Awakened

“I want you to get into Nyx’s Temple!” Stark shouted above the sound exploding around us, already moving me in that direction.

Over his shoulder I could see the pandemonium that had broken out. Some of the kids were screaming; professors were calling to their students and trying to reassure them; Sons of Erebus Warriors had weapons drawn, ready for the coming battle. Everyone was moving except Neferet and Stevie Rae.

Neferet was still standing beside Jack’s burning pyre—still staring at Stevie Rae and smiling. Stevie Rae looked like she’d been rooted to her spot. She was gazing upward, shaking her head back and forth, back and forth, and she was sobbing.

“No, wait,” I told Stark, moving around him so he quit pushing me toward the temple. “I can’t go. Stevie Rae is—”

“FALL FROM THE SKY, FOUL BEAST!”

Neferet’s shout cut me off. She’d flung her arms up, fingers outstretched like she was trying to grab something out of the air.

“Can you see that?” Stark asked me urgently, staring up at the sky.

“What? See what?”

“Black, sticky, threads of Darkness.” He grimaced in horror. “She’s using them. And that means she was lying her ass off about asking for forgiveness,” he said grimly. “She’s definitely still allied with Darkness.”

Then there wasn’t time to say any more because, with a terrible scream, an enormous Raven Mocker fell from the sky, landing in a heap in the middle of the school grounds.

I recognized him right away. It was Rephaim, Kalona’s favored son.

“Kill it!” Neferet commanded.

Dragon Lankford didn’t need the order. He was already moving. Blade flashing in the firelight, he descended on the Raven Mocker like an avenging god.

“No! Don’t hurt him!” Stevie Rae screamed and hurled herself between Dragon and the fallen creature. Her arms were raised, palms outward, and she was glowing green, like her body had suddenly grown iridescent moss. Dragon hit the glowy green barrier and bounced off it like he’d smacked into a giant rubber ball. It was creepy and cool at the same time.

“Ah, hell,” I murmured, already moving toward Stevie Rae. I had a bad feeling about what was going on. A really, really bad feeling.

Stark didn’t try to stop me. He just said, “Stay close to me and out of that damn bird’s reach.”

“Why are you protecting this creature, Stevie Rae? Are you in league with it?” Neferet was standing beside Dragon, who had gotten back on his feet and was literally trembling with the effort it took not to rush against Stevie Rae again. Neferet sounded baffled, but her eyes flashed fiercely, like she was a cat and Stevie Rae was her trapped mouse.

Stevie Rae ignored Neferet. She looked at Dragon and said, “He’s not here to hurt anyone. I promise.”

“Free me, Red One.” The Raven Mocker spoke as I finally reached Dragon and Neferet. He, too, had gotten to his feet, which surprised me because it seemed that the fall should have killed him. Actually, the only evidence I could see of him being hurt at all was a gash in his disturbingly human-looking bicep that was just beginning to weep blood. He was backing slowly away from Stevie Rae, but a weird green bubble had formed around them, and it wouldn’t let him get very far from her.

“It’s no good, Rephaim. I’m not gonna lie and pretend anymore.” Stevie Rae glanced at Neferet and at the crowd of fledglings and professors who had stopped running away and instead were watching her, shock and horror clear on their faces. Then, setting her jaw and lifting her chin, Stevie Rae looked back at the Raven Mocker. “I’m not that good of an actress. I don’t ever want to be that good of an actress.”

“Do not do this.”

The Raven Mocker’s voice shocked me. It wasn’t because he sounded human. I’d heard him speak before and knew that, if he wasn’t hissing in anger, he could talk like a guy. What shocked me was the tone of his voice. He sounded scared and very, very sad.

“It’s already done,” Stevie Rae told him.

And that’s when I finally found my voice. “What in the hell is going on, Stevie Rae?”

“I’m sorry, Z. I wanted to tell you. I really, really wanted to. I just didn’t know how.” Stevie Rae’s eyes pleaded with me to understand.

“Didn’t know how to tell me what?”

Then it hit me—the smell of the Raven Mocker’s blood. With a rush of horror, I knew the scent of it. It had been on Stevie Rae before, and I realized what she was talking about, what she’d been trying to tell me.

“You’ve Imprinted with that creature.” I was thinking the words, but Neferet was the one who said them out loud.

“Oh, Goddess, no, Stevie Rae,” I said, my lips feeling cold and numb. Disbelieving, I kept shaking my head back and forth like denial could make this whole nightmare go away.

“How?” The words sounded ripped from Dragon.

“It was not her fault,” the Raven Mocker said. “I am responsible.”

“Do not speak to me, monster.” Dragon sounded deadly.

The Raven Mocker’s red-tinged gaze moved from the Sword Master to me. “Do not blame her, Zoey Redbird.”

“Why are you talking to me?” I yelled at it. Still shaking my head I looked at Stevie Rae. “How could you have let this happen?” I asked, and then clamped my mouth shut as I realized how much I suddenly sounded like my mother.

“Holy shit. I knew something freaky was going on with you, Stevie Rae, but I had no clue about a weirdness of this degree,” Aphrodite said, coming up beside me.

“I shoulda said somethin’,” Kramisha said from several feet away where she was standing beside the Twins and Damien, who were all staring disbelievingly back and forth from Stevie Rae to the Raven Mocker. “I knew them poems ’bout a beast and you and such was bad. I just didn’t know they was literal.”

“Because of the alliance between these two, Darkness has already tainted the school,” Neferet said solemnly. “This creature must be responsible for Jack’s death.”

“That’s a bunch of hogwash!” Stevie Rae said. “You killed Jack as a sacrifice to Darkness ’cause it gave you control of Kalona’s soul. You know it. I know it. And Rephaim knows it. That’s why he was up there watching you from a distance. He wanted to be sure you didn’t do anything too terrible tonight.”

I watched Stevie Rae stand up to Neferet and recognized the strength and the hopelessness I saw in my BFF, because I’d felt both things the times I’d stood up to Neferet, too—especially back when it was just me against her and an entire school full of vamps and fledglings had no clue that she was anything less than perfect.

“He has utterly twisted her,” Neferet said, speaking to the regathering crowd. “They should both be destroyed at once.”

My gut lurched and, with a certainty I felt only when I was being Goddess-led, I knew I had to do something.

“Okay, that’s enough.” With Stark moving restlessly at my side and keeping his gaze trained on the birdguy, I moved closer to Stevie Rae. “You gotta know how bad this looks.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And you really are Imprinted with him?”

“Yeah, I am,” she said firmly.

“Did he attack you or something?” I asked, trying to make some sense of it.

“No, Z, the opposite. He saved my life. Twice.”

“Of course he did. You’re in league with the creature and allied with Darkness!” Neferet turned to face the watching fledglings and vampyres.

The green glow surrounding Stevie Rae intensified as did her voice. “Rephaim saved me from Darkness. He was why I survived accidentally invoking the white bull. And just because most of these folks can’t see what you’re doing, don’t ever forget that I can. I see the threads of Darkness that follow your command.”

“You sound very familiar with that subject,” Neferet said.

“ ’Course I am,” Stevie Rae said angrily. “Before Aphrodite’s sacrifice I was filled with Darkness. I’ll always