

## Flight of Fancy

Sheltering Sky  

#1

### Cherie Noel

### ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED:

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Just _don't_ do it.

Cover Artist: Scarlet Tie Designs - Zathyn Priest  
Editor: Val Hughes

ISBN: 9781301040858

Flight of Fancy © 2013 Cherie Noel

Attention Readers: This book uses Ameriglish. English speakers from other countries should consider themselves warned... there will be donuts rather than doughnuts.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission of the publisher. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. The Licensed Art Material is being used for illustrative purposes only; any person depicted in the Licensed Art Material is a model.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

PUBLISHER: Rocking Rooster Publications  
~~yes, yes... we're a wee little house, but we've got the rockin' cock-a-doodle-doo~~

~Underneath the sheltering sky

Where air flows clean and warm,

We fly far from the ravening beasts,

In sky rest safe as mother's arms,

Then sing we will

A di-de-le-day

A di-de-lay-di-dee~

~~ _fragment of a children's song sung among the People after the Asteroid came~~_

### Dedication

This one's for Piper and MJ because they dream of a better tomorrows; then they invite the rest of us to help build those brighter days.

This one's also for Sarah; she made sure to lay some grain by, that her neighbor might not hunger.

And always, always and forever, this one's for my Balthazar; long may you dance among the stars old friend, and bring beauty to the face of night.

# Prologue ~ Myths and Legends

Cam and Tolly lived at the edge of the wasted city, in a small enclave with a few other _homo avius_ families. No matter what the "People" or the Ravineux said, they were just as human as the others. Camden didn't know why they were different from the others. Sometimes, when Tolly and the other elders drank fermented fruit juice, he would tell Cam their clan was more like the Ravineux—but then he called them _homo vorax_ —and he would never say why, or tell Cam the reason the Ravineux called their people Les Oiseau. Cam knew the names had something to do with the place named Coo-beck where Tolly had lived before he became Camden's Pa-paw. That was back in the last days of the great civilizations, and Cam didn't know of a single other person who had lived during the civilization. Not one.

Perhaps because of the way he kept one foot in the past, and one in the present with his stern blue eyes turned forever toward the future, everyone sought out Cam's Pa-paw Tolly for advice. When Cam looked into his rheumy old eyes and touched the birch-bark thin skin on the backs of his hands, he reckoned Tolly was older than the sun. In their enclave, Old Marle was the only one close to Tolly's age, but even she didn't have the silvered badges of wisdom that he wore proudly on his head, chest and chin. While Cam's chest burned with pride that his Pa-paw Tolly carried visible proof of his wisdom for all to see, he loved the place beside Tolly's eyes more, where laughter had worn down deep, smooth furrows. When he was very small he asked Tolly about them.

"Pa-paw, what are these?"

Cam reached way up to pat the chubby fingers of one hand against Tolly's face, in the space between his Pa-paws eyes and his then chestnut hair. Tapping the fingers of his other hand against his own face in the same place, Cam found only smoothness.

"Do your eyes try to hide in the skin around them? Did the monsters scare them before you brought me to this place?"

Tolly's eyes turned a deeper blue for a moment, and then he wrapped a powerful arm around Cam's little shoulders.

"No, sprout. These—"

And here he ran first his own, and then Cam's fingers outward along the tracks. They started nearly in his eyes and fanned out in a tiny delta.

"They are the paths worn into my flesh by the feet of every laugh brave enough to climb from my heart, where they are born, to my eyes and then escape out of the corner here to find their own home in the wide world. The Ravineux—well, they're our enemies to be sure, but sprout, they're as close to the humans of old as we are. There are monsters aplenty in the world, sprout, and the Ravineux are fierce and wild... but never make the mistake of thinking them merely beasts."

Cam felt the truth of Tolly's words take root in his belly, and so he lay his head down against Tolly's shoulder. The silvery blond fall of his silky hair draped half-way down Tolly's back. As he wrapped his little boy arms around Pa-paw Tolly's neck to ask his next question, Tolly brushed the hair back from Cam's face. Looking down at Cam with his thick white eyebrows raised and the soft smile he saved for Cam alone curving the corners of his lips up, Tolly nodded to encourage his question. Cam twitched his thin shoulders as he rested one delicately boned hand on Tolly's burly forearm. He flashed his Pa-paw a look filled with the dread intensity only small children can muster when peppering their elders with nigh unanswerable questions.

