Tempted (20 page)

In the tunnel, Rephaim leaned against the dirt wall, trying to catch his breath. Stevie Rae wished she could let him rest there, but the crawling sensation in the back of her neck was screaming that the others would be waking up and coming to look for her,
and finding her and her Raven Mocker!

“You gotta keep going. Now. Get out of here. Go that way.” She pointed into the darkness in front of them. “It’s gonna be really dark. Sorry ’bout that, but I don’t have time to get a lamp for you. Are you okay in the dark?”

He nodded. “I have long preferred the night.”

“Good. Follow this tunnel until you come to the place where it changes from dirt to cement walls. Then turn to your right. It’s gonna be confusing ’cause the closer you get to the depot, the more tunnels there are. But stay in the main one. It’ll be lit—or at least I hope it’s still lit. Either way, if you keep goin’, you’ll find lanterns and food and rooms with beds and everything.”

“And there are dark fledglings.”

He didn’t phrase it as a question, but Stevie Rae answered him. “Yeah, there are. While the other red fledglings and I were livin’ there, they stayed away from the main tunnels and our rooms and such. I don’t know what they’re doin’ now that we’re not there and I honestly don’t know what they’ll do with you. I don’t think they’ll want to eat you—you don’t smell right. But I can’t tell for sure. They’re—” she paused, searching for the right words. “They’re different than I am—than the rest of us.”

“They are of the darkness. As I said, I am well acquainted with that.”

“All right. Well, I’m just gonna believe you’ll be okay.” Stevie Rae paused again, not knowing what to say and finally blurting out, “So, I guess I’ll see ya around sometime.”

He stared at her and said nothing.

Stevie Rae fidgeted. “Rephaim. You gotta go. Now. It’s not safe here. As soon as you’re down the tunnel a ways, I’m gonna collapse this part so that no one can follow you from here, but you still gotta hurry.”

“I do not understand why you would betray your people to save me,” he said.

“I’m not betraying anyone; I’m just not killing you!” she yelled, and then lowered her voice and continued. “Why does letting you go have to mean I betrayed my friends? Can’t it just mean that I choose life over death? Look, I chose good over evil. How is me lettin’ you live any different than that?”

“Did you not consider that choosing to save me was making a choice for what you would call evil?”

Stevie Rae looked at him for a long time before she answered. “Then let that be on your conscience. Your life is what
you
want it to be. Your daddy’s gone. The rest of the Raven Mockers are gone, too. My mamma used to sing a kinda silly song to me when I was a kid and I’d messed up and gotten myself hurt. She’d sing that I needed to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. And that’s what you need to do. I’m just givin’ you a chance to do it.” Stevie Rae stuck out her hand. “So, here’s hoping that next time we meet, we’re not enemies.”

Rephaim looked from her outstretched hand to her face, and back to her hand. Then slowly, almost reluctantly, he grasped it. Not in a modern handshake, but in the traditional vampyre greeting of clasping forearms.

“I owe you a life, Priestess.”

Stevie Rae’s cheeks felt hot. “Just call me Stevie Rae. I don’t feel much like a Priestess right now.”

He bowed his head. “Then it is to Stevie Rae that I owe a life.”

“Do the right thing with yours and I’ll consider myself paid up,” she said. “Merry meet, marry part, and merry meet again, Rephaim.”

She tried to pull her arm from his grasp, but he didn’t let her go. “Are they all like you? All of your allies?” he asked.

She smiled. “Nah, I’m weirder than most of the others. I’m the first red vamp, and sometimes I think that makes me kinda an experiment.”

Still gripping her arm he said, “I was the first of my father’s children.”

Though he held her gaze steadily, she couldn’t read his expression. All she saw in the dim light of the tunnel was the human shape of his eyes and their unearthly red glow—the same red glow that haunted her dreams and sometimes overwhelmed her own vision, tainting everything with scarlet and anger and darkness. She shook her head, and more to herself than to him said, “Being the first can be hard.”

