P.C. Cast - Awakened

“No!” he shouted into the wind. He couldn’t betray his father. But I can’t betray Stevie Rae, either, he thought frantically. I’ll find a balance. I’ll find a way. I must. Not sure exactly what he was going to do, Rephaim stilled his seething thoughts and concentrated on following the ribbon of glowing green back to Stevie Rae as if it were his lifeline.

She was waiting for him with such concentrated intensity that Stevie Rae had no trouble sensing when Rephaim drew near the Gilcrease. When he dropped gracefully from the sky she was standing, looking up, watching for him. She’d meant to be totally cool. He was the enemy. She was supposed to remember that. But the instant he landed their eyes locked and, breathlessly, he said, “I heard your call. I came.”

That was all it took. Just the sound of his wonderful, familiar voice. Stevie Rae hurled herself into his arms and buried her face in the feathers at his shoulder. “Ohmygood ness , I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, holding her tightly to him.

They stood there like that, trembling in each other’s arms, for what seemed to her a very long time. Stevie Rae drank in the scent of him—that amazing mixture of immortal and mortal blood that beat through his body—that linked them in Imprint and, therefore, also beat throughout her own body.

And then, quite suddenly, like it had occurred to each of them at once that they couldn’t do what they were doing, Stevie Rae and Rephaim broke the embrace and took a step away from each other.

“So, uh, you’ve been okay?” she asked him.

He nodded. “I have. And you? You’re safe? You weren’t hurt when Jack was killed today?”

“How did you know Jack was killed?” Her voice was sharp.

“I felt your sadness. I came to the House of Night to be sure you were okay. That’s when I saw you with your friends. I-I heard the boy crying for Jack.” He hesitated over the words, trying to choose them carefully, honestly. “That and your sadness told me he was dead.”

“Do you know anything about his death?”

“Maybe. What kind of boy was Jack?”

“Jack was good and sweet, and might have been the best of all of us. What do you know, Rephaim?”

“I know why he died.”

“Tell me.”

“Neferet owed Darkness a life debt in payment for entrapping my father’s immortal soul. The debt had to be paid by the sacrifice of someone who was an innocent, incorruptible by Darkness.”

“That was Jack; she killed him. It’s frustrating as all get-out ’cause it looks like Neferet didn’t! She was talkin’ to the school’s High Council, right in front of me, when Jack’s accident happened.”

“The Tsi Sgili fed him to Darkness. She need not have been present. She needed only to have marked him as her sacrifice and then let loose the threads of Darkness to follow through with the actual killing. She didn’t have to witness the death.”

“How do I prove she was responsible?”

“You cannot. The deed is over. Her debt is paid.”

“Damn it! I’m so dang mad I could spit nails! Neferet keeps gettin’ away with all of this awful crap. She keeps winnin’. I don’t understand why. It’s not right, Rephaim. It’s just not right.” Stevie Rae blinked hard, forcing back tears of frustration.

For a moment, Rephaim touched her shoulder and she allowed herself to lean into his hand, to take comfort in the contact with him. Then he pulled back from her and said, “All that anger. All that frustration and sadness. I felt it from you earlier tonight, too, and I thought—” He hesitated, obviously trying to decide whether to keep speaking.

“What?” she asked softly. “You thought what?”

He met her eyes again. “I thought it was me you hated. Me you were so angry at. I heard you, too. You told the Sword Master tainted, unredeemable Darkness lurked outside. You were looking straight at me when you said it.”

Stevie Rae nodded. “Yeah, I saw you, and I knew if I didn’t say somethin’ to get Dragon and Damien outta there, they were gonna see you, too.”

“Then you were not talking about me?”

It was Stevie Rae’s turn to hesitate. She sighed. “I was seriously pissed and scared and upset. I wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout my words. I was just reacting ’cause I was freaked.” She paused again and then added, “I didn’t mean nothin’ against you, but Rephaim, I do need to know what’s goin’ on with Kalona and Neferet.”

Rephaim turned and walked slowly to the edge of the rooftop. She followed him and stood beside him as they stared out at the quiet night.

“It’s almost dawn,” Rephaim said.

Stevie Rae shrugged. “I got about half an hour before the sun rises. It’ll only take ten minutes or so to get back to the school.”

“You should leave now and not take any chances. The sun can cause you too much damage, even with my blood inside you.”

“I know. I’ll go pretty soon.” Stevie Rae sighed. “So, you’re not gonna tell me what’s up with your daddy, are you?”

He turned to look at her again. “What would you think of me if you knew I betrayed my father?”

“He’s not a good guy, Rephaim. He’s not worth your protection.”

“But he is my father,” Rephaim said.

Stevie Rae thought Rephaim sounded exhausted. She wanted to take his hand, to tell him it’d be okay. But she couldn’t. How the heck was it going to be okay with him on one side and her on the other? “I can’t fight against that,” she finally said. “You’re gonna have to come to terms with what Kalona is and isn’t yourself. But you need to understand that I have to keep my people safe, and I know he’s workin’ right beside Neferet, no matter what she says.”

“My father is bound to her!” Rephaim blurted.

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t kill Zoey, so he didn’t fulfill his oath to Neferet, and now the Tsi Sgili holds dominion over his immortal soul.”

“Oh, great! So Kalona is like a loaded gun Neferet is holding.”

Rephaim shook his head. “He should be, but my father does not serve others well. He chafes uneasily under her command. I believe the analogy would be more accurate if you said that Father is like a misfiring loaded gun Neferet is holding.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that. Give me an example—what do you mean?” She tried to keep the excitement from her voice, but by the way his eyes closed off from her, Stevie Rae knew she’d been unsuccessful.

“I will not betray him.”

“Okay, fine. I get that. But does that mean you can’t help me?”

Rephaim stared at her silently so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer, and she was trying to formulate another question in her head when he finally said, “I want to help you, and I will as long as it doesn’t mean betraying my father.”

“That’s a lot like the first deal you and I made, and that didn’t end up so bad, did it?” she asked, smiling up at him.

“No, not so bad.”

“And, really, aren’t we all basically against Neferet?”

“I am,” he said firmly.

“And your daddy?”

“He wants to be rid of her control.”

“Well, that’s practically the same thing as bein’ on our side.”

“I can’t be on your side, Stevie Rae. You have to remember that.”

“So you’d fight against me?” She met his gaze squarely.

“I could not hurt you.”

“Well, then—”

“No,” he interrupted. “Not being able to hurt you is different than fighting for you.”

“You’d fight for me. You already have.”

Rephaim grabbed her hand, squeezing it as if through touch he could make her understand him. “I’ve never fought my father for you.”