"Will they walk across my face too? Until they wear down paths?"

Tolly's arms tightened around him.

"If I have my way Sprout, then yes, they will. Yes."

Cam slid from Pa-paw Tolly's lap then, and ran to the patch of sun that fell through the rusting metal bars of their window. His friend Misha, one of the few children fair haired and light-boned as Cam was waiting just beyond the protective barrier with a small bag of softened hide clutched to his chest. After a quick glance at Tolly to make sure he was allowed to leave, Cam wiggled out of the narrow opening Tolly secured with heavy lengths of chain every night. Cam's heart beat in rapid patters against his ribs. Together, he and Misha had enough smooth rocks to make up the number to play Sting, without having to wait for the other boys to come home from their hunter training. They settled down in easy crouches side by side, their rough spun short pants making shushing noises as their legs rubbed against each other. Old Marle said they didn't have pants before Tolly joined them and taught them to weave and to sew. Cam shrugged, flicking a glance over to where Tolly sat watching. A loud click sounded next to him, and then Misha crowed in delight. Cam turned back to the game of Sting to find Misha had won his white rock with the glittering speckles, and his dark gray and black rock. His brows drew together and down. Cam grunted, wrinkling his small straight nose as he set his mind to flicking his remaining smooth rocks around the playing circle Misha had drawn in the dirt. After a few moments though, the weight of a gaze upon him drew his head around. Pa-paw was watching, and the laughs were not being brave. No. The salt water people who lived in Pa-paw's memory places must have won the right to search in their honor trials today, because they were racing one another down the slopes of his broad cheeks. Cam began to stand and leave the game, but Pa-paw Tolly shook his head, and pointed with a strong finger to Cam's spot in the circle. Then he smiled, and his face looked like honey and cooked dandy-lion. Cam's heart beat hard enough to hurt against his ribs for a moment. Pa-paw Tolly smiled like the sun after a night when the Ravineux howled from the city, and he warmed Cam more from his place in the shade than the golden rays now touching his skin ever could.

# Chapter One ~ Called

Over the years, some of the thick metal bars had grown weak. The corrosion of time, quiet and stealthy, is deadly all the same. When food began to grow scarce in the city, the carnivorous Ravineux living there, pushed farther out, into the suburbs—and though Tolly would always laugh when he said this, he would never say why. He just laughed, low and rough, when he said 'burbs' in his gravelly voice. So, the bars at the far side of their little clan's squat were weak, and the Ravineux were hungry, pushing farther and farther from the city center until they finally pushed right into the old zoo one night.

They came in at the darkest hour naturally, quiet as field mice wrapped in a blanket made of silence. With an absence of noise so profound, so tangible and heavy somebody should have noticed it, they slipped in and it wasn't until much later Cam found out the how's and why's of their invasion.

Such quiet stealth was not like the Ravineux in general, and especially not like this tribe. However, it wasn't until screaming started at the far side of the main section of interconnected rooms Tolly had laid claim to for the tribe that they were even aware there was something wrong. They were both sleeping because Cam had taken shifts two nights in a row so Tolly could rest; winter had been especially hard on the old man. Of all the families, only Tolly and Cam were even a little prepared for the possibility of the beastly Ravinex figuring out how to get into the safety of the caves under the cages on the surface of the old zoo.

No one but Tolly thought the Ravineux had ever been anything but deadly beasts with an eerie resemblance to men, and even though he was the eldest, most of the others didn't believe his stories of the times before the plague, before the Ravineux came to be as they now were. Cam loved Tolly better than sunshine though, so when the old man spoke he always listened, no matter how shocking or nonsense filled Tolly's stories seemed. Therefore, when Tolly said that once, long ago, the Ravineux had been exactly the same as men, and that to this day some poor human souls were still born to them, but that they were likely devoured at birth, Cam believed. He cried the night Tolly told him that, but he listened, and believed.

For several years after that Cam worked hard and then harder on their escape tunnel. Cam worked until his joints creaked as loud as Tolly's, and until his fingers bled. He worked until he cried with exhaustion, until it was done and hidden and full of deadly traps. In the end the tunnel born of Cam's fears was what saved them from being eaten in their beds.

