Tempted (40 page)

“She?” I squeaked. “As in Stevie Rae or Aphrodite?”

“Either or both. Vampyres can survive events that will kill their consorts.”

“Well, shit,” Heath murmured.

“My hands!” Aphrodite sobbed. “They’re burning!”

I couldn’t stand it anymore and went to her. She was still mostly in Darius’s arms. The warrior was sitting on the chaise, holding her tightly and speaking softly to her. His face was pale and grim. His eyes begged me to help her. I took one of Aphrodite’s hands in mine. It felt abnormally warm. “You’re not burning. Look at me, Aphrodite. It’s not happening to you. It’s happening to Stevie Rae.”

“Yeah, I know how you feel.” Heath was there beside me, crouching down on one knee and holding Aphrodite’s other hand. “It sucks
to be Imprinted and then have something bad happen to your vam-pyre. But it’s
not
you. It feels like it is, but it’s not.”

“This isn’t about Stevie Rae doing the nasty with someone else,” Aphrodite said, her voice all strangely tremble-y and weak.

Heath was unfazed. “What happens doesn’t matter. What matters is that it hurts you, and it does. You have to remember that you’re not really her, even though it feels like you’re so attached that you are a part of her.”

He seemed to get through to Aphrodite, and she stared up at him. “But I didn’t want this.” She hiccupped a little sob. “I didn’t want to be connected to Stevie Rae, and you want the thing with Zoey.”

Heath gripped her hand, and I saw her hold on to him for all she was worth. Everyone was watching them, but I think I was the only one who felt like an outsider.

“Want it or not, it’s too much sometimes. You have to learn to save some stuff inside you for yourself. You have to know you don’t really share a soul with her, no matter what the Imprint says.”

“That’s it!” Aphrodite pulled her hand from mine and covered Heath’s with it. “It feels like I’m sharing my soul. And I can’t stand it.”

“Yes, you can. Just remember it’s a feeling. It’s not real.”

I backed away a few steps.

“Aphrodite, you’re safe. We’re all here with you.” Damien touched her shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s okay. And your hair still looks really good,” Jack said.

I heard Aphrodite laugh—a little escaped bubble of normalcy in the middle of unbelievable turmoil. Then she said, “Wait, it’s better all of a sudden.”

“Good, ’cause you can’t die on us,” Shaunee said.

“Yeah, we need your shopping expertise,” Erin said. The Twins tried to sound all nonchalant and unaffected, but it was obvious they were worried about Aphrodite.

“Aphrodite will be fine. She’ll make it through this,” Stark said. He had moved to my side, as always. He was a steady presence there, a voice of calm in the storm.

“But what’s happening to Stevie Rae?” I whispered to him.

He put his arm around me and squeezed.

A beautiful vampyre with bright red hair entered the room, carrying a tray with an icy pitcher, a glass, and several folded, damp towels. She went straight to Erce, who was standing close to the chaise. Erce motioned for her to put the tray on the nearest coffee table. I noticed the new vamp reached into her pocket, brought out a pill bottle, and handed it to Erce before leaving the room as quietly as she’d entered it.

Erce shook a pill out of the bottle and approached Aphrodite. I’d moved before I realized what I was doing, and found myself grabbing her wrist.

“What are you giving her?”

Erce met my gaze. “Something to calm her, to decrease her anxiety.”

“But what if she loses contact with Stevie Rae because of it?”

“Would you have two dead friends or one? Choose, High Priestess.”

I swallowed down my shriek of primal rage. I didn’t want to lose either of my friends! But my mind understood that my best friend was an ocean and half a continent away, and Aphrodite dying with her was absolutely unnecessary. I let loose of Erce’s wrist.

“Here, child. Take this.” Erce gave Aphrodite the pill and helped Darius hold the glass of ice water to her lips. Aphrodite took the pill and gulped the water like she’d been running a marathon.

“Goddess, I hope it’s Xanax,” she said tremulously.

