Destined (42 page)

I know it was moronic, but I didn’t move. Instead I kept staring into his eyes and sounding way more calm and certain than I felt as I said, “You won’t hurt me. I know you won’t.”

At the last instant Aurox veered to the side. Missing my body by inches, he passed so close to me that I could smell the blood and death on him, and feel the brush of his skin. Then he disappeared into the night.

I don’t know whether it was adrenaline or stupidity that had kept me on my feet up ’til then, but both suddenly deserted me and I went down smack on my butt. The green wall disappeared and Stark ran to me.

“Are you hurt? Are you okay? What the hell is wrong with you?” Stark crouched beside me and fired questions at me as he ran his hands all over my body. “Are you bleeding?”

I grabbed his hands, holding tight to him, hoping he couldn’t tell how badly my own hands were shaking. “I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re stupid. Really,” Aphrodite said, looking down her nose at me. “Seriously, Z. It’s either that or you’re delusional. Bullboy is not Heath.”

“Hell no he’s not Heath,” Stark said, looking at Aphrodite like she’d lost her mind.

So he didn’t hear me. Good, maybe no one else heard me. I can handle Aphrodite. Later.
Just then I ignored her, which was easy because Grandma was hurrying up looking as worried as Stark. “Did he harm you?”

I tugged on Stark’s hands and he helped me up. Then I hugged Grandma. “No, I’m okay.”

She gave me a reassuring squeeze and
didn’t
call me stupid. Instead she said, “Rephaim is not.”

“Uh-oh.” Damien, Erin, and Shaunee had joined Stevie Rae where she knelt at Rephaim’s side. We started over to them. Under her breath, Aphrodite said, “This is gonna be bad.
Really
bad.”

I meant to keep my eyes from looking at Dragon’s body, but they didn’t listen to me. He’d fallen not far from Rephaim. Just seeing his face I would have thought he was sleeping. I mean, except for the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth he actually looked more at peace than he had since Anastasia’s death. It was his body that was a disaster. Both arms had wounds in them. Aurox’s horn had ripped through the fabric of his pants leaving one of his thighs a hamburger meat–looking mess. His chest was a terrible thing to see. His ribs had splintered around the hole. From his chest down, blood was everywhere.

I was standing there, staring, when Thanatos’s velvet cloak swirled into view. She’d unclasped the brooch that held it over her shoulders and, with a flourish, the High Priestess covered Dragon’s body. She had an odd expression on her face, and I was trying to figure out what was going on, when she spoke.

“You may move on now. You were destined to either die this night with your oath reclaimed, your path true—or to emerge from this night with your body alive, but your spirit dead to all that is honorable.” Thanatos smiled, and I realized her expression looked odd because she was talking to the air
above
Dragon’s body. “By sacrificing yourself for Rephaim you found mercy again, and through it, our Goddess.” Thanatos made a sweeping gesture up with her arm, and I thought she looked incredibly graceful and totally beautiful. “There is your path. Move on to the Otherworld and your new future.”

Then I gasped as the sky above Thanatos shivered. Night parted and a familiar tree came into view. It was green and lush, a rowan and hawthorn twined together. The pieces of cloth that were tied to its massive umbrella of branches kept changing colors and lengths as they waved gently in a warm breeze that smelled of earth and moss and springtime.

“The Goddess’s hanging tree,” Stark whispered.

“You can see it, too?” I murmured to him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“So can I,” Aphrodite said.

“As can I,” Darius said—and all around me my friends nodded and whispered and stared in wonderment as a girl stepped from behind the tree. She was blond and smiling, and looked super gorgeous in a long skirt the color of blue topaz that had glass beads and shells and white leather fringe all around its hem and the neckline of the sleeveless, matching top. She was carrying a single sunflower.

“It’s Anastasia!” Damien said.

“She’s so young,” I blurted, and then closed my mouth, worried that I’d say something to shatter the vision.

But Anastasia didn’t seem to see us. Her attention was completely captivated by the young man who strode into view. His hair was long and thick and tied back and his brown eyes sparkled with unshed tears.

