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  The moment was both beautiful and surreal. They went gliding through the air with Rast’s huge, silvery wings stretched to either side of them, the feathers flashing in the sunlight. The sky vaulted overhead like a huge blue bowl and far off the sharp cries of avian hunters rang out. Nadiah had never felt such joy. This is how it’s supposed to be between the Challa and his Lyzel, she thought. This joy, this pleasure and love and excitement. He takes her flying often—it’s one of the things that bonds them together.

  She didn’t know how she knew that, but somehow she did. This flight—this mating flight—was a sacred ritual between the Counselor and his female. It had been lost for centuries but now that Rast was here, back where he belonged, it could be resurrected, like all the old customs.

  Looking down she saw Sylvan and Sophia waving at them and the high priestess standing there with a stricken expression on her face. She never expected him to get his wings, Nadiah thought and knew it was true. She wanted him tied to First World for the extra power it would give her but she thought she’d be able to use him as a puppet while she was the power behind the throne—literally. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Rast wasn’t the type of male likely to allow another to dictate to him. Maybe the high priestess should look for another line of work.

  “There—the Healing Garden,” Rast said and her attention was torn from the high mesa and directed to the lush, verdant garden which grew from the side of the mountain. Another oasis, she thought. An oasis of healing.

  And it was healing she desperately needed. Now that the first wild exhilaration of flight had worn off, she was beginning to feel both the fever and the severed bond. The fever made her shiver with cold one moment and hot as an oven the next, while the broken bond felt like a deep blood vessel in her soul which had been cut. From its ragged end, all her strength was rapidly leaking away.

  “Rast,” she whispered. “Hurry. Please hurry.”

  “Going as fast as I can, sweetheart,” he promised as they hovered over the small patch of green and purple jungle. “I’ve just never done this before. Not quite…sure how to land.”

  But as he spoke, the wings seemed to sense his desires. The silvery feathers cupped the warm desert air gently and slowly, they descended. Soon Rast’s feet touched the ground and the wings folded surprisingly small and flat against his back.

  “Nice… landing,” Nadiah murmured. She wanted to examine his new wings, to look around the Healing Garden which reminded her of a wilder version of the sacred grove back on the Kindred Mother Ship. But her run to get away from Y’dex and the rush of excitement during the flight had used up her last reserves of strength. Grey and black blotches were appearing in her vision which made it hard to see…hard to think. Dimly she was aware of her own raspy breathing.

  “Hold on, sweetheart.” Rast sounded nearly panicked as he held her close to his chest and began striding through the underbrush. “Just got to find the fountain. It’s gotta be around here somewhere—this place really isn’t that big. I just…”

  He stopped suddenly and Nadiah wondered why. “Rast?” she whispered, having to force out the words. “Rast is…is everything…all right?”

  “No,” he whispered brokenly. “No. Oh, no.”

  She wanted to ask what was wrong, wanted to comfort him and tell him she loved him no matter what. But the grey and black blotches had grown until they obscured her entire field of vision.

  Nadiah didn’t want to faint—she was afraid if she did, she might never wake up again. The idea of never again opening her eyes, of never seeing Rast’s smile or hearing his deep laughter made her want to cry. Please, she thought. Please, I don’t want to go. I’m not ready. Not ready to leave him.

  But though she tried desperately to stay with him, the combined weakness of the fever and the severed blood bond were too much. Her last sight was of Rast’s eyes—his truegreen eyes which had marked him as a Kindred from the first, even before his blood. Rast looked back at her and she saw those eyes were filled with tears.

  Then she saw no more.

  * * * * *

  “No! No, it can’t be. No!” Rast pounded the stone side of the empty fountain with helpless rage. It wasn’t just empty, either. The elaborate structure—which was carved with all kinds of alien beasts he didn’t recognize—was bone dry and looked like it had been for centuries.

  “A drink from the fountain of the Healing Garden was said to cure any illness, no matter how severe.” The words echoed in his head, teasing him—mocking him. A drink—she just needs one drink. But there was none to be had.

  Well then, I’ll heal her myself. Maybe if the bond is restored I can give her some strength, keep her going a little while longer until I can make that priestess bitch cure the fever. Closing his eyes, Rast concentrated with all his might—reaching out to the woman in his arms, trying to find the connection that had so recently been between them. Before, on Tranq Prime, he’d been able to feel the blood bond with no problem. But this time there was…nothing. Just nothing. It was like feeling around in a dark room for a light switch that wasn’t there.

  He didn’t know how long he tried before he realized it was useless. Before he simply held her close, his tears falling on her pale, unmoving face.

  She was gone and there was no bringing her back.

  He looked hopelessly at the dry fountain. There would be no healing drink for Nadiah—no sudden and miraculous cure for the woman he loved. Everything that had happened—their frantic flight to First World, his unbreakable vows to stay there always, the desperate dive to the sandy floor of the desert—all had been for nothing.

  Nothing.

  His last foolish hope had been dashed to smithereens the way he should have been when he dove off the mesa. As he would have been if the wings hadn’t suddenly manifested at the last possible moment.

  Fucking wings, he thought savagely. What good are they now? What am I supposed to do with them except look like a freak? Twisting his head, he stared over his shoulder to glare at them bitterly.

  Though they had moved seemingly of their own volition earlier, now the wings were folded flat against his back. In fact, they seemed almost ready to melt back into his skin making him wonder if they might be reabsorbed by his body whenever they weren’t in use.

  Use them now.

  Rast jumped. It sounded like a thought but the idea had clearly come from outside of his head. From somewhere in the Healing Garden.

  “What?” he said. “I mean, hello? Is anybody there?”

  Only silence greeted his words and he felt like a fool. Who was he talking to? He was going crazy with grief, so upset he was hearing voices. He—

  Use your wings. Enfold your beloved.

  Okay, that time he had definitely heard something and it wasn’t just in his head.

  “How?” he asked and then answered his own question by flexing his shoulder blades. The huge, shining wings came out at once, as though they had been waiting for his summons. To Rast, they felt like an extra pair of arms and hands sprouting from his shoulders. Imagining them like that, he concentrated on getting them wrapped around himself and Nadiah’s still form, lying in his lap.

  Soon he and Nadiah were deep in a rustling nest of silvery, incandescent feathers. They formed a barrier against the world, a shield around himself and the woman he loved that nothing could get through.

  Rast found that image strangely comforting. And he also found that something new was happening—something that seemed to involve not just his wings, but his entire body.

  As the wings came together and their feathers interlocked, a strange rush of power came over him. It started slowly, as a tingling in his toes. Then it made its way up his calves and legs and thighs. By the time it hit his hips and chest it was rushing upward in such a dynamic, electric burst he thought the top of his head might fly off. It didn’t though, he just felt different…filled with…something, some power, he didn’t understand.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, flexing the win