I thought things were getting better. Aphrodite had quit crying and my gang had dispersed themselves to well-upholstered chairs in the room. Except for Heath and Stark. Stark was by my side. Heath was still holding Aphrodite’s hand. He and Darius were talking quietly to her. Then Aphrodite cried out and pulled away from Heath and out of Darius’s arms, curling herself into a fetal position.

“I’m burning!”

Heath looked back at me. “Can’t you help her?”

“I’m channeling spirit. That’s all I can do. Stevie Rae’s back in Oklahoma: I can’t help her!” I practically screamed at Heath, my frustration spilling over into anger.

Stark put his arm around me. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t know how,” I said. “How can both of them make it through this?”

“How can a bad guy become the Warrior of a High Priestess?” he countered, and smiled. “Nyx—she has her hand on both of them. Trust your Goddess.”

So I stood there, channeling spirit, watching Aphrodite’s agony and trusting in my Goddess.

Suddenly Aphrodite screamed, grabbed at her back, cried, “Open and shield me!” And then she collapsed, sobbing with relief in Darius’s arms.

I approached her hesitantly and bent so I could see her face. “Hey, are you okay? Is Stevie Rae alive?”

Aphrodite’s tearstained face lifted so she could meet my eyes. “It’s over. She’s in contact with earth again. She’s alive.”

“Oh, thank the Goddess!” I said. I touched her shoulder lightly. “Are you okay, too?”

“I think so. No. Wait, I don’t know. I feel strange. Like my skin isn’t quite right.”

“Her vampyre has been damaged,” Erce said in a barely audible voice. “Stevie Rae may be safe now, but something is terribly wrong with her.”

“Drink this, love,” Darius said, taking a fresh glass from Erce and lifting it to Aphrodite’s lips. “This will help.”

Aphrodite gulped the water. It was a good thing Darius was helping her hold the glass, because she was shaking so hard there’s no way she could have kept from spilling the water without his help. Then she lay back, resting in his arms, breathing in shallow gulps, like she couldn’t take a deep breath without causing herself too much pain.

“I hurt all over,” I heard her whisper to Darius.

I walked to Erce, took her wrist, and pulled her out of Aphrodite’s hearing range. “Isn’t there a vamp healer you could send for?” I asked.

“She isn’t a vampyre, Priestess,” Erce said gently. “Our healer could not help her.”

“But she’s like this because of a vampyre.”

“That is the chance every consort takes. Their fate is bound to
their vampyre. Most often a consort dies long before the vampyre, and that is difficult enough. This situation occurs less often.”

“Stevie Rae isn’t dead,” I whispered severely.

“Not yet she isn’t, but by watching her consort I would say she is in grave danger.”

“She’s a consort by mistake,” I muttered. “Aphrodite didn’t mean for this to happen. Neither did Stevie Rae.”

“Intentional or not, it is still binding,” Erce said.

“Oh my Goddess!” Aphrodite sat straight up, pulling completely away from Darius. Her face was a mask of shock that morphed slowly to reflect first pain and then denial, and then she shivered once, so violently that I could hear her teeth chattering, before covering her face with her hands and dissolving into heart-wrenching tears.

Darius looked beseechingly at me. Steeling myself for hearing that Stevie Rae was dead, I went to Aphrodite and sat beside her on the chaise.

“Aphrodite?” I tried unsuccessfully to keep the tears from my voice.
How could Stevie Rae really be dead? What was I going to do now, a world away from her and completely in over my head?
“Is Stevie Rae dead?”

I could hear the Twins crying, and I saw Damien take Jack in his arms. Aphrodite lifted her face from her hands, and I was shocked to see her old, sarcastic grin shine through her tears.

“Dead? Hell no, she’s not dead. She’s just Imprinted with someone else!”

The earth swallowed her, and for a moment it seemed like everything would be okay. The cool darkness was a relief for her burned skin, and she moaned softly.

“Red One? Stevie Rae?”

