P.C. Cast - Awakened

“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 Redbird from returning to this realm.” Her eyes looked like green ice. “And that is why you now obey only me. Be here when I return.” Neferet left the balcony. Her long cloak should have caught in the door she slammed behind her, but at the last moment it rippled and skittered closer to the Tsi Sgili’s body, lapping around her ankles like a sticky pool of tar.

Rephaim faced his father, the ancient immortal he’d been serving faithfully for centuries. “How can you allow her to speak to you like that? To use you like that? She called my brothers aberrations of nature, but it is she who is the true monster!” Rephaim knew he shouldn’t have spoken to his father like that, but he couldn’t help himself. Seeing the proud and powerful Kalona being ordered around like a servant was unbearable.

As Kalona approached Rephaim braced himself for what was surely to come. He’d seen his father’s wrath unleashed before—he knew what to expect. Kalona unfurled his great wings and loomed over his son, but the blow Rephaim expected did not come. Instead when he met his father’s gaze he saw despair and not anger.

Looking like a fallen god, Kalona said, “Not you, too. I expected her disrespect and disloyalty; she betrayed a goddess to free me. You, though, you I never believed would turn on me.”

“Father! I have not!” Rephaim said, putting from his mind all thoughts of Stevie Rae. “I simply cannot bear the way she treats you.”

“That is why I must discover a way to break that accursed oath.” Kalona made a wordless sound of frustration and paced over to the balustraded stone railing, staring out into the night. “If only Nyx had stayed out of the battle with Stark. Then he would have remained dead and I know in my soul Zoey would never have found the strength to return to this realm and her body, not with two of her lovers dead.”

Rephaim followed his father to the railing. “Dead? You killed Stark in the Otherworld?”

Kalona snorted, “Of course I killed that boy. He and I battled. He could not possibly have defeated me, even if he did manage to become a Guardian and wield the great Guardian claymore.”

“Nyx resurrected Stark?” Rephaim said, incredulous. “But the Goddess doesn’t interfere with human choice. It was Stark’s choice to defend Zoey against you.”

“Nyx did not resurrect Stark. I did.”

Rephaim blinked in shock. “You?”

Kalona nodded and continued to stare out at the night sky, not meeting his son’s gaze as he spoke in a strained voice as if he had to force each word from his throat. “I killed Stark. I believed Zoey would retreat then and remain in the Otherworld with the souls of her Warrior and mate. Or perhaps her spirit would shatter forever and she would be a wandering Caoinic Shi’.” Kalona paused and then added, “Though I did not wish the latter on her. I do not hate her as does Neferet.”

To Rephaim it seemed his father was talking aloud to himself more than speaking to him, so when Kalona went silent he was silent and patient, not wanting to interrupt him, waiting for him to continue.

“Zoey is stronger than I anticipated.” Kalona continued speaking to the night. “Instead of retreating or shattering, she attacked.” The winged immortal chuckled at the memory. “She skewered me with my own spear and then ordered me to return Stark’s life to repay the life debt I owed for killing that boy of hers. I refused, of course.”

Unable to stay silent, Rephaim blurted, “But life debts are powerful things, Father.”

“True, but I am a powerful immortal. Consequences that govern mortals do not apply to me.”

Rephaim’s thoughts, like a cold wind, whispered through his mind: Perhaps he is wrong. Perhaps what is happening to Father is part of the consequences he has considered himself too powerful to pay. But Rephaim knew better than to correct Kalona, so he simply continued, “You refused Zoey, and then what happened?”