"Please. Don't let him hurt you, too," she told him.

It was those words - those selfless, heartfelt, truthful words that made Rephaim's decision for him.

"I said she belongs to me. You scent her on me; you know it's true. So I can pay her debt for her,"

Rephaim said.

"No!" Stevie Rae cried.

"Think carefully before you make such an offer, son of Kalona. I will not kill her. It is a blood debt, not a life debt, she owes me. I will return your vampyre to you, eventually, when I am done tasting of her."

The bull's words sickened Rephaim. Like a bloated leech, Darkness was going to feed from Stevie Rae.

He was going to lick her slashed skin and taste the copper saltiness of her lifeblood - of their lifeblood, joined forever because of their Imprint.

"Take my blood instead. I'll pay her debt," Rephaim said.

"You are your father's son. Like him, you have chosen to champion a being who can never give you what it is you seek most. So be it. I accept payment of the vampyre's debt from you. Release her!" the bull commanded.

The razorlike threads of darkness withdrew from Stevie Rae's body and, as if they had been the only things keeping her on her feet, she crumbled to the blood-soaked grass.

Before he could move to help her, a dark tendril, cobralike, lifted from the smoke and shadows surrounding the bull. With a swiftness that was otherworldly, it lashed out, wrapping around Rephaim's ankle.

The Raven Mocker didn't scream, though he wanted to. Instead, focusing through the blinding pain, he shouted at Stevie Rae, "Get back to the House of Night!"

He saw Stevie Rae try to stand, but she slipped on her own blood and lay on the ground, crying softly.

Their eyes met, and Rephaim lurched toward her, spreading his wings, determined to break from the clinging thread and at least carry her clear of the circle.

Another tendril snaked out and whipped around the thick bicep of Rephaim's newly healed arm, slicing more than an inch into the muscle. Yet another came from the shadows behind him, and Rephaim couldn't help screaming in agony as the thing curled around his wings where they met his back, ripping and tearing and pinning him against the ground.

"Rephaim!" Stevie Rae sobbed.

He couldn't see the bull, but he felt the earth tremble as the creature approached him. He turned his head, and, through a blur of pain, he saw Stevie Rae trying to crawl toward him. He wanted to tell her to stop - to say something to her that would make her run away. Then, as the searing pain of the bull's tongue touched the wound at his ankle, Rephaim realized Stevie Rae wasn't really trying to crawl to him.

She was on her hands and knees, crablike, pressing down against the earth. Her arms were trembling, and her body was still bleeding, but her face was getting its color back. She's pulling power from the earth, Rephaim realized with an incredible sense of relief. That would make her strong enough to get out of the circle and find her way to safety.

"I'd forgotten the sweetness of immortal blood. " The bull's decayed breath washed over Rephaim. "

The vampyre's blood held only a hint of this. I believe I will drink and drink from you, son of Kalona. You did, indeed, borrow power from Darkness tonight, so you have a greater debt to pay than just hers. "

Rephaim refused to look at the creature. Held captive by the cutting threads, his body was lifted and turned so that his cheek pressed against the earth. He kept his gaze focused on Stevie Rae as the bull stood over him and began to drink from the wound at the base of his bleeding wings.

Agony like he'd never before felt assaulted his body. He didn't want to scream. He didn't want to writhe in pain. But he couldn't help it. Stevie Rae's eyes were all that kept him tethered to consciousness as Darkness fed from him, violating him over and over again.

When Stevie Rae stood, lifting her arms, Rephaim thought he was hallucinating because she looked so strong and powerful and so very, very angry. She clutched something in her hand - a long braid that was smoking.

"I did it before. I'll do it again."

Stevie Rae's voice came to him as if from a long way off, but it sounded strong, too. Rephaim wondered why the bull didn't hear her and stop her, but the creature's moans of pleasure and the piercing pain that radiated from his back gave Rephaim the answer. The bull didn't consider Stevie Rae a threat, and he was fixated on consuming the intoxicating blood of immortality. Let him keep taking from me; let her escape, Rephaim prayed silently to whichever of the gods might deign to hear him.

"My circle's unbroken," Stevie Rae was speaking quickly and clearly. "Rephaim and this disgusting bull came at my command. So I command again, through the power of the earth, I call the other bull. The one who fights this one, and I'll pay whatever I have to, just get this thing off my Raven Mocker!"