Burned

once Nyx’s Warrior. Their Oath Bond was broken when he fell.”
    “Ohmygood
ness
, Kalona used to be on Nyx’s side?” Without consciously knowing she was doing so, Stevie Rae moved closer to Rephaim.
    “Yes. He guarded her against Darkness.” Rephaim stared out at the night.
    “What happened? Why did he fall?”
    “Father never speaks of it. I know whatever it was filled him with an anger that burned for centuries.”
    “And that’s how you were created. From that anger.”
    His gaze found her again. “Yes.”
    “Does it fill you, too? That anger and darkness?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
    “Wouldn’t you know if it did? Just as I know your pain? Is that not how this Imprint between us works?”
    “Well, it’s complicated. See, you’ve been kinda forced into the role of my consort since I’m the vampyre here and all. And it’s easier for a consort to sense things about their vampyre than the other way around. What I get from you is—”
    “My power,” he broke in. She didn’t think he sounded mad, just tired and almost hopeless. “You get my immortal strength.”
    “Holy crap! That’s why I healed so dang fast.”
    “Yes, and why I don’t.”
    Stevie Rae blinked in surprise. “Well, shoot. You must feel awful—you look pretty bad.”
    He made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “And you look healthy and whole again.”
    “I am healthy, but I won’t be really whole until I figure out how to help Zoey. She’s my best friend, Rephaim. She can’t die.”
    “He is my father. He can’t die, either.”
    They stared at one another, both struggling to make sense of this thing between them that drew them together even as hurt and pain and anger swirled around them, defining and separating their worlds.
    “How about this: we get you something to eat. I fix that wing again, which won’t be fun for either of us, and then we try to figure out what’s going on with Zoey and your daddy. You should know some-thin’, though. I can’t feel your emotions like you can feel mine, but I can tell if you’re lyin’ to me. I am also pretty sure I could find you, no matter where you are. So if you lie to me and set up Zoey, I give you my word that I will come against you with all the power of my element
and
your blood.”
    “I will not lie to you,” he said.
    “Good. Let’s go inside the museum and find the kitchen.”
    Stevie Rae left the rooftop balcony, and the Raven Mocker followed her as if tethered to the High Priestess by an invisible but unbreakable chain.
    Stevie Rae
    “You could have anything in this world you desired with that power,” Rephaim said between bites of the huge sandwich she’d fixed him from the stuff that hadn’t already gone bad in the industrial refrigerators of the museum’s restaurant.
    “Nah, not really. I mean, sure, I can make one tired, overworked, and kinda dorky night security guard let us into the museum and then forget we ever existed; but I can’t, like,
rule the world
or anything crazy like that.”
    “It is an excellent power to wield.”
    “No, it’s a responsibility I didn’t ask for and really don’t want. See, I don’t want to be able to make humans do whatever the heck I want them to do. It’s just not right—not if I’m on Nyx’s side.”
    “Because your Goddess does not believe in giving her subjects the objects of their desire?”
    Stevie Rae stared at him for a while, twirling a curl around andaround her finger before answering, thinking that he might be messin’ with her, but the red gaze that met hers was completely serious. So she took a deep breath, and explained, “Not because of that, but because Nyx believes in giving everyone free choice, and when I mess with a human’s mind and implant stuff that he has no control over, I’m takin’ away his free choice. That’s just not right.”
    “Do you really believe everyone in the world should have free choice?”
    “I do. That’s why I’m here today, talkin’ to you. Zoey gave that back to me. Then in a kinda pay-it-forward thing, I gave that same gift to you.”
    “You let me live hoping that I would choose my own path and not that of my father.”
    Stevie Rae was surprised that he had said it so freely; but she didn’t question what had prompted his honesty, she just went with it. “Yeah. I told you that when I closed the tunnel behind you and let you go instead of turning you in to my friends. You’re in charge of your life