. Zoey is no longer any threat to us,” he said. With knowing eyes, Kalona watched Neferet. She drew to her a sticky blackness he recognized all too well. He’d spent lifetimes battling that Darkness before he embraced its cold power. It pulsed and fluttered familiarly, restlessly under her fingers. She shouldn’t be able to command Darkness so tangibly. The thought drifted like the echo of a death knell through his weary mind. A High Priestess shouldn’t have such power.

But Neferet was no longer merely a High Priestess. She had grown beyond the boundaries of that role some time ago, and she had no trouble controlling the writhing blackness she conjured.

She is becoming immortal, Kalona realized, and with the realization, fear joined regret and despair and anger where they already simmered within the fallen Warrior of Nyx.

“One would think it would be a death sentence,” Neferet spoke calmly as she drew more and more of the inky threads to her, “but Zoey has a terribly inconvenient habit of surviving. This time I am going to ensure she dies.”

“Zoey’s soul also has a habit of reincarnating,” he said, purposefully baiting Neferet to try to throw off her focus.

“Then I will destroy her over and over again!” Neferet’s concentration only increased with the anger his words evoked. The blackness she spun intensified, writhing with swollen power in the air around her.

“Neferet.” He tried to reach her by using her name. “Do you truly understand what it is you are attempting to command?”

Her gaze met his, and, for the first time, Kalona saw the scarlet stain that nested in the darkness of her eyes. “Of course I do. It’s what lesser beings call evil.”

“I am not a lesser being, and I, too, have called it evil.”

“Ah, not for centuries you haven’t.” Her laughter was vicious. “But it seems lately you’ve been living too much with shadows from your past instead of reveling in the lovely dark power of the present. I know who is to blame for that.”

With a tremendous effort, Kalona pushed himself to a sitting position.

“No. I don’t want you to move.” Neferet flicked one finger at him, and a thread of darkness snaked around his neck, tightened, and jerked him down, pinning him to the ground again.

“What is it you want of me?” he rasped.

“I want you to follow Zoey’s spirit to the Otherworld and be sure none of her friends”—she sneered the word—“manage to find a way to coax her to rejoin her body.”

Shock jolted through the immortal. “I have been banished by Nyx from the Otherworld. I cannot follow Zoey there.”

“Oh, but you are wrong, my love. You see, you always think too literally. Nyx ousted you—you fell—you cannot return. So you have believed for centuries that is that. Well, you literally cannot.” She sighed dramatically as he stared at her blankly. “Your gorgeous body was banished, that’s all. Did Nyx say anything about your immortal soul?”

“She need not say it. If a soul is separated from a body for too long, the body will die.”

“But your body isn’t mortal, which means it can be separated indefinitely from its soul without dying,” she said.

Kalona struggled to keep the terror her words filled him with from his expression. “It is true that I cannot die, but that does not mean I will remain undamaged if my spirit leaves my body for too long.” I could age . . . go mad . . . become a never dying shell of myself . . . The possibilities swirled through his mind.

Neferet shrugged. “Then you will have to be sure you finish your task soon, so that you may return to your lovely immortal body before it is irreparably damaged.” She smiled seductively at him. “I would very much dislike it if anything happened to your body, my love.”

“Neferet, don’t do this. You are putting into motion things that will require payment, the consequences of which even you will not want to face.”

“Do not threaten me! I released you from your imprisonment. I loved you. And then I watched you fawn over that simpering teenager. I want her gone from my life! Consequences? I embrace them! I am not the weak, ineffective High Priestess of a rule-following goddess any longer. Don’t you understand that? Had you not been so distracted by that child, you would know it without me telling you. I am an immortal, the same as you, Kalona!” Her voice was eerie, amplified with power. “We are perfectly matched. You used to believe that as well, and that is something you will believe again, when Zoey Redbird is no more.”

Kalona stared at her, understanding that Neferet was utterly, truly mad, and wondering why that madness only served to feed her power and intensify her beauty.

“So this is what I have decided to do,” she continued, speaking methodically. “I am going to keep your sexy, immortal body safely tucked away underground somewhere while your soul travels to the Otherworld and makes sure Zoey does not return here.”

“Nyx will never allow it!” The words burst from him before he could stop them.

“Nyx always allows free will. As her former High Priestess, I know without any doubt that she will allow you to choose to travel in spirit to the Otherworld,” Neferet said slyly. “Remember, Kalona, my true love, if you ensure Zoey’s death, you will be removing the last impediment to us reigning side by side. You and I will be powerful beyond imagining in this world of modern marvels. Think of it—we will subjugate humans and bring back the reign of vampyres with all the beauty and passion and limitless power that means. The earth will be ours. We will, indeed, give new life to the glorious past!”

Kalona knew she was playing on his weaknesses. Silently, he cursed himself for