“Shall we join her?” Rain asked. He’d Changed back to Fey form and summoned an Earth weave to shed his golden war steel. The armor, boots, and blades reformed in neat piles beside his bare feet, but the magic of the tairen-forged steel left a gleaming aura swirling around him that amplified his natural Fey luminescence. The Fey king’s war steel, once donned, could never be returned to the Feyreisen’s palace in Dharsa until the Fey were victorious or the wearer of the armor died. Until then, even when Rain removed the armor to sleep or bathe, a part of its magic remained with him.
His lean, well-muscled form glowed with the silvery luminescence that, even unenhanced, had earned the Fey their mortal appellation, the Shining Folk. Black hair, without a hint of curl, hung in fine, silky strands down to his shoulder blades, framing a face of both indomitable strength and breathtaking masculine beauty. Muscles, lean but well-defined and hard as stone, rippled beneath smooth, gleaming flesh. If Lord Brandis, the god of war, ever chose to take physical form, Ellysetta thought he would look like Rain did now, magnificent and male, dazzling and deadly.
She swallowed and tamped down a familiar, visceral surge of lust, quickly directing her attention to her own garb. Time enough for mating after they rejuvenated themselves in the Source. She could feel the weariness beating at Rain and the emotions swirling so close to the surface beneath the too-thin layers of his self-control.
“Aiyah,” she managed to agree. The word came out throaty, unconsciously seductive. She coughed twice and added with a grin, “But let’s keep our distance. I don’t fancy swimming in fish stew.” Earth came to her call with a green flash. Leathers and steel fell to the ground in haphazard piles.
She glanced up in time to see Rain’s eyes rake down her slender body and spark with a hunger as powerful as her own. He took one step towards her, intent stamped on his face. And despite her determination to see to Rain’s health first, a thrill of plea sure shot through her. It never ceased to amaze her that all the love, passion, and devotion of this incredible man belonged wholly and eternally to her. Her. Ellysetta Baristani. Who would ever have believed it?
In her mind’s eye she still was, and perhaps always would be, that shy, gawky, rather unattractive girl who’d never fit in. Yet even when the glamour set upon her at birth had disguised her true Fey heritage, Rain had always seen beneath the mortal guise. And when he looked at her with such simmering intensity, she felt like a different woman. Not Ellie Baristani, but Ellysetta Feyreisa, a shining Fey queen every bit the equal of her exceptional mate.
“On second thought,” Rain growled, taking another step closer, “swimming can wait.”
One brow arched. “Who says we have to choose?” Her lips curved in a siren’s smile, and with a low, challenging laugh, she bolted. She raced across the stony shore on nimble feet and dove for the lake with an Air-powered leap that sent her soaring gracefully half a tairen length from the shore before she plunged into the Fire-warmed waters.
Magic hit her like a lightning bolt, robbing her of breath. She kicked to the surface, gasping and tingling all over. Rain was on her the instant she came up for air.
“Rain, wait. There’s something—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. His arms wrapped around her, dragging her close. His lips fused to hers. The long, lean lines of his flesh—hotter than the waters Steli had boiled with her tairen flame—pressed against Ellysetta’s, burning stone beneath seductive velvet flesh.
Coherent thought evaporated.
Sensation raced through her…sizzling, electric. Her flesh was afire. Always when Rain’s skin touched hers, she felt his emotions as if they were her own; but now, with the waters of the Source around them, the feeling increased exponentially, instantly forming a harmonic. His desire feeding hers…hers feeding his. He breathed, and her lungs expanded as if the breath were her own. She brushed her hand across his skin and her flesh felt the caress. She dragged her nails across his nipple and her own sprang instantly erect.
“Oh, dear gods.” She gasped. Her womb clenched. In an instant, her flesh grew swollen, burning and aching…needing.
Ellysetta couldn’t tell which feelings were Rain’s and which her own, and she didn’t care. Her arms wrapped around his neck; her legs locked around his waist. Her muscles contracted, dragging him so tightly against her it was as if some part of her mind thought she could physically fuse their bodies together through the sheer strength of her embrace.
