And if he lost her forever, his world would go back to the dark, lonely, joyless place it had been before he'd known her.

Rephaim couldn't bear that.

He didn't call on his father's blood to lead him to Stevie Rae. Rephaim did the opposite. From deep within him, he conjured an image of a sweet-faced Cherokee maiden who hadn't deserved to die in a flood of blood and pain. Keeping the girl he'd dreamed as his mother in his mind, he flew on instinct, following his heart.

Rephaim's heart led him to the depot.

The sight of the place sickened him. Not simply because he remembered the rooftop and how close Stevie Rae had come to death. He hated the place because he could feel her there-inside-under the earth, and he knew she was in another's arms.

Rephaim tore the grate from the opening. Without hesitation, he strode through the bas.e.m.e.nt. Following the link that bound him to her, he entered the familiar tunnels. His breath came hard and fast. His blood pounded through his body, fueling his anger and despair.

When he finally found her, the boy was atop her, rutting against Stevie Rae, oblivious to everything else in the world. What a fool he was. Rephaim should have hurled him from her. He wanted to. The Raven Mocker in him wanted to slam the fledgling against the wall again and again until he was battered and b.l.o.o.d.y and no longer a threat.

The man within him wanted to weep.

Flooded with feelings he could neither understand nor control, he found himself frozen in place, staring, with horror and hatred as well as desire and despair. As he watched, Stevie Rae readied herself to drink the boy's blood, and Rephaim knew two things with utter certainty: first, what she was doing would break their Imprint. Second, he did not want their Imprint to be broken.

Without conscious thought, he shouted, "Do not do this to us, Stevie Rae!"

The boy's response was quicker than Stevie Rae's. He leaped up, pushing her naked body behind him.

"Get the f.u.c.k outta here, you freak!" The boy kept himself positioned between Rephaim and Stevie Rae.

The sight of the fledgling shielding her, protecting his his Stevie Rae from Stevie Rae from him him, sent a wave of possessive fury through Rephaim.

"Begone, boy! You're not needed here!" Rephaim crouched defensively and began moving slowly toward him.

"What the-?" Stevie Rae said, shaking her head as if she was trying to clear it while she grabbed Dallas's shirt from the floor and hastily pulled it on to cover herself.

"Stay behind me, Stevie Rae. I won't let it get you."

Rephaim stalked the boy, following him as he moved back, pushing Stevie Rae with him. Rephaim saw her eyes widen as she peered around the boy and finally truly saw him.

"No!" she cried. "No, you can't be here!"

Her words stabbed him.

"But I am here!" His anger was at the boiling point. The boy kept moving back, keeping Stevie Rae behind him. Following him, Rephaim entered the kitchen. As he did, a flickering motion caught his attention, and he glanced upward.

Darkness writhed in a sick black pool that clung to the ceiling.

Rephaim wrenched his attention back to Stevie Rae and the fledgling. He wouldn't think of Darkness now. He couldn't even consider the possibility that the white bull had returned to claim the rest of his debt.

"Stay back!" the boy cried. Unbelievably, the fledgling made a shooing motion at Rephaim, as if he were an annoying bird that had fluttered into someone's home.

"Sssstep aside! You are keeping me from what's mine!" Rephaim hated to hear the b.e.s.t.i.a.l hiss in his voice, but he couldn't help it. The d.a.m.ned boy was pushing him to the edge of his patience. aside! You are keeping me from what's mine!" Rephaim hated to hear the b.e.s.t.i.a.l hiss in his voice, but he couldn't help it. The d.a.m.ned boy was pushing him to the edge of his patience.

"Rephaim, just go. I'm fine. Dallas isn't doin' anything bad to me."

"Just go? Leave you?" the words burst from Rephaim. "How can I?"

"You're not supposed to be here!" Stevie Rae shouted, looking like she was on the verge of tears.

"How could I not be? How could you believe I wouldn't know what you were about to do?"

"Get outta here!"

"You mean run away? Like you did from me? No. I won't do that, Stevie Rae. I choose not not to do that." to do that."

The boy had reached the wall. While he looked from Rephaim to Stevie Rae, he was feeling behind him for cords that poked from a hole that had been chiseled there.

"You know each other. You really do," the boy said.