Before they lay down to sleep, for two whole moon-risings, Tolly had been telling Cam about what he called 'the bards of old', and the importance of such men in a world such as the one they lived in now. He told Cam that his destiny was to learn the truest stories he could, and travel the wide world teaching them. He spoke of the many ways these men cast their stories over the air, until Cam's mind nearly burst with an eager joy, and he was ready to do anything at all to become such a man. That was the night the Ravineux came.

Tolly woke first, because when Cam woke he was already at the door of their sleeping space, pushing the bars closed and locking them as he'd told Cam to never, never do, because there was no key to unlock them after. Tolly grunted, and his arm moved in a short, violent arc. Cam saw through his sleep-encrusted eyes that a big male Ravineux had made it right to the wall of metal bars that made up one wall of their sleep space. He was as tall as Tolly before age began to stoop his shoulders. Naked save for an uncured wrap of furs around his waist which served to hold a knife sheath and a pouch Tolly had once said the Ravineux used to hold the few supplies they carried when going on extended hunts, he pushed back against the locking place. When it would not move he bared his teeth and howled sharply. His teeth flashed against the pallor of his skin, something wet and dark dripping from them to run from the corner of his mouth. He thrust a clawed hand through the bars, and the dim light from Tolly's glows glinted off something. Tolly grunted then, the sound higher, whistling through his teeth with a vicious hiss. A ball of cold filled Cam's stomach. Leaping up from his sleeping furs he started toward Tolly, but the old man shoved back from the bars, turning on unsteady legs and grabbing his heavy old rucksack and smaller pack he kept their medical supplies in. Tolly called the small one his 'emergency bag'. Cam stepped back, for Tolly was already moving toward him, his foot knocking into the basket of glows they kept half covered at night. Cam drew in a harsh breath when the increase of light showed the spreading stain along Tolly's side. Catching Cam's arm as he passed, Tolly made straight for the tunnel entrance, ignoring the scrabbling noise of the horde of Ravineux who had flooded into the corridor on the other side of the decrepit metal bars standing between them and death.

Cam stumbled, and Tolly pulled his arm again without a word. Cam opened his mouth to speak, but Tolly slapped a hand over it without releasing his other arm or slowing his pace. Then they were in the tunnel, and Tolly loosed the rockslide behind them. When the crash and shudder of stone ceased behind them, Tolly gasped to a stop, shuddering so hard he shook Cam's arm. He dropped down, pulling Cam with him, first to his knees and then flat on the floor.

"Never let them hear you speak, Cam. They remember sounds as well, sometimes better than they do smells, and they'll hunt something as sweet as you until the skies go dark forever."

He coughed then, the loose, thickly wet sound of it painful against Cam's ears. He had heard the sound before, and over time had come to know it as the rattle of death's approach. To hear it issue from Tolly's throat ate at him like red hot coals against his skin. He pulled his arm from Tolly's hand. Reaching blindly for Tolly's emergency bag, Cam patted his hands along the older man's warm, wet side until he came to the bulk of the bag. Then Cam pulled one of the precious light-sticks out, pressing down on the little bladder inside and then shaking carefully like Tolly had shown him. Then, armed with the light, he reached back for the medicines Tolly kept tucked to one side of the bag. Tolly smacked his hands away.

"No time, sprout, and no sense wasting what you might need later. You've got to get away from me. They've got my scent now, and old and stringy as I may be, I still won't escape them. The taste of my blood is in their mouths, and what one of them knows the others feel as well. You have to go. Get me to the pond by the entrance to the tunnel, so I can wash your scent from myself, or if I don't make it that far you'll have to do it. You'll have to travel downstream a ways in the water, but then I've a quest for you lad."

Cam made a sound, low and needy. Tolly grunted again, quieter and with less force. His fingers found Cam's wrist, gripping tightly as he grimaced, eyes squeezing shut as his whole face puckered with pain. His breaths went tight and shallow for a moment, and then he opened eyes so glassy and bright that on any other man Cam would have called the brightness tears.

"You—Tolly, no... I don't want to leave you."

Tolly blinked, and his eyes lost a bit of shine as some of the bright pain slid down one of his leathery cheeks.

"Listen one last time, sprout. You remember what I told you about the glass mountain?"

Cam's heart burned hotter than a double handful of coals, and his lungs pinched tight in his chest. His voice came out muffled by the thickness of his tongue.

"Yes, Pa-paw, I hear you now, and I remember your words about the bards. The g-glass tower is where the magic potion is guarded by the fiercest of dragons."

