Awakened

Could he be going mad?

Rephaim paced back and forth across the rooftop balcony of the deserted Gilcrease mansion. It was past midnight and the museum grounds were quiet, but since the cleanup after the ice storm had begun in earnest, the place was becoming busier and busier during daylight hours.

I’m going to have to leave and find another place. A safer place. I should leave Tulsa and make a stronghold in the wilderness of this enormous country. He knew that was the wise thing to do, the rational thing to do, but something compelled him to stay.

Rephaim told himself it was simply that he hoped now that his father had returned to this realm, he would also return to Tulsa, and he was waiting here for him to come back—to give him a purpose and a direction. But in the deepest recesses of his heart he knew the truth. He didn’t want to leave this place because Stevie Rae was here, and even though he couldn’t allow himself to contact her, she was still near, reachable, if only he dared.

Then, in the middle of his pacing and his self-recriminations, the air around him became heavy, thick with an immortal power that Rephaim knew as well as his own name. Something tugged within him, as if the power that floated in the night had attached itself to him and was using him as an anchor to pull itself ever nearer.

Rephaim braced himself, physically and mentally, concentrated on the illusive immortal magick, and willingly accepted the co

The night sky above him darkened. The wind increased, battering Rephaim.

The Raven Mocker stood his ground.

When the magnificent winged immortal, his father, Kalona, deposed Warrior of Nyx, swooped down from the heavens and landed before him, Rephaim automatically dropped to his knees, bowing in allegiance.

“I was surprised to feel that you remained here,” Kalona said without giving his son permission to rise. “Why did you not follow me to Italy?”

Head still bowed, Rephaim answered. “I was mortally wounded. I have only just recovered. I thought it wise to await you here.”

“Wounded? Yes, I recall. A gunshot and a fall from the sky. You may rise, Rephaim.”

“Thank you, Father.” Rephaim stood and faced his father, and then was glad his face didn’t betray emotions easily. Kalona looked as if he had been ill! His bronze skin had a sallow tint to it. His unusual amber eyes were shadowed by dark circles. He even looked thin. “Are you well, Father?”

“Of course I am well; I am an immortal!” the winged being snapped. Then he sighed and brushed a hand wearily across his face. “She held me within the earth. I was already wounded, and being trapped by that element made my recovery before my release impossible—and since then it has been slow.”

“So Neferet did entrap you.” Carefully, Rephaim kept his tone neutral.

“She did, but I could not have been so easily imprisoned had Zoey Redbird not attacked my spirit,” he said bitterly.

“Yet the fledgling lives,” Rephaim said.

“She does!” Kalona roared, towering over his son and causing the Raven Mocker to stumble backward. But just as quickly as his rage exploded, it fizzled, leaving the immortal looking tired again. He blew out a long breath, and in a more reasonable voice repeated, “Yes, Zoey does live, though I believe she will be forever changed by her Otherworld experience.” Kalona stared off into the night. “Everyone who spends time in Nyx’s realm is altered by it.”

“So Nyx did allow you to enter the Otherworld?” Rephaim couldn’t stop from asking. He steeled himself for his father’s reprimand, but when Kalona spoke, his voice was surprisingly introspective, almost gentle.

“She did. And I saw her. Once. Briefly. It was because of the Goddess’s intervention that that gods-be-damned Stark is still breathing and walking the earth.”

“Stark followed Zoey to the Otherworld, and he lives?”

“He lives, although he shouldn’t.” As Kalona spoke he absently rubbed a spot on his chest, over his heart. “I suspect those meddling bulls have something to do with his survival.”

“The black and white bulls? Darkness and Light?” Rephaim tasted the bile of fear at the back of his throat as he remembered the slick, eerie coat of the white bull, the unending evil in his eyes, and the white-hot pain the creature had caused him.

“What is it?” Kalona’s perceptive gaze skewered his son. “Why do you look thus?”

“They manifested here, in Tulsa, just over a week ago.”

“What brought them here?”

Rephaim hesitated, his heart beating painfully in his chest. What could he admit? What could he say?

“Rephaim, speak!”

“It was the Red One—the young High Priestess. She invoked the presence of the bulls. It was the white bull who gave her the knowledge that helped Stark find the way to the Otherworld.”

“How do you know this?” Kalona’s voice was like death.

“I witnessed part of the invocation. I was wounded so badly that I did not believe I would recover, that I would ever fly again. When the white bull manifested, it strengthened me and drew me to its circle. That was where I observed the Red One getting her information from it.”

“You were healed, but you didn’t capture the Red One? Didn’t stop her before she could return to the House of Night and aid Stark?”

“I could not stop her. The black bull manifested and Light banished Darkness, protecting the Red One,” he said honestly. “I have been here since, regaining my strength and, when I felt that you had returned to this realm, I have been awaiting you.”

Kalona stared at his son. Rephaim met his gaze steadily.

Kalona nodded slowly. “It is good that you awaited me here. There is much that is left undone in Tulsa. This House of Night will soon belong to the Tsi Sgili.”

“Neferet has returned, too? Is the High Council not holding her?”

Kalona laughed. “The High Council is made up of naïve fools. The Tsi Sgili blamed me for recent events, and has punished me by publically lashing me and then banishing me from her side. The Council has been pacified.”

Shocked, Rephaim shook his head. His father’s tone was light, almost humorous, but his look was black—his body weakened and wounded. “Father, I do not understand. Lashed? You allowed Neferet to—”

With immortal speed, Kalona’s hand was suddenly around his son’s throat. The huge Raven Mocker was lifted off the ground as if he weighed no more than one of his slim, black feathers.

“Do not make the mistake of believing that because I have been wounded I have also become weak.”

“I would not do that.” Rephaim’s voice was little more than a choked hiss.

Their faces were close together. Kalona’s amber eyes blazed with angry heat.

“Father,” Rephaim gasped. “I meant you no disrespect.”

Kalona dropped him, and his son crumpled at his feet. The immortal lifted his head and threw his arms wide as if he would take on the heavens. “She still imprisons me!” he shouted.

Rephaim drew in air and rubbed his throat, then his father’s words penetrated the confusion in his mind and he looked up at him. The immortal’s face was twisted as if in agony—his eyes were haunted. Rephaim slowly got to his feet, and approached him carefully. “What has she done?”

Kalona’s arms fell to his sides, but his face remained open to the sky. “I pledged to her my oath that I would destroy Zoey Redbird. The fledgling lives. I broke my oath.”

Rephaim’s blood felt cold. “The oathbreaking held a penalty.”

He didn’t phrase it as a question, but Kalona nodded. “It did.”

“What is it you owe Neferet?”

“She holds dominion over my spirit for as long as I am immortal.”

“By all the gods and goddesses, we are both lost then!” Rephaim couldn’t stop the escaping words.

Kalona turned to him and his son saw that a sly glint had replaced the rage in his eyes. “Neferet has been immortal for less than a breath of this world’s time. I have been so for uncountable eons. If there is one lesson I have learned over several lifetimes, it is that there is nothing that is unbreakable. Nothing. Not the strongest heart, not the purest soul—not even the most binding of oaths.”