I don't own House of Night.
Chapter 18 in Burned from Stevie Rae's point of view, coz it's my favourite chapter!
Stevie Rae knew where Rephaim was as soon as she got out of Z's Bug. It was second nature. He was asleep, where he'd heaped several blankets and woven them in a way that loosely resembled a nest. She squatted in front of him, realising that the lacerations that covered his entire body from the disgusting white bull weren't completely healed. Much better than they had been, though.
His red eyes opened and watched her carefully for a short second.
"Hey there. You awake?" She asked softly, trying not to disrupt the calm.
He didn't answer her question directly. "Why are you staring at me like that?" he said in a forced voice.
Stevie Rae frowned, seeing pain in his eyes. "Well, I'm tryin' to figure out how close you've come to dyin' this time."
"My father's an immortal. I'm hard to kill." He sat up slowly.
Stupid tryin'-to-be macho boys. She could practically feel the sick pain through their Imprint. "Yeah, I know about your daddy and your immortal blood and all, but Darkness fed from you. A lot. That can't be good. Plus, to be honest, you look really bad." Stevie Rae bit on the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing at his outraged look.
He took a deep breath as if to calm himself down. "You don't," he finally said. "And Darkness fed from you, too."
"I'm not as hurt as you because you swooped in like Batman and saved the day before that dang nasty bull could mess me up too much. Then I got a shot in the arm from Light, which was totally cool, by the way. And that immortal blood of yours is like the Energizer Bunny inside me." She smiled at his expression. Though his face was hard to read, she could tell he was confused.
"I am not a bat," he said.
"I didn't compare you to a bat; I said you were like Batman. He's a superhero."
"I'm not a hero, either."
She glanced down, hoping that the warmth on her cheeks wasn't a blush, before looking back up at him, still watching her carefully, as if she was the one who'd been hurt.
She answered him completely honestly. "Well, you've been my hero. Twice."
She found that she couldn't look away from his eyes then, even though it almost hurt to look at him. She had no idea what was going through his mind. He didn't say anything.
"So, come on. Let's see if I can return the favour. Again," she said to break the spell between them. She stood up and held her hand out to him. She didn't even have to think about it.
He didn't take it, though he looked at it carefully.
"I don't think I could eat right now," he said instead. "Some water would be good, though. I drank all that we'd brought up here before."
"I'm not takin' you to the kitchen. At least not this second. I'm takin' you outside. To the trees. Well, okay, to that really big tree by the old gazebo in the front yard to be specific." She had no idea how to help the pain that she could still feel rolling in waves off him, but figured that the old oak tree could help her think.
"Why?"
"I already told you. You helped me. I think I can help you, but I gotta be closer to the earth than we are up here, and I've been thinkin' 'bout it, and I know trees have major power in them. I've kinda used it before. Actually, that may have been part of the reason I was able to call up that thing." She couldn't help but shudder at the thought of the white bull.
He looked at her deep into her eyes, which made her slightly uncomfortable. She forced herself to look away.
"I think I'll stay here. Rest will help. So will water. If you want to do something for me, get the water I asked for."
She refused and leant down. It was too easy to take hold of both his hands in hers and pull him up, still holding onto him when he leant against them, his eyes tightly closed. His breath was coming short and quick.
I really hope this wasn't a bad idea, she thought to herself.
But finally his breathing slowed and he opened his eyes, latching onto hers. Stevie Rae could see a strange expression on his face, maybe frowning? He asked her, "Why do you touch me with no fear?" almost in a whisper.
His voice was so weak, and that coupled with the fact he was totally using her hands to keep himself up, made her laugh at him. "Rephaim, I don't think you could swat a fly right now. Besides that–you've saved my life twice, and we're Imprinted. I'm definitely not scared of you."
"Perhaps the question should have been why do you touch me with no repulsion?" His eyes were still trained on hers.
The train of thought that phrase started made her remember the promise she'd made to Light. She didn't have to think for long that she didn't want Rephaim to know about that. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Maybe then it would be easier to deal with.
She felt herself shrug. "I don't imagine it's possible for a vampyre to be repulsed by someone their Imprinted with," she said, using the most obvious part of their relationship. "I mean, I was Imprinted with Aphrodite before I drank your blood, and there was a time when she seriously grossed me out–she just wasn't very nice. At all. Actually, she's still not very nice. But she kinda grew on me after we Imprinted. Not in a sexual way, but I wasn't grossed out by her anymore."
