P.C. Cast - Tempted

“Rephaim, hey, can you hear me?”

At the sound of her voice his eyes instantly opened. “No!” he said, struggling to sit up. “Get out of here. They’re going to trap—”

Then there had been a terrible pain in the back of her head, and she remembered falling into blackness.

“Stevie Rae, you have to wake up. You have to move.”

She finally felt the hand that was shaking her shoulder and recognized Rephaim’s voice. Carefully she opened her eyes, and the world didn’t pitch and roll, though she could feel her heartbeat throbbing in her head.

“Rephaim,” she rasped. “What happened?”

“They used me to trap you,” he said.

“You wanted to trap me?” Her nausea was a little better, but Stevie Rae’s mind felt like it was working in slow motion.

“No. What I wanted was to be left alone to heal and make my way back to my father. They gave me no choice.” He stood up, moving stiffly, bent at the waist because of the metal grate that made a low, false ceiling. “Move. You have little time. The sun is already rising.”

Stevie Rae looked up at the sky and saw the soft pastels of pre-dawn that she used to think were so pretty. Now the lightening sky filled her with absolute terror. “Oh, Goddess! Help me get up.”

Rephaim grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, where she stood unsteadily beside him, bent like he was. Drawing a deep breath, she raised her hands, gripped the cold metal of the grate, and pushed. It rattled a little, but didn’t really move.

“How is it stuck up there?” she asked.

“Chained. They hooked chains through the edges of the metal and then padlocked them to anything on the roof that couldn’t be pulled up.”

Stevie Rae pushed against the grate again. Again it rattled, but held firm. She was trapped up on a roof and the sun was rising! Gathering all her strength, she pushed and pulled, gripping the metal and trying to slide it to one side so that maybe she could crawl through. With each second the sky got brighter. Stevie Rae’s skin shivered like a horse trying to twitch off a fly.

“Break the metal,” Rephaim said urgently. “Your strength can do it.”

“I might be able to if I was underground, or even standing on the earth,” she said between gasping breaths as she continued to struggle impotently against the caging metal. “But up here, a huge building away from my element, I’m just not strong enough.” She looked from the sky to his scarlet eyes. “You should probably stand back away from me. I’m gonna burn, and I don’t know how big the flames will be, but it could get pretty hot in here.”

She watched Rephaim move away and, with a growing sense of hopelessness, went back to struggling with the immovable metal. Her fingers were starting to sizzle and Stevie Rae was biting her lip to keep from screaming and screaming and screaming…

“Over here. The metal is rusted and thinner, weaker.”

Stevie Rae pulled her hands down, automatically clutching them under her armpits and, bent backed, rushed to him. She saw the rusted metal and grabbed ahold of it with both hands, and then pulled with all her might. It gave a little, but her hands had started to smoke, as had her wrists.

“Oh, Goddess!” she gasped. “I’m not gonna make it. Get back, Rephaim, I’m already startin’ to—”

Instead of running from her, he moved as close to her as he could get, spreading his good wing so that it provided some shade. Then he raised his uninjured arm and took hold of the rusted grate. “Think of the earth. Concentrate. Do not think of the sun and the sky. Pull with me. Now!”

In the shadow of his wing, Stevie Rae grabbed the grate on either side of his hand. She closed her eyes and ignored the burning of her fingers and the sensitivity of her skin that was screaming at her to run! Run anywhere, just get out of the sun! Instead she thought about the earth, cool and dark, waiting underneath her like a loving mama. Stevie Rae pulled.

With a metallic snap the grate broke, leaving an opening just big enough for one person at a time to slip out of.

Rephaim stepped back. “Go!” he said. “Quickly.”

The instant Stevie Rae was no longer covered by his wing, her body flushed and, literally, began to smoke. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor and curled into a ball, trying to shield her face with her arms. “I can’t!” she cried, frozen with pain and panic. “I’ll burn up.”

“You will burn if you stay here,” he said.

Then he pulled himself up through the opening and was gone. He’d left her. Stevie Rae knew he was right. She had to get out of there, but she couldn’t push through the paralyzing fear. The pain was too much. It was like her blood was boiling in her body. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, a small, cool shadow fell on her.

“Take my hand!”

Squinting against the cruel sun, Stevie Rae looked up. Rephaim was there, crouched on the grate, his good wing spread above her, blocking as much of the sun as possible, his uninjured arm reaching for her.

“Now, Stevie Rae. Do it!”

She followed his voice and the coolness of his dark wing and grabbed his hand. He couldn’t pull her up by himself. She was too heavy and he only had one arm. So she thrust out her other hand, took hold of the metal, and chinned herself up.

“Come to me. I will shield you.” Rephaim opened his wing.

Without any hesitation Stevie Rae stepped into his embrace, burying her head in the feathers of his chest, and wrapping her arms around him. He enfolded her with his wing and lifted her.

“Get me to the tree!”

Then he was running, lurching, and limping, but running across the rooft op. The backs of Stevie Rae’s arms were exposed, as was some of her neck and shoulders, and as he ran she burned. With a detached, out-of-body feeling she wondered what that terrible noise was that rang in her ears, and then she realized it was her voice. She was screaming her pain and terror and anger.

At the edge of the roof he yelled, “Hold on. I’m jumping to the tree.” The Raven Mocker leaped. His body tumbled, spiraling because of his lack of balance, and they crashed into the tree.

Adrenaline helped Stevie Rae keep her hold on him and, feeling thankful his body was so light, she lifted him, putting herself between Rephaim and the tree. With the bark to her back she told him, “Try to hold on to the tree while I slide us down.”

Then they were falling again as the rough bark ripped Stevie Rae’s already blistered and bleeding back. She closed her eyes and felt for the earth, finding it serene and waiting below her.

“Earth, come to me! Open and shield me!”

There was a great ripping sound and the ground at the base of the tree broke open just in time for Stevie Rae and Rephaim to slip within a cool, dark pouch in the earth.

Zoey

When Aphrodite started screaming, Zoey knew only one thing to do. “Spirit, come to me!” she commanded. Spirit instantly filled her with its serene presence. “Help Aphrodite calm down.” She felt the element leave her, and almost immediately Aphrodite’s shrieks quieted to gasps and sobs.

“Darius, I need Lenobia’s cell number. Now!”

Darius was holding Aphrodite in his arms, but he obeyed Zoey, pulling his phone from his jeans pocket and tossing it to her. “It’s in the contacts.”

Willing her hands not to shake, Zoey pulled up the contact list and punched Lenobia’s name. She answered on the first ring.

“Darius?”

“It’s Zoey. We have an emergency. Where’s Stevie Rae?”

“She went to the depot to try to reason with the other red fledglings. I expected her back by now, though, as it is almost dawn.”