Текст книги "Awakened"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Then he wasted no more time on idle thoughts and his spirit swatted away Sgiach’s barrier and let himself float down, slowly but resolutely, toward the vampyre queen’s castle.

His spirit was given pause once more as it passed the grove that grew lush and deep and close to the castle of the Great Taker of Heads and her Guardians.

The Goddess’s fingerprint was all over it. It made his soul quiver with a pain that transcended the physical realm. The grove didn’t stop him. It didn’t forbid him from passing. It simply caused him an agonizing moment of remembrance.

So like Nyx’s grove that I will never again see …

Kalona turned from the verdant proof of Nyx’s blessing on someone else and allowed his spirit to be drawn to Sgiach’s castle. He would find Zoey there. If she was sleeping, he would follow their connection and enter the mystical Realm of Dreams.

As he passed over its grounds he glanced with approval at the human heads and the obvious battle-ready state of the ancient place. Sinking down through the thick gray stone that was speckled with the sparkling marble of the isle, Kalona considered how much he’d rather be living there instead of the gilded cage of the Mayo’s penthouse in Tulsa.

He needed to complete this task and force Zoey back to the House of Night. Like moves in an intricate game of chess, this was just one more queen that had to be captured so that he could be free.

His spirit sank lower and lower. Using his soul sight, the power through which his immortal blood made visible to him the layers of reality that lifted and shifted, roiled and surged all around the mortal world, he focused on the Realm of Dreams, that fantastical sliver of reality that wasn’t completely corporeal, nor was it only spirit, and pulled taut the thread of connection he’d been following, knowing that when the cacophony of colors shifting realities caused cleared, he would be joined to Zoey there.

Kalona was relaxed and confident and therefore utterly unprepared for what happened next. He felt an unfamiliar tug, as if his spirit had become grains of sand being forced through the narrow funnel of an hourglass.

Sight first, his senses began to stabilize. What he saw shocked him so badly he almost lost the thread of the spirit journey altogether and was jolted back to his body. Zoey smiled up at him with an expression filled with warmth and trust.

By the shades of reality surrounding him, Kalona knew immediately he hadn’t entered the Realm of Dreams. He stared down at Zoey, hardly daring to breathe.

And the sense of touch returned to him. She was wrapped in his arms, her naked body, pliant and warm, pressed against him. She touched his face, letting her fingers linger over his lips. His hips automatically lifted to her and she made a small sound of pleasure as her eyes fluttered closed and she raised her lips to his.

Just before she kissed him and he settled deeply within her body, Kalona’s sense of hearing returned.

“I love you, too, Stark,” she said, and began to make love to him.

The pleasure was so unexpected—the shock so intense—that the connection was severed. Breath ragged, Kalona pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the rooftop balustrade. Blood pumped hot and fast through his body. He shook his head in disbelief.

“Stark.” Kalona spoke the name to the night, reasoning aloud. “The connection I followed wasn’t to Zoey at all. The connection was to Stark.” He understood, and then felt a fool for not anticipating what had happened. “In the Otherworld I breathed the spirit of my immortal soul within him. Some of that spirit has, obviously, remained.” The smile that broke over the immortal’s face was as fierce as his raging blood. “And now I have access to Zoey Redbird’s Guardian and Oath Sworn Warrior.” Kalona spread his wings, threw back his head, and let his triumphant laughter ring into the night.

“What is so amusing and why are you not awaiting me in my bed?”

Kalona turned to see Neferet standing naked in the doorway to the suite, a look of irritation on her haughty face. But that look quickly changed as she gazed at his fully aroused body.

“I am not amused, I am joyous. And I am here because I wish to take you on the roof with the open sky stretching above us.” He strode to Neferet, lifted her, carried her back to the balcony railing, closed his eyes, and imagined dark hair and eyes as he made her cry out in pleasure over and over again.

Stark

The first time it happened so quickly Stark couldn’t be sure, totally, absolutely sure, it had happened at all.

But he should have listened to his instincts. His gut told him something had gone wrong, very wrong, even if it was only for a few minutes.