It wasn’t until he spoke that she realized she was still locked in Rephaim’s arms. She unwrapped herself from him and moved away, only to cry out in pain as her back touched the earthen wall of the pocket in the ground her element had opened to shield her, and then closed again.

“Are you well? I-I cannot see you,” Rephaim said.

“I’m okay. I think.” Her voice surprised her. It sounded so weak, so outside the norm that it was her first hint that even though she’d escaped the sun, she might not have escaped its effects.

“I cannot see anything,” he said.

“It’s because the earth sealed itself over us to shield me from the sun.”

“We’re trapped here?” His voice wasn’t panicky, but it wasn’t exactly calm either.

“No, I can get us out whenever I want,” she explained. Then, on second thought, she added, “And, well, the earth over us isn’t very deep. If I drop dead you could dig out pretty easily. How are you? That wing must really hurt.”

“Do you feel as if you might die?” he asked, ignoring her question about his wing.

“I don’t think so. Okay, actually, I don’t know. I feel kinda funny.”

“Funny? Explain that.”

“Like I’m not really attached to my body.”

“Does your body hurt?”

Stevie Rae thought about it, and was surprised by what she discovered. “No. Actually, I don’t hurt at all.” It was weird, though, that her voice kept getting weaker and weaker.

Suddenly his hand was touching her face, sliding down to her neck and arm and—

“Ouch! You’re hurting me.”

“You’re burned badly. I can feel it. You need help.”

“Can’t leave here or I’ll finish burning up,” she said, wondering why the earth seemed to be spinning around beneath her.

“What can I do to help you?”

“Well, you can get a big tarp or somethin’ and put it over me while you take me to the blood bank downtown. That sounds really good right now.” Stevie Rae lay there, thinking she’d never been so thirsty in her life. She wondered, with a detached sense of curiosity, if she was really going to die. It seemed a shame, after all that Rephaim had gone through to help her.

“Blood is what you need?”

“Blood is all I need. It’s what makes me tick, which is more than kinda gross, but still. It’s the truth. Cross my heart and hope to die.” She giggled a little hysterically, and then sobered. “Wait, that’s not really very funny.”

“If you don’t get blood, you’ll die?”

“I think I might,” she said, finding it hard to care too much.

“Then if blood will heal you, take mine. I owe you a life. That’s why I saved you on the roof, but if you die here, you die without my debt being repaid. So if you need blood, take mine,” he repeated.

“But you don’t smell right,” she blurted.

From the darkness he sounded irritated and offended. “That is what the red fledglings said, too. My blood does not smell right to you because I’m not meant to be one of your prey. I am the son of an immortal. I’m not your victim.”

“Hey, I don’t have victims; not anymore,” she protested weakly.

“The truth still holds. I smell different to you because I
am
different. I was not created to be your lunch.”

“I never said you were.” She meant her words to come out sounding snappy and kinda defensive. Instead her voice was faint, and her head felt strangely huge, like it was going to pop off her neck at any second and float up through the ground and into the clouds like a giant birthday balloon.

“Right-smelling or not, it’s blood. I owe you a life. So you will drink, and you will live.”

Stevie Rae cried out as Rephaim’s hand found her again and he pulled her against his body. She felt the skin of her burned arms and shoulders rip off and mix with the earth. Then she was resting on the softness of his feathers. She sighed deeply. It wouldn’t be so bad to die here in the earth, in a nest of feathers. As long as she didn’t move, it didn’t even hurt much.

She felt Rephaim move, though. And realized he’d sliced his beak across the gash that Kurtis had made in his bicep. It had stopped bleeding, but this new laceration immediately began to weep, filling their little pocket in the earth with the thick scarlet scent of his immortal blood.

Then he shifted again and suddenly his bleeding arm was pressed against her lips.

“Drink,” he said harshly. “Help me rid myself of this debt.”

She drank, automatically at first. His blood had, after all, been stinky. It’d smelled wrong, wrong, wrong.