Tolly patted his wrist.

"Yes, sprout. There's a map sewn inside the lining of the bag, just under the flap where there's a loose knot of threads. It'll lead you to the tower. You need to get there, sprout, get there and find the potion. You'll know it by the way the box it's kept in glows with the symbol I taught you."

Tolly coughed again, his grip on Cam's wrist growing slack for a moment. His eyes rolled in his head, and then he seemed to gather himself together as though he would rise from the packed dirt of the tunnel's floor to march resolutely forward right by Cam's side.

"That's my boy. My sprout, no matter who fathered you."

Tolly smiled as sweet as sunshine again, and his rheumy blue eyes seemed to soak in Cam's features like the earth soaked in rain after a dry spell. He closed his eyes, and gave a little sigh. Tolly's head lolled to one side, and his hand fell from Cam's wrist with a sickening finality. Cam waited and watched for a handful of long, heavy breaths in and out of lungs still pinched tight. But Tolly did not blink his eyes open, or draw in a sudden breath, and something in the sudden sunken look to his face told Cam his Pa-paw was truly gone at last to a place where Cam's shorter reach simply could not follow. He bent over the old man, pressing a kiss and a prayer onto each eyelid to aid his spirit to fly to the land of souls. Then he obeyed Tolly, and helped him to the pond, though it took Cam the rest of the night to drag the old man's body there. Afterwards, washing away all traces of his scent from the old man's skin, Cam wept until he was a dry husk. By the time the cleansing was finished, Cam was chilled to the bone, and more frightened than ever before in his life. Pausing for a moment in the early morning light, Cam looked at Tolly's still face. The cold flesh somehow looked nothing like his Pa-paw, though a short time ago Cam would have thought it impossible for Tolly to not look like himself.

He stood at the side of the pond for a bit, gazing at himself in the refection of the water wondering if one day soon his flesh would lie cold and still, and look nothing like him. Thin as a wisp of cloud or whippy like the willow branch Tolly always compared him to, he was pale golden all over save for his silvery blond hair. He looked nothing like Tolly with his broad body and heavy bones. They had fit together, though, and when their little clan sometimes met up with others, they always remarked on how alike he and Tolly seemed. Sniffling a bit, Cam hefted Tolly's old bags over his shoulders and walked around the edge of the pond toward where the stream let out of it. He didn't know if he could make it to the glass mountain on his own, let alone fight his way past a dragon. He would try for Tolly, because it was the last thing he'd ever be able to give his Pa-paw. Cold, heart bursting with sorrow, and stomach drawn taut with fear, he waded into his future.

# Chapter Two ~ Stranger

Tolly sent Cam to find a magical elixir, and he told Cam through all the days of his youth about the danger that the remaining humans would forget the things we'd spent thousands of years learning. And then he died, and there was no warmth in the world anymore, and all Cam could do was try his best to find the glass mountain where the elixir was hidden. Tolly had promised the elixir would equip Cam best to carry tales from place to place that people might remember, and be encouraged to learn again without making the same mistakes they had in the past.

It was scary though, and Cam wandered the edges of the city for weeks, his heart echoing with sounds he'd never hear again in life, of Pa-paw Tolly laughing, singing, and sometimes—oh, those were the best times—just breathing quietly next to Cam as they watched the evening fire dance and play. Cam spent night after night waking to every single sound with heart pounding and mouth burned to the terrible dryness that only starkest terror can bring.

One morning Cam decided to try a shortcut between two half fallen down buildings. Though there were many easy, wide ways to the city center, they were all marked on Tolly's map as dangerously near Ravineux nests. Cam had to see if he could find a path to the tall buildings at the city's center which went around those nesting places, yet wouldn't leave him hopelessly lost in the jumble of ruined streets the Ravineux had deliberately blocked off to drive their prey into using the deceptively easy ways. Glancing down the way not on Tolly's map filled Cam's belly with butterflies. His heart beat almost too fast to count as he followed the curving wall of one of the buildings, wide at the mouth, and then narrowing to a distance Cam would be able to span with his outstretched hands. There, at the narrowest point, the whole of the passage lay in darkness. Fearful of a carefully laid Ravineux snare, Cam waited until the sun reached the midpoint between when she first woke and when she stood brightly smiling down from directly overhead. The Ravineux would likely all be sleeping in well-shrouded dens this far into the rising of the sun, hiding their sun sensitive skin in deeply shaded places. While Cam did not want to press his good fortune beyond its breaking point, he needed to find the elixir Tolly bade him seek out soon. If this way did not turn out to be a viable route, he would turn back to the more dangerous ways, though he would try them at the brightest hour.

