Destined (House of Night #9)(88)

"Where are we?" Neferet shivered as she clung to him.

Quietly, my heartless one. Observe silently. Watch. Listen.

Neferet watched, listened, and very soon what she believed to be a tall, muscular man descended from one of three stilted wooden shacks that sat atop the ridge before her. He walked to the edge of the ridge and sat on a huge, flat sandstone boulder.

It was only after he sat that she saw his wings. Kalona! She thought his name, did not speak it, but the bull answered her. Yes, it is your old Consort, Kalona. Let us move closer. Let us observe. The night around them rippled and reformed, cloaking the bull and Neferet eerily, so that it seemed they were only part of the fabric of shadows and the lazy mist that had suddenly begun to unfurl over the ridge.

Neferet held her breath as the bull moved silently and invisibly closer to Kalona, so close that she could see over his broad shoulder and realized he was holding a cell ular phone. He began touching the screen, and Neferet could see it light up. The winged immortal hesitated, his finger hovering indecisively.

Do you know what you are seeing?

Neferet stared at Kalona. His shoulders slumped. He rubbed his forehead. He bowed his head as if in defeat and finally, reluctantly, placed the phone gently on the rock beside him.

No, Neferet thought. I do not know what I'm seeing.

Kalona, fallen Warrior of Nyx, longs for someone who is absent from him. Someone he does not have the courage to contact.

Me? She couldn't stop the thought.

The bull 's humorless laughter drifted through her mind. No, my heartless one. Your old Consort longs for the company of his son.

Rephaim! Neferet's anger began to build. He longs for that boy?

He does, though he has not yet put words to the feeling. Do you know what that means?

Neferet thought before she spoke. She discarded jealously and envy and all the trappings of mortal love. Then, and only then did she truly understand. Yes. It means Kalona has a very big weakness.

It does, indeed.

They began to fade away from the ridge, slipping from shadow to shadow, riding the night. Neferet stroked the bull 's neck, thought about new possibilities, and smiled.

Rephaim

"We gotta talk about Aphrodite's vision," Stevie Rae said.

Rephaim took one of her curls and twirled it around a finger. When he'd completely captured it, he tugged playfully. "You talk. I will touch your hair."

She smiled, but gently pushed his hand away. "Rephaim, stop. Be serious. Aphrodite's vision is scary."

"Did you not tell me Aphrodite foretold Zoey's death? Twice. As well as her grandmother's? Each time the foretelling of those deaths made it possible for them to have been averted." Rephaim caressed her cheek and kissed her gently before saying, "We will use this vision to avert my death as well."

"'Kay. That sounds good to me." She nuzzled his hand with her cheek. "But we gotta be clear about somethin'. Dragon's some kinda key, so you really do need to stay away from him."

"Yes. I know." He caressed the side of her head, loving the softness of her hair, and let his fingers trail slowly down her neck and shoulder.

"Rephaim, please listen to me." Stevie Rae took his face between her hands and made him stop touching her hair and her skin.

"I'm listening to you." Reluctantly, he focused his attention on her words.

"I've been thinkin' that maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do need to stay here and not go to school, and for sure not go to whatever ritual we do out at Z's g-ma's farm, or at least you need to stay away until we figure out more of the details about Aphrodite's vision." Rephaim took her hands from his face and held them in his own. "Stevie Rae, if I begin hiding now, when will it end?"

"I don't know, but I do know you'll be alive."

"There are worse things than death. Being trapped by your fear of it is one of those things." He smiled. "Actually, I find the whole thing curiously positive. The vision means that I am truly human."

"What the heck do you mean? Of course you're human."

"I look human, or at least I do until the sun rises. Being mortal makes me truly what I appear to be."

"But doesn't knowing your immortal blood is gone make you sad?"

"No, it makes me a little more normal."

Stevie Rae's bright blue eyes widened. "You know what else it makes you? Not being part of Kalona's blood anymore." Rephaim tried to understand Stevie Rae's denial of his father. He really did, but he couldn't help the defensive, almost angry feeling that came over him when she tried to push him away from the winged immortal.

"Do you believe it takes more than blood to make a father?" He spoke slowly, trying to reason through his feelings and find the truth beneath them.

"Yep, absolutely," she said.

"Then it stands to reason that the absence of blood does not automatically unmake a father, too." Before she could rebut what he was saying, he continued, "Kalona is immortal, but I was by his side long enough to glimpse humanity within that immortality."

"Rephaim, I don't want to argue about your daddy. I know you think I hate him, but that's not it. I hate that he hurts you."

"I understand that." He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of girl and shampoo and soap. "But you must let me find my own way in this. He is my father. Nothing will change that."