Burned

been since his fall. He should be able to detect some trace of his father. No matter how much distance or time separated them, they were tied by blood and spirit and especially by the gift of immortality that had been Rephaim’s birthright.
    Rephaim looked up into the sky, thinking of the currents of air on which he was so used to gliding. He drew a deep breath, lifted his uninjured arm, and stretched forth his hand, trying to touch those elusive currents and the vestiges of dark Otherworld magick that languished there. “Bring me some sense of him!” He made his plea urgently to the night.
    For a moment he believed he felt a flicker of response, far, far off to the east. And then weariness was all he could feel. “Why can I not sense you, Father?” Frustrated and unusually exhausted, he let his hand drop limply to his side.
    Unusual weariness . . .
    “By all the gods!” Rephaim suddenly realized what had drained his strength and left him a broken shell of himself. He knew what was keeping him from sensing the path his father had taken. “She did this.” His voice was hard. His eyes blazed crimson.
    Yes, he’d been terribly wounded; but as the son of an immortal, his body should have already begun its repair process. He’d slept—twice since the Warrior had shot him from the sky. His mind had cleared. Sleep should have continued to revive him. Even if, as he suspected, his wing was permanently damaged, the rest of his body should be noticeably better. His powers should have returned to him.
    But the Red One had drunk of his blood,
Imprinted with him
. And in doing so, she had disturbed the balance of immortal power within him.
    Anger rose to meet the frustration already there.
    She’d used him and then abandoned him.
    Just like Father had.
    “No!” he corrected himself immediately. His father had been driven away by the fledgling High Priestess. He would return whenhe was able, and then Rephaim would be at his father’s side once more. It was the Red One who had used him, then cast him aside.
    Why did the very thought of it cause such a curious ache within him? Ignoring the feeling, he raised his face to the familiar sky. He hadn’t wanted this Imprint. He’d only saved her because he owed her a life, and he knew all too well that one of the true dangers of this world, as well as the next, was the power of an unpaid life debt.
    Well, she had saved him—found him, hidden him, and then released him, but on the depot rooftop, he had returned the debt by helping her escape from certain death. His life debt to her was now paid. Rephaim was the son of an immortal, not a weak human man. He had little doubt he could break this Imprint—this ridiculous byproduct of saving her life. He would use what was left of his strength to wish it away, and then he would truly begin to heal.
    He breathed in the night again. Ignoring the weakness in his body, Rephaim focused the strength of his will.
    “I call upon the power of the spirit of ancient immortals, which is mine by birthright to command, to break—”
    The wave of despair crashed over him, and Rephaim staggered against the balcony’s railing. The sadness radiated throughout his body with such force that it drove him to his knees. There he remained, gasping with pain and shock.
    What is happening to me?
    Next, an odd, alien fear filled him, and Rephaim began to understand.
    “These are not my feelings,” he told himself, trying to find his own center within the maelstrom of distress. “These are
her
feelings.”
    Rephaim gasped as hopelessness followed fear. Steeling himself against the continued onslaught, he struggled to stand, fighting the waves of Stevie Rae’s emotions. Resolutely, he forced himself to refocus through the onslaught and the weariness that tugged relentlessly at him—to touch the place of power that lay locked and dormant for most of humanity—the place to which his blood held the key.
    Rephaim began the invocation anew. This time with an altogether different intent.
    Later, he would tell himself that his response had been automatic—that he’d been acting under the influence of their Imprint; it had simply been more powerful than he had expected. It was the damnable Imprint that had caused him to believe that the surest, quickest way to end the horrible wash of emotions from the Red One was to draw her to him and thus remove her from whatever was causing her pain.
    It couldn’t be that he cared that she was in pain. It could