And that was one of the moments when she hated that she never could control her mouth, it just came out that way. She felt her eyes widen, and was suddenly hyper-aware of her skin against his, and her pulse drumming harder. I don't feel that way about him, she protested weakly in her mind as she quickly let go of his hands. She couldn't feel that way.
The silence grew between them. Rephaim was lightly tensed, still looking at her with his unwavering gaze.
"Can you walk downstairs by yourself?" she asked, looking away to compose herself before letting herself look to his direction again. She avoided his eyes, though.
"Yes. I'll follow you. If you really think a tree can help."
"Well, it won't be long before we find out if what I think means anything," Stevie Rae said, grateful that she didn't have to touch him and that she had an excuse not to look at him. She headed for the stairs. "Oh," she said, as if it were an afterthought, though she'd been trying to find a way to say it the entire time, "thank you for saving me. Again. You–you didn't have to this time. He said he wasn't going to kill me." She still very obviously kept her eyes away from him, though he was walking so close a feather from one of his wings would sometimes brush against her arm.
"There are worse things than death,"–she knew that–"What Darkness can take from someone who walks with Light can change your soul."
"And what about you? What did Darkness take from you?" she couldn't stop the worry she felt for him.
"He didn't take anything from me. He just filled me with pain and then fed on the pain mixed with my blood."
They reached the door and Stevie Rae finally allowed herself to look at him. The black bull's words ran through her mind. "Because Darkness feeds on pain and Light feeds on love," she whispered. Again, she was hyper-aware that they were so close. She only would have to move her hand a couple of inches to take hold of his.
He moved slightly, so that they were even closer and watched her carefully. "What price did Light demand from you for saving me?" he whispered, as softly as she had.
Stevie Rae couldn't bring herself to meet that immortal gaze again. She answered in the first way that came to her mind, even though it felt wrong. "Do you want to tell me about everything that bull demanded from you when he was feeding from you, and standing over you, and basically molesting you?" she said loudly, to try and sever the electricity between them. She realised that she even sounded angry.
"No," he said immediately. "But the other bull–"
"No," she said firmly before he could get any further. "I don't want to talk about it either. So let's just forget it and go on from here. Well, and let's hope I can fix some of this pain Darkness left inside you." She fought to make her voice kinder before opening the door and making her way towards the direction of the massive tree. Rephaim followed, as she knew he would, and kept on looking at her, and though he was obviously trying to be stealthy, he almost walked right into the tree.
Stevie Rae looked at him and shook her head. "You're not foolin' me. You feel too crappy to be sneaky, so stop gawking at me. I'm fine. Jeeze, you're worse than my mama."
"Have you talked to her?"
Stevie Rae frowned at him quickly changing the subject. "I haven't had a lot of free time the past couple of days. So, no, I haven't talked to my mama."
"You should."
Stevie Rae crossed her arms. "I'm not gonna talk about my mama right now."
"As you wish," he said in an infuriating, completely patient tone. The tone someone would use to talk to a toddler in the middle of a tantrum.
"And you don't need to use that tone with me."
"What tone?" he said carefully.
She huffed at him. "Just sit down and be quiet for a change and let me think about how I'm supposed to help you," she said, leaning against the tree and sitting on the ground. She was comforted by the power that she could feel drumming through the trunk, and a headache that had started building up between her eyes melted away.
Rephaim stayed standing with a slightly mutinous expression on his face. "Sit," she ordered again, motioning to the ground right in front of her.
He ducked his head and sat, as close to her as he could. "And now?" he asked.
She almost smiled at his impatient tone. "Well, give me a minute. I'm not real sure how to do this." She twisted a strand of her hair around her finger, looking away at the distance, anywhere but at his eyes.
"Would it help to think about what you did when you tripped that annoying fledgling who thought he could challenge me?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"Dallas isn't annoying, ad he thought you were attacking me," Stevie Rae said, suddenly feeling the need to protect Dallas.
"Good thing I wasn't," Rephaim said in an amused voice.
Stevie Rae tilted her head to the side. "And why is that?" she asked, daring him to say what she knew he was thinking.
He widened his eyes at her and ducking his head in submission, said meekly, "Because it would have been inconvenient if I'd had to defend myself."
Stevie Rae felt herself smile at his tone and the repressed words she knew were running in his head. "Dallas really did think he was protecting me from you," she said, ripping a small blade of grass which had broken through the frost and split it down the middle.