He’d been in bed with Zoey. They’d talked and laughed and basically just been having a good time being alone. The castle was awesome. Sgiach and Seoras and the rest of the Warriors were great, but Stark was really a loner. Here on Skye, no matter how cool it was, someone was always around. Just because the place was withdrawn from the “real” world didn’t make it any less busy. There was shit going on constantly—training and castle maintenance, trading with the locals and such. And that’s not even taking into account that he’d been teamed with Seoras, which meant he was more or less the old dude’s slave/errand boy/fodder for comedy.

Then there were the garrons. He’d never really been a horse guy, but the highland garrons were amazing animals, even if they did seem to produce an amount of horse crap that was totally out of proportion with their size. Stark should know. He’d spent most of that evening shoveling it, and when he’d made a couple offhanded comments that, sure, might have sounded like complaining, Seoras and some other old Warrior with an Irish accent, bald head, and a ginger-colored beard had started calling him Ach, poor wee Mary with the sweet, smooth hands of a lassie.

Needless to say he was seriously glad to be alone with Z. She smelled so damn good and felt so damn good that he had to keep reminding himself it wasn’t a dream. They weren’t still in the Otherworld. This was real and Zoey was his.

It had happened between deep, hot make-out kisses that made him feel like he was going to explode. He’d just told her he loved her, and Z had been smiling up at him. All of a sudden something inside him had changed. He’d felt heavier yet weirdly stronger. And there was a strange sense of shock that jolted all along his nerve endings. She’d kissed him then and, as usual when Z kissed him, it’d been more than kinda hard for him to think, but he’d known something was off.

He’d felt shocked.

And that was bizarre as hell because he and Z had been kissing and more—lots more—for a while. It was like somewhere inside him, but apart from him, there was a guy who was totally blown away by what was going on between him and Z.

Then he’d started making love to Z and there was a sizzling sense of utter astonishment. It had felt strange, but everything was intensified when he touched Zoey. And it had gone away almost as quickly as it had started, leaving Z in his arms, melting into him so that the only thing filling his heart, mind, body, and soul was her … only her.

Afterward Stark tried to remember what it had been that had seemed so weird—what bothered him so much. But by that time the sun was rising, he was drifting into a happily exhausted sleep, and it just didn’t seem so important anymore.

After all, why should he worry? Zoey was tucked away safely in his arms.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Rephaim

The Raven Mocker let himself fall from the seventeenth-story rooftop of the Mayo building. Wings outstretched, he soared over the city center, his dark plumage making him almost invisible.

As if humans ever looked up—poor, earthbound creatures. Odd that even though Stevie Rae was earthbound, he never thought of her as one of the rest of the unwinged, pathetic horde.

Stevie Rae … His flight faltered. His speed slowed. No. Don’t think of her now. I have to get well away first and be certain my thoughts are my own. Father must not guess anything is amiss. And Neferet can never, ever know.

Rephaim closed his mind to everything except the night sky and purposefully made a long, slow circle, assuring himself Kalona had not changed his mind and defied Neferet to join him. When he knew he had the night to himself, he positioned himself so that he was headed northeast on a flight path that would take him first to the old Tulsa depot and then to Will Rogers High School and the scene of supposed gang violence that had recently been plaguing that part of the city.

He agreed with Neferet that the cause of the attacks was most likely the rogue red fledglings. That was all he agreed with Neferet on, though.

Rephaim flew soundlessly and quickly to the abandoned depot building. Circling it, he used his sharp vision to look for even a breath of movement that might betray the presence of any vampyre or fledgling, red or blue. He studied the building with an odd mixture of anticipation and reluctance. What would he do if Stevie Rae had come back and reclaimed the basement and the labyrinthine series of tunnels below it for her fledglings?

Would he be able to remain silent and invisible in the night sky, or would he let himself be known to her?

Before he could formulate an answer a truth came to him: he wouldn’t have to make that decision. Stevie Rae wasn’t there at the depot. He would know if she was near. The knowledge settled over him like a shroud, and with a long exhalation of breath Rephaim dropped to the roof of the depot.

