Burned (House of Night #7)(61)

She blinked, and he saw realization flash through her gaze. "But the bull said you'd been filled with his power and not your daddy's."

Rephaim nodded. "I knew it was different. I didn't know why. Nor did I understand I was getting power directly from Darkness himself."

"So Darkness healed you."

"Yes, and then the earth healed me from the wound Darkness left inside me."

"Okay, well, good." She stood abruptly and brushed off her jeans. "You're better now, and I gotta go.

Like I said, it's tough for me to get away now that the House of Night is all freaked about a Raven Mocker bein' in town."

She started to walk quickly past him, and he reached out to grab her wrist.

Stevie Rae flinched away from him.

Rephaim's hand dropped instantly to his side, and he took a step away from her.

They stared at each other.

"I gotta go," she repeated.

"Will you return?"

"I have to! I promised!" She yelled the words at him, and he felt them as if she'd slapped him.

"I release you from your promise!" he yelled back at her, angry that this small female could cause such turmoil within him.

Her eyes were suspiciously bright when she said, "It's not you I promised - so you can't release me."

Then she swept past him, her head turned away so he couldn't see her face.

"Do not return because you have to. Return only because you want to," he called after her.

Stevie Rae didn't pause and didn't look back at him. She simply left.

Rephaim stood there a long time. When the sound of her car faded away, he finally moved. With a cry of frustration, the Raven Mocker ran and then launched himself into the night sky, beating the cold wind with his massive wings and heading up, up to find the warmer thermals that would lift him, hold him, carry him anywhere - everywhere.

Just away! Take me away from here!

The Raven Mocker swooped to the east, away from the direction Stevie Rae's car had taken - away from Tulsa and the confusion that had entered his life since she'd entered his life. Then he closed his mind to everything except the familiar joy of the sky, and flew.

Chapter Nineteen

Stark

"Yeah, I'm listening to you, Aphrodite. You want me to memorize that poem." Stark spoke to her through the helicopter's headsets, which he wished he knew how to shut off. He didn't want to listen to her run her mouth; he didn't want to talk to Aphrodite or to anyone. He was totally preoccupied with turning over and over in his mind his strategy for getting himself and Zoey on the island. Stark stared out of the window of the helicopter, trying to see through darkness and fog for a first glimpse of the Isle of Skye where, according to Duantia and just about the entire High Council, he was going to meet his certain death sometime in the next five days.

"Not that poem, idiot. That prophecy . I wouldn't ask anyone to memorize a poem. Metaphor, simile, allusion, symbolism . . . blah . . . blah . . . ugh. It makes my hair hurt thinking about all that crap. Not that a prophecy sucks any less, but it is - sadly - important. And Stevie Rae has a point about this one. It does read like a confusing poetic map," Aphrodite said.

"I am in agreement with Aphrodite and Stevie Rae," Darius said. "Kramisha's prophetic poems have given Zoey guidance before. This one could do the same thing."

Stark dragged his gaze from the window. "I know." He looked from Darius to Aphrodite, then his eyes went to Zoey's apparently lifeless body, where she was strapped in on a narrow litter between the three of them. "She already found Kalona on water. She has to purify him through fire. Air has to whisper to her something spirit already knows, and if she keeps following truth, she'll be free. I already memorized the damn thing. I don't care if it's a poem or a prophecy. If there's a chance it can help her, I'll get it to Zoey."

The pilot's voice came through the headsets to all of them. "I'm putting it down now. Remember, all I can do is let you out. The rest is up to you. Just know if you step one foot on the island itself without Sgiach's permission, you will die."

"I got that the first dozen times you ass**les said it," Stark muttered, not caring that the pilot gave him a dark look over her shoulder.

Then the helicopter landed, and Darius was helping him unbuckle Zoey. Stark dropped to the ground.

Darius and Aphrodite carefully handed Zoey to him, and he cradled her in his arms, trying to shield her from the worst of cold, wet wind whipped up by the helicopter's massive blades. Darius and Aphrodite joined him, and they all hurried away from the helicopter, though the pilot hadn't been exaggerating. They weren't even on the ground for a minute when the copter took off.

"Pussies," Stark said.

"They're just following their instincts," Darius said, looking around them as if he expected the bogeyman to jump out of the mist.

"No shit. This place is super creepy," Aphrodite said, moving closer to Darius, who tucked her hand through his arm possessively.

Stark frowned at them. "Are you two okay? Don't tell me the doom-and-gloom vamps got to you."

Darius looked him up and down, and then shared a glance with Aphrodite before answering. "You don't feel it, do you?"

"I feel cold and wet. I feel pissed off that Zoey's in trouble and I haven't been able to help her, and I feel annoyed that dawn is only an hour or so away and my only shelter is a shack the vamps said is a thirty-minute walk back the way we came. Are any of those things the "it" you're talking about?"