the isle, Kalona considered how much he’d rather be living there instead of the gilded cage of the Mayo’s penthouse in Tulsa.
He needed to complete this task and force Zoey back to the House of Night. Like moves in an intricate game of chess, this was just one more queen that had to be captured so that he could be free.
His spirit sank lower and lower. Using his soul sight, the power through which his immortal blood made visible to him the layers of reality that lifted and shifted, roiled and surged all around the mortal world, he focused on the Realm of Dreams, that fantastical sliver of reality that wasn’t completely corporeal, nor was it only spirit, and pulled taut the thread of connection he’d been following, knowing that when the cacophony of colors shifting realities caused cleared, he would be joined to Zoey there.
Kalona was relaxed and confident and therefore utterly unprepared for what happened next. He felt an unfamiliar tug, as if his spirit had become grains of sand being forced through the narrow funnel of an hourglass.
Sight first, his senses began to stabilize. What he saw shocked him so badly he almost lost the thread of the spirit journey altogether and was jolted back to his body. Zoey smiled up at him with an expression filled with warmth and trust.
By the shades of reality surrounding him, Kalona knew immediately he hadn’t entered the Realm of Dreams. He stared down at Zoey, hardly daring to breathe.
And the sense of touch returned to him. She was wrapped in his arms, her naked body, pliant and warm, pressed against him. She touched his face, letting her fingers linger over his lips. His hips automatically lifted to her and she made a small sound of pleasure as her eyes fluttered closed and she raised her lips to his.
Just before she kissed him and he settled deeply within her body, Kalona’s sense of hearing returned.
“I love you, too, Stark,” she said, and began to make love to him.
The pleasure was so unexpected—the shock so intense—that the connection was severed. Breath ragged, Kalona pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the rooftop balustrade. Blood pumped hot and fast through his body. He shook his head in disbelief.
“Stark.” Kalona spoke the name to the night, reasoning aloud. “The connection I followed wasn’t to Zoey at all. The connection was to Stark.” He understood, and then felt a fool for not anticipating what had happened. “In the Otherworld I breathed the spirit of my immortal soul within him. Some of that spirit has, obviously, remained.” The smile that broke over the immortal’s face was as fierce as his raging blood. “And now I have access to Zoey Redbird’s Guardian and Oath Sworn Warrior.” Kalona spread his wings, threw back his head, and let his triumphant laughter ring into the night.
“What is so amusing and why are you not awaiting me in my bed?”
Kalona turned to see Neferet standing naked in the doorway to the suite, a look of irritation on her haughty face. But that look quickly changed as she gazed at his fully aroused body.
“I am not amused, I am joyous. And I am here because I wish to take you on the roof with the open sky stretching above us.” He strode to Neferet, lifted her, carried her back to the balcony railing, closed his eyes, and imagined dark hair and eyes as he made her cry out in pleasure over and over again.
The first time it happened so quickly Stark couldn’t be sure, totally, absolutely sure, it had happened at all.
But he should have listened to his instincts. His gut told him something had gone wrong, very wrong, even if it was only for a few minutes.
He’d been in bed with Zoey. They’d talked and laughed and basically just been having a good time being alone. The castle was awesome. Sgiach and Seoras and the rest of the Warriors were great, but Stark was really a loner. Here on Skye, no matter how cool it was, someone was always around. Just because the place was withdrawn from the “real” world didn’t make it any less busy. There was shit going on constantly—training and castle maintenance, trading with the locals and such. And that’s not even taking into account that he’d been teamed with Seoras, which meant he was more or less the old dude’s slave/errand boy/fodder for comedy.
Then there were the garrons. He’d never really been a horse guy, but the highland garrons were amazing animals, even if they did seem to produce an amount of horse crap that was totally out of proportion with their size. Stark should know. He’d spent most of that evening shoveling it, and when he’d made a couple offhanded comments that, sure, might have sounded like complaining, Seoras and some other old Warrior with an Irish accent, bald head, and a ginger-colored beard had started calling him
Needless to say he was seriously glad to be alone with Z. She smelled so damn good and felt so damn good that he had to keep reminding himself it wasn’t a dream. They weren’t still in the Otherworld. This was real and Zoey was his.
It had happened between deep, hot make-out kisses that made him feel like he was going to explode. He’d just told her he loved her, and Z had been smiling up at him. All of a sudden something inside him had changed. He’d felt heavier yet weirdly stronger. And there was a strange sense of shock that jolted all along his nerve endings. She’d kissed him then and, as usual when Z kissed him, it’d been more than kinda hard for him to think, but he’d known something was off.
He’d felt shocked.
And that was bizarre as hell because he and Z had been kissing and more—lots more—for a while. It was like somewhere inside him, but apart from him, there was a guy who was totally blown away by what was going on between him and Z.
Then he’d started making love to Z and there was a sizzling sense of utter astonishment. It had felt strange, but everything was intensified when he touched Zoey. And it had gone away almost as quickly as it had started, leaving Z in his arms, melting into him so that the only thing filling his heart, mind, body, and soul was her … only her.
Afterward Stark tried to remember what it had been that had seemed so weird—what bothered him so much. But by that time the sun was rising, he was drifting into a happily exhausted sleep, and it just didn’t seem so important anymore.
After all, why should he worry? Zoey was tucked away safely in his arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Raven Mocker let himself fall from the seventeenth-story rooftop of the Mayo building. Wings outstretched, he soared over the city center, his dark plumage making him almost invisible.
Rephaim closed his mind to everything except the night sky and purposefully made a long, slow circle, assuring himself Kalona had not changed his mind and defied Neferet to join him. When he knew he had the night to himself, he positioned himself so that he was headed northeast on a flight path that would take him first to the old Tulsa depot and then to Will Rogers High School and the scene of supposed gang violence that had recently been plaguing that part of the city.
He agreed with Neferet that the cause of the attacks was most likely the rogue red fledglings. That was all he agreed with Neferet on, though.
Rephaim flew soundlessly and quickly to the abandoned depot building. Circling it, he used his sharp vision to look for even a breath of movement that might betray the presence of any vampyre or fledgling, red or blue. He studied the building with an odd mixture of anticipation and reluctance. What would he do if Stevie Rae had come back and reclaimed the basement and the labyrinthine series of tunnels below it for her fledglings?
Would he be able to remain silent and invisible in the night sky, or would he let himself be known to her?
