House of Night 09 - Destined

living here at the House of Night with her. Watch her well, my son.”
    “We’re not living here,” he said before I could stop him. “I’m with Stevie Rae and Zoey and the rest of them at the depot.”
    “Are you? How interesting. Are all the red fledglings at the depot with you?”
    “No, Neferet brought the other red fledglings, the ones who aren’t part of Stevie Rae’s group, to the House of Night. They’re staying here now,” Rephaim said.
    I scowled at Rephaim and gave him a would you please be quiet look.
    “That could be important. They tip the balance of Light and Darkness at this school.”
    “Yes,” Rephaim said. “There is also a fledgling who can—”
    “Who can keep her mouth shut and not tell everybody our business,” I finished for him, giving Rephaim the stank eye.
    Kalona smiled knowingly. “You do not trust me, little A-ya?”
    I felt my heart freeze over. “No. I don’t trust you. And don’t call me that name again. I’m not A-ya.”
    “She’s within you,” he said. “I can sense her.”
    “She’s only a piece of what makes me who I am today, so back off. Your time with her is over.”
    “There may come a day when you learn that past lives circle around to the present,” he said.
    “Why don’t you hold your breath until that happens?” I asked with pretend sweetness.
    Kalona laughed. “You do still amuse me.”
    “And you do still gross me out,” I said.
    “Can we not have a form of peace between us?” Rephaim said.
    “We can have a truce,” I said, looking at Rephaim and forcing him to meet my gaze. “But that’s not peace. It’s also not trusting him and telling him our business. You gotta get that straight in your head, Rephaim, or you need to leave with him right now.”
    “I stay with Stevie Rae,” he said.
    “Then remember whose side you’re on,” I said.
    “You may rest assured that I will not let him forget that,” Kalona said.
    “Yeah, and you should know that Rephaim has a whole bunch of people who care about him, and we won’t let him be used by you.”
    Kalona ignored me and spoke to his son instead. “If you need me, look to the west and follow our blood.” He started to spread his wings. “Remember that you are my son, because I can assure you those around you will never forget it.” He leaped into the sky and with a few powerful strokes of his wings Kalona disappeared into the night.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Zoey
    So, I ended up cutting first hour. I mean, seriously. No way was I up to sitting there and letting Neferet take passive-aggressive shots at me after the whole Kalona/Rephaim thing. Instead I sent Rephaim to class (and told him to tell the professor he’d been in the bathroom) and then found a shadowy seat not far from the stables. I needed time to sit and think. By myself.
    Kalona said he wanted a truce with us, which I figured was pretty much bullpoopie. The truth probably was that he wanted to use Rephaim to infiltrate our ranks and mess us up—and that sounded like I thought the nerd herd and I were turning into a redneck Okie paramilitary group. I sighed. Why couldn’t those groups be more attractive? Which made me think about the inbred panther people on True Blood and how stupid Jason was. Jeesh, I needed to rewatch season three. I was totally behind on season four …
    “Hello, Zoey. Focus,” I told myself.
    So, Kalona is pretending like he wants a truce. Rephaim believes him because that kid has a bad case of I-want-my-dad-to-love-me. Stevie Rae is gonna be pissed when she finds out he’s been talking to Rephaim, which I totally understood. She wanted to protect Rephaim’s feelings, and Kalona + a new and improved Rephaim = train wreck.
    And then there was the whole bad red fledglings returning to school and pretending not to be raving lunatics and killers. Ugh, just ugh. Thinking about the fights in the halls that was going to cause gave me a headache.
    Throw into the mix the fact that Stark still wasn’t sleeping well, Neferet’s new Consort was a bull (Eew, that couldn’t mean what it sounded like it meant, could it?), and the Aurox kid/whatever who made me feel uber weird—scared and anxious and just downright freaked—and the whole school seemed to be a bomb waiting to explode.
    I stared up at the moon. “Plus,” I said quietly, as if speaking directly to the shining crescent, “in six days I have to go perform a cleansing ritual on my grandma’s land because my mom was killed there.”
    I