Never in recorded history had a Tairen Soul claimed a truemate.
That was the price of the Tairen Soul, one he had accepted eleven hundred and eighty-seven years ago when his adolescent Soul Quest had shown him flame and fang. And on the day of his First Change, when all the tairen and Tairen Souls of the Fading Lands gathered in Fey’Bahren to guide him through his first transformation, he had trembled with fear and exaltation—but no regret—as his Fey form dissolved and re-formed as a massive, black-furred tairen who rode the winds on mighty wings. He had known then that he was destined for loneliness. Never to find a truemate, the one who was his other half. Never to bear a daughter of his loins. Never to know relief from the souls that darkened his own.
Sariel had joined her life with his, even knowing their souls would never follow where their hearts had led. Then she had died, and he had survived her death. Ah, gods, how he had railed against that. If Sariel had been his truemate, the mate of his soul rather than simply the mate of his heart, nothing could have chained him to life after her death. But he was a Tairen Soul, and Tairen Souls did not have truemates.
Until now.
Rain shook his head in disbelief. This girl in his arms was the first truemate to be claimed in a thousand years. The first truemate ever to be claimed by a Tairen Soul. Among the many wonders of theshei’tanitsabonding, not the least of its benefits wasthe guarantee of fertility and the continuation of the strongest magics of the Fey.
There was no doubt in his mind that she was the reason the Eye had sent him to Celieria.
Somehow, for some reason beyond his understanding, the gods had granted this slender Celierian girl—scarcely more than a child—the power to save the tairen and the Fey.
Somehow, though he did not want it, they had granted her the power to save him.
Chapter Three
Ellie woke wrapped in warm strength, the music of a steady heartbeat sounding in her ear. His strength. His heartbeat. Rainier vel’En Daris Feyreisen. Rain Tairen Soul. The man who had claimed her as his truemate, the missing half of his soul.
“I’m all right,” she murmured, pulling away to stare up into the watchful lavender gaze of the stranger who named her his beloved. “I just got a little dizzy for a moment.” Something warm and hungry unfurled within her as their eyes met. She backed away from him, hoping he had not noticed. “Why did you... say what you did?”
“That you are myshei’tani?” he growled. “Because it is the truth. Because I must.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. She was suddenly aware of a sense of driving need, of a hunger not warm like hers but hot and demanding; then the feelings faded as Rainier vel’En Daris turned his back to her and took several deep breaths. “We must go,” he said abruptly. “Your countrymen grow restless and too bold by half. The girl children who were with you are worried.”
Her hands clapped over her cheeks. “Lillis! Lorelle!” How could she have forgotten about them? She spun around, only to find her wrist clasped in his hand.
“Stay close to me, Ellysetta Baristani. I can allow no harm to befall you.” He gestured. The cone of magic surrounding them disappeared, revealing them both to the swarming crowds jamming the streets. The throngs were so thick, with more bodiespushing into the area by the second, that Celierians dared to crowd within five feet of the small, lethal army of Fey warriors. There was a dull roar of sound—thousands of bodies shifting restlessly, voices murmuring—but all fell silent when Ellysetta and Rainier appeared.
“Wait here a moment,shei’tani.” A bubble of multicolored magic enveloped her as Rain Tairen Soul walked several paces away to speak with theshei’dalinand her truemate.
“Ellie!” The high-pitched shrieks heralded the twins’ arrival as they raced towards her. Their faces were splotched with tears, their dresses torn, their lovely curls disheveled. Two Fey warriors, looking much worse for wear than the girls, hurried close on their heels.
“Nei, little Fey’cha.” One of the Fey, a tall young man with silvery blond hair, a swollen eye, and a set of four bleeding scratches down the side of his face, snatched up Lorelle just as she would have flung herself into Ellie’s arms. Lorelle immediately convulsed into a howling, screaming fit, her little fingers curved into claws, which explained the battle wounds on the man’s face. He subdued her, admonishing in a gentle, genuinely concerned voice, “Nei, nei. Do not touch the Feyreisa when the bright light surrounds her. It would do you much harm.”
Lillis stopped a few feet away, her lower lip trembling, tears pouring from her eyes. She looked so pitiful, so woefully in need of a hug that Ellie instinctively stepped towards her. When the warrior behind Lillis grabbed her up, Ellie froze in her tracks.
A lump rose in her throat. She turned towards the Feyreisen. “Please,” she called out. She pushed at the light surrounding her, but it merely flowed around her hands. “Release me from this thing.”
The look he turned upon her was once again the cold, frightening Tairen Soul’s gaze. With no expression on his face, he scanned the crowd for several long moments, then dissipated her shield without a word.
As soon as it was gone, she lurched forward to snatch Lillis and Lorelle into her arms, hugging them close as they wrapped their little bodies around her and cried into her neck. “Shh, kitlings. Shh. It’s all right. I’m safe.” She showered kisses upon their curly heads. “I’m so sorry you were frightened. Hush, now. Please don’t cry.”
“What’s going on, Ellie?” Lorelle asked once she had calmed down enough to speak. “Why did the tairen-man attack you, then put you in the fire cage?”
“It’s all very confusing,” Ellie told them. “And it must have looked very frightening.” It certainly had scared the wits out of her. “But the Feyreisen didn’t attack me. He knew I was hurt and came to my rescue.”
“Why wouldn’t the Fey let us come to you?” Lillis asked. “We cried and cried, but they wouldn’t let you out of the cage and they wouldn’t let us in!” Lillis wasn’t used to her tears being so ineffective. She glared at the brown-haired, blue-eyed Fey who had kept her from going to Ellie. He only grinned back at her and bowed.
“I know,” Ellie soothed. “I’m sorry. But I’m here now and we’re together again and safe.”
“I want to go home.” Lorelle’s brows drew together in a scowl.
“Me too, kitling,” Ellie murmured. “Me too.”
A few feet away, Rain watched the reunion. Her love for the children was obvious, as was theirs for her. He had known love once, but it had died along with all his gentler feelings at the Battle of Eadmond’s Field, where Sariel had breathed her last. That day had changed him forever, stripping him of kindness and compassion, leaving him with sorrow, anger, duty, and the stain of millions of lives darkening his soul. Had he not been the last Feyreisen, he would have been cast out by the Fey for the blood on his hands and the taint on his soul.
Yet now, in a fit of wicked humor, the gods had thrust Ellysetta Baristani in his path and decreed he must mate, binding the darkness of his ancient soul to the shining innocence of hers. He didn’t want it. The responsibility for her safety and happiness was yetanother burden, the reawakening of violent tairen-passions a potential danger to them all. But he was the Feyreisen, the last Tairen Soul, repository of all the ancient Fey magics and the only remaining Fey capable of entering the tairen’s lair, Fey’Bahren. He had lost the freedom of choice with the death of all the other Tairen Souls. What remained was his duty to protect the Fey. To live when he would rather die. To mate when he would rather remain alone.
The tairen in him roared again. The Fey in him roared back. The tairen hungered for his mate, was furious at the delay, while Rain, the beloved of Sariel, didn’t want to let another in his heart, as he must in order to fulfill the matebond.
