House of Night 09 - Destined

gives me the hours we steal together when I am human.”
    “We don’t steal them!” Stevie Rae said earnestly. “Nyx gifted you with them for the good choices you’ve made. Consequences go both ways, Rephaim. They can be good and bad.”
    Somehow that made his heart feel lighter and he smiled, kissing her again. “I’ll remember that.”
    “I want you to remember somethin’ else, too. You did a good thing today when you didn’t turn your back on your brothers.” Her fingers plucked at a blond curl, and he knew whatever she was saying was hard for her, so even though he needed to get free of the tunnels, to get above to the waiting sky, he remained sitting there beside her with her hand in his while she continued. “I’m sorry your brother got killed.”
    “Thank you,” he said quietly, hardly trusting his voice.
    “They came to the House of Night to get you to leave with them, didn’t they?” she asked.
    “Not really. Father did send them to find me, but not to take me away.” Rephaim paused, not sure how to explain the rest to Stevie Rae. The two of them hadn’t talked about his brothers when they’d finally been alone—they’d been too eager to touch, to be close, to love.
    Stevie Rae squeezed his hand. “You can tell me. I trust you, Rephaim. Please trust me, too.”
    “I do!” he exclaimed, hating the hurt he saw in her eyes. “But you have to understand that even though Father has disowned me, that changes nothing here.” He touched his chest over his heart. “I will forever be his son. I’ll walk the path of the Goddess. I’ll fight for Light and what is right. I’ll love you. Always. But you must understand that somewhere inside me I’ll always love him, too. Becoming human has taught me that.”
    “Rephaim, I have to tell you somethin’ that might sound mean, but I think you need to hear it.”
    He nodded. “Go ahead. Tell me.”
    “Before I was Marked I went to school with this girl name Sallie. Her momma took off and left her and her daddy when she was about ten ’cause she was basically just a downright nasty ho slut and she didn’t want the responsibility of raisin’ a kid. It hurt Sallie real bad when her momma left, even though her daddy tried to do his best for her. But the worst part of the whole thing was that her momma wouldn’t stay gone. She’d come back and, as my momma used to say, stir the shit pot.”
    He gave her a questioning look, and Stevie Rae said, “Sorry, that means her momma came back around just to mess with her—to keep Sallie’s life all filled with stupid drama and such because she was selfish and mean and uber screwed up.”
    “What happened to this Sallie girl?” Rephaim asked.
    “When I got Marked and left school she was on her way to bein’ as uber screwed up as her momma ’cause she didn’t have the strength to tell her momma to stay away. Sallie still wanted her momma to be a good person, to love her and care about her, even though that just wasn’t possible.” Stevie Rae drew a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “What I’m tryin’ to say, and probably not doin’ it very well, is that you’re gonna have to decide whether you want to be as messed up as your daddy, or if you want to really start a new life.”
    “I’ve already chosen a new life,” he said.
    Stevie Rae met his eyes and shook her head sadly. “Not all of you has.”
    “I can’t betray him, Stevie Rae.”
    “I’m not askin’ you to. All I’m askin’ you to do is to not let him stir your shit pot.”
    “He wanted me to spy for him. That’s what he sent my brothers to tell me. I told Nisroc no.” Rephaim said the words quickly, as if by doing so he could get rid of their bitter taste.
    Stevie Rae nodded. “Yeah, see, shit pot stirring.”
    “I do see it, even though it isn’t an easy thing to look at. Can we not talk about him for a while? All this is new for me. I need to figure out how to find my place in this world.” Rephaim stared into Stevie Rae’s kind eyes, willing her to understand. “I’ve been with Father for hundreds of years. It’s going to take some time for me to get used to not being by his side.”
    “That makes sense. How ’bout this: I’ll tell Zoey and the rest of the gang that your brothers were there to let you know Kalona would take you back if you said you’d made a mistake. You said no, so they were just leavin’ when Dragon and that Aurox guy saw you. That’s the truth, right?”
    “Yes. What