"Of courssse courssse we do, fool!" Rephaim hissed again, hating the ungovernable beast in his voice. we do, fool!" Rephaim hissed again, hating the ungovernable beast in his voice.

"How?" The fledgling hurled the word at Stevie Rae.

"Dallas, I can explain."

"Good!" Rephaim shouted as if she'd spoke to him and not the fledgling. "I want you to explain what happened today."

"Rephaim." Stevie Rae looked around Dallas to him and shook her head like she was beyond frustrated. "This is so not the right time."

"You know each other."

Rephaim noticed the change in the boy's voice before Stevie Rae did. The fledgling's tone had hardened-gone cold and mean. The Darkness above them quivered as if in gleeful antic.i.p.ation.

"Yeah, okay, we do. But I can explain. See, he-"

"You've been with him all along."

Stevie Rae frowned. "All along? No. It's just that I found him when he was real hurt; I didn't know what-"

"All this time I've been treatin' you like you was some kind of queen or somethin', like you was a real real High Priestess," he interrupted Stevie Rae again. High Priestess," he interrupted Stevie Rae again.

Stevie Rae looked shocked and hurt. "I am am a real High Priestess. But like I was tryin' to tell ya, I found Rephaim when he was hurt bad, and I just couldn't let him die." a real High Priestess. But like I was tryin' to tell ya, I found Rephaim when he was hurt bad, and I just couldn't let him die."

Taking advantage of the fact that the boy's attention was completely focused on Stevie Rae, Rephaim inched closer.

The Darkness above them thickened.

"He was part of what almost killed you in the circle!"

"He was what saved me in the circle!" Stevie Rae shouted back at Dallas. "If he hadn't shown up, that white bull would've drained me dry."

Her words didn't faze the boy. "You've been keeping this thing thing a secret. You've been lyin' to everybody!" a secret. You've been lyin' to everybody!"

"Well, heck, Dallas! I didn't know what else to do!"

"You lied to me, you wh.o.r.e!"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" Stevie Rae slapped him. Hard.

Dallas staggered back half a step. "What the f.u.c.k has he done to you?"

"You mean besides savin' my life twice? Nothin'!" she yelled.

"He's messed your head up completely!" Dallas yelled. The Darkness above them poured down from the ceiling, like it had suddenly found a weak point in a dam. It slicked around Dallas, covering his head and shoulders, swirling around his waist with a sickening familiarity that reminded Rephaim of razor-edged snakes. But Darkness didn't cut Dallas. Instead, he seemed oblivious to the glistening blackness that now coated him.

"I'm in charge of my own mind. He hasn't done anything to me," Stevie Rae said. Her eyes widened, like she finally noticed the Darkness. She took a step back from the boy, like she didn't want to be tainted by what was touching him. "Dallas, listen to me. Think. You know me. This isn't what it seems."

Rephaim could see the change come over Dallas. It was that withdrawal from him that did it-that coupled with the influence of the Darkness that encased him. Totally incensed, the fledgling screamed, "He's made you a G.o.dd.a.m.ned wh.o.r.e and a liar! You need some sense knocked into you, girl!" Dallas lifted his hand like he was going to hit Stevie Rae.

Rephaim didn't hesitate. He leaped, closing the s.p.a.ce between him and the boy, knocking him away from Stevie Rae and taking his place in front of her.

"Don't hurt him!" Stevie Rae was saying as she grabbed Rephaim's arm and kept him from making another strike against the boy. "He's just freaked-out. He wouldn't really hurt me."

Rephaim let her pull him back. Turning to her, he said, "I think you underestimate the boy."

"She d.a.m.n sure does," Dallas said grimly.

Rephaim didn't know where the pain came from. He only knew the bright white heat of it. His body convulsed. His back bowed in agony. Dimly, through a graying veil, he could see Dallas, eyes glowing with a scarlet hue that was impossibly bright, holding one of the wires that protruded from the wall.

"Rephaim!" Stevie Rae cried.

She started to reach for him, but then Rephaim saw her pull back. Instead, she ran to Dallas.

"Stop it! Let him go," she told the boy, pulling on his arm.

His blood red eyes skewered her. "I'm gonna fry him. And then whatever weird control he has over you is gonna be gone. You and me can be together, and I won't tell anyone s.h.i.t about what happened here, long as you're my girl."

