She would always be grateful for this time Rain had given her with her family. He could have flown her straight to the Fading Lands on tairen-back, but he had not. Knowing how dear her family was to her, he’d arranged for all of them to travel together. The Elvishba’houdahorses, bred for endurance and speed, traveled much faster than mortal steeds; but Rain in tairen form, using magic to power his flight, could have traversed the thousand miles across Celieria in a single day.
Even though he still left small courtship gifts on her pillow each morning, this extra time with her family was his true gift to her, and she worked to sear every precious memory into her mind. Like this one: the girls tripping through the tall grass at her side, their hair bouncing with their steps. A slight breeze blowing, fragrant with the scents of mist off the mountains and warm grasswaving in the wind. She squeezed the twins’ small hands and watched dimples flash in their cheeks as laughter bubbled from them.
Dear gods, how she loved them. And if any harm ever befell them because of her...
«No dark thoughts, shei’tani.»The admonishment slipped into her mind on a now-familiar weave of Spirit.
Ellysetta glanced up at the great winged black cat soaring swiftly towards her over the top of a nearby hill.«Not so dark this time,»she answered.«Only a little gray.»
She could not blame him for thinking the worst. Her mind had not been peaceful since they’d left Celieria City. The High Mage might not know where her body was, but despite Rain’s presence and the twenty-five-fold weaves the Fey placed around the camp each night, the High Mage had been able to find her soul more than once when she dreamed. He’d not managed to put another Mark on her, but each time he’d found her, she’d bolted out of sleep with her tairen roused to a raging bloodlust, roaring for death and vengeance.
Consequently, she’d spent most nights wide-awake and flying the moonlit skies with Rain.
«I was just thinking I’ll miss my sisters when we’re gone. And I can’t help worrying about their safety.»
«Kieran and Kiel will allow no harm to befall them.»The two Fey and two hundred of their brethren would be staying behind at Lord Teleos’s ancestral estate near the Garreval to guard Ellysetta’s family.
Rain swooped down the side of the hill fast and hard, Changing in midflight to the black-leather-clad form of his lean Fey body. He landed running, and a brief, swift jog brought him quickly to her side.
Just the sight of him and his glowing lavender eyes made Ellysetta’s breath catch in her throat. All Fey were ravishing creatures, but the legendary Rain Tairen Soul outshone them all. He was animmortal king whose unshielded Fey beauty dazzled the senses, his face a masterpiece of breathtaking male perfection, saved from prettiness by the thrust of strong bones beneath the skin and the aura of deadly promise that swirled just below the surface.
He was a Tairen Soul, the strongest and rarest of all Fey, a master of all five branches of Fey magic, capable of Changing into one of the magical, fire-breathing tairen of the Fading Lands.
He was her truemate, the other half of her soul; and when at last Ellysetta found the courage and unconditional trust necessary to embrace the darkest shadows of his soul and her own—to bare without reservation every thought, every fear, every shame and maleficence inside her—then at last their souls would join for all eternity. If she failed, their uncompleted bond would drive Rain to madness and eventually death.
Yet even knowing that, Rain’s love—intense and absolute—shone from his eyes as he approached, setting Ellysetta’s senses aflame. She began to tremble.«Shei’tan.»Luckily, before Ellysetta could embarrass herself, her young sister Lillis squealed and threw herself into Rain’s arms, shattering the intoxicating spell holding Ellysetta captive.
“Will you take us flying again today, Rain?” Lillis asked while Lorelle bounded up, grabbed Rain’s free hand, and jumped up and down with excitement.
Ellie smothered a laugh. Lillis and Lorelle had shed their fear of Rain and his power. He had become part of their family. Which also meant he’d become a hapless male to be twined around their fingers.
Rain, in return, had learned how to relax around them and let them draw out the Fey gentleness in his heart. Though he was a man who could slaughter his enemies without mercy, with the twins he now laughed and smiled like a man who had never known darkness.
“Let us get you safely settled in your new home first,ajianas. Then I will take you both flying again.”
Of course, he still had to work on how to say no.
“Hooray! Hooray!” Lorelle threw up her arms and danced around him in enthusiastic circles.
“Can we have a new kitty in our new home?” Lillis asked, fluttering her lashes again. “Since we had to leave Love behind.”
Kieran had convinced the girls that Love the kitten, who had a terrible aversion to magic, would be miserable living in the Fading Lands or staying with them so close to the powerful magic of the Mists. They’d reluctantly agreed to leave Love behind in Celieria City in the care of Gaspare Fellows, Queen Annoura’s Master of Graces.
Rain smiled. “A new kitten? I imagine Kieran and Kiel can arrange that. Perhaps one for each of you, hmm?”
Lillis strangled him with more hugs, then leapt out of his arms so she and her twin could run tell Kiel and Kieran they were going flying again, and that Rain had said they could have new kittens.
Ellie shook her head and watched them go. “One day you will have to learn the fine line between loving adoration and slavish devotion.”
He pressed a kiss on her palm. “Let me give them what gifts and freedoms I can. Their lives will soon have restriction enough. Teleos!” Rain lifted a hand to the Fey-eyed Celierian great lord, Devron Teleos, who stood beside the truemates Marissya and Dax v’En Solande, staring in silence at the place that was to be the Baristani family’s new home. “How long has it been since you’ve been to the Garreval?”
Teleos’s mouth drew down in a grimace. “I’ve made a point of visiting all my holdings at least once every year, but as you see, there’s not much to draw me here.”
Below, on the lower slopes of the Rhakis mountains, the remains of a once-great fortress rose from the tumbled rubble of silvery blue stone: Teleon, the former family seat of House Teleos. Even after a thousand years, its once-fabled beauty still lay shattered and abandoned, its Fey-spun towers and parapets crumbled,the remains covered in lichen and mosses and crowded with tufts of cliff grass. A small stone outpost—crudely built and clearly mortal in origin—had been constructed atop a small hill at the base of the mountain, not far from the remains of what had once been a glorious gate into the walled city-fortress. Smoke curled up from a vent hole in the outpost’s small central hall.
Ellysetta tried to hide her dismay. This was her family’s new home?
As if hearing her thoughts, Lord Teleos said, “I feel a poor host for offering my guests so rude an accommodation.” The Celierian great lord, a descendant of Rain’s long-dead friend Shanis Teleos, eyed the remains of his once-great family estate with grim eyes. “Rain, are you sure the Feyreisa’s family would not be better served in one of my more respectable holdings?”
