Rephaim

Rephaim stood by the fountain in which he'd just seen his and Stevie- Rea's reflection, only it had depicted him as a human – Native American like his mother. Stevie Rae had called him pretty, they had embraced. And now he was watching her leave. It took every ounce of his being not to call her back to him so that he could hold her again and never let her go, it took a strain of every muscle in his body not to go chasing after her, to fly down and scoop her up in his arms. He didn't do those things he stayed rooted to the spot, like a cold stone statue by the fountain, with a stone heart. He feared that if he moved even one inch then all of his restraint would be lost and he would be chasing, running, flying after his Red One in an instant. "I must go to my father" he thought aloud. Eyes closed against the night, as if yellow eyes in the dark would see him and tutt against his disloyalty. His father had returned, he had been outside of his body, on a mission to separate A-ya's reincarnate from her body. He had killed her consort. He had shattered her soul. This had distressed Stevie Rae. 'No!' he thought, why must his thoughts always trace back to her? This needed to stop if he was going to prepare for battle alongside his father. He interrupted his own thought. 'Battle?' The word seemed strange in his head, as if he hadn't used it in centuries. He had though; he had been fighting the red one and her allies' mere weeks ago. 'Fighting the red one?' he felt sick. Had he really been one of the threats to Stevie Rae's life that he would give his own life to protect her against now? He had fought darkness for her. But during the battle at the House of Night he had only been following his father's orders. Anger flashed through him. "And what will my orders be this time?" he roared into the night. He and Stevie Rae could never be together, they were on opposing sides, he had told her this moments ago. What he felt in his heart need not affect his strategies for helping his father. What he felt in his heart need not matter at all!

It did to Stevie Rae.

With a cry he pushed the thought from his mind. He kicked the ground angrily and launched into the sky. He headed to Italy, to find his father.

When he arrived at the castle of Capri he sensed not all was well with his father. he stalked the halls and with a jolt he heard th sound of his father's agonising cry and then Neferet's disturbing cackle. He sped silently though the mazelike hallways like an assassin and came to stand at the entrance of a small dark room. Shocked by what he saw inside he let out a gasp. Neferet whipped round to glare at him, and he saw his father, writhing on the floor, covered in Darkness's chains. Kalona looked up through bloodshot eyes and in a voice that was thick with blood and spit he rasped "son?"

Then he passed out. "What isss thisss?" Rephaim hissed at Neferet.

She sighed, "are you going to be difficult about this Rephaim?"

He arched his wings – an innate reflex to make himself look as large and menacing as possible. "Tsi Sssiglii assssist my father!"

He didn't even sound human!

Neferet sneered. "I hadn't expected a mangy bird boy to have many manners anyway"

Rephaim hissed loudly at her, demanding an explanation for the crumpled immortal on the floor.

"Don't you dare take that tone with me" she said, with eyes that flickered scarlet. He stepped back when he saw the darkness pooling in her eyes. Suddenly she was speaking in a voice that was so filled with evil that it filled the room and burst into Rephaim head. She addressed Darkness. "Take form" she roared. "And for your Queen, the Tsi Sgili, I ask that you do my bidding, take Rephaim and bind him in the chains as you have bound his father". She hurled darkness at him and he gasped in horror as he recognised the dark sticky tendrils that had cut and sliced into Stevie Rae when she had accidentally summoned the white bull. "Father!" he called out in vein. The tendrils clamped down on his limps. Lashing out only caused more cuts. The pain could not compare to that which came directly from Darkness itself, but it was horrifying. The sickening, scarring memory returned to him. He hissed and roared, sounding the least bit human, he was a trapped animal, wild eyed and scared. "Rephaim, my son, please don't struggle against darkness, embrace it" said Neferet softly. She cocked her head to one side as Rephaim fell to the ground, "unless you have a reason not to?"

The look in her eyes was all too knowing. Rephaim couldn't hold her gaze, he felt as though she was boring into his soul as she glared at him. Instead his eyes found the floor, he tried to resist the cutting, slicing, dizzying tendrils, but they whipped up to his head and the pain was too much to bear. He blacked out.