Burned

eyes, and then Sapphire spoke in her sharp, shitty bedside voice, “Dallas, you need to leave. I’m going to cut what’s left of these clothes off her, and it’s not appropriate for you to be in here.”

“But I—”

“You’ve brought your High Priestess home. You did well,” Lenobia told him, touching his arm gently. “Now let us care for her.”

“Dallas, uh, why don’t you go get somethin’ to eat? I’ll be fine,” Stevie Rae said, already sorry she’d taken out on him the frustration fear and guilt were making her feel.

“Yeah, all right. I’m goin’.”

“Hey, Lenobia’s right,” Stevie Rae called after him as he slouched from the room. “You did good bringin’ me home.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her just before he closed the door, and she thought she’d never seen his eyes look so sad. “Anything for you, girl.”

The door had barely closed behind him when Lenobia’s voice shot out. “Explain about the Raven Mocker.”

“Yeah, I thought they was all gone,” Kramisha said.

“The two of you may stay. Margareta has gone to replenish our supplies from St. John’s Hospital, so I can use the extra hands, but you’ll have to talk while you help me,” Sapphire told them, handing Lenobia another baggie o’ blood. “Open this for her. Kramisha, go over there, wash your hands, and then start handing me those alcohol-soaked cotton balls.”

Kramisha shot Sapphire a raised-brow look, but she went to the sink. Lenobia ripped open the bag and gave it to Stevie Rae, who drank slowly, buying herself some time.

With a ripping sound that seemed too loud for the room, Sapphire cut away what remained of Stevie Rae’s pants and her Don’t hate the 918 T-shirt.

Stevie Rae felt everyone’s eyes staring at her mostly bare body. She wished she’d worn a better bra, shifted nervously, and said, “Dang, I loved those Cowgirl U jeans. I hate to think about havin’ to go back to Thirty-first and Memorial to Drysdales to get me another pair. The traffic always sucks in that part of town.”

“Maybe you should expand your fashion sense. Little Black Dress on Cherry Street is closer, and they got them some cute jeans that ain’t from the nineties,” Kramisha said.

Three pairs of eyes shifted momentarily to her.

“What?” she shrugged. “Everbody knows Stevie Rae needs a make-over.”

“Thanks, Kramisha. That makes me feel lots better, seein’ as how I just almost died and all.” Stevie Rae rolled her eyes at Kramisha as she stifled a smile. But the truth was that Kramisha had made her feel better—normal better. And then Stevie Rae realized that she was, truly, feeling better. The blood had warmed her, and she didn’t feel nearly as weak as she had just minutes before. Actually, she was kinda buzzing inside, like her blood was pumping super strong and surging all throughout her body. It’s Rephaim’s blood—the part of it that’s mixed with mine is feeding off the human blood and giving me power.

“Stevie Rae, you seem to be awake and aware,” Lenobia said.

Stevie Rae refocused on her external world to find the Horse Mistress studying her carefully. “Yeah, I’m definitely feelin’ better, and I need a phone. Kramisha, let me borrow—”

“I’m cleaning these wounds first, and I promise you that you’re not going to be able to chat on the phone while I do that,” Sapphire said with what Stevie Rae thought was too much smug satisfaction.

“So wait until after I call Aphrodite to mess with me,” Stevie Rae said. “Kramisha, dig in that giant bag of yours and get me your dang phone.”

“It cannot wait,” Sapphire snapped. “Your wounds are severe. You have lacerations from your ankles to your waist. They need to be cleansed. Many of them need stitches. You need to drink more blood. Actually, it would be preferable if we brought in one of the human volunteers for you to feed from directly—that would help in the healing process.”

“Human? Volunteers?” Stevie Rae gulped. Stuff like that went on at the House of Night?

“Don’t be naïve,” was all Sapphire said.

“I’m not drinking from some stranger!” Stevie Rae said with more vehemence than she’d meant to show, drawing raised-eyebrow looks from Lenobia and Kramisha. “What I mean is—I’ll be fine with blood baggies. It’s too weird to think about drinking from someone I don’t know, ’specially so soon after, well, you know . . .” She trailed off. The three women would think she was talking about the recent breaking of her Imprint with Aphrodite.

But she wasn’t thinking of Aphrodite—that was ridiculous.

Stevie Rae was thinking that the only one she wanted to drink from, needed to drink from, was Rephaim.

“Your blood smells wrong,” Lenobia said.

Stevie Rae’s thoughts cleared, and her gaze went immediately to the Horse Mistress. “Wrong? What do you mean?”

“There is something strange about it,” Sapphire agreed as she began cleaning the deep slashes with the alcohol-drenched cotton balls Kramisha handed her.

Stevie Rae sucked in a breath at the pain. Through gritted teeth, she said, “I’m a red vampyre. My blood’s different than yours.”

“Nope, they’s right. Your blood smells weird,” Kramisha said, averting her eyes from Stevie Rae’s wounds and wrinkling her nose.

Stevie Rae thought quickly, and said, “It’s because he drank from me.”

“Who? The Raven Mocker!” Lenobia said.

“No!” Stevie Rae denied, then hurried on. “Like I kept tryin’ to tell Dallas, the Raven Mocker didn’t do anything to me. He was a victim, too.”

“Stevie Rae, what happened to you?” Lenobia asked.

Stevie Rae drew a deep breath and launched into a mostly true story. “I went to the park ’cause I was tryin’ to get info from the earth that would help Zoey because Aphrodite asked me to. There’re these really old vamp beliefs, somethin’ Warrior-based and not cool anymore, that she thinks can help Stark get himself to Zoey in the Otherworld.”

“But Stark can’t enter the Otherworld without dying,” Lenobia said.

“Yeah, that’s what everyone says, but recently Aphrodite and I found out about this really old stuff that might help him get there alive. The religion, or whatever you want to call it, was supposed to be represented by cows—I mean bulls. A white one and a black one.” Remembering, Stevie Rae shuddered. “Aphrodite, bein’ a total pain in the butt, failed to tell me the dang white bull was bad and the dang black bull was good, so I called up the bad bull accidentally.”

Lenobia’s face had gone so pale it almost looked transparent. “Oh, Goddess! You evoked Darkness?”

“You know about this stuff?” Stevie Rae asked.

In what seemed like an unconscious movement, one of Lenobia’s hands lifted to touch the back of her neck. “I know a little of Darkness, and as Mistress of Horses, I know more than a little about beasts.”

Sapphire swabbed at the cut that snaked around Stevie Rae’s waist, making her wince. “Ah, crap, that hurts!” She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to focus through the pain. When she opened them, she saw that Lenobia was studying her with an expression she couldn’t read, but before she could form the right question, the Horse Mistress asked one of her own.

“What was the Raven Mocker doing there? You said it didn’t attack you, but it certainly wouldn’t have any reason to attack Darkness.”

“ ’Cause they on the same side,” Kramisha added, nodding thoughtfully.

“I don’t know about sides and all, but the bad bull attacked the Raven Mocker.”