He nodded and finally released her arm. Without another word, he turned and hobbled away into the darkness.

Stevie Rae counted slowly to one hundred, then she raised her arms. “Earth, I need you again.” Instantly her element responded, filling the tunnel with the scents of a springtime meadow. She breathed in deeply before continuing. “Collapse the ceiling. Fill up this part of the tunnel. Close the hole you made for me; plug it up; make it solid again, so that nobody can pass here.”

She stepped back as the dirt in front and above her started to move, and then it rained down, shifting and solidifying until there was nothing but a solid wall of earth in front of her.

“Stevie Rae, what the hell are ya doing?”

Stevie Rae whirled around, pressing her hand over her heart.
“Dallas! You scared the livin’ daylights right outta me! Dang, I think you ’bout gave me a heart attack for real.”

“Sorry. You’re so hard to sneak up on I thought you knew I was standing here.”

Heart pounding even harder, Stevie Rae searched Dallas’s face, trying to find a sign that he had even a hint that she hadn’t been alone, but he didn’t look suspicious or mad or betrayed—he just looked curious and kinda sad. His next words reinforced that he hadn’t been there long enough to have caught even a glimpse of Rephaim.

“You sealed it off to keep the rest of them from getting to the abbey, didn’t you?”

Stevie Rae nodded and tried not to let the wave of relief she felt show in her voice. “Yeah. I didn’t think it was smart to give ’em such easy access to the nuns.”

“It would be kinda like an old-lady smorgasbord for them.” Dallas’s eyes glinted mischievously.

“Don’t be gross.” But she couldn’t help grinning at him. Dallas really was adorable. Not only was he her unofficial boyfriend, but he was also a genius with anything to do with electricity or plumbing or basically whatever you’d find at Home Depot.

Grinning back at her, he moved closer and tugged on one of her blond curls. “I’m not being gross. I’m being real. And you can’t tell me you haven’t at least thought about how easy it would be to chomp on these nuns.”

“Dallas!” She narrowed her eyes at him, truly shocked by what he’d said. “Heck no I haven’t thought about eatin’ a nun! It doesn’t even
sound
right. And like I told ya before, it’s not smart to think a lot about eatin’ people. It’s not good for you.”

“Hey, relax, cutie. I’m just messing with you.” He glanced behind her at the wall of earth. “So, how are you going to explain this to Zoey and the rest of them?”

“I’m gonna do what I probably shoulda done a while ago. I’m gonna tell them the truth.”

“I thought you wanted to stay quiet about the rest of the fledglings because you thought they might come around and be more like us.”

“Yeah, well, I’m startin’ to think I’ve messed up with some of my choices.”

“All right, it’s up to you. You’re our High Priestess. Tell Zoey and them whatever you want. Actually, you can do that right now. Zoey just called a meeting in the cafeteria. I came looking for you to tell you about it.”

“How’d you know where to find me?”

He smiled at her again and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “I know you, cutie. It wasn’t very hard to figure out where you’d be.”

They started walking out of the tunnel together. Stevie Rae wrapped her arm around Dallas’s waist. She let herself lean against him, glad that he felt normal and totally guy-like beside her. It was a relief to have her world shift back to what she knew was right. She’d put Rephaim out of her mind. She’d helped someone who’d been hurt, that’s all. And now she was done with him. Seriously, he was just one badly injured Raven Mocker. How much trouble could he cause?

“You know me, huh?” She butted him with her hip.

He pressed right back against her. “Not as well as I wish I knew you, cutie.”

Stevie Rae giggled, ignoring the fact that she sounded kinda manic in her effort to be normal.

She also ignored the fact that she could still smell Rephaim’s dark scent on her skin.

I was in that magical, misty place between awake and asleep when he pulled me against his body. He was so big and strong and hard that the contrast between his physical presence and the soft, sweet breath that tickled the side of my neck along with the gentle kisses he placed there had me shivering.

