"Wait here a moment, shei'tani." A bubble of multicolored magic enveloped her as Rain Tairen Soul walked several paces away to speak with the shei'dalin and 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 yet another 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 mate- bond.

«Rain, be calm,» Marissya warned.

«I am calm,» he snapped back, but he grabbed the unraveling threads of his emotions and pulled them tight. "Celieria unsettles me." There were too many memories here, of Sariel and happier days, of death and war. "My shei'tani is not safe here. She must return with me to the Fading Lands. The courtship will take place there.”

"You cannot just abduct her, no matter how much you worry about her safety. She has parents, a family. Do you think she will accept you if you take her from everything she knows?”

"I will permit her family to enter the Fading Lands. They can remain until the matebond is complete." That was fair. More than fair. No one but Fey had been allowed to enter the Fading Lands since the Mage Wars. "She will accept me."

"Don't be so sure you know a shei'tani's heart," Marissya warned him. "She may be young, but she would never be your truemate if she weren't very strong.”

"Marissya is right, Rain," Dax agreed. "She doesn't trust any of us. If you take her from her home, you may never win her. And where will that leave the Fey? We can't afford to risk losing you any more than you can afford to lose her.”