With a detached sense of understanding, Rephaim noted that Darkness was no longer present on the boy's body. It had soaked into him-it had claimed him. It augmented whatever strength the fledgling wielded.

Rephaim felt sure Dallas was going to kill him.

"Earth, come to me. I need you."

He heard Stevie Rae's words through the flickering of his consciousness, like she was candlelight trying to reach him through a gale wind. With a mighty effort, Rephaim focused his vision on her. Their eyes met, and her words came to him, suddenly clear and strong and sure.

"Protect him from Dallas because Rephaim belongs to me."

She made a motion toward Rephaim, like she was hurling something at him-and she was. A green glow slammed into his body, throwing him backward and breaking whatever it was that Dallas had been channeling into him. Breathing hard, he lay on the ground, crumpled in a heap, as he absorbed what was becoming the familiar, gentle touch of healing earth.

Dallas turned to Stevie Rae.

"You just said that thing belongs to you."

The fledgling's voice was like death. Rephaim pressed himself against the ground, opening his shocked body to the earth, willing it to enter him-to heal him enough so that he could reach Stevie Rae.

"Yeah. He does. It's hard to explain, and I get that you're p.i.s.sed. But Rephaim belongs to me." Her eyes skirted Dallas and met his again. "And I guess I belong to him, weird as that sounds."

"It doesn't sound weird. It sounds f.u.c.king sick."

Before Rephaim could get to his feet, Dallas pointed a finger at her. There was a deafening crack, and Stevie Rae was suddenly standing in the middle of a glowing green circle. Her brow was furrowed, and she shook her head slowly back and forth. "You tried to shock me? You really wanted to hurt me, Dallas?"

"You chose that thing over me!" he screamed at her.

"I did what I thought was right!"

"You know what, if that's what's right, I don't want nothin' to do with it! I want the opposite!"

As soon as Dallas spoke those words, he cried out and, dropping the wire he'd been clutching in his fist, the fledgling fell to his knees and crumpled, facedown.

"Dallas? Are you okay?" Stevie Rae made a hesitant move toward him.

"Stay away from him," Rephaim rasped as he laboriously gained his feet.

Stevie Rae paused, and then instead of continuing to Dallas, she hurried over to Rephaim, pulling his arm around her shoulders. "Are you okay? You look kinda fried."

"Fried?" Despite everything, she made him want to laugh. "What does that even mean?"

"This." Stevie Rae touched one of the feathers on his chest. He was surprised to see that it looked singed. "You're a little crispy around the edges."

"You touch it. You probably f.u.c.k it, too! d.a.m.n, I'm glad it stopped me before we finished doin' it. I ain't gonna ever be sloppy seconds to a freak!"

"Dallas, that's just such a load a'-" Stevie Rae began, but when she looked at Dallas, her words stopped short.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm no stupid fledgling anymore," he said.

Brand-new red tattoos in the shape of striking whips framed Dallas's face. Rephaim thought they looked disturbingly like the tendrils of Darkness that had entrapped Stevie Rae and him within the circle. His eyes glowed an even brighter red, and his body seemed to grow larger, swelling with newly gained power.

"Ohmygood ness, ness," Stevie Rae said. "You've Changed!"

"In a bunch of different ways!"

"Dallas, you gotta listen to me. Remember Darkness? I saw it grab-bin' for you. Please try to think. Please don't let it get you."

"It get get me me? You can say that when you're standing beside that thing? Ah, h.e.l.l no! I'm never gonna listen to your lies again. And I'm gonna make sure no one else does, either!" He sneered the words at her, his voice filled with anger and hate.

As he stood up and began reaching for the wires he'd used before to channel power, Stevie Rae moved. Pulling Rephaim with her, Stevie Rae backed from the kitchen. Stepping outside the entrance, she lifted her hand, took a deep breath, and said, "Earth, close this for me, please."

"No!" Dallas yelled.

Rephaim got a brief glimpse of him grabbing the wire and pointing at them, and then with a sound like the soughing of wind through autumn boughs, the earth rained down in front of them, closing the tunnel entrance to the kitchen and shielding them from the wrath of Darkness.

"Can you walk okay?" Stevie Rae asked.

"Yes. I'm not hurt badly. Or at least I'm not anymore. Your earth made sure of that," he said, looking down at her where she stood small, but proud and powerful in the circle of his arm.