"No. You remain here. Continue to gather my sons. Stay hidden and wait."

"Wait?"

"For my call. When I rule those who remain loyal to me will be by my side. And those who have not will be destroyed, no matter who they are. Do you understand, Nisroc?"

"Yessss."

Rephaim

"Your skin is so soft." Rephaim ran his fingertips down the curved slope of Stevie Rae's naked back, marveling at the joy it gave him to be able to hold her in his arms and press his body-his fully human body-against hers.

"I like it that you think I'm so special," Stevie Rae said, smiling up at him a little shyly.

"You are special," he said. Then he sighed and began to gently untangle himself from her. "It's close to dawn. I have to go above ground." Stevie Rae sat up and hugged the thick comforter that covered the bed in her surprisingly pretty little tunnel room to cover her bare br**sts. She blinked big blue eyes at him. Her hair was tousled and curly and framed her face making her look like a young, innocent maiden. Rephaim pulled on his jeans, thinking she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. And her next words pierced his heart.

"I don't want you to go, Rephaim."

"You know I don't want to, either, but I must."

"C-can't you just stay here? With me?" she asked hesitantly.

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed they'd so recently shared. He took her hand in his and threaded their fingers together. "Would you cage me?"

He felt her body jerk as if in shock-or was it revulsion?

"No! I didn't mean it like that. I just thought, well, that you could maybe try bein' here for a day. I mean, what if we just kept holdin' hands, like this, until you were done changin'?"

He smiled sadly at her. "Stevie Rae, a raven doesn't have any hands. These," he pressed his palms against hers, "will very shortly be claws. I will, very shortly, be a beast. I will not know you."

"Okay, so, what if I kept my arms around you? Maybe you wouldn't be scared then. Maybe you'd just curl up beside me and stay here and sleep, too. I mean, ya have to sleep sometime, don't ya?"

Rephaim thought about it before he answered her, and then began to slowly try to explain the unexplainable. "I must sleep, but Stevie Rae, I do not remember anything from the time I'm a raven." Anything except the agony of the physical change and the almost unbearable joy of the wind against my wings- but he could not tell Stevie Rae either of those things. One would hurt her. One could frighten her. So instead of the raw truth, he told her a version of it that seemed more civilized, more understandable. "A raven is not a pet. It is a wild bird. What if I panicked and in trying to escape I somehow wounded you?"

"Or yourself," Stevie Rae said solemnly. "I get it. I really do. I just don't like it much."

"I don't, either, but I think that's the point Nyx was making. I'm paying the consequences for my past actions." He cupped her sweet, soft cheek in his palm and pressed his lips to hers murmuring, "It is a price I willingly pay because the other side of it, the good side of it, gives me the hours we steal together when I am human."

"We don't steal them!" Stevie Rae said earnestly. "Nyx gifted you with them for the good choices you've made. Consequences go both ways, Rephaim. They can be good and bad."

Somehow that made his heart feel lighter and he smiled, kissing her again. "I'll remember that."

"I want you to remember somethin' else, too. You did a good thing today when you didn't turn your back on your brothers." Her fingers plucked at a blond curl, and he knew whatever she was saying was hard for her, so even though he needed to get free of the tunnels, to get above to the waiting sky, he remained sitting there beside her with her hand in his while she continued. "I'm sorry your brother got killed."

"Thank you," he said quietly, hardly trusting his voice.

"They came to the House of Night to get you to leave with them, didn't they?" she asked.

"Not really. Father did send them to find me, but not to take me away." Rephaim paused, not sure how to explain the rest to Stevie Rae. The two of them hadn't talked about his brothers when they'd finally been alone-they'd been too eager to touch, to be close, to love.

Stevie Rae squeezed his hand. "You can tell me. I trust you, Rephaim. Please trust me, too."

"I do!" he exclaimed, hating the hurt he saw in her eyes. "But you have to understand that even though Father has disowned me, that changes nothing here." He touched his chest over his heart. "I will forever be his son. I'll walk the path of the Goddess. I'll fight for Light and what is right. I'll love you. Always. But you must understand that somewhere inside me I'll always love him, too. Becoming human has taught me that."