«Ke vo san…ke vo lanis…ke vo arris…. » I love you…I want you…I need you. The words chanted in her head with the beat of her pulse, repeating over and over. His voice—or was it hers?—grew more insistent with each utterance. «Veli ti’ku…Vo’shani ti’ku.» Come to me. Give yourself to me.
The connections of their still uncompleted truemate bond flared with the same rhythmic pulse until she could almost see the threads and their intricate, tightly woven pattern, until she could almost see what was missing and how to spin it. Her dazed mind tried to grasp the image, process it, but sensation overwhelmed her senses. Concentration dissolved, thoughts scattered. The image of their bond flared with sudden brightness, and its pattern merged into a single blinding light.
She could hardly breathe. Then his body surged up, plunging deep into hers, and all she could think was, Breathe? Who needs to breathe? They flung back their heads on a mutual shout of plea sure as her body shattered and his followed.
“What in the Haven’s name just happened?”
Dazed and still trembling from the overload to her senses, Ellysetta floated in Rain’s arms, her limp body draped across his, incapable of autonomous movement. She could barely think straight, let alone summon the strength to actually move.
Rain’s chest rippled as he dragged in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know.” His voice came out hoarse, raspy. He swallowed, then tilted his chin against his chest to glance at her. A grin twitched at the corners of his mouth. “But I hope it happens again.”
She started to shove his shoulder, decided it was too much effort, and settled for a scowl instead. “Be serious. That was not normal.”
She’d drunk faerilas—the waters of a Source—before. She’d swum in Veil Lake numerous times during these last weeks. But she’d never had a reaction like the one that had just occurred.
«Fine, fierce mating. Rainier-Eras and Ellysetta-kitling will make many strong kitlings for the pride.» Steli, who had given up boiling fish and begun to amuse herself chasing them under the water, surfaced without warning nearby. She shook her soggy head, showering Rain and Ellysetta.
“Ah!” Ellysetta gave a shout of surprise at both Steli’s sudden arrival and the distinct chill of the droplets. The tairen had been chasing fish in water much cooler than the surface. With a blush rising to her cheeks, she slapped an arm over her breasts and scolded, “Steli!”
Blue eyes blinked with complete innocence. «Sorry, sorry. Steli forgot knocking.»
Ellysetta blushed brighter. She had chided Steli once before about forgetting to knock before interrupting her and Rain in a private moment, but considering the way she and Rain had jumped on each other without a care for Steli’s proximity, she could hardly cry foul this time.
“Nei, it’s all right,” she began. She didn’t recognize the mischievous light in the great cat’s eyes.
At least, not until the white tairen reared up, raised both giant paws high, and brought them slamming back down towards the water’s surface.
“Steli!” Ellysetta shrieked when she realized the tairen’s intent. “Don’t you da—”
Whack! Enormous splashes of water heaved up in twin geysers and engulfed Rain and Ellysetta, sending them tumbling in the resultant wave.
“You wicked cat!” Ellysetta accused when she came back up for air.
Huah. Huah. Huah. Steli chuffed with tairen laughter, infinitely amused with herself. Her wings spread wide and she pumped them in victory, accompanying the gesture with a triumphant roar.
Treading water beside E
llysetta, Rain was laughing, too, quietly, at first, but when Ellysetta turned on him in mock outrage, his smothered snickers turned to open guffaws. “You still have much to learn about tairen, shei’tani.” He flashed a dazzling grin at the white cat. “Well played, Steli-chakai.”
“Ha. Ha.” Ellysetta crossed her arms and pretended to glare, though, secretly, she was glad to hear Rain laugh with such abandon. “That water was cold!”
«Sorry, sorry. Steli will fix.» The white tairen rose up again, opened her massive jaws, and blasted an area around Rain and Ellysetta with a sizzling jet of tairen flame.
The water’s temperature shot up instantly—and so did the potency of the Source’s magic. Ellysetta saw Rain’s eyes widen a bare moment before the amplified power of Crystal Lake roared through her veins, once again electrifying her senses, stealing the air from her lungs, and leaving her shuddering in a state of hyperawareness.
“Dear gods. What is that?” She lifted trembling hands. Her skin’s faint Fey luminescence had become as radiant as the moon.
