Awakened (28 page)

They all turned to look at her.

“There, that’s better. Now we can figure this out,” Stevie Rae said.

“So, Zoey and your circle—you’ve decided to ally with Darkness, too,” Neferet said.

Before Z could respond Stevie Rae said, “Neferet, that’s as nutty as squirrel turds. Z just got back from hangin’ out with Nyx in the Otherworld. She managed to kick Kalona’s ass there, and bring her Warrior back safe and sound with her—somethin’ no other High Priestess has ever been able to do. She’s not exactly Darkness material.” Neferet opened her mouth to speak and Stevie Rae cut her off. “No! I only have one more thing to say to you—no matter who you fool, I want you to know I’ll never believe you’ve changed. You’re a liar, and you’re really, really not nice. I have seen the white bull, and I know the Darkness you’re playin’ with; I know just how wacked you are. Heck, Neferet, I can see that stuff slithering ’round you right now. So. Back. The. Hell. Off.”

She turned her back to Neferet and focused on Kalona. She opened her mouth and suddenly her words dried up. The winged immortal looked like an avenging god. His bare chest was spattered with blood and his black spear dripped gore. His eyes shined amber as they stared at her with an expression that was amusement mixed with disdain.

How did I ever think I could stand up to him?
Stevie Rae’s mind shouted inside her head.
He’s too powerful, and I’m nothing—just nothing …

“Strengthen her, spirit,” Zoey’s voice whispered to her, carried on the wind Damien had conjured.

Stevie Rae pulled her gaze from Kalona’s, meeting Zoey’s eyes. Her
BFF
smiled. “Go on. Finish what you started. You can do it.”

Stevie Rae felt a rush of gratitude. As her gaze returned to Kalona, she pulled deeply from the roots she imagined connecting her to her element and with that lifeline of power, and the support of her friends, she finished what she’d started.

“Okay, everybody knows that you used to be Nyx’s Warrior, but that you’re here ’cause somethin’ messed up with that,” she said matter-of-factly, “which means
you
messed up. It also means that even though you’ve gone all evil and stuff, you used to know about honor and loyalty and maybe even love. So I have somethin’ to tell you about your son, and I want you to listen to me. I don’t know how or why it happened, but I love him, and I think he loves me.” Here she paused and met Rephaim’s gaze.

“I do,” he said clearly and distinctly so that his voice carried to everyone watching. “I love you, Stevie Rae.”

She took one moment to smile at him, full on, filled with pride, and happiness, and above all, love. Then she refocused on Kalona. “Yes, it’s weird. No, it’s never gonna be a normal relationship, and Goddess knows we’re gonna have to deal with lots of issues with my friends, but here’s what’s most important: I can give Rephaim kindness and a life where he’ll know peace and happiness. But I can’t do that unless you do somethin’ first. You have to free him, Kalona. You have to let him make his own choice between staying with you or changing his path. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and believe with everything inside me, that somewhere deep inside
you
is still a tiny sliver of Nyx’s Warrior, and
that
Kalona, the one who protected our Goddess, would do the right thing. Please be that Kalona again, if only just for one second.”

Into the long silence where Kalona stared unblinkingly at Stevie Rae, Neferet’s voice intruded—disdainful and arrogant. “Enough of this silly charade. I’ll take care of the grass barrier. Dragon, exact your revenge on the Raven Mocker. And you, Kalona, you I order to be banished from my side as you were before. Nothing has changed between us.” As she spoke, Stevie Rae watched her pull from the shadows all around them, and from her own body, the slithering black tentacles that seemed to always be near her now.

Stevie Rae readied herself. It was going to be awful, but she was dang sure not backing down, and that meant she was gonna have to stand up to Darkness again.

But just as she felt the first tug of pain and chill, and the drain Darkness caused within the earth, the winged immortal raised one hand slightly, and said, “Halt! I’ve long allied with Darkness. Obey my command. This is not your battle.
Begone
!”

“No!” Neferet shrieked as the sticky threads, invisible to almost everyone present, began to slither away to be reabsorbed into the shadows from whence they came. Neferet turned on Kalona. “Foolish creature! What are you doing? I ordered you to leave. You
must
obey my command! I am High Priestess here!”

