“Your team, by the way, sucks.” Shaking her head, Nicole walked away, too.

I could feel Stark’s eyes on me. His hand seemed stiff in mine. I looked up at him, sure that he was going to shake me or yell at me or at the very least ask what the hell was wrong with me. Again.

Instead, he opened his arms, said, “Come here, Z,” and he just loved me.

Aurox

Aurox ran, not knowing or caring where his body took him. He only understood he had to get away from the circle, from Zoey, before he committed another atrocity. His feet, fully morphed into cloven hoofs, tore the fertile ground, carrying him with inhuman speed through the winter dormant lavender fields. Like the breeze flowing over his body, emotions surged through Aurox.

Confusion—he hadn’t meant to harm anyone, yet he had killed Dragon and perhaps even Rephaim.

Anger—he had been manipulated, controlled against his will!

Despair—no one would ever believe that he hadn’t intended to harm anyone. He was a beast, a creature of Darkness. Neferet’s Vessel. They would all hate him. Zoey would hate him.

Loneliness—and yet he was not Neferet’s Vessel. No matter what had happened that night. No matter how she had managed to control him. He did not, would not belong to Neferet. Not after seeing what he’d seen tonight … feeling what he’d felt tonight.

Aurox had felt Light. Even though he had not been able to embrace it, he’d known the strength of its goodness in the magickal circle, and recognized the beauty of it in the invocation of the elements. Until the sickening threads had claimed and controlled the beast within him, he’d watched, mesmerized, the soul-moving ritual that had culminated in Light washing the touch of Darkness from the land, and from him, though for him that purification had lasted only a moment. Only long enough for Aurox to realize what he’d done. Then the just anger and the understandable hatred the Warriors had felt for him had overwhelmed him, and Aurox had only humanity enough left to flee and to not kill Zoey.

Aurox shuddered and moaned as the change from beast back to boy rippled through his body, leaving him bare footed and bare chested, clothed only in ripped jeans. A horrible weakness overwhelmed his body. Breathing hard and trembling, he slowed, stumbling to a walk. His mind was a war. Self-hatred filled him. Aurox wandered aimlessly in the predawn, not knowing or caring where he was, until he could no longer ignore the physical needs of his body and he followed the scent and sound of water. At the edge of the crystal stream Aurox knelt and drank until the fire within him was sated and then, overcome with exhaustion and emotion, he collapsed. Dreamless sleep finally won the battle within him, and Aurox slept.

Aurox woke to the sound of her song. It was so soothing, so peaceful, that at first he did not open his eyes. Her voice was rhythmic, like a heartbeat, but it was more than the rhythm that touched Aurox. It was the feeling that filled her song. Not that he felt with her the way he channeled violent emotions to fuel the metamorphosis that changed his body from boy to beast. The feeling in her song came from her voice itself—joyful, exhilarating, grateful. He didn’t feel those things with her, instead it brought to him images of joy and allowed the possibility of happiness to play through his waking mind. He couldn’t understand any of the words, but Aurox did not need to. Her voice soared, and that transcended language.

Waking more fully, he wanted to see the owner of the voice. To question her about joy. To try to understand how he could create that feeling for himself. Aurox opened his eyes and sat up. He’d collapsed not far from the farmhouse, near the bank of the little stream. It was a winding ribbon of clear water that drifted softly, musically, over sand and stone. Aurox’s gaze followed the stream down, to his left, where the woman, wearing a sleeveless dress fringed with long strands of leather decorated with beads and shells, stood. She danced gracefully, beating out the rhythm of her song with bare feet. Even though the sun was just lifting over the horizon and the early morning was cool, she was flushed, warm, alive. Smoke from the bundle of dried plants in her hand drifted around her, seemingly in time with her song.

Just watching her made Aurox feel good. He didn’t need to channel her joy—it was palpable around her. His spirit lifted because the woman was so filled with the emotion that she overflowed. She flung back her head and her long hair, silver streaked with black, easily reached her slender waist. She raised her bare arms, as if embracing the rising sun, and then began to move in a circle, keeping time with her feet.

Aurox was so caught up in her song that he didn’t realize she was turning to face him, and would see him, until their eyes met. He recognized her then. This was Zoey’s grandmother, who had been in the center of the circle the night before. He expected her to gasp or scream at the sight of him suddenly appearing there in the long grass at the edge of her stream. Instead her joyous dance came to an end. Her song ceased. And she spoke in a clear, calm voice. “I see you, tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na. You are the shapeshifter who killed Dragon Lankford last night. You tried to kill Rephaim as well, but you did not succeed. You also charged my beloved granddaughter as if you meant her harm. Are you here to kill me, too?”

She lifted her arms again, drew a deep breath of the cool, clean morning air and concluded, “If so, then I will tell the sky that my name is Sylvia Redbird, and today is a good day to die. I will go to the Great Mother to meet my ancestors with joy filling my spirit.” Then she smiled at him.

It was her smile that broke him. He felt himself shatter and in a trembling voice he barely recognized as his own, Aurox said, “I am not here to kill you. I am here because I have no other place to go.”

Then Aurox began to weep.

Sylvia Redbird hesitated for only a small heartbeat of time. Through his tears Aurox watched her tilt her head up again and nod, as if she’d received an answer to a question. Then she walked gracefully to him, the long leather fringe on her dress rustling musically with her movements and the touch of the cool morning breeze.

She did not hesitate when she reached him. Sylvia Redbird sat, folding her bare feet beneath her, and then she put her arms around him and drew his head to her shoulder.

Aurox never knew how long they sat like that together. He only knew that as he sobbed she held him and rocked him gently, back and forth, softly singing a chant and patting his back in time to her heartbeat.

Finally, he pulled back, turning his face away in shame.

“No, child,” she said, taking his shoulders and forcing him to meet her gaze. “Before you turn away, tell me why you wept.”

Aurox wiped his face, cleared his throat, and in a voice that sounded young and, he thought, very foolish, said, “It is because I am sorry.”

Sylvia Redbird held his gaze. “And?” she prompted.

He blew out a long breath and admitted, “And because I am so alone.”

Sylvia’s dark eyes widened. “You are more than you appear to be.”

“Yes. I am a monster of Darkness, a beast,” he agreed with her.

Her lips tilted up. “Can a beast weep in sorrow? Does Darkness have the capacity to feel loneliness? I think not.”

“Then why do I feel so foolish for weeping?”

“Think on this,” she said. “Your spirit wept. It needed to mourn because it felt sorrow and loneliness. It is for you to decide whether or not that is foolish. For me, I have already decided there is no shame to be found in honest tears.” Sylvia Redbird stood and held one small, deceptively frail hand out to him. “Come with me, child. I open my home to you.”