“It’s Dragon,” Shaunee said.

“No,” Thanatos corrected her. “It’s Bryan, her Bryan.”

The young Bryan Lankford touched Anastasia’s face reverently. “My own,” he said.

“
My
own,” she said. “I knew you would find yourself again.”

“And in doing so, I found you.” Smiling, he pulled her into his arms and as their lips met the sky shimmered again and the doorway to the Otherworld closed.

Stark handed me a balled-up Kleenex he pulled from his jeans pocket. I blew my nose.

“Is Rephaim gonna die now, too?”

Stevie Rae’s question pulled us firmly back to earth. I turned to see that she was still kneeling beside Rephaim. I was close enough now to see that he was bleeding from a deep gash in his head. He looked pale and still—too still.

“Your affinity is Death,” Stevie Rae continued. Wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand, she stared at Thanatos. “So, tell me the truth. Is Rephaim gonna die?”

There was a giant whooshing sound and Kalona dropped from the sky. Stark and Darius instantly raised their weapons and moved to stand between Aphrodite and me, and the immortal. But Kalona didn’t even glance at us. He hurried to Rephaim.

“You’re too late!” Stevie Rae yelled at him. “I called, but you came too late.”

Kalona looked from his son to Stevie Rae. “I did not hesitate. I came at your call.” Then he utterly shocked me by kneeling beside Stevie Rae. Slowly, he reached around her and touched his son’s face. “He lives.”

“Not for long,” Thanatos said gently. “Take what time is left to say your farewells. Death has marked Rephaim for her own.”

Kalona’s amber gaze seemed to skewer the High Priestess. The power in his voice was as terrible as was his grief. “Death cannot have him! He is
my
son, and I am an immortal. He cannot die.”

“Did you not renounce him and name him no longer your child?”

The pain that flashed across Kalona’s face was heartbreaking. I could see that he was trying to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

Stevie Rae touched the immortal’s arm. His gaze turned to her.

“We all say things we don’t mean sometimes, ’specially when we’re mad. If you didn’t mean it, why don’t you try just sayin’ you’re sorry?” She looked from the immortal to his son. “Tell Rephaim. Maybe he’ll hear you.” Then she scooted back, leaving Kalona by himself, kneeling beside Rephaim.

Kalona leaned forward and pulled his son to him, so that Rephaim rested across his lap. The immortal looked down at him for what seemed like a very long time and then, in a voice unsteady with emotion he said, “Rephaim, I am sorry. You are my son. You will always be my son. Forgive me for my anger and my foolishness.” And then Nyx’s fallen Warrior closed his eyes, bowed his head, and added, “Goddess, please. Do not let him pay for my mistakes.”

A single tear tracked down Kalona’s cheek and fell onto Rephaim’s forehead and the bloody wound that gaped there. There was a flash of light, so brilliant and pure that I was blinded for a moment. As I blinked the dots from my vision I saw Rephaim take a deep breath and open his eyes. The gash on his forehead was gone. He looked a little baffled. Kalona moved awkwardly to help him sit up on his own, which Rephaim did easily. Rephaim’s smile was tentative, but he sounded perfectly normal when he said, “Hello, Father. When did you get here?”

Stevie Rae wrapped her arms around Rephaim and hugged him hard, but her face was tilted up so that it was obvious she was speaking to Kalona when she said, “Just in time. Your daddy got here just in time.”

Kalona stood. At that moment he wasn’t an alluring, powerful, downright scary immortal. He was just a dad who didn’t have a clue what to say to his kid.

“The Red One—” Kalona paused, and then began again. “Stevie Rae called. I came.”

First Rephaim smiled, and then his happiness faltered as he obviously remembered. “Dragon. Where is he? He wasn’t trying to hurt me. I know he wasn’t.”

Stevie Rae bit her lip. Tears spilled from her eyes as she said, “Yeah, we know. Dragon saved you from Aurox.”

“Aurox? Neferet’s creature? He was here?” Kalona asked.

“He was. He tried to kill your son and disrupt the reveal ritual. Dragon Lankford gave his life to save him,” Thanatos said.

