P.C. Cast - Burned

“Hey, uh, I gotta go for now. I’m not feelin’ so good.”

“Oh, for crap’s sake. You’re not almost dying again, are you? It’s seriously inconvenient when you do that.”

“No, I am not almost dyin’. Not anymore. And you are not even almost nice. At all. I’ll call you later. Tell everyone I said hi.”

“Yeah, I’ll spread the love. Goodbye, bumpkin.”

“Bye.” Stevie Rae punched the CALL END button, gave Kramisha her phone, and then leaned heavily back on her pillow. “Uh, do y’all mind if maybe I sleep for a while?”

“Drink one more of these.” Sapphire gave Stevie Rae another bag of blood. “Then sleep. Both of you need to leave and let her rest.” The vampyre nurse swept the bloody alcohol cotton balls into a trash bag, snapped off her latex gloves, went to the doorway, and stood, tapping her foot and giving Lenobia and Kramisha the stank eye.

“I’ll come back and check on you after you’ve rested,” Lenobia said.

“Sounds good.” Stevie Rae smiled at her.

Lenobia squeezed her hand before leaving. When Kramisha leaned close to her, Stevie Rae thought for one awkward, shocked second the kid was going to hug her—or worse, maybe even kiss her. Instead, Kramisha met her eyes and whispered:

Stevie Rae suddenly felt cold. “I guess I should have listened to you better. Maybe I would’ve known I was callin’ the wrong cow,” she whispered back.

Kramisha’s gaze was sharp and knowing. “Maybe you still should. Somethin’ inside me says you ain’t done dancing with beasts.” Then she straightened up, and in a normal voice, said, “Get some sleep. You gonna need all your good sense tomorrow.”

When the door closed, leaving her alone, Stevie Rae breathed an exhausted sigh of relief. Methodically, she drank the last baggie of blood and then pulled the hospital blanket up around her neck and curled on her side and, with a sigh, slowly twirled a blond curl around and around one finger. She was utterly exhausted. Apparently all of the power in Rephaim’s blood had worn her the heck out while it fixed her.

Rephaim . . .

Stevie Rae would never, ever forget what he looked like when he’d confronted Darkness for her. He’d been so strong and brave and good . It didn’t matter that Dallas and Lenobia and the whole dang world believed he was on the side of Darkness. It didn’t matter that his daddy was a fallen Warrior of Nyx who had chosen evil centuries ago. None of that mattered. She’d seen the truth. He’d willingly sacrificed himself for her. He might not have chosen Light, but he had definitely rejected Darkness.

She’d been right to save him that day outside the abbey, and she’d also been right to call the white bull and save him today—no matter the cost to her.

Rephaim was worth saving.

Wasn’t he?

He had to be. After what had happened today, he had to be .

Her finger stilled, and her eyes started to flutter shut even though she didn’t want to think anymore or to dream—didn’t want to remember that terrifying Darkness and the pain that had been so unimaginable.

But her eyes did close, and the memory of Darkness and what he’d done to her did come. As she struggled against the unyielding pull of utter exhaustion, from the middle of that circle of terror Stevie Rae heard his voice again: “I’m here because she’s here, and she belongs to me.” And that simple statement chased her fear away, allowing the memory of Darkness to give way to the rescue of Light.

Just before Stevie Rae fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she thought of the beautiful black bull and the payment he had exacted from her, and, again, Rephaim’s words played through her mind: “I’m here because she’s here, and she belongs to me.”

With her last waking thought, she wondered if Rephaim would ever know how ironically true his words had suddenly become for them . . .

As Stark awoke, just for a second he didn’t remember. All he knew was that Zoey was there, in bed, beside him. He smiled sleepily and turned, reaching an arm out to pull her close to him.

The chilled, lifeless feel of her unresponsive flesh brought him fully awake, and reality crashed and burned the last of his dreams.

“Finally. You know, you red vampyres might be all strong and whatever at night, but during the day you sleep creepily like the dead. Hello, I have one word for you: stereotypical.”

Stark sat up, scowling at Aphrodite, who was sitting in one of the cream-colored velvet chairs, long legs crossed gracefully, sipping a cup of steaming tea.

“Aphrodite, why are you in here?”

Instead of answering him, her gaze went to Zoey. “She hasn’t moved at all since it happened, has she?”

Stark got out of bed and gently tucked the blanket back around Zoey. He touched her cheek with his fingertips and kissed the only Mark left on her body, an ordinary fledgling’s crescent tattoo in the middle of her forehead. It’s okay if you come back as a regular fledgling. Just come back, he thought as his lips brushed her Mark. Then he straightened and faced Aphrodite. “No. She hasn’t moved. She can’t. She’s not here. And we have seven days to figure out how to get her back.”

“Six,” Aphrodite corrected.

Stark swallowed hard. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s six now.”

“Okay, come on then. Clearly we don’t have time to waste.” Aphrodite got up and started out of the room.

“Where’re we going?” Stark started following her but kept glancing back over his shoulder at Zoey.

“Hey, you gotta snap out of it. You said it yourself: Zoey’s not here . So stop gawking at her like you’re a little lost puppy.”

“I love her! Do you even know what the hell that means?”

Aphrodite stopped and turned to face him. “Love doesn’t have shit to do with it. You’re her Warrior. That means more than ‘I heart Zoey,’ ” she said sarcastically, using air quotes. “I have my own Warrior, so I do know what that means, and here’s the truth: if my soul was shattered, and I was stuck in the Otherworld, I wouldn’t want Darius to boo-hoo about it and be all heartbroken. I’d want him to get the hell to work and figure out how to do his job, which is to stay alive and protect me so that I can figure out a way to get home ! Now are you coming or not?” She flipped her hair, turned her back to him, and started twitching down the hall.

Stark closed his mouth and went after her. They walked silently for a while as Aphrodite led him down some stairs, around increasingly narrow corridors, and down more stairs.

“Where are we going?” Stark asked again.

“Well, it feels like a dungeon. Smells like mold and kinda weird b.o., the institutional decor is suitable for either a prison or a hospital psych ward, and it makes Damien think he’s died and gone to dork heaven. So take a guess.”

“We’re going back to human high school?”

“Close,” she said, her lips lifting in a hint of a smile. “We’re going to a really old library filled with the frantically studying nerd herd.”

Stark let out a long breath in a loud sigh to keep himself from laughing. Sometimes he almost liked Aphrodite—not that he’d ever admit it.

Aphrodite had been right—the basement of the palace did remind him of a tacky public school media center, minus the foldout windows and cheap, ratty mini-blinds, which was weird as hell because the rest of San Clemente Island was over-the-top rich. Down in the basement, though, there were just a bunch of worn wooden tables, hard benches, bare white stone walls, and tons and tons of shelves filled with a zillion different sizes, shapes, and styles of books.