“I am not under your control! Nor have I ever been.” Kalona’s smile was victorious and he looked so magnificent for a moment Stevie Rae’s breath caught at the sight of him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Neferet recovered quickly. “It is I who was under your control.”

Kalona glanced around the school grounds, taking in the wide-eyed fledglings and the vampyres who were either armed against him or frozen somewhere between their desire to run from him and their desire to adore him. “Ah, children of Nyx, like me, many of you have stopped listening to your Goddess. When will you learn?”

Then the winged immortal looked to his right. Rephaim was standing there, silently watching his father.

“It is true you have Imprinted with the Red One?”

“Yes, Father. It is.”

“And you saved her life? More than once?”

“As she has saved mine in turn, more than once. It was she who truly healed me from the fall. It was she who filled the terrible wound Darkness ripped within me later, after I faced the white bull for her.” Rephaim’s eyes found Stevie Rae’s. “As payment for freeing her from Darkness, she touched me with the power of Light she wields, that of the earth.”

“I didn’t do that as payment. I did that because I couldn’t stand to see you hurtin’,” said Stevie Rae.

Slowly, as if it were difficult for him, Kalona lifted his hand and rested it on his son’s shoulder. “You know she can never love you as a woman loves a man? You will forever desire something she cannot, will not, give you.”

“Father, what she gives me is more than I have ever known before.”

Stevie Rae saw pain twist Kalona’s face, if only for an instant. “I have given you love as my son, my favorite son,” he said so softly she had to strain to hear him.

Rephaim hesitated and when he answered his father, Stevie Rae could hear the raw honesty in his voice, and the heartache the admission cost him. “Perhaps in another world, another life, that might have been true. In this one you gave me power and discipline and anger, but you did not give me love. Never love.”

Kalona’s eyes flashed, but Stevie Rae thought she saw more pain than anger within their amber depths. “Then in this world, in this life, I shall give you one more thing: choice. Choose, Rephaim. Choose between the father you have served and followed faithfully for eons and the power that service has afforded you, and the love of this vampyre High Priestess, who will never be completely yours because she will always, always be horrified by the monster within you.”

Rephaim’s eyes found hers. She saw the question in them and answered it before he could ask it aloud.

“I don’t see a monster when I look at you—not outside, not inside. So I’m not horrified by you. I love you, Rephaim.”

Rephaim closed his eyes for a moment, and she felt a quiver of unease. He was good—Stevie Rae believed that, but to choose her over his father would change the course of his life forever. He was part immortal, and forever could be a literal thing for him. Maybe he couldn’t—maybe he wouldn’t—maybe he—

“Father—” Stevie Rae opened her eyes the second she heard Rephaim’s voice. He was speaking to Kalona, but he was still looking at her. “I choose Stevie Rae, and the path of the Goddess.”

Her gaze darted to Kalona in time to see the grimace of pain pass over his face. “Then so be it. From this day forth you are no longer my son.” He paused and Rephaim turned his gaze from her to the winged immortal. “I would offer you Nyx’s blessing, but she no longer hears me. So instead I offer you a piece of advice: if you love her with everything within you, when you realize she does not love you in the same way—and she will not, cannot—it will kill everything within you.” Kalona unfurled his great wings, lifted both arms, and proclaimed, “Rephaim is free of me! So I have spoken. So let it be!”

Afterward, Stevie Rae would think about that moment and the way the air quivered around Rephaim with his immortal father’s release. Then all she could do was to stare wide-eyed at Rephaim as the red tint that had been present in his eyes for as long as she had been looking into them faded, leaving only the wide, dark eyes of a human boy staring at her from the head of an enormous raven.

Wings still extended, body still magnified by power and, Stevie Rae liked to believe, by the grief he had to feel somewhere inside him at the loss of his son, Kalona moved his amber gaze to Neferet. He didn’t say one word. He only laughed and then launched himself into the night sky, leaving a trail of mocking laughter behind him and one other thing. From the air a single white feather dropped to the ground at Stevie Rae’s feet. It shocked her so much that the barrier she’d erected around Rephaim dissipated, but she was staring at the feather so intently that Stevie Rae didn’t even realize her concentration had utterly shattered. She was bending to pick up the feather when Neferet commanded Dragon.

