Thankfully, the moment passed, and he was able to open his eyes without fear of making an even bigger fool of himself. He looked down at Stevie Rae. She was still holding his hands. She doesn’t shrink away from me in disgust. She hasn’t from the first day.

“Why do you touch me with no fear?” he heard himself asking before he could stop the words.

She gave a little laugh. “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?” Again, the words came almost without his permission. Almost.

Her brow furrowed like before, and he decided he liked to watch her think.

Finally, she shrugged, and said, “I don’t imagine it’s possible for a vampyre to be repulsed by someone they’re Imprinted with. 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.”

Then Stevie Rae’s eyes widened like she realized all of what she’d said, and the word “sexual” seemed to be a tangible presence in the room.

She let loose of his hands as if they burned her.

“Can you walk downstairs by yourself?” Her voice sounded strange and abrupt.

“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 turned her back on him and headed for the stairs. “Oh,” she said, without looking at him, “thank you for saving me. Again. You—you didn’t have to this time.” Her words were hesitant, like she was having trouble picking exactly what she wanted to say to him. “He said he wasn’t going to kill me.”

“There are things worse than death,” Rephaim said. “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 asked, still not looking at him, as they reached the bottom floor of the old mansion, but she slowed down so that he could keep up with her more easily.

“He didn’t take anything from me. He just filled me with pain and then fed on that pain mixed with my blood.”

They’d reached the front door, and Stevie Rae paused, looking up at him. “Because Darkness feeds on pain and Light feeds on love.”

Her words tripped a mental switch inside him, and he studied her more closely. Yes, he decided, she is keeping something from me. “What price did Light demand from you for saving me?”

Stevie Rae was unable to meet his eyes again, which gave him an odd, panicky feeling. He thought she wasn’t going to answer him at all, but finally, in a voice that sounded almost angry, “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?”

“No,” Rephaim answered without hesitated. “But the other bull—”

“No,” Stevie Rae echoed him. “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.”

Rephaim walked with her out onto the icy front lawn, which was pathetic in its dilapidation and a sad, broken reflection of its opulent past. As Rephaim followed her, moving slowly to try to compensate for the terrible pain that was making him so weak, he wondered about the payment Light could have demanded from Stevie Rae. Clearly, it was something unnerving—something that made Stevie Rae reluctant to speak of it.

He kept stealing glances at her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. She appeared healthy and totally recovered from her brush with Darkness. Actually, she looked strong and whole and completely normal.

But, as he was all too aware, appearances could easily deceive.

Something was wrong—or at the very least, something about the debt she’d paid Light made her uncomfortable.

Rephaim was so busy trying to be stealthy about studying her that he almost ran into the tree she’d stopped beside.

She 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’s frown deepened. “I haven’t exactly had a lot of free time the past couple days. So, no, I haven’t talked to my mama.”

“You should.”

“I’m not gonna talk about my mama right now.”

“As you wish.”

“And you don’t need to use that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

Instead of answering him, she said, “Just sit down and be quiet for a change and let me think about how I’m supposed to help you.” Like she was demonstrating, Stevie Rae sat down, cross-legged, with her back against the old cedar tree that wept ice and fragrant needles all around them. When he still didn’t move, she made an impatient noise and motioned to the space in front of her. “Sit,” she ordered.

He sat.

“And now?” he asked.

“Well, give me a minute. I’m not real sure how to do this.”

He watched her twirl one of her soft blond curls around her finger and scrunch up her forehead for a while, and then he offered, “Would it help to think about what you did when you tripped that annoying fledgling who thought he could challenge me?”

“Dallas isn’t annoying, and he thought you were attacking me.”

“Good thing I wasn’t.”

“And why is that?”

Even through the pain in his body, her tone amused him. She knew very well that puny fledgling had been no threat to him, even in his weakened condition. Had Rephaim been attacking her, or anyone else, the impotent youth couldn’t have stopped him. Still, the boy had been Marked by a red crescent, which meant he was one of her subjects, and his Stevie Rae was nothing if not fiercely loyal. So Rephaim bowed his head in acquiescence, and said only, “Because it would have been inconvenient if I’d had to defend myself.”

Stevie Rae’s lips curved up in the hint of a smile. “Dallas really did think he was protecting me from you.”

“You don’t need him.” Rephaim spoke the words without thinking. Stevie Rae’s gaze met his and held. He wished he could read her expressions more easily. He thought he saw surprise in her eyes, and maybe a faint glint of hope, but he also saw fear—of that he was sure. Fear of him? No, she’d already proven she wasn’t afraid of him. So the fear had to be within, of something that wasn’t him but that he’d triggered. Not knowing what else to say, he added, “As you said before, I could not swat a fly. I was certainly no threat to you.”

Stevie Rae blinked a couple of times, as if clearing away too many thoughts, and then she shrugged, and said, “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.” The words made him feel strangely empty inside.

“Where would you go?”

“East,” he said without hesitation.

“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 him more by stayin’ here and working with me to bring both Zoey and him back.”

“You don’t want me to leave?”

Stevie Rae looked down as if studying the earth they sat on. “It’s hard for a vampyre to have the person she’s Imprinted with too far away from her.”

“I’m not a person.”

“Yeah, but that didn’t stop us from Imprinting, so I’m thinkin’ the rules still apply to you and me.”