Awakened

“Oh, Mama, I don’t know how I got myself into this mess.”

“Sure you do, baby. I wasn’t even there and I can tell you that somethin’ ’bout this creature got through to you, and that somethin’ might end up bein’ his redemption.”

“Only if he’s strong enough,” Stevie Rae said. “And I don’t know if he is. Far as I know he’s never stood up to his daddy before.”

“Would his daddy approve of you bein’ with him?”

Stevie Rae scoffed, “No dang way.”

“But he’s saved your life twice and Imprinted with you. Baby, to me that says he’s been standing up to his daddy for a while now.”

“No, he did all that while his daddy was, well, let’s just say out of the country. He’s back now, and Rephaim is back to doin’ whatever he wants him to do.”

“Really? How do you know that?”

“He told me today when he—” Stevie Rae’s words broke off and her eyes widened.

Her mama smiled and nodded. “See?”

“Ohmygoodness, you might be right!”

“ ’Course I’m right. I’m your mama.”

“I love you, Mama,” Stevie Rae said.

“And I love you right back, baby girl.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rephaim

“I cannot believe you are going to do this,” Kalona said, pacing back and forth across the rooftop balcony of the Mayo.

“I am doing this because it is necessary, it is time, and it is the right thing to do!” Neferet’s voice rose in tempo while she spoke as if she were exploding from the inside out.

“The right thing to do! As if you’re a creature of Light?” Rephaim couldn’t stop the words, nor could he school his voice to sound anything but incredulous.

Neferet rounded on him. She raised her hand. Rephaim could see threads of power quivering in the air around her, absorbing into her skin, crawling beneath it. The sight made his stomach tighten as he remembered the terrible touch of those Dark threads. Automatically, he moved a step back from her.

“Are you questioning me, bird creature?” Neferet looked like she was readying herself to hurl the Darkness at him.

“Rephaim does not question you, just as I do not question you.” His father moved closer to Neferet, stepping between the Tsi Sgili and him as he continued to speak with the calm voice of authority. “We are both simply surprised.”

“It is what Zoey and her allies would least expect me to do. So, even though it sickens me, I will abase myself—temporarily. By doing so I make Zoey impotent. If she so much as whispers against me, she will reveal herself to be the petulant child she really is.”

“I would think you would rather destroy her than humiliate her,” Rephaim said.

Neferet sneered at him and spoke to him as if he were an utter fool. “I have the ability to kill her tonight, but no matter how I orchestrated it, I would be implicated. Even those dotards on the High Council would be compelled to come here—to watch me, and to interfere with my plans. No, I am not ready for that, and until I am, I want Zoey Redbird gagged and put back in her place. She is a mere fledgling; she will be treated as such from here on out. And as I am taking care of Zoey I will also be revisiting her little group of friends—especially the one who calls herself the first red High Priestess.” Neferet’s laughter was mocking. “Stevie Rae? A High Priestess? I intend to reveal what she really is.”

“And what is that?” Rephaim had to ask, though he kept his voice level, his expression as blank as he could make it.

“She is a vampyre who has known, and even embraced, Darkness.”

“Ultimately she chose Light,” Rephaim said, and realized that he’d spoken much too quickly when Neferet’s eyes narrowed.

“But the fact that Darkness has touched her changes her forever,” Kalona said.

Neferet smiled sweetly at Kalona. “You are so very right, my Consort.”

“Couldn’t knowing the touch of Darkness have a strengthening effect on the Red One?” Rephaim was unable to stop himself from asking.

“Of course it has. The Red One is a powerful vampyre, if young and inexperienced, which is exactly why she could be of excellent use to us,” Kalona said.

“I believe there is even more to Stevie Rae than she has shown to her little friends. I saw her when she was in Darkness. She reveled in it,” Neferet said. “I say we need to watch her and see what is beneath that bright, innocent exterior.” Neferet enunciated the words sarcastically.

“As you wisssssh,” Rephaim said, and was disgusted that the anger Neferet caused within him had him hissing like an animal.

Neferet stared at him. “I sense a change in you.”

Rephaim forced himself to continue to meet her eyes steadily. “In my father’s absence I was closer to death and Darkness than ever before during my long life. If you sense a change within me, perhaps that is it.”

“Perhaps,” Neferet said slowly. “And perhaps not. Why is it that I suspect you might not be entirely pleased your father and I have returned to Tulsa?”

Rephaim held himself very still so that the Tsi Sgili would not see the hate and anger that were flooding his body. “I am my father’s favored son. As always, I stand beside him. The days he was absent from me were the darkest of my life.”

“Really? How very terrible for you,” Neferet said sarcastically. Then she dismissively turned from him to face Kalona. “Your favored son’s words remind me—where are the rest of the creatures you call your children? Surely a handful of fledglings and nuns didn’t manage to kill them all.”

Kalona’s jaw clenched and unclenched and his eyes blazed amber. Recognizing that his father was struggling to control his anger, Rephaim spoke up quickly. “I have surviving brothers. I saw them flee when you and my father were banished.”

Neferet’s eyes narrowed. “I am banished no more.”

No more, Rephaim thought, meeting her gaze without so much as a blink, but a handful of fledglings and nuns did manage it once.

Again, Kalona drew her attention from him. “The others are not like Rephaim. They need help to hide in the city without being detected. They must have found safe places to nest farther from civilization.” When he spoke, his anger only bubbled under the surface of his words and did not boil over, though Rephaim wondered at how blind Neferet had become. Did she really believe she was so powerful that she could continually bait an ancient immortal without paying the consequence of his wrath?

“Well, we’re back. They should be here. They’re aberrations of nature, but they do have their uses. During the daylight hours they can stay in there, far away from my bedchamber.” She waved toward the lush penthouse suite. “At night they can lurk out here and await my orders.”

“You mean my orders.” Kalona hadn’t raised his voice, but the power that rumbled through it drew prickles of gooseflesh up and down Rephaim’s arms. “My sons only obey me. They are bound to me through blood and magick and time. I alone control them.”

“Then I assume you can control getting them here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, summon them or have Rephaim herd them here, or whatever it is you do. I can’t be expected to take care of everything.”

“As you wish,” Kalona said, echoing Rephaim’s earlier statement.

“Now I’m going to go abase myself before a school full of lesser beings because you did not keep Zoey