Finally completely alone, he allowed himself to think of the terrible avalanche of events that had begun that day. Rephaim folded his wings tightly to his back and paced.

The Tsi Sgili was weaving a web of fate that could unravel Rephaim’s world. Father was going to use Stevie Rae in his war with Neferet for dominion over his spirit. Father would use anyone to win that war. The moment after Rephaim had the thought he instantly rejected it, automatically reacting as he would have before Stevie Rae had entered his life.

“Entered my life?” Rephaim laughed humorlessly. “It’s more like she entered my soul and my body.” He paused in his pacing, remembering how it’d felt to have the beautiful, clean power of the earth flow into and heal him. He shook his head. “Not for me,” he told the night. “My place is not with her; it is impossible. My place is as it has always been, with my father in the Darkness.”

Rephaim stared down at his hand, resting on the rusted edge of a metal grate. He wasn’t man or vampyre, immortal or human. He was monster.

But did that mean he could look idly on as Stevie Rae was used by his father and abused by the Tsi Sgili? Or worse, could he take part in her capture?

She wouldn’t betray me. Even if I captured her, Stevie Rae wouldn’t betray our connection.

Still staring at his hand, Rephaim realized where it was he was standing, on which grate his hand was resting, and he jerked back. It was here that the rogue red fledglings had entrapped them—here that Stevie Rae had almost lost her life—and here that she’d been so mortally wounded he had allowed her to drink from him … Imprint with him …

“By all the gods, if only I could take it back!” he shouted to the sky. The words echoed around him, repeating, mocking. His shoulders slumped and his head bowed as his hand smoothed over the surface of the rough iron grate. “What am I supposed to do?” Rephaim whispered the question.

No answer came, but he didn’t expect one. Instead he withdrew his touch from the unforgiving iron and collected himself.

“I will do what I have always done. I will follow the commands of my father. If I can do that and, at least by some small measure, protect Stevie Rae, then so be it. If I cannot protect her, then so be it. My path was chosen at my conception. I cannot deviate from it now.” His words sounded as cold as the January night, but his heart felt hot, as if what he had said made his blood boil at the core of his body.

With no more hesitation, Rephaim leaped from the roof of the depot and continued on his easterly route, flying the short miles from downtown to Will Rogers High School. The main building was set on a little rise beside an open field space. It was large and rectangular and made of light-colored brick that looked like sand in the moonlight. He was drawn to the centralmost part of the structure, the first of two large, ornately carved square towers lifting from it. That was where he landed. That was also where he immediately assumed a defensive crouch.

He could smell them. The scent of the rogue fledglings was everywhere. Moving stealthily, Rephaim positioned himself so he could peer down at the front grounds of the school. He saw a few trees, large and small, a long expanse of lawn, and nothing else.

Rephaim waited. It wasn’t long. He knew it wouldn’t be. Dawn was too close. So he’d expected to see the fledglings—he just hadn’t expected to see them walk boldly up to the front door of the school, reeking of fresh blood and led by the newly Changed Dallas.

Nicole was wrapped around him. That big, dumb Kurtis obviously thought he was some kind of bodyguard because while Dallas pressed his hand against one of the rust-colored steel doors, the oversized fledgling stood at the edge of the concrete steps, looking out and holding a gun as if he thought he knew what to do with it.

Rephaim shook his head in disgust. Kurtis didn’t look up. None of the fledglings, or even Dallas, looked up. He was no longer the broken creature they’d captured and used; they had no idea how pathetically vulnerable they were to his attack.

But Rephaim didn’t attack. He waited and watched.

There was a sizzling sound and Nicole ground briefly against Dallas. “Oh, yeah, baby! Work your magic.” Her voice lifted in the night as Dallas laughed and pulled the no longer locked or alarmed door open.

“Let’s go,” Dallas told Nicole, sounding older and harder than Rephaim remembered. “Dawn’s close and there’s somethin’ you got to take care of before the sun rises.”

