“Hang on there a sec, Hateful. I don’t remember Nyx actually saying she’d forgiven you. She talked about
“You do not belong at this school!” Neferet yelled at her. “You are not a fledgling anymore!”
“No, she’s a Prophetess, remember?” Zoey said, sounding calm and wise. “Even the High Council has said so.”
Instead of answering Zoey, Neferet addressed the crowd of watching fledglings and vampyres. “Do you see how they twist the words of the Goddess, even just moments after she has appeared to us?”
Rephaim knew she was evil—knew she was no longer in the service of Nyx, but even he had to acknowledge how fierce and beautiful she looked. He also had to acknowledge the threads of Darkness that had reappeared and begun to slither to her again, filling her, feeding her need for power.
“No one’s twisting anything,” Zoey said. “Nyx forgave Rephaim and changed him into a kid. She also reminded Dragon he had a choice to make about his future. And she let you know forgiveness is a gift from her that has to be
“Dragon Lankford, as Sword Master and Leader of this House of Night’s Sons of Erebus, do you accept this—” Neferet paused, glancing at Rephaim with loathing. “—this aberration as one of your own?”
“No,” Dragon said. “No, I cannot accept him.”
“Then I cannot accept him, either. Rephaim, you will not be allowed to remain at this House of Night. Begone, foul creature, and atone for your past elsewhere.”
Rephaim didn’t move. He waited for Neferet to look at him. And then quietly, distinctly, he said, “I see you for what you are.”
“Begone!” she shrieked.
He stood and started to back away from the Sword Master and his group of Warriors, but Stevie Rae took his hand and stopped his retreat.
“Where you go, I go,” she said.
He shook his head. “I don’t want you to be kicked out of your home because of me.”
Looking a little shy, Stevie Rae touched his face. “Don’t you know that home is wherever you are?”
He covered her hand with his. Not trusting his voice, he nodded and smiled at her.
Stevie Rae pulled her hand gently from his. “I’m goin’ with him,” she spoke to the crowd. “I’m gonna start another House of Night in the tunnels under the depot. It’s not as nice there as it is here, but it’s a whole heck of a lot friendlier.”
“You cannot begin a House of Night without approval of the High Council,” Neferet snapped.
The watching crowd’s whispers of shock reminded Rephaim of summer wind sloughing through the grasses of the ancient prairie—the sound was endless and pointless, unless you were taking wing.
Zoey Redbird’s voice broke through the throng. “If you have a vampyre queen, and you agree to stay out of vampyre politics, the High Council will pretty much leave you alone.” She smiled at Stevie Rae. “Coincidentally enough, I have just been kinda sorta made a queen. How ’bout I come with you and Rephaim? I’ll take friendly over fancy any day.”
“I’ll come, too,” Damien said. He looked one last time on the smoldering pyre. “I choose to make a fresh start.”
“We’re coming,” Shaunee said.
“Ditto, Twin,” Erin echoed. “Our room was too small here, anyway.”
“But we’ll come back for our stuff,” Shaunee said.
“Oh, hells yes,” Erin agreed.
“Shit,” Aphrodite said. “I knew it when this night blew up. I just knew it. It sucks like Tulsa not having a Nordstrom, but I’m damn sure not staying here, either.”
While Aphrodite leaned against her Warrior and sighed dramatically, each of the red fledglings stepped forward. Leaving the crowd, they made their way to stand beside Rephaim and Stevie Rae, Zoey and Stark, and the rest of their circle—the rest of their friends.
“Does this mean I can’t be Poet Laureate of all the vampyres?” Kramisha asked as she joined them.
“No one but Nyx can take that away from you,” Zoey said.
“Good. She was just here and she didn’t fire me. So I guess I’m okay,” Kramisha said.
“You’re nothing if you leave! None of you are!” Neferet cried.
“Well, Neferet, it’s like this,” Zoey said. “Sometimes nothing and your friends equals a whole lot of something.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Neferet said.
“To you it wouldn’t,” Rephaim said, putting his arm around Stevie Rae’s shoulders.
“Let’s go home,” Stevie Rae said, sliding her arm around Rephaim’s totally, completely human waist.
“Sounds good to me,” Zoey said, taking Stark’s hand.
“Sounds like we got us a bunch of cleaning to do to me,” Kramisha muttered as they started to walk away.
“The Vampyre High Council will hear of this,” Neferet called after them.
Zoey paused long enough to yell back over her shoulder, “Yeah, well, we won’t be hard to reach. We have internet and everything. Plus, a bunch of us will be back because we’ll be taking classes. This is still our school, even if it isn’t our home.”
“Oh, great. It’s like we’re being bussed in from the fucking projects,” Aphrodite said.
“What are the projects?” Rephaim asked Stevie Rae.
She beamed a smile up at him and said, “It means we’re comin’ from a totally different place that some people don’t think is so great.”
“I’m hoping for urban renewal,” Aphrodite grumbled.
Rephaim knew his expression was a huge question mark when Stevie Rae laughed and hugged him. “Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time for me to explain this modern stuff. For now all you need to know is that we’re together and that Aphrodite usually isn’t very nice.”
Stevie Rae stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, and Rephaim let her taste and touch drown out the voices of his past and the haunting memory of the wind under his wings …
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
She held herself under the strictest of control and allowed Zoey and her pathetic group of friends to leave the House of Night even though she wanted so very much to loose Darkness on them and crush them into nothingness.
Instead, carefully, secretly, she inhaled, absorbing the threads of Darkness that scuttled about her, slithering deliciously from shadow to shadow. When she felt strong and confident and in control again, she addressed
“Rejoice, fledglings and vampyres! Nyx’s appearance this night was a sign of her favor. The Goddess spoke of choice and gifts and life paths. Sadly, we see that Zoey Redbird and her friends have chosen to take a path that leads away from us and, therefore, away from Nyx. But we will stay through this test and persevere, praying to our merciful Goddess that those misguided fledglings choose to return to us.” Neferet could see doubt in some of her listeners’ eyes. With a barely discernable motion, she waved just her fingers, pointing the long, red tips of her sharpened nails toward the doubters—the naysayers. Darkness responded, targeting them, clinging to them, causing their minds to be muddled through the confusion of twinges of seemingly sourceless pain and doubt and fear. “Now let each of us retire to our cloistered chambers, each to light a candle the color of the element we feel closest to. I believe that Nyx will hear these elementally channeled prayers, and she will ease us through this time of suffering and strife.”
“Neferet, what of the fledgling’s body? Should we not continue to hold vigil?” Dragon Lankford asked.
