Chapter Three #5
Exhausted, he set down on a mountain peak, draping his massive black tairen form across a rocky outcropping.
Snow drifted around him, but he did not feel the cold.
He rested his tairen muzzle on his forepaws and looked out over the snowy peaks and the fertile Celierian lowlands to the north. His mind was calmer now, more rational.
A truemate. It was not what he had ever expected, never what he had wanted after Sariel’s death.
He knew the agony of loss, knew it in rich, memorable, fresh detail, thanks to the Eye of Truth.
Which, upon reflection, seemed a bit too tairen-devious to be coincidental.
In the process of punishing him for laying hands upon it, the Eye had resuscitated centuries-dead feelings, then sent him straight into the path of the only living being capable of making him feel those feelings again.
The only living being for whom he would risk an emotional attachment capable of rousing the Fey Wilding Rage.
Once recognized, the truemate bond was irrevocable.
He could no more deny it now than he could deny his own body breath.
Not even sheisan’dahlein, the Fey honor death, was an option for him.
He was the last Tairen Soul, the only living Fey capable of entering the tairen’s lair, Fey’Bahren.
He could not seek death until another Tairen Soul was born.
?Rain.? The familiar sound of Bel’s Spirit voice sounded in Rain’s mind. ?You must return. There is an . . . inconvenience . . . here.?
Bel quickly relayed the details of the recent confrontation with the man who stupidly thought to claim a Tairen Soul’s shei’tani.
Rain’s exhaustion fled in an instant, along with all thoughts of Sariel, loss and death.
Rising up on all fours, his tairen form crouched on the outcropping, bristling with tension, claws digging deep into solid rock.
His wings unfurled and spread wide, the long, curving mid-joint claws stabbing at the air.
His tail whipped against the mountain, sending showers of rock plummeting down the sheer cliff face.
Venom pooled in the reservoirs in his fangs.
?I will return soon. Guard my shei’tani well, old friend.?
?Aiyah, Rain. With my life.?
Rain Tairen Soul launched himself into the air. His massive form plummeted, then soared high as his wings snapped taut on an updraft. The truemate bond tugged at him, urging him to fly faster back to Celieria City and the warmth of Ellysetta Baristani’s beckoning soul.
After his angry departure from the Baristani house, Den Brodson escorted his mother back home and marched five miles across town to the imposing colonnaded white stone edifice of Celieria’s Office of the King’s Law.
There, he headed down a twisting maze of corridors to the small, cramped office shared by four apprentice Clerks of the King’s Law, including Garlie Tavitts, an old chum from Den’s early school days.
With Garlie’s help, Den spent the rest of the day completing, filing, and validating all the legal paperwork necessary to confirm his betrothal claim to Ellysetta Baristani and obtain a Special License for an immediate wedding.
After painstakingly copying the last of a series of legal documents, Garlie pushed one final parchment across his crowded and deeply scarred desktop.
“Just make your mark here, Den, so I can submit the Petition for Special License to Master Wiley. Though I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about.
I remember Ellie Baristani, and believe me, Den, there’s an entire ocean of finer fish out there just waiting to be caught.
Fish with a little more . . . meat on their bones, if you catch my drift.
” The young man cupped his hands in front of his chest and jiggled them suggestively.
“There’s more to love than big tits, Garlie.” Den dipped a ratty old quill into Garlie’s tarnished inkwell and labored to scratch his name on the parchment.
“Yeah, like money, but she’s got none of that either, Den. And don’t even think I’m dimskull enough to fall for that ‘love’ line. You never liked her. ‘Flat-chested, freckle-faced, wood-scratcher’s git’ was the nicest thing you ever called her. And stop your glaring. You know it’s true.”
Den gave the scrawny, big-nosed paper-pusher a last, hard look.
“Careful there, Tavitts. That’s the future Madam Brodson you’re insulting.
” He sprinkled sand over his signature and helped himself to Garlie’s blotter to remove the excess ink from the parchment.
“There.” He blew on the document for good measure before handing it back to the apprentice clerk.
“She might not have tits, coin, or much to recommend her in the looks department—though that does seem to be slowly improving—but Ellie Baristani has something else that outweighs all the rest. Something that’s going to make me a rich man. ”
“And what’s that, Den?”
Den smiled, his eyes twin coins of cold blue greed gleaming in a broad, brutishly handsome face. “Magic.”