Nicole rubbed her hand down the front of his pants while the rest of the red fledglings laughed. “Then let’s get us down to those basement tunnels so I can get going on it.”

She led the fledglings inside the school. Dallas waited outside until they were all in, then followed them, closing the door. In another moment Rephaim heard a sizzling sound like before and then all was quiet. And when, in the next moment, the security guard drove lazily by, all was still quiet. He, too, didn’t look up to see the enormous Raven Mocker crouched on the top of the school’s tower.

When the guard drove away Rephaim leaped into the night, his mind whirring in time with the beating of his wings.

Dallas was leading the rogue red fledglings.

He was controlling the modern magick of this world and it somehow allowed him access to buildings.

Will Rogers High School was where they were making their nest.

Stevie Rae would want to know that. She would need to know that. She still felt responsible for them, even though they had tried to kill her. And Dallas, what did she still feel for him?

Just thinking about seeing her in Dallas’s arms made him angry. But she’d chosen him over Dallas. Clearly and completely.

Not that that made any difference now.

It was then that Rephaim realized the direction he’d been flying was too far south to take him back to the downtown Mayo. Instead he was gliding over midtown Tulsa, passing the dimly lit abbey of the Benedictine nuns, cutting over Utica Square, and silently approaching the stone wall–protected campus. His flight faltered.

Vampyres would look up.

Rephaim beat against the night air, lifting up and up. Then, too high to be easily seen, he skirted the campus, diving soundlessly outside the east wall into a pool of shadow between streetlights. From there he moved from shadow to shadow, using the darkness of his feathers to blend with the night.

He heard the eerie howling before he reached the wall. It was a sound so filled with despair and heartbreak that it cut even him to the bone. What is making that terrible howl?

He knew the answer almost as quickly as he’d formulated the thought. The dog. Stark’s dog. During one of her sessions of nonstop talking, Stevie Rae had told him how one of her friends, the boy named Jack, had more or less taken ownership of Stark’s dog when he’d turned into a red fledgling, and how close the boy and the dog had become and what a good thing she thought that was for both of them because the dog was so smart and Jack was so sweet. As he remembered Stevie Rae’s words, everything slid into place. By the time he reached the school’s boundary and heard the crying that accompanied the terrible howling, Rephaim knew what he’d see when he carefully and quietly scaled the wall and peered down at the scene of devastation before him.

He looked. He couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to see Stevie Rae—just see her. After all, he couldn’t do anything except look—Rephaim definitely couldn’t allow any of the vampyres to see him.

He’d been correct; the innocent whose blood had fulfilled Neferet’s debt to Darkness had been Stevie Rae’s friend Jack.

Under the shattered tree through which Kalona had escaped his earthen prison, a boy knelt, sobbing “Jack!” over and over beside a howling dog in the middle of bloodstained grass. The body wasn’t still there, but the bloodstain was. Rephaim wondered if anyone else would be able to detect the fact that there was a lot less blood than there should have been. Darkness had fed deeply from Neferet’s gift.

Beside the weeping boy the school’s Sword Master, Dragon Lankford, stood silently, his hand on his shoulder. The three of them were alone. Stevie Rae wasn’t there. Rephaim was trying to convince himself that was for the best. It really was a good thing that she hadn’t been there—maybe hadn’t seen him—when a wave of feelings slammed into him: sadness, worry, and hurt foremost among them. Then, arms filled with a big wheat-colored cat, Stevie Rae rushed up to the mourning trio. It was so good to see her that Rephaim almost forgot to breathe.

“Duchess, you gotta stop this now.” Her distinctly accented voice washed over him like a spring rain in the desert. He watched her crouch beside the big dog, depositing the cat between her legs. The feline instantly started rubbing against the dog, as if he were trying to wipe away her pain. Rephaim blinked in surprise when the dog actually quieted and began licking the cat. “There’s a good girl. Let Cameron help you.” Stevie Rae looked up at the Sword Master. Rephaim saw him nod almost imperceptibly. She turned her attention to the sobbing boy. Digging into the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out a wad of tissues, and handed it to him. “Damien, sweetie, you gotta stop this now, too. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

Damien took the tissue and wiped quickly across his face. In a shaking voice he said, “I d-don’t care.”

