Awakened

herself said this night, forgiveness is a gift that must be earned. Let us hope for Zoey’s sake she continues to have the Goddess’s good will, but after her actions here I am afraid for her.” While her people were gazing between her and the pitiful, guilty spectacle the Sword Master made, Neferet stroked the air, pulling from the shadows more and more threads of Darkness. Then, with a flicking motion, she threw them out at the crowd, suppressing her smile of satisfaction when the groans and confused, pain-filled gasps reached her ears. “Depart—go to your rooms, pray and rest. This evening has been entirely too taxing for all of us. I leave you now, and as the Goddess said, I wish you to blessed be.”
    Neferet swept from the center of the courtyard, whispering under her breath to the ancient force around her, “He will be there! He will be awaiting me!” She gathered her power so that she felt swollen, throbbing with the rhythm of Darkness, and then gave herself to it, letting it pick up her newly immortal body and carry her on the colorless wings of death and pain and despair.
    But before she could reach the Mayo, and the opulent penthouse where she knew, she was certain Kalona would be awaiting her, Neferet felt a great shifting in the powers that carried her.
    The cold reached her first. Neferet wasn’t certain if she commanded the powers to cease and allow her to halt, or whether the coldness froze them; either way, she found herself spewed out onto the middle of the intersection of Peoria and 11th Street. The Tsi Sgili picked herself up and looked around her, trying to get her bearings. The graveyard to her left drew her attention, and not simply because it housed the rotting remains of humans, which amused her. She sensed something approaching from within it. With one movement Neferet snagged a retreating thread of Darkness, hooked into it, and forced it to lift her over the spiked iron fence that surrounded the graveyard.
    Whatever it was, she could feel it coming toward her, calling to her, and Neferet ran, darting ghostlike between the aging gravestones and crumbling monuments that humans found so soothing. Until finally she came to the centermost part of it, where four wide, paved pathways converged to form a circle where an American flag hung, the single illumination in the graveyard—except for him.
    Of course Neferet recognized him. She’d caught glimpses of the white bull before, but he’d never fully materialized and appeared to her.
    Neferet was stuck speechless at his perfection. His coat was a luminous white. Like a magnificent pearl it glowed—coaxing, alluring, compelling. She swept off the concealing shirt the pubescent Stark had given her, baring herself to the bull’s consuming black gaze. Then Neferet sank gracefully to her knees.
    You bared yourself to Nyx. Now you bare yourself to me? Are you that free with yourself, Queen of the Tsi Sgili?
    His voice resonated darkly in her mind, sending shivers of anticipation throughout her body.
    “I didn’t bare myself to her. You, above all else, know that. The Goddess and I have parted ways. I am no longer mortal, and do not desire to subjugate myself to any other female.”
    The mammoth white bull strode forward, causing the ground to shake under his great cloven hooves. His nose did not quite touch her delicate skin, but he inhaled her scent and then his cold breath released, surrounding Neferet, caressing her most sensitive places, awakening her most secret desires.
    So instead of subjugation to a goddess you choose to chase after a fallen immortal male?
    Neferet’s gaze met the bull’s black, bottomless eyes. “Kalona is nothing to me. I was going to him to exact my revenge for the oath he broke. It is my right to do so.”
    He broke no oath. It did not bind him. Kalona’s soul is no longer fully immortal—he has foolishly given a piece of it away.
    “Truly? How very interesting…” Neferet’s body hummed with excitement at the news.
    I see that you are still infatuated with the thought of using him.
    Neferet lifted her chin and shook back her long auburn hair. “I am not infatuated with Kalona. I only wish to harness and use his powers.”
    You are truly a magnificent, heartless creature. The bull’s tongue snaked out. He licked Neferet’s naked flesh, causing her to gasp in exquisite pain as her body trembled with excitement. It has been more than a century since I have had such a willing follower. The idea seems