"You don't need him," Rephaim said.
It was one of the last things she expected him to say. Their eyes met, and this time Stevie Rae didn't even try to look away. She could feel her pulse in her throat as his eyes widened in response to what he had said. Her hand started shaking as the silence deepened and the electricity zinged between them again.
He finally quickly said "As you said before, I could not swat a fly. I was certainly no threat to you."
Stevie Rae blinked, looking away again and wondered what was wrong with her. Here she was, discussing her almost-boyfriend with someone she – with Rephaim. It felt wrong discussing Dallas with him, as if she didn't want Rephaim to know.
She shrugged and looked back at the grass, rubbing her fingers on the blades that had broken through the frost. "Yeah, well, I've had one heck of a time convincing everybody back at the House of Night that it was just a weird coincidence that you dropped from the sky at the same time Darkness manifested, and that you weren't attacking me. Them knowing there's a Raven Mocker still in Tulsa has made it super hard for me to get away from school alone."
"I should leave," he said. The words made her hands still and fear shoot quickly through her heart.
"Where would you go?" she asked carefully, thankful that her voice stayed steady.
"East," he said immediately, so quickly and surely that Stevie Rae wasn't sure that he'd spent some time thinking about this decision.
She was suddenly sure that, even if it was selfish, she didn't want him to leave. "East? You mean like all the way east to Venice? Rephaim, your daddy's not in his body. You can't help him by goin' there right now. I think you can help more by stayin' here and working with me to bring Zoey and him back."
"You don't want me to leave?"
No, I don't, she thought. But that wouldn't be fair. She had to give him a reason, at least.
"It's hard for a vampyre to have the person she's Imprinted with too far away from her," she said softly, though she hadn't thought that to be true. It certainly hadn't been that case with Aphrodite.
"I'm not a person," he said stubbornly.
"Yeah, but that didn't stop us from Imprinting, so I'm thinkin' the rules still apply to you and me."
"Then I'll stay until you tell me to go," he said matter-of-factly, as if it was the easiest and most natural thing for him in the world.
She closed her eyes, fighting resolutely against the happiness that swelled from her. She didn't let herself get lost in her feelings.
"Earth," he said suddenly, making her start. Her eyes snapped open questioningly. "You called it before, when you tripped the red fledgling. You called it to open so that you could escape from the sunlight on the rooftop. You called it to close the tunnel behind me at the abbey. Can you not simply call it now and make your request of it?"
Of course! It was so obvious. "You're right! Why am I makin' it so hard? I've done it like a zillion times for other stuff. There's no reason why I can't do it for this." She held her hands out. "Here, grab hold," she said to him.
He immediately uncrossed his arms and held Stevie Rae's hands. He looked at their hands intertwined and tightened his fingers. Although it was strange, Stevie Rae liked the feel of his soft feathers against her skin.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, thinking about her element, letting it fill her and strengthen her. "Earth, I have a big favour to ask you. Rephaim here is special to me. He's in pain, and he's havin' trouble getting well. Earth, I've borrowed your strength before – to save myself – to save those I care about. This time I'm asking to borrow your strength to help Rephaim. It's only right." She opened her eyes, her gaze focussing on Rephaim's red eyes as he watched her. She repeated the words he'd said to her, the ones that had given her enough strength to fight for him when he was ready to sacrifice his life for her. "You see, he's hurt because of me. Heal him. Please." He looked surprised at the words.
The earth quivered playfully beneath them, as if it was shaking from the raw power that wanted to get out. A sudden bolt of warmth shot from the ground and the tree behind Stevie Rae and shot up her spine, immediately calming her. The power was stronger than she had felt before, and she gasped in surprise. She felt Rephaim start to pull away, as if he was worried, but she instinctively closed her hands tighter around his, refusing to let him go. "No! Don't let go. It's fine."
She felt the heat spread down her arms and to her hands, before going over to Rephaim. He started breathing quicker, clutching at her hands. His eyes closed, but Stevie Rae didn't look away from him. She could see a green glow between them, around their hands, binding them to each other.
He sighed after a short while, and Stevie Rae saw him relax as the pain left his body.
