"This was my mother's birthplace."

She felt the sudden burst of Rain's Change only instants before he spoke, and she turned, heart racing, to find him standing in the doorway of the hall. Magic glowed bright around his tall Fey form, his eyes still more tairen than Fey, and despite the serenity of their surroundings, she felt her own tairen shift and tense in response.

"After I returned to sanity, I would come here from time to time, seeking peace and solitude." He had finished his hunt, but tension still swirled around him—as did a hunger his hunt had not assuaged.

Her mouth went dry. "And did you find it?" She cleared her throat. "The peace you sought?"

"A measure of it." He began to walk towards her, his steps long and deliberate, his face a gleaming pale mask that appeared carved from Silverstone, his eyes searing jewels. "More so than tonight."

Her heart slammed against her ribs, and despite herself, she took several steps back. A wall covered with a tapestry depicting elves at the hunt stopped her retreat. "Rain, I'm sorry. I didn't realize what I was doing to you…what toll my healing the rasa would take on you."

He reached her, stopping with only the barest hand span between them, not touching her, but so close she could feel the swirling heat emanating from him, the tingle of great magic scarcely contained by his flesh.

"Do not blame yourself. You made your choice, and I made mine." His voice was a low scrape of sound that combined with the steady, burning gaze of his eyes and the electric throb of his magic to make her tremble from head to toe. "I could have stopped you or simply taken you away from Chakai to a place where you could no longer feel the rasa's pain."

She wet her lips. The answering throb of her own magic was rising again, quick and hot. "Why didn't you?"

"You needed to save them from death. I needed to save them for it. When the Eld strike, I will need every Fey blade I can find to defend the Fading Lands." He put his hands on either side of her head, palms flat against the wall. "I also knew you would not easily have forgiven me for stopping you. You already trusted me so little you felt the need to sneak from our bed. There are enough obstacles in the path of our bond without creating more."

"I…" Her voice trailed off. What could she say?

"So I allowed you to do what you felt you must, Ellysetta. I knew the price of my choice, and I paid it." His head lowered, his glowing eyes fixed upon her, holding her captive. "But there was a price for your choice too, shei'tani, and that must be paid as well."

A strand of his hair slipped free of his shoulder to brush her cheek, and the ends of it tickled the top of her left breast. Her womb clenched tight, sending a bolt of pleasure shuddering through her. Just that one tiny touch and she was ready to explode.

She swallowed hard. "P-price?"

"They touched you. Fey after Fey, unbonded males." The edge of his lip curled up, baring the white gleam of teeth. "You let them put their hands upon you, their scent upon you."

All the air evaporated from her lungs. "I-I…"

"I've done all I can to exhaust the tairen and drain myself of magic, but I can wait no longer." His pupils narrowed to slits, then disappeared entirely, and his eyes began to whirl with tairen radiance. "We will wait no longer."

Heat poured off him in waves, and with it came the heady scent that belonged solely to Rain, a complex, multi-layered aroma that combined the fresh fragrance of the Fey, the tang of powerful magic, and the rich, dark, earthy scent of tairen. He still had not touched her, yet that wave of fragrant heat enveloped her so completely it hardly mattered. She dragged a breath into her lungs, and his scent came with it, filling her nose, her mouth, her throat, permeating her body.

He lowered his head to hers, his lips hovering above her own. The bright whirl of pupil-less tairen eyes, blazing a fierce purple, held her transfixed. "Forgive me, shei'tani. I do not think I have the strength to be gentle."

She took a shallow gasp of breath. "Then don't be—"

Her voice broke off as his body pinned hers to the wall. Lean Fey muscle, burning with heat, pressed tight against her softer shei'dalin curves. He caught her wrists, clamping them over her head at the same instant his mouth captured hers in a ferocious kiss.

At the first touch of his skin on hers, the threads of their bond came screaming back to life. She cried out, but the sound was consumed by the ravenous dominion of his kiss.

Emotion and power flooded her senses: Rain the shei'tan's fury over allowing other males to touch his unbonded mate. Rain the tairen's driving need to claim his mate and eliminate all trace of another male's scent from her. Hunger. Oh, gods, such hunger. An ache so strong, Ellysetta nearly wept with need herself when she felt it.

All the pain and fear of the last day burned away like mist in the sun. Nothing mattered—nothing existed—except Rain and Ellysetta and right now.

"Ve sha kem'tani. Kem'san. Kem'reisa." You are my mate. My heart. My soul. He growled the words against her lips, sending them on Air to her ears, on Spirit to her mind, singing them on their bondthreads in the shatteringly vivid tones of tairen song. With hands and words and lips and teeth, he laid claim to her, declaring possession, marking her with his touch, his kiss, his breath, the scent of his skin rubbing hers with hot friction, singing to her soul.

He tore his mouth from hers, and she dragged in great gulps of air. A rapid weave held her wrists locked over her head and freed his hands to trail a searing path down her body. As he'd warned her, there was no gentleness to his touch. There was only fire, the burn of flesh on flesh, the scrape of teeth dragging down her throat and over br**sts stripped bare with a wave of hot magic.