House of Night 09 - Destined

wouldn’t let him rest. His sons were asleep, warm and safe and nesting in the three hunters’ blinds. He should have been sleeping, too. Instead he found himself out on the ridge, sitting on a huge, flat-topped boulder, thinking.
    The iPhone was in his hand. He considered the modern world and the strange magick it had developed. He couldn’t decide if he liked it better than the ancient world. Certainly, it was more comfortable. Absolutely, it was more complicated. But better? Kalona tended to believe it was not.
    He looked at the phone. The fledgling had given it so that he could contact Rephaim, yet the boy was not listed in the contacts. Silly, useless thing, he thought. And then, on second thought, he realized Stevie Rae was in the contact list. Contact the Red One and he would contact his son.
    He did not want to speak with the Red One. She was at the root of his problems. Had she not interfered, Rephaim would be here, by his side, as was the proper order of things.
    Or Rephaim would be dead after bleeding out, broken and alone that terrible night. And would that not have been a better, more fitting end for my son than to be shackled to a young vampyre and her unforgiving Goddess?
    The thoughts had barely formed in his head when Kalona regretted them.
    No, it would not be better if Rephaim had died.
    And Nyx was not unforgiving. She’d forgiven his son. It was only him she refused to forgive.
    Kalona spoke to the heavens, “It is ironic that in doing my son a kindness, you have done me a cruelty. You’ve taken from me the last creature in this world that truly loved me.” His voice was lost quickly to the night and he was completely alone. Goddess, he was tired of being alone!
    He missed Rephaim’s company.
    Kalona’s shoulders slumped.
    It was then that he felt the presence of Darkness. It was subtle and well cloaked, but Kalona had known Darkness too long, both battling against it and fighting beside it, to be fooled.
    Kalona put the phone away from him and schooled his features to an impassive, neutral mask. He had no idea why the white bull was lurking this night, but he knew his presence portended great trouble and tribulations for this world and, perhaps, even for him.
    He understood something Neferet was too intoxicated by power to realize: the incarnation of Darkness could never truly be an ally. The white bull had only one objective: to destroy and consume the black bull. He would use anything or anyone to gain his objective, just as he would destroy anything or anyone who got in his way.
    If Neferet believed she was his Consort, she was utterly, completely incorrect. The white bull of Darkness did not have Consorts—it had conquests.
    The presence dissipated and Kalona breathed a sigh of relief. Then he straightened, considering. Neferet? Did I sense her presence, too?
    He glanced down at the iPhone. How long had they been watching him? What had they heard? What did they know?
    Was Rephaim in danger?
    Kalona surged to his feet and launched himself into the sky. His mighty wings beat against the night as he rode the air currents swiftly and silently, heading east into the pre-dawn glooming.
    He reached the depot moments before sunrise, landing on the gravely ground near the railroad tracks, well away from the high front entrance that Shaunee had already explained to him was unused. Kalona was pacing, staring at an old metal grate and silently cursing the fact that he’d left the damned phone on the rock when the rusting grate was pushed aside and his son ran from the building.
    Kalona began to move toward him, relieved beyond words that they boy was whole and well, when his son’s mouth opened and he shrieked—a terrible sound to hear. Then he watched Rephaim’s body shiver, writhe, morph and a raven burst forth from the skin of the boy!
    Moving on instinct alone, Kalona took to the sky following the raven. The immortal stayed well aloft, high above the prying eyes of the city, though in truth the raven spent very little time in the city. Instead he flew west and a little south, eerily following the same path Kalona had taken. It wasn’t long before the raven was on the ridge perched in an old oak whose branches spread like a protective giant around the hunters’ blinds. There Rephaim the Raven stayed, only occasionally feeding, sometimes climbing the sky, but always, always circling back to the ridge.
    As sunset approached the bird flew. This time he did not circle, but instead he