"Think about sending the energy back into the earth," Stevie Rae said to him, still keeping her gaze on him. He started to open his eyes and let go of her hands, but she didn't let him, not ready to let him go just yet. "No, keep your eyes shut. Just stay like you are, but imagine the power from the earth as a glowing green light that's coming from the ground under me, up through my body and hands, to you. When you feel like it's done its job, envision it pouring from your body back into the earth."
His eyes still closed, Rephaim said, "Why? Why let it leave me?"
Stevie Rae could feel herself smile. "Because it's not yours, silly. You can't own this power. It belongs to the earth. You can only borrow it, and then send it back with a 'thank you very much.'"
He opened his beak, then closed it again quickly. She felt the power return to the earth. He whispered, "Thank you."
He opened his eyes, and Stevie Rae was struck by how calm they were. "Better now?" she asked softly.
"Yes. Much better." He opened his hands again, and, though she didn't really want to, she let go of him.
"Really? I mean, I felt the earth and I thought I was channelling it through me into you, and you seemed to be feelin' it." She put her head to one side and looked as deep into his eyes as she could. "You do look better. There isn't any pain in your eyes anymore."
He stood up and lifted his arms slightly, then unfurled his night-dark wings effortlessly. Stevie Rae felt her eyes widen at how he looked.
Beautiful. Like some kind of godling, or angel. The wings were magnificent, and the pure happiness in his expression at being whole stirred something deep inside her.
He noticed her expression and folded up his wings again, lowering his arms. She felt relieved, and tried to clamp down and ignore what she was feeling by seeing him whole and strong. She couldn't let herself feel that way for Rephaim. It was too dangerous.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked her gently.
She suddenly remembered something. "I–I'd forgotten that you flew to the park. Well, and from the park, too," she tried to laugh, but it came out sounding choked. "That's stupid, isn't it? How could I have forgotten somethin' like that?" She was abruptly scared at what his answer would be.
"I suppose you got used to seeing me broken," he said gently.
"What fixed your wing?" she asked, leaning harder against the tree.
"The earth," he answered.
She had to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from screaming at him. "No, not now. It wasn't broken when we came out here. The pain you were filled with didn't have anything to do with that."
"Oh, no. I've been healed since last night. The pain was caused by the remnants of Darkness and what he did to my body."
Her body tensed. "So how did your wing and your arm get fixed last night?" she asked.
He didn't answer for a long while, and every second had her feeling more and more scared. Scared of him.
"I called on powers that are mine to command through my father's blood. I had to. I heard you scream my name."
Stevie Rae blinked, and her fear ebbed away. But only slightly. "But the bull said you'd been filled with his power and not your daddy's."
Rephaim nodded. "I knew it was different. I didn't know why. Nor did I understand I was getting power directly from Darkness himself."
"So Darkness healed you," she heard her voice harden slightly in accusation.
"Yes, and then the earth healed me from the wound Darkness left inside me."
"Okay, well, good." She stood up and brushed the ice from her jeans, feeling the need to get away from him. "You're better now, and I gotta go. Like I said, it's tough for me to get away now that the House of Night is all freaked about a Raven Mocker bein' in town."
She walked past him, not giving him a chance to say anything, but he tried to grab hold of her wrist.
Stevie Rae couldn't help herself. She flinched away from him, scared of what she would feel if he touched her again, especially when he looked like-
He stepped away, dropping his hand. They stared at each other for a second.
"I gotta go," she said, desperately trying to convince herself as well as him. It would be too easy to just stay here with him.
"Will you return?" he asked.
Her anger at what she felt towards him built up inside her. Rephaim was the one to be burned by it. "I have to!" she shouted. "I promised!"
He recoiled as if she'd hit him. "I release you from your promise!" he shouted back.
She felt tears well up in her eyes, feeling the need to stay with him.
She couldn't, though. Although it scared her even more to leave him, she couldn't let him drag her down into Darkness. "It's not you I promised–so you can't release me."
She fled from him them, ducking her head so he couldn't see the tears which were now flowing freely down her cheeks.
"Do not return because you have to. Return only because you want to," he called.
She didn't turn back, though at that moment she wanted nothing more than to turn around and launch herself into his arms.
She was too afraid, though. Afraid that if she gave into the feelings that fought their way to the surface every time she saw him, he ultimately wouldn't change his path. Then her sacrifice to the black bull would have been in vain, and Stevie Rae wasn't sure whether her heart would be strong enough to deal with that.
As she drove away, she saw a black shadow take to the sky and fly the opposite direction from her.