She looked up at Rain and found him shining bright as a god come to earth. “Rain…Steli’s tairen flame amplifies the effects of the faerilas.” Her voice throbbed with throaty, seductive tones of shei’dalin compulsion that she hadn’t meant to employ.
Rain’s eyes flared brighter in an involuntary response to her power. “So it seems.”
Ellysetta closed her eyes on a groan. The aural seduction clearly worked both ways, because each deep, velvety word he spoke brushed across her skin like a heated caress. It was as if, by breathing her flame upon the waters of the Source, Steli had spawned a carnal weave like the one Ellysetta had inadvertently spun on all the heads of Celieria’s noble Houses several months ago.
Rain moved closer, glowing eyes fixed upon her face. “Are you complaining?”
Her breasts and groin throbbed with each syllable that passed his lips. “N-nei.” Dear gods. If he said another word…
“Then come here.”
Lightning ripped through her. Ellysetta gave a gasping cry and her body began to quake. For the second time in a bare handful of chimes, she fell into Rain’s arms and locked her shaking legs around his hips, as helpless to resist the seductive enchantment of the Source as Celieria’s nobles had been to resist the compulsion of her accidental carnal weave.
“I like this new use for tairen fire.” Cradling Ellysetta in his arms, Rain floated on a cushion of warm water and smiled up at bright tracts of cerulean blue sky peeking through the thinning cloud cover overhead.
Steli, who was floating on her back nearby, snorted and blew a short burst of fire into the sky. «Males.»
Rain grinned. Earlier, citing the need for more definitive proof of the effect of tairen flame on Source waters, he’d insisted Steli breathe fire upon the lake no less than eight times in a span of three bells. Each time the faerilas magic roared to life, so had Rain. And he’d discovered that one of the most beneficial aspects of mating in a tairen-fired Source pool was the near-instant rejuvenation of energy and…er…interest.
Ellysetta laid a hand over his heart. “You feel better, shei’tan. Calmer.”
“Three bells of Source-enhanced mating will apparently do that to a Fey,” he teased. But it was more than that. The pleasure had gone much deeper than mere physical fulfillment. Several times during their mating, he’d felt closer to Ellysetta than ever before. As if the secret to completing their bond were within reach, if only they could figure out how to grasp it.
Inexplicably, he’d also felt a strange, tingling awareness, like a memory long forgotten, as if there were more at work than just the restorative powers of a potent Source—more even than an irresistible (and thoroughly enjoyable) compulsion to mate.
His brow furrowed. There was something special about this Source. Something important. Why did it thrive so far from the Fading Lands when so many Sources inside the Fey kingdom had grown weak or lost their magic entirely?
“Steli…did the tairen often visit Crystal Lake before the Mage Wars?”
Steli’s whiskers twitched. «Too near Eld. And too cold. Tairen’s Bay is better for swimming. Warrrrm. Steli likes warm.» The tairen extended her long, curving claws, then began to groom between her toes with leisurely licks of her pink tongue.
Ellysetta shifted, pulling away to tread water in the cooling lake beside him. “What are you thinking, Rain?”
He righted himself and frowned. “I’m thinking there’s a mystery here. You’re right that there’s something different about this Source, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“You mean tairen flame doesn’t have the same effect on all Sources?”
“I don’t know that anyone has ever tried it. Except for Dharsa and here, most Sources don’t empty into a large body of water.” Most fed straight into a city fountain, to be used for drinking. “I’ll have Marissya ask Tealah to see if she can find anything about Crystal Lake in the Hall of Scrolls. For now, we should be getting back.”
They swam to the shore and spun light Fire weaves to warm and dry themselves before Ellysetta donned her leathers and Rain his steel.
“Rain.” The light touch of Ellysetta’s slender hand upon his carried with it a swell of warming love and troubled regret. “About earlier…when I went into the Well after Aartys…” The delicate copper arches of her brows drew together over shadowed leaf-green eyes. “You were right to be angry with me. I went too deep. I nearly lost myself—and I did nearly weave Azrahn, but honestly, Rain, I didn’t mean to.” She blew out a breath. “I only meant to use Gaelen’s power, as I’ve been doing.”