All of our eyes went to Dragon’s shrouded body.

I didn’t know what to say. How the hell was I going to explain to them that I’d really seen Heath’s soul inside Aurox? And what the hell was I going to do about it?

“You must know that Neferet has allied herself with Darkness,” Kalona said.

“I do,” Thanatos agreed. “And the Vampyre High Council will now know it, as well.”

“What’s going to happen?” I asked Thanatos.

“Neferet will be stripped of her title of High Priestess and shunned by all vampyres,” Thanatos said.

“She will fight,” Kalona said grimly. “And she has powerful allies in Darkness, her creature, and the Red Ones who follow her.”

“Then we will defend ourselves,” Thanatos said.

“Does that mean you are staying in Tulsa? Or are you going to return to your Italian isle and leave these children to battle Darkness?” Kalona asked.

Thanatos narrowed her eyes at him. “The Tulsa House of Night has a new High Priestess, and she is Death.”

Kalona stared at Thanatos, then he looked from her to his son. I could see the indecision on his face and I figured he was getting ready to fly away—actually the thought passed my mind that even though he’d said sorry to Rephaim and seemed to have a truce with us, we couldn’t
really
be sure he wasn’t still involved with Neferet. I mean, I’d believed in him before and Heath had died because of it.

But when the immortal finally moved it wasn’t because he was flying away. He strode over to Thanatos, and then he knelt on one knee and said, “It seems your House of Night will also need a new Sword Master. I pledge myself body, heart, and soul to protect you, High Priestess. I believe it is just that I serve as Death’s Warrior. Will you accept my oath?”

“Holy shit!” I heard Aphrodite murmur.

Beside me Stark moved restlessly and I saw him share a
look
with Darius.

“I do accept your oath, Kalona, and I will hold it as binding.”

Kalona bowed his head and fisted his hand over his heart saying, “Thank you, High Priestess.” When he stood, his gaze went directly to his son.

Rephaim’s smile was brilliant, even though his face was washed with tears. “You did the right thing,” he told his father.

Kalona nodded. “Yes. At last.”

“Well, then. Shall we return to our House of Night and see what awaits us there?” Thanatos asked.

We all nodded, even though I know I wasn’t the only one whose stomach hurt and who absolutely wanted to run screaming
from
whatever we were going to find back in Tulsa.

But none of us ran. None of us said much of anything as we followed Death and her winged Warrior to the bus. Darius and Stark carried Dragon’s cloak-wrapped body. I kissed Grandma good-bye and stared out of the bus’s window as we drove past the circle that had been blighted by Darkness and which was now filled to bursting with lavender plants in full, beautiful bloom.

“Wait,” I called to Darius. “Stop the bus.”

I opened my window and heard my friends all do the same. Then, as one, we breathed deeply, inhaling the magickal scent of reblessed lavender.

“Look!” Stevie Rae cried, pointing above the circle.

I looked up and there, hovering, was our Goddess. She was dressed in robes the color of night and wore a headdress decorated with stars. Her smile took in us all, and with the fragrance of the flowers, her words drifted through the bus:

Hold to the memory of the healing that happened here this night.

You will need that strength and peace for the upcoming fight.

I closed my eyes, bowed my head and thought,
ah, hell …

THE END

For now …

ALSO BY
P. C. CAST
and
KRISTIN CAST

Marked

Betrayed

Chosen

Untamed

Hunted

Tempted

Burned

Awakened

The Fledgling Handbook 101

Dragon’s Oath

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

#1
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author
P. C. CAST
is an award-winning fantasy and paranormal romance author, as well as an experienced speaker and teacher. Her novels have been awarded YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, and have received the prestigious Oklahoma Medallion, Beacon, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, and Affaire de Coeur Awards. She lives in Oklahoma, with lots of dogs, cats, horses, and a burro.
KRISTIN CAST
is a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author who teams with her mother to write the House of Night series. She has stand-alone stories in several anthologies, as well as editorial credits. Currently Kristin attends college in Oklahoma, where she is focusing on attaining her dream of opening a no-kill dog-rescue shelter in midtown Tulsa.