“Now that the immortal has fled, kill his son. I am not fooled by this charade.”

Stevie Rae felt the terribly familiar sting of Darkness breaking her connection to the earth, weakening her. She was unable to even cry out as she watched Dragon descend on Rephaim.

Rephaim hadn’t even had time to take in what had happened when Neferet ordered his death. He was watching Stevie Rae in wonder as she stared down at something white in the grass. Then chaos ensued. The green glow that had been surrounding him faded. Stevie Rae turned ghostly pale and swayed dizzily. The Raven Mocker was so focused on Stevie Rae that he didn’t even know Dragon was attacking, and then her friend Zoey was suddenly there before him, placing herself between him and the avenging Sons of Erebus.

“No. We don’t attack people who choose the path of the Goddess.” She spoke in an amplified voice, and the Warriors halted uncertainly in front of her. Rephaim noted that Stark had moved to stand on one side of her, and Darius on the other. Both Warriors had their swords raised, but their expressions spoke volumes; it was obvious neither of them wanted to strike their brothers.

My fault. It is my fault they stand against each other.
Rephaim’s thoughts were jumbled with self-loathing and uncertainty as he hurried to Stevie Rae.

“Will you have Warrior turn against Warrior?” Neferet asked Zoey incredulously.

“Will you have our Warriors kill someone in the service of their Goddess?” countered Zoey.

“So now you are able to judge what is in another’s heart?” Neferet said, sounding smug and wise. “Not even
real
High Priestesses claim such a divine ability.”

Rephaim felt the change in the air before she materialized. It was as if a thunderstorm had been contained and its lightning had charged the air around them. In the middle of the surge of power and light and sound, the Great Goddess of Night, Nyx, appeared.

“No, Neferet, Zoey cannot claim such a divine ability, but I can.”

Every tentacle of Darkness that had been searching and draining and lurking slithered away at the sound of her divine voice. Beside him, Stevie Rae gasped, like she’d let loose the breath she’d been holding, and dropped to her knees.

From all around him Rephaim heard awestruck whispers of “It’s Nyx!” “It’s the Goddess!” “Oh, blessed be!”

And then his attention was consumed by Nyx.

She was, indeed, night personified. Her hair was like the full hunters’ moon, shining with a silver luminescence. Her eyes were the new moon sky—black and limitless. The rest of her body was almost completely transparent. Rephaim thought he caught a glimpse of dark silk lifting in a breeze of its own, and a woman’s curves—and perhaps even a crescent moon tattooed on her smooth forehead, but the more he tried to focus on the Goddess’s image, the more transparent and incandescent she became. It was then that he noticed he was the only one still standing. Everyone else had knelt to the Goddess, and he, too, knelt.

He quickly realized that he didn’t need to worry about his late response. Nyx’s attention was elsewhere. She was floating over to Damien, who, ironically, had no idea she approached because he was kneeling with his head bowed and his eyes closed.

“Damien, my son, look at me.”

Damien’s head lifted, and his eyes opened wide in surprise. “Oh, Nyx! It’s really you! I thought I’d imagined you here.”

“Perhaps in a way, you did. I want you to know that your Jack is with me, and he is one of the purest, most joy-filled spirits my realm has ever known.”

Tears filled and overflowed Damien’s eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me that. It will help me try to get over him.”

“My son, there is no need to get over Jack. Remember him, and rejoice in the brief, beautiful love you shared. Choosing to do so does not mean forgetting or getting over, it means healing.”

Damien smiled through his tears. “I’ll remember. I’ll always remember and choose your path, Nyx. I give you my word.”

The Goddess’s hovering form turned so that her dark gaze took in the rest of them. Rephaim saw Nyx look fondly at Zoey, who grinned.

“Merry meet, my Goddess,” Zoey said, shocking Rephaim with the familiar tone of her voice.

Shouldn’t she be more respectful—more fearful—when addressing the Goddess?

“Merry meet, Zoey Redbird!”
The Goddess returned the fledgling High Priestess’s grin, and he thought, for a moment, she looked like an exquisitely lovely little girl—a little girl who was suddenly familiar to him. With a jolt Rephaim recognized her. The ghost! The ghost had been the Goddess!