Awakened

Damien looked at her with haunted eyes. “I can’t think right now, Stevie Rae. All I can do is feel.”

“Some of the sadness will pass,” Dragon said in a voice that sounded as heartbroken as Damien’s. “Enough so that you will be able to think again.”

“That’s right. Listen to Dragon. When you can think again, you can find a thread of the Goddess inside you. Follow that thread. Remember there is an Otherworld we can all share. Jack’s there now. Someday you’ll see him again there.”

Damien looked from Stevie Rae to the Sword Master. “Have you been able to do that? Does it make losing Anastasia any easier?”

“Nothing makes her loss easier. Right now I am still searching for the thread to our Goddess.”

Rephaim felt a horribly sick jolt within him as he realized he had caused the pain the Sword Master was feeling. He had killed the spells and rituals professor, Anastasia Lankford. She had been Dragon’s mate. He had done it so coldly, with an absolute lack of any feeling except, perhaps, a

I killed her with no thought for anything or anyone except my need to follow Father, to do his bidding. I am a monster.

Rephaim couldn’t stop looking at the Sword Master. He carried his pain like a cloak around him. He could almost literally see the empty hole his mate’s absence had left in his life. And Rephaim, for the first time in his centuries-long life, felt remorse for his actions.

He didn’t think he’d made any sound, any movement, but he knew when Stevie Rae’s gaze found him. Slowly, he looked from Dragon to the vampyre with whom he was Imprinted. Their eyes met; their gazes locked. Her emotions engulfed him as if she’d purposely directed them to him. First, he felt her shock at seeing him. It left him flushed and almost embarrassed. Then he felt sadness—deep, jagged, painful. He tried to telegraph his own sorrow to her, hoping that somehow she would be able to understand how much he missed her and how sorry he was for having any part in the grief she was experiencing. Anger hit him then with such a force Rephaim almost lost his grip on the stone wall. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth, not sure whether it was in denial of her anger, or the reason for it.

“I want you and Duchess to come with me, Damien. Y’all need to get away from this place. Bad things have happened here. Bad things are still lurkin’ ’round here. I can feel it. Let’s go. Now.” She spoke to the kneeling boy, but her gaze never left Rephaim’s.

The Sword Master’s response was swift. His eyes swept the area and Rephaim froze, willing the shadows and the night to cloak him.

“What is it? What’s here?” Dragon asked.

“Darkness.” Stevie Rae was still staring at him when she spoke that single word as if throwing a dagger into his heart. “Tainted, unredeemable Darkness.” Then she turned her back on him dismissively. “My gut says it’s not anything worth raisin’ your sword against, but let’s get outta here just the same.”

“Agreed,” Dragon said, though Rephaim heard reluctance in his voice.

He will be a force to be reckoned with in the future, Rephaim acknowledged to himself. And what about Stevie Rae? His Stevie Rae. What will she be? Could she really hate me? Could she utterly reject me? He sifted through her feelings as he watched her take Damien’s hand and help him to his feet, and then lead him, the dog, cat, and Dragon away toward the dormitories. He certainly felt her anger and her sorrow, and he understood those feelings. But hatred? Did she really hate him? He didn’t know for sure, but Rephaim believed, deep in his heart, that he deserved her hatred. No, he hadn’t killed Jack, but he was allied with the forces that had.

I am my father’s son. It’s all I know how to be. It is my only choice.

After Stevie Rae was gone Rephaim pulled himself up to the top of the wall. He took a ru

I deserve her hatred … I deserve her hatred … I deserve her hatred …

The litany pounded through his mind in time with his wing strokes. His own despair and grief joined with the echo of Stevie Rae’s sadness and anger. The dampness of the cool night sky mixed with his tears as Rephaim’s face was bathed in moonlight and loss.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stevie Rae

“Oh, for shit’s sake! Are you telling me no one has called Zoey?” Aphrodite said.

Stevie Rae took Aphrodite by the elbow and, with a grip that was maybe firmer than technically necessary, guided her to the door in Damien’s dorm room. At the doorway she paused and both girls looked back at the bed, where Damien was curled up with Duchess and his cat, Cameron. Boy, dog, and cat had finally, just minutes before, fallen into a sleep induced by grief and exhaustion.

Silently, Stevie Rae pointed her finger from Aphrodite to the hallway. Aphrodite sneered. Stevie Rae crossed her arms and planted herself. “Outside,” she mouthed, “now.” Then she followed her out of the room and closed the door softly behind them. “And keep your dang voice down out here, too,” Stevie Rae whispered fiercely.

“Fine. I’ll keep it down. Jack is dead and no one has called Z?” she repeated her question, much less loudly.

“No. I haven’t exactly had time. Damien has been hysterical. Duchess has been hysterical. The school’s in a dang uproar. I’m the only effing High Priestess who isn’t, supposedly, locked away in her room praying or whatever, so I’ve been busy handling the shit storm out here and the fact that a really nice boy just died.”

“Yeah, I understand that and I’m sad, too, and all, but Zoey needs to get here and get here now. If you were too busy to do it, then you should have let one of the professors call her. The sooner she knows the sooner she’ll be on her way here.”

Darius hurried up to them and took Aphrodite’s hand.

“It was Neferet, right? That bitch killed Jack,” Aphrodite asked him.

“Not possible,” Darius and Stevie Rae said together. Stevie Rae flashed Aphrodite an a

“But really that’s when Jack died,” Stevie Rae said, her voice gone hard and flat because that was the only way she could keep from sounding as shaky as she felt.

“Yes, the timing is right,” Darius said.

“And you’re sure Neferet was in the meeting then?” Aphrodite said.

“I heard the clock gonging while she was talking,” Stevie Rae said.

“I still don’t believe for an instant she’s not behind his death,” Aphrodite said.

“I’m not disagreein’ with you, Aphrodite. Neferet is slicker than hen crap on a tin roof, but facts are facts. She was in front of all of us when Jack fell off that ladder.”

“Okay, seriously, eew with your bumpkin analogies. And how about the whole sword thing? How the hell could it have ‘accidentally’ ”—she air quoted—“almost sliced his head off?”

“Swords should be positioned hilt down, point up. Dragon explained that to Jack. As the boy fell on the blade, the hilt was driven into the ground, impaling him. Technically, it could have been an accident.”

Aphrodite wiped a shaking hand across her face. “That’s horrible. Really horrible. But it was no damn accident.”