Burned (House of Night #7)(78)

Without conscious thought, he shouted, "Do not do this to us, Stevie Rae!"

The boy's response was quicker than Stevie Rae's. He leaped up, pushing her naked body behind him.

"Get the f**k outta here, you freak!" The boy kept himself positioned between Rephaim and Stevie Rae.

The sight of the fledgling shielding her, protecting his Stevie Rae from him , sent a wave of possessive fury through Rephaim.

"Begone, boy! You're not needed here!" Rephaim crouched defensively and began moving slowly toward him.

"What the - ?" Stevie Rae said, shaking her head as if she was trying to clear it while she grabbed Dallas's shirt from the floor and hastily pulled it on to cover herself.

"Stay behind me, Stevie Rae. I won't let it get you."

Rephaim stalked the boy, following him as he moved back, pushing Stevie Rae with him. Rephaim saw

her eyes widen as she peered around the boy and finally truly saw him.

"No!" she cried. "No, you can't be here!"

Her words stabbed him.

"But I am here!" His anger was at the boiling point. The boy kept moving back, keeping Stevie Rae behind him. Following him, Rephaim entered the kitchen. As he did, a flickering motion caught his attention, and he glanced upward.

Darkness writhed in a sick black pool that clung to the ceiling.

Rephaim wrenched his attention back to Stevie Rae and the fledgling. He wouldn't think of Darkness now. He couldn't even consider the possibility that the white bull had returned to claim the rest of his debt.

"Stay back!" the boy cried. Unbelievably, the fledgling made a shooing motion at Rephaim, as if he were an annoying bird that had fluttered into someone's home.

"Sssstep aside! You are keeping me from what's mine!" Rephaim hated to hear the bestial hiss in his voice, but he couldn't help it. The damned boy was pushing him to the edge of his patience.

"Rephaim, just go. I'm fine. Dallas isn't doin' anything bad to me."

"Just go? Leave you?" the words burst from Rephaim. "How can I?"

"You're not supposed to be here!" Stevie Rae shouted, looking like she was on the verge of tears.

"How could I not be? How could you believe I wouldn't know what you were about to do?"

"Get outta here!"

"You mean run away? Like you did from me? No. I won't do that, Stevie Rae. I choose not to do that."

The boy had reached the wall. While he looked from Rephaim to Stevie Rae, he was feeling behind him for cords that poked from a hole that had been chiseled there.

"You know each other. You really do," the boy said.

"Of courssse we do, fool!" Rephaim hissed again, hating the ungovernable beast in his voice.

"How?" The fledgling hurled the word at Stevie Rae.

"Dallas, I can explain."

"Good!" Rephaim shouted as if she'd spoke to him and not the fledgling. "I want you to explain what happened today."

"Rephaim." Stevie Rae looked around Dallas to him and shook her head like she was beyond frustrated.

"This is so not the right time."

"You know each other."

Rephaim noticed the change in the boy's voice before Stevie Rae did. The fledgling's tone had hardened - gone cold and mean. The Darkness above them quivered as if in gleeful anticipation.

"Yeah, okay, we do. But I can explain. See, he - "

"You've been with him all along."

Stevie Rae frowned. "All along? No. It's just that I found him when he was real hurt; I didn't know what - "

"All this time I've been treatin' you like you was some kind of queen or somethin', like you was a real High Priestess," he interrupted Stevie Rae again.

Stevie Rae looked shocked and hurt. "I am a real High Priestess. But like I was tryin' to tell ya, I found Rephaim when he was hurt bad, and I just couldn't let him die."

Taking advantage of the fact that the boy's attention was completely focused on Stevie Rae, Rephaim inched closer.

The Darkness above them thickened.

"He was part of what almost killed you in the circle!"

"He was what saved me in the circle!" Stevie Rae shouted back at Dallas. "If he hadn't shown up, that white bull would've drained me dry."

Her words didn't faze the boy. "You've been keeping this thing a secret. You've been lyin' to everybody!"

"Well, heck, Dallas! I didn't know what else to do!"

"You lied to me, you whore!"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" Stevie Rae slapped him. Hard.

Dallas staggered back half a step. "What the f**k has he done to you?"

"You mean besides savin' my life twice? Nothin'!" she yelled.

"He's messed your head up completely!" Dallas yelled. The Darkness above them poured down from the ceiling, like it had suddenly found a weak point in a dam. It slicked around Dallas, covering his head and shoulders, swirling around his waist with a sickening familiarity that reminded Rephaim of razor-edged snakes. But Darkness didn't cut Dallas. Instead, he seemed oblivious to the glistening blackness that now coated him.

"I'm in charge of my own mind. He hasn't done anything to me," Stevie Rae said. Her eyes widened, like she finally noticed the Darkness. She took a step back from the boy, like she didn't want to be tainted by what was touching him. "Dallas, listen to me. Think. You know me. This isn't what it seems."