Stevie Rae touched his cheek. “I know you don’t, but your cat needs you, and so does Duchess. Plus, honey, Jack would be real upset if he saw you like this.”

“Jack won’t ever see me again.” Damien had stopped crying, but his voice sounded terrible. It seemed to Rephaim that he could hear the boy’s heart breaking within it.

“I do not believe that for one hot second,” Stevie Rae said firmly. “And if you really think about it, neither do you.”

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, annoyance at being detained for the short time it had taken him to overpower and destroy her.

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 running start and leaped into the sky. Beating against the night with his massive wings, he circled around the watchful campus and headed back to the roof of the Mayo building.

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 annoyed I told you so look as Darius went on to explain. “Neferet was, indeed, in the school Council Meeting when Jack fell from the ladder. Not only did Damien see Jack fall, but another witness corroborates the time. Drew Partain was crossing the grounds when he heard the music Jack was singing to. He said he only heard part of the song because the bell clock on Nyx’s Temple began chiming midnight, or at least that was why he thought he didn’t hear any more of Jack’s voice.”

“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.”

“I don’t think any of us believe Neferet is innocent of the boy’s death, but what we believe and what we can prove are two different things. The High Council has already ruled once in Neferet’s favor and, basically, against us. If we go to them with more supposition and no proof of her wrongdoings, we will only discredit ourselves more,” Darius said.

“I get that, but it pisses me off,” Aphrodite said.

“It pisses us all off,” Stevie Rae said. “Bad. Real bad.”

Picking up on the unusually hard edge in Stevie Rae’s voice, Aphrodite lifted an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, and let’s use some of that pissed off to kick that cow the hell outta here once and for all.”

“What’s your idea?” Stevie Rae said.

“First, get Zoey’s vacationing butt back here. Neferet hates Z. She’ll come against her—she always does. Only this time we’ll all be watching and waiting and we’ll get proof not even the Neferet-loving High Council will be able to ignore.” Without waiting for a response from either of them, Aphrodite pulled her iPhone from her metallic Coach clutch, punched in her code, and said, “Call Zoey.”

“I was gonna do that,” Stevie Rae said.

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re too. Damn. Late. Plus, you’re too damn nice. What Z needs is a big dose of get-your-shit-together-and-do-the-right-thing. I’m the girl to feed it to her.” She paused, listened, and rolled her eyes again. “It’s her revolting Disney Channel–sounding Hey guys! Leave me a message and have an awesome day voice mail,” Aphrodite quoted in an uber-bubbly voice. She drew a breath, waiting for the beep.

And Stevie Rae grabbed the phone from her hand, speaking quickly into it. “Z, it’s me, not Aphrodite. I need you to call me the second you get this. It’s important.” She hit the end button to hang up and squared off against Aphrodite. “Okay, let’s get somethin’ real straight. Just because I try to be a decent human being, it does not mean I’m too nice. It’s bad enough what happened to Jack. Learnin’ ’bout it in a message is super, super bad. Plus, I don’t think it’s a good idea to freak Zoey out like that, ’specially so soon after her soul being shattered.”

Aphrodite snatched the iPhone from Stevie Rae. “Look. We do not have time to tiptoe around Zoey’s feelings. She needs to put on her big-girl High Priestess panties and deal.”

“No, you look.” Stevie Rae stepped forward and into Aphrodite’s personal space, making Darius automatically move closer to her. “Z doesn’t need to put on High Priestess panties. She is one. But she’s been through losin’ someone she loves. That’s somethin’ you obviously just don’t get. Watchin’ out for her feelings right now isn’t about babyin’ her. It’s about bein’ her friend. Sometimes all of us just need a little protection from our friends.” She glanced at Darius, shaking her head. “No, that doesn’t mean you need to protect Aphrodite from me. Jeeze, Darius, what’s wrong with you?”