He glanced down and gave a dismissive snort. "Those marks are nothing."

"And these are nothing."

"They are not nothing. You cannot compare the two. I am a warrior and a Tairen Soul. If you broke my bones and drove a blade through my ribs, it would be no more hurt than I receive in a hard day's training at the Academy. You are my mate. My sworn duty is to keep you from all harm, yet I put these bruises on you." He met her gaze, his eyes so full of remorse and self-loathing that her heart broke. "I promised you weeks ago that I would control the tairen, that you need never fear it, and last night I unleashed its fury on you."

"Rain—"

"I should have stayed away, hunted longer. You were safe here. I knew better than to return, but I did nonetheless." His throat worked and he looked away, staring blindly at the mountain stream tumbling over the rocks below. "The tairen is not a gentle creature. The one time I lost control of it with Sariel, I frightened her so badly she cried for days."

"Rain." She caught his face between her hands. "I am not Sariel."

"I know that, Ellysetta—"

"Shh." She put a finger to his lips. "You've had your say; now I will have mine. You did not frighten me. Not much, in any case," she amended quickly. "And you did not hurt me. In fact, I can't think of any part of what you did that I did not enjoy." Heat bloomed in her cheeks. Her mother had raised her to be modest and circumspect, and last night, in the heat of passion, she'd done and said many things that mortified her even to remember now, in the light of day. Despite her fierce blush, she held his gaze steadily.

"So much so," she continued, "that I was hoping I might convince you to do some of it again." Now her cheeks felt fiery red, but the stunned look on his face was worth the price. "Do not forget that I am tairen too." Trying very hard to look much braver than she felt, she reached out to brush a thumb across the flat coin of his nipple. The coin tightened instantly to a small, hard point. Fascinated, she rubbed it again.

He caught her wrist and growled a warning. "Ellysetta. Do not toy if you do not mean it. My control is still far from what it should be."

The sound of his growl rumbling across her skin and the sudden flare of heat that emanated from him made her face flush and her breathing grow shallow with vivid sensory memories of last night. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. His gaze fixed instantly on the small movement, and she saw his nostrils flare.

Another memory flashed in vivid detail: Rain, his head bent to her breast, glowing purple eyes holding her gaze as his tongue lapped at the taut peak, filling her with exquisite pleasure. She shivered in her seat and stifled a moan as the aching muscles of her body clenched tight and a rush of now-familiar heat flooded her.

Feeling suddenly quite daring and wicked, she leaned forward. "And what if I do mean it, shei'tan?" Holding his gaze, she dipped her head and, in a brazen move totally alien to the good, modest Ellie Baristani her mother had raised, she licked that hard, pointed nipple.

He rose from his seat in a flash, dragging her up into his arms as he went. The sheet she had wrapped around her body fell free, leaving her naked and laughing breathlessly in his arms.

"Just one thing, Rain," she begged. "Please, let's use the bed this time."

Much later, Rain and Ellysetta left the woodland peace of Elverial and raced across the skies of the eastern Fading Lands with the aid of magic-powered flight. They passed the Garreval and caught up with Marissya and Dax by early afternoon.

Rain changed Ellysetta's clothes to brown traveling leathers like the ones Marissya wore, and thanks to his insistence that Marissya heal her before they set out again, Ellysetta was soon loping across the rosy sand of the desert as swiftly as the other three Fey and without a single twinge of soreness. She didn't even break a sweat, despite the heat of the summer sun beating down on the desert, and they were running so fast and so effortlessly that except for the tug of gravity and the rhythmic thud of boot heels hitting earth, she could almost close her eyes and believe she was flying.

There were definite advantages to being Fey.

"I did not expect so much desert," Ellysetta said as she leapt over a small, prickly deep purple shrub Rain called kaddah. Gone were the cool waterfalls and sunlight-dappled woods of Elverial. From the west slopes of the Rhakis as far east as Ellysetta could see there was only barren, sandy earth dotted with succulent shrubs like the kaddah, and an occasional, stunted tree determinedly clinging to life in the harsh environment. "The Fey poetry I've read talks about sweetgrass glades and gentle streams bordered by shade trees taller than tairen."

A much larger kaddah lay in Rain's path. He cleared it with an effortless leap. "Once all the Fading Lands were as you describe, but after the Mage Wars, when we lost so many of our mated women, our lands began reverting to desert."

"You think the loss of the women caused the land to turn to desert?"

"I know it did." He smiled at her surprise. "Fellana, the Fey word for woman, derives from the old tongue, felah'naveth, which means bringer of life, because when a Fey woman is with child, life literally blooms in her footsteps."

Ellysetta was so surprised, her gait slowed. Rain, Marissya, and Dax passed her, and with a burst of speed, she caught up to them. "You mean…pregnant Fey women can make grass bloom in the desert?"

"Technically, they make Amarynth bloom in whatever soil they tread upon. All other life is seeded from that."