P.C. Cast - Burned

It was then that the beast made itself known. The instant he saw it, Rephaim knew beyond all doubt that he was staring at Darkness given form. It snorted, a terrible, deafening sound. Spewing blood and mucus and smoke, the bull tore the earth with his hooves. The creature stalked to Stevie Rae from out of the densest of the black smoke. Like moonlight in a crypt, the white bull’s coat looked like death as he towered over the girl. The creature was so massive that he had to dip his huge head to allow his tongue to lick at her bleeding waist.

Stevie Rae’s scream was echoed by Rephaim’s cry: “No!”

The great bull paused. His head turned to the Raven Mocker; his bottomless gaze held Rephaim’s.

“ This night gets more and more interesting. ” The voice rumbled through his mind. Rephaim forced down his fear as the bull took two steps toward him, shaking the ground as he scented the air.

“I smell Darkness on you.”

“Yes,” Rephaim spoke over the sound of the terrified beating of his heart. “I have long lived with Darkness.”

“Odd, then, that I do not know you.” The bull scented the air around him again. “Though I have known your father.”

“It is through the power of my father’s blood that I parted the dark curtain and stand before you.” He kept his eyes on the bull, but he was utterly aware that Stevie Rae was just feet away from him, bleeding and helpless.

“Is it? I think you lie, birdman.”

Though the voice in his mind didn’t change, Rephaim could feel the bull’s anger.

Staying calm, Rephaim scooped a finger down his chest, drawing a line of red mist from his body. He held his hand up, like an offering to the bull. “This allowed me to part the dark curtain of the circle, and this power is mine to command by right of my father’s immortal blood.”

“That immortal blood flows through your veins is truth. But the power that swells your body and commanded my barrier to part is borrowed from me.”

Fear skittered down Rephaim’s spine. Very carefully, he bowed his head in respect and acknowledgment. “Then I thank you, though I did not call upon your power. I invoked only my father’s, as it is only his that is rightfully mine to command.”

“I hear the truth in your words, son of Kalona, but why command the power of immortals to draw you here and to allow you within my circle? What business do you or your father have with Darkness tonight?”

Rephaim’s body went very still, but his mind raced. Until that moment in his life, he had always drawn strength from the legacy of immortality within his blood and the cunning of the raven that had been joined with it to create him. But this night, facing Darkness, swollen with a strength that was not his own, he suddenly knew that even though it was through this creature’s power that he had been granted access to Stevie Rae, he would not save her by using Darkness, whether it came from the bull or from his father; nor could the instincts of a raven battle the beast he faced. Forces allied with it could not defeat this bull—this embodiment of Darkness.

So Rephaim drew on the only thing left to him—the remnants of humanity passed to him through his dead mother’s body. He answered the bull like a human, with an honesty so raw that he thought it might cleave his heart.

“I’m here because she’s here, and she belongs to me.” Rephaim’s eyes never left the bull, but he jerked his head in Stevie Rae’s direction.

“I scent her on you.” The bull took another step toward Rephaim, causing the ground under them to shake. “She may belong to you, but she had the impudence to invoke me. This vampyre requested my aid, which I granted her. As you know, she must pay the price. Leave now, birdman, and I will allow you to live.”

“Go on, Rephaim.” Stevie Rae’s voice was weak, but when Rephaim finally looked at her, he saw that her gaze was unwavering and lucid. “It isn’t like the rooftop. You can’t save me from this. Just go.”

Rephaim should go. He knew he should. Only a few days before he couldn’t even have imagined a world where he would be facing down Darkness to attempt to save a vampyre—to attempt to save anyone except himself or his father. Yet as he stared into Stevie Rae’s soft blue eyes, what he saw was a whole new world—a world in which this strange little red vampyre meant heart and soul and truth.

“Please. Don’t let him hurt you, too,” she told him.

It was those words—those selfless, heartfelt, truthful words that made Rephaim’s decision for him.

“I said she belongs to me. You scent her on me; you know it’s true. So I can pay her debt for her,” Rephaim said.

“No!” Stevie Rae cried.

“Think carefully before you make such an offer, son of Kalona. I will not kill her. It is a blood debt, not a life debt, she owes me. I will return your vampyre to you, eventually, when I am done tasting of her.”

The bull’s words sickened Rephaim. Like a bloated leech, Darkness was going to feed from Stevie Rae. He was going to lick her slashed skin and taste the copper saltiness of her lifeblood—of their lifeblood, joined forever because of their Imprint.

“Take my blood instead. I’ll pay her debt,” Rephaim said.

“You are your father’s son. Like him, you have chosen to champion a being who can never give you what it is you seek most. So be it. I accept payment of the vampyre’s debt from you. Release her!” the bull commanded.

The razorlike threads of darkness withdrew from Stevie Rae’s body and, as if they had been the only things keeping her on her feet, she crumbled to the blood-soaked grass.

Before he could move to help her, a dark tendril, cobralike, lifted from the smoke and shadows surrounding the bull. With a swiftness that was otherworldly, it lashed out, wrapping around Rephaim’s ankle.

The Raven Mocker didn’t scream, though he wanted to. Instead, focusing through the blinding pain, he shouted at Stevie Rae, “Get back to the House of Night!”

He saw Stevie Rae try to stand, but she slipped on her own blood and lay on the ground, crying softly. Their eyes met, and Rephaim lurched toward her, spreading his wings, determined to break from the clinging thread and at least carry her clear of the circle.

Another tendril snaked out and whipped around the thick bicep of Rephaim’s newly healed arm, slicing more than an inch into the muscle. Yet another came from the shadows behind him, and Rephaim couldn’t help screaming in agony as the thing curled around his wings where they met his back, ripping and tearing and pinning him against the ground.

“Rephaim!” Stevie Rae sobbed.

He couldn’t see the bull, but he felt the earth tremble as the creature approached him. He turned his head, and, through a blur of pain, he saw Stevie Rae trying to crawl toward him. He wanted to tell her to stop—to say something to her that would make her run away. Then, as the searing pain of the bull’s tongue touched the wound at his ankle, Rephaim realized Stevie Rae wasn’t really trying to crawl to him. She was on her hands and knees, crablike, pressing down against the earth. Her arms were trembling, and her body was still bleeding, but her face was getting its color back. She’s pulling power from the earth, Rephaim realized with an incredible sense of relief. That would make her strong enough to get out of the circle and find her way to safety.

“ I’d forgotten the sweetness of immortal blood. ” The bull’s decayed breath washed over Rephaim. “ The vampyre’s blood held only a hint of this. I believe I will drink and drink from you, son of Kalona. You did, indeed, borrow power from Darkness tonight, so you have a greater debt to pay than just hers. ”