"Yes. I know." He caressed the side of her head, loving the softness of her hair, and let his fingers trail slowly down her neck and shoulder.

"Rephaim, please listen to me." Stevie Rae took his face between her hands and made him stop touching her hair and her skin.

"I'm listening to you." Reluctantly, he focused his attention on her words.

"I've been thinkin' that maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do need to stay here and not go to school, and for sure not go to whatever ritual we do out at Z's g-ma's farm, or at least you need to stay away until we figure out more of the details about Aphrodite's vision." Rephaim took her hands from his face and held them in his own. "Stevie Rae, if I begin hiding now, when will it end?"

"I don't know, but I do know you'll be alive."

"There are worse things than death. Being trapped by your fear of it is one of those things." He smiled. "Actually, I find the whole thing curiously positive. The vision means that I am truly human."

"What the heck do you mean? Of course you're human."

"I look human, or at least I do until the sun rises. Being mortal makes me truly what I appear to be."

"But doesn't knowing your immortal blood is gone make you sad?"

"No, it makes me a little more normal."

Stevie Rae's bright blue eyes widened. "You know what else it makes you? Not being part of Kalona's blood anymore." Rephaim tried to understand Stevie Rae's denial of his father. He really did, but he couldn't help the defensive, almost angry feeling that came over him when she tried to push him away from the winged immortal.

"Do you believe it takes more than blood to make a father?" He spoke slowly, trying to reason through his feelings and find the truth beneath them.

"Yep, absolutely," she said.

"Then it stands to reason that the absence of blood does not automatically unmake a father, too." Before she could rebut what he was saying, he continued, "Kalona is immortal, but I was by his side long enough to glimpse humanity within that immortality."

"Rephaim, I don't want to argue about your daddy. I know you think I hate him, but that's not it. I hate that he hurts you."

"I understand that." He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of girl and shampoo and soap. "But you must let me find my own way in this. He is my father. Nothing will change that."

"Okay, I'll try to lay off the speeches about staying away from Kalona, but I want you to promise me you'll think about staying away from Dragon-

at least for a little while."

"That is an easy promise to make. I already try to avoid the Sword Master because I know the sight of me causes him pain, but I will not hide. I cannot hide from Dragon any more than I can hide from my father."

She pulled back and looked at him. "We're in this together, aren't we?"

He met her gaze. "We are. Always."

"All right. Let's stay together, even if it's dangerous. I'll protect you," she said.

"And I will protect you," he agreed. Rephaim kissed her then, long and slow. He held her close for just a few moments more, letting her scent and her sweetness blanket him.

"You have to go now?" She spoke with her face buried in his chest.

"You know I do."

"I'm gonna quit asking that I go up there with you 'cause I know you don't want me to, but I want you to know that if you ever change your mind I'll be with you until the very end. 'Cause even when you're a bird, you're my bird." That made him chuckle. "I never thought of it like that, but I am your bird, and your bird needs to go out to the morning sky and stretch his wings."

"Okie dokie." He liked that she let go of him first and beamed an enthusiastic, if not totally believable smile at him. "I'll be here when you fly home."

"Good, because I will always fly home to you." He kissed her quickly, pulled on his shirt, and left their room. He was glad he'd left before his skin started that awful prickling. He hated the panicked feeling it gave him to run through the tunnels, yearning harder and harder for the aboveground world and the beckoning sky.

Just a little way from the last tunnel junction before the basement exit, he saw something move within the shadows and he automatically took a defensive stance.

"Hey, relax. It's just me."

He did relax as he recognized Shaunee's voice, followed closely by the girl herself as she emerged from the right-hand branch of the tunnel. She looked disheveled and was carrying a large plastic basket.