Rain hadn’t liked that either, but since the practice saved precious Fey lives, he had grudgingly allowed it. After all, a Fey king banished from his own country for weaving the forbidden magic himself to save his mate could hardly protest the use of the same magic to save someone else.
“So what happened?”
“I couldn’t reach Aartys. He’d fallen too far into the Well. I was going to lose him. Gaelen’s magic wasn’t enough. And then…” Her voice trailed off.
“Then what?”
She wet her lips and pushed spiraling coils of flame red hair behind her ears. “Then something started…pushing me to weave my own Azrahn.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “The Mage? He sensed you in the Well?”
“Nei, I don’t think it was him. I think it was me. Some part of me wanted to weave Azrahn, Rain, even knowing what would happen if I did.”
She lifted a troubled gaze to his face, and he knew she was searching for the horror she feared would be there. Months ago, she would have found it. Months ago, he’d believed Azrahn could never be woven for good. But he’d watched her save four tairen kitlings trapped in the Well of Souls by spinning that forbidden magic. He’d spun it himself to save her. Most of all, he’d seen the dazzling blaze of her unshielded Light.
“If you hadn’t come,” she admitted, “I would have spun it.”
“But you didn’t, Ellysetta.”
“But I would have, Rain. I would have.”
He gripped her slender shoulders and held her gaze with unwavering confidence. “But you didn’t.”
She was still so afraid of herself, so afraid that the dark taint she sensed within wasn’t just the shadow of the High Mage but proof that some part of her own soul—a part unrelated to the High Mage’s Marks—was evil, just as her mother had once feared.
“When we get back to Orest, we’ll talk to Gaelen,” Rain said. “He was there in the Well with you. Maybe he sensed something you didn’t. Or maybe he can explain what happened and help keep it from happening again.” Vel Serranis was more familiar with Azrahn and Mage Marks than any other Fey. The infamous former dahl’reisen had spent a thousand years outcast from the Fading Lands, living on the borders between Celieria and Eld, secretly fighting the Mages to protect the homeland that had banished him. And though he’d broken more Fey laws than Rain cared to count, the skills and knowledge he’d acqui
red while living his lawless existence had already proven invaluable to the Fey.
Ellysetta smiled crookedly. “So stop worrying until Gaelen says I should?”
He feathered a thumb across her lower lip. “Something like that.” He dropped a kiss on her lips, then stepped away before the kiss turned into something more. “We should go. I don’t want to fly you over Elden land after dark.”
He summoned the Change, tossing back his head as the familiar blast of energy shot through his veins, searing and sundering him. His body was unmade, his consciousness flung out into the rainbow-shot gray mist of the Change; then both body and mind gathered back together in his other form…his stronger, more savage form.
The black tairen, Rainier-Eras, flexed the hands that had become paws large and strong enough to pluck fully grown cattle from a field. Long, razor-sharp claws curved out and dug deep into the rock and shale of the lakeshore. Whiskers twitched and the nostrils of his sensitive nose flared as he scented both the warm, Fey sweetness of Ellysetta and the deeper, richer presence of the as-yet-unseen tairen that dwelled within her soul, the mate to the tairen he was now. The Source must have brought that powerful magic much closer to the surface. He had never sensed her tairen so clearly.
His chest filled with a low, rumbling growl, the need to claim and dominate rising swiftly. Tairen were intelligent creatures, but they embraced their most primitive instincts, living by the laws of the pride, not the civilized world. They claimed their mates, defended their pride, protected their young, and slaughtered their enemies without regret.
And right at this moment, Rain’s tairen was very much aware of the mate he recognized but could not yet claim. His tail thumped the ground and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in and dipping his head down to sniff Ellysetta, nudging her with his nose while the growl kept rumbling softly in his chest.
The light, silky-soft fur on the membranes of his wings registered the shifting of the winds mere instants before a new scent reached his nose. Faint. Very faint. But the scent was familiar and made his hackles rise. The claiming growl vibrating in his throat became the louder, more threatening growl of a tairen preparing to attack. Tairen lips pulled back, baring his deadly fangs, each easily as long as a man’s leg. Venom gathered in the hollow tips.