I was mostly asleep and didn’t want to wake up all the way yet, but I sighed happily and stretched so that he could reach more of my neck. His arms felt so right around me. I loved being close to him and was thinking about how glad I was Stark was my Warrior when I murmured sleepily, “You must really be feeling better.”

His touch became sexier and less gentle.

I shivered again.

Then my groggy mind registered two things simultaneously. First: I wasn’t shivering just because I liked what he was doing, even though I definitely liked what he was doing. I was shivering because his touch was
cold.
Second: The body that pressed against me was too big to be Stark’s.

At that instant he whispered, “Do you see how your soul longs for me? You will come to me. You are fated to do so, and I am fated to wait for you.”

I sucked in a gasp, came wide awake, and sat up.

I was completely alone.

Calm down . . . calm down . . . calm down . . . Kalona is not here . . . everything’s fine . . . it was just a dream . . .

Without thinking about it, I automatically started to control my
breathing and steady my emotions, which were definitely in overdrive. Stark wasn’t in the room, and the last thing I wanted him to do was to come running back to me because he could feel how panicked I was, when I was not in any real danger. I might be uncertain about a bunch of things, but I was dead sure about one thing: I didn’t want Stark to start thinking he couldn’t leave my side.

Yeah, I was crazy about him, and glad we shared a bond, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to believe I couldn’t function without him. He was my Warrior, not my babysitter or my stalker, and if he started to think he had to watch me constantly . . . gawking at me while I slept . . .

I suppressed a groan of horror.

The door that led to the little bathroom my room shared with the guest room next door opened and Stark strode in, his gaze going straight to me. He had on jeans and a black Street Cats Catholic Charities T-shirt, and he was towel-drying his still-wet hair. I guess I must have calmed myself down and fixed the panicked expression on my face enough that as soon as he saw me sitting up in bed, alone and in no danger, his worried look changed to a smile.

“Hey, you are awake. I thought so. You okay?”

“Yep. Fine and dandy,” I said quickly. “I just woke myself up by almost rolling off the bed. It kinda freaked me out.”

His smile turned cocky. “You were probably flailing around missing me and my hot body, and that’s what had you rolling off the bed.”

I raised a brow at him. “I’m so sure that wasn’t it.” His mention of his body (yes, it is hot, but I’m not gonna let him think I’m drooling over him) had me studying him, and I realized he did look good—as in more than just cute and hot. He was a lot less pale than he had been when we’d gone to sleep, and he was a lot steadier on his feet. “You seem better.”

“I am better. Darius was right—I heal quickly. A solid eight hours of sleep, plus the three baggies of blood I snagged while you were still snoring, have me feeling pretty good.” He walked over to the bed, bent, and kissed me softly. “Add to that me knowing I can keep you safe from Kalona’s nightmares, and I’d say I’m ready to face just about anything.”

“I don’t snore,” I told him firmly, then I sighed and wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning into him, letting the strength of his physical presence chase away what remained of Kalona’s nightmare presence. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Should I have told Stark that Kalona had still snuck into my dreams, even with him so close and so focused on protecting me? Probably. Maybe telling him would have made a difference in what happened later. Then I was only thinking about not messing up the positive energy he had going, so I rested in his arms until I remembered I hadn’t even brushed my hair or anything. Running my fingers through my wicked-ugly bed head, and averting my face from him to keep from blasting Stark with morning mouth, I pulled away from his embrace and hurried toward the bathroom. Over my shoulder I said, “Hey, would you do me a favor while I’m taking a shower?”

“Sure.” He shot me a cocky grin, which telegraphed how good he really was feeling. “Want me to wash your back?”

“Uh, no. But thanks. I think.” Jeesh, guys had such one-track minds! “I want you to round up the fledglings, red and blue, and find Aphrodite, Darius, Sister Mary Angela, my grandma, and anyone else you can think of who needs to be in on the discussion of when and how we’re getting back to the school.”