"It is because it feels safe there, and it is definitely no longer safe here," he said.
"Did you notice Neferet?" I asked him.
"If you mean did I notice the Priestess's power seems to have increased--yes, I did."
"Great. I almost wish I was just imagining things," I muttered.
"Your instincts are good, and they've been warning you about Neferet for quite a while." He paused. "Kalona's hypnotic power is unusual. I've never felt anything like it before."
"Yeah," I said, cleaning the blood off his face. "But I think I've broken what ever hold he was having over me." I refused to admit, even to myself, that though the hypnotic effect was gone, I still had had a powerful reaction to his kiss. "Hey, did Kalona look different to you?"
"Different? How so?" "Younger, like he's not even as old as you." I guessed that Darius was somewhere in his early to mid-twenties--or at least that's how old he appeared to me.
Darius gave me a long, considering look. "No, Kalona appeared the same as when first I'd seen him--ageless, but not in a way that could ever be mistaken for a teenager. Perhaps he has the ability to alter his appearance to please you."
I wanted to deny it, and then I remembered what he'd called me just before he kissed me. It had been the same name he'd called me during my nightmare. My response to him is almost automatic, as if my soul recognizes him, my mind whispered traitorously. A terrible fear shivered through my body, causing the little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to stand straight up. "He calls me A-ya," I said.
"The name sounds familiar. What does it mean?"
"It's the name of the maiden the Ghigua women created to trap Kalona."
Darius sighed deeply. "Well, at least we now know why he's so intent upon protecting you. He thinks you are the maiden he loved."
"I think it was more obsession than love," I said quickly, not wanting to even consider the idea that Kalona could possibly have loved A-ya. "Plus, we have to remember that A-ya did trap him, causing him to be imprisoned in the earth for more than a thousand years."
Darius nodded. "So his desire for you could very easily change to violence."
My stomach clenched. "Actually, the reason he wants me might be just to get back at A-ya. I mean, I don't know what he's actually planning to do with me. Neferet was all for killing me, but he stopped her because he said he can use my power."
"But you would never turn from Nyx to him," Darius said.
"And once he realizes that, I can't see him keeping me around."
"He'll view you as a powerful enemy, one who might find a way to entrap him again," Darius said.
"Okay, so explain to me what to do to get you fixed up, and then let's find the others and get the hell out of here."
Darius walked me through a very gross cleaning of the long slash wound, during which I actually had to pour alcohol into his cut f height="reated t elesh to, as he put it, flush out any infection that might have been caused by the Raven Mocker's blood. I'd totally forgotten that the same knife had been imbedded in Rephaim's chest and it definitely had nasty mutant man-bird blood all over it. So I cleaned the cut and then Darius helped me find this weird but cool stuff called Dermabond, better known as liquid stitches, which I squirted in a line down the length of his cut, mushed the sides of the wound together, and, ta-da! except for a big not- yet-healed cut, Darius said he was good as new. I was slightly more skeptical, but (as he reminded me) I really wasn't a credible nurse to begin with.
Then he and I searched though the cabinets because I was not going anywhere with a sheet wrapped around me. Okay, you would not believe the gross, paper-thin, backless hospital "gowns" (oh, please, they are so not real gowns) we found in one drawer. Why is it hospitals make you wear ugly, too revealing stuff when you already feel awful? It just makes no sense. Anyway, we finally found a pair of green hospital scrubs that were way too big for me, but what ever. They were seriously better than being wrapped up in a sheet. I completed my look with some booties. I asked Darius if he'd seen my purse, and he said he