Her arms wound about his neck, holding him close. All the world around them burned with the cooling fire of the setting sun, while between Rain and Ellysetta the now familiar flame of passion ignited.

"Aiyah," she murmured against his lips. "The greatest magic."

Chapter eighteen

There was a time so long ago

When warriors side by side,

We fought the Dark with sword and bow

With strength and burning pride.

Now ghosts remain in Shadow's scorn

Imprisoned not by will

Soon in time the child is born

And stolen to the hills

From the poem "Shei'tanitsa Reign"

by Lady Flarien diChanis

In the dimming twilight after the Great Sun had disappeared below the horizon, Rain and Ellysetta swam back to the shore where their boat was moored. He dug two long lengths of absorbent cloth from a basket in the boat and handed one to her.

She wrapped the cloth around herself. The air was much warmer than the bay had been, and her shivering quickly faded. "What now?"

"Now we make our bower so we may sleep beneath the light of the fairy-flies and dream of our soul's true purpose. Look." He pointed to the forests nearby. "They are waking." Sure enough, in the dark forests at the volcano's base, tiny lights were flickering.

He led the way into the forest. His bare Fey skin glowed faintly silver in the darkness and made him easy to follow as he picked his way down a narrow pronghorn trail through the dense brush and soaring trees.

"Here." The trail opened to a small glen at the base of the nearest volcano. "This will do." The glen was little more than a bare space in the forest where the rock lay too close beneath the fern-covered ground for trees to grow. A waterfall streaming down the side of the volcano had formed a small pool at one side of the glen. "Come, shei'tani." Rain unwrapped the cloth from about his waist and snapped it out to its full length, lowering it over a dense bed of ferns. "Time for sleeping." One black brow arched, and his lavender eyes began to glow. "Or other things."

Smiling, she went to him and offered no protest as he tugged free the end of her wrap and let the cloth slip from her naked, gleaming body. Her hair spilled down her back and over her shoulders, framing her small, round br**sts with vivid licks of flame and curling down her back to brush the swell of slender hips.

Sunset on the Bay of Flame was indeed great and powerful magic. Without a doubt, something had changed in her tonight as she'd swum in the flame-kissed waters set afire by the setting sun. For the first time she stood naked before him and was not the least bit ashamed. Instead, her veins hummed with nascent womanly power.

She reached up to cup his face in her hands. "Do you love me, Rain?"

"More than I knew it was possible to love. All the stars will fall from the heavens before I ever stop."

His truth was pure and absolute. So unswerving there was no hint of doubt in him. She took a deep breath, dazzled by his utter devotion to her.

He had told her he must go to war to become a king worthy of his crown and a Fey worthy of his truemate's bond, but the truth was, he was already so much more than she deserved.

She ran her hands over the sleek, rounded muscles of his arms, adoring his faint trembling when she touched him, the crackles of magic that leapt to her touch as if every part of him yearned to become a part of her. Such a fine, beautiful Fey. Her Fey. Her love, her heart, her soul's truemate. So strong, so brave. Everything she never had been.

Everything she must become to be worthy of him.

Not a frightened girl, clinging to him for reassurance and protection, but a brave woman, strong and self-assured in her own right. A Tairen Soul. His equal.

All around them, the dark of the forest began to glow with shimmering lights as fairy-flies by the dozens awoke and took wing from whatever small nest had sheltered them through the day. The small, glowing creatures danced like stars in the shadowed forest. The waterfall splashed softly into its pool, and in the distance the muffled roar of the surf filled the air with the tang of the sea. Ellysetta stepped back, her bare foot finding the soft expanse of the cloth he'd laid down for them. Her knee bent and she sank lightly to the bower he'd prepared, pulling him with her, but when he would have covered her body with his own, her hands pushed against his shoulders, urging him to his back.

"Nei, shei'tan. Let me." She'd taken the lead in their lovemaking before, but only when her tairen had roused and its passions overrode the shy Celierian that remained so much a part of her. This time, she was neither wild nor shy, neither tairen nor mortal. This time, she was simply Ellysetta, mate of Rain, a woman taking the final step from girlhood.

"Do you know how much I love you?" It stunned her how much that love had grown in so short a while. And she had grown, too, from the breathlessly infatuated girl who'd loved Fey tales, to the grief-stricken realist who'd seen her mate leave and her mother die, to the raging tairen in the Mists who'd reached out in desperate fear and trust for her mate, to the young Feyreisa determined to master both shei'dalin and warrior magic and find the answers to save her new kingdom. Each step of the journey, she'd taken because of him. For him. Nourishing her increasing strength with the deepening love she bore him.

Her hands slid down his body, marveling at the smooth warmth of his skin. Pale as silver mist, sleek as satin. She loved the feel of him beneath her hands, the strength and power coiled within such devastating beauty. She laughed softly as she discovered his ticklish feet and the way his thighs quivered when she smoothed her hands over the long ropes of muscle and bent her head to take tiny bites across his flesh.