Halfway to the narrowest point in the path between the buildings, Cam heard a scraping noise ahead in the distance. The dark of an open door gaped next to him, and while he would normally have avoided it, the fall of sunlight filling the entire far side of the room convinced him the space might be safer than braving whatever was making its way down the path toward him. Cam dove through the doorway, his lugs frozen with fear. Once inside, his gaze darted around the interior of the room he was in. The whole of the place echoed with emptiness, smelled of nothing but dust, and felt safe for the moment. Cam pressed his body flat against the scratchy bricks of the wall next to the door. The cool bricks raised goose-bumps on the bare skin of his torso, and made him doubly grateful for the two pair of pants Tolly had sewn for him. Touching his fingers to the fine, small stitches at the side, Cam squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment before peeking out the door, hoping desperately to see some wild animal journeying along the path for unknowable reasons.

Instead, his eyes locked on the tall, muscular form of a man. The dusky red gold of the man's skin showed he was not one of the Ravineux. He moved at a loping run, the gleaming strands of his long black hair bouncing against flexing muscles in his ass and upper thighs left nearly bare by his loincloth. His profile, as he disappeared from Cam's sight, was lit by a strong ray of the sun. At the very last instant, he turned halted in his tracks, turning his face up to the sky above. In one hand he held a long curving thing with a long strand of some other material bound to the top and bottom. For the moment that he remained standing thus, Cam debated whether or not the thing might be a bow, but then he dismissed the thought as foolish. Tolly had made bows for the two of them to hunt with, and none had been even half the size of what the man held so casually grasped in one hand. The strength required to bend a bow as tall as the thing the man held in one hand was beyond Cam's imagining. The tall stranger drank in the benediction of the light for seven more beats of Cam's heart, and then he raised the implement in his hands first to his lips, placing a kiss on its curve, and then raising it high toward the sky. Cam's brow furrowed. His stomach burned with curiosity. The man lowered his device and began moving forward again, this time at a slower pace. Cam listened carefully, and when his sounds began to fade in the distance, Cam slunk from his hiding spot on feet as quiet as those of a field mouse.

By the time the sun reached the highest pint in the sky, Cam learned that what the man carried was indeed a bow. The sight of the man drawing the bow, great muscles in his back and arms flexing and straining, caused Cam's pulse to beat hard at the base of his throat. Before his wondering eyes the arrow flew straight and true from the oversized bow to the heart of a deer. The man wasted no time in dispatching the creature. Murmuring words Camden was too far away to hear as he drew a wicked looking blade from the sheath strapped to his side and slit the deer's throat. Then, with a level of economy, which spoke of much practice, he gutted the creature and butchered it on the spot. The man took many large slabs of meat, but left most of the deer's body intact. As Cam watched in fascination, he began to understand that the man was deliberately cutting into the animal and carving meat from its bones in a manner which would afterward appear to be merely the predations of another wild beast. Then he pulled a long roll of leather from his waist, taking great care to lay it out away from all the gore left from the animal's death and butchering. Finally, the stranger carefully wrapped the bits he'd taken from the deer, ending by fastening the leather in such a way that none of the blood from the meat would fall to the ground. Astonishment nearly betrayed Cam's presence to the man then, for he gasped out loud when his brain tallied up all the various bits of information. However, the man sneezed at that precise moment, and whooshing noise covered the sound of Camden's potentially dangerous mistake.

Cam followed the man back the way they had come, clinging to small shadowed places and the cover of rubble until the way grew so narrow there would be no hiding his presence if he continued. Then he backtracked to the empty room where sunlight and shadow were the only occupants to see if he could bed down there for the night. In the far corner of the room, hidden from sight in the shadows and from smell by a thick layer of dust, Cam found a large pile of dried Ravi-bane leaves. At first he could not understand how they had managed to stay intact, drying out rather than moldering, but then he saw that the floor of the room ran at a slight incline to the center were there was a small drain. The broken section of the ceiling the sun had shone through earlier was actually smaller than Cam had thought at first, and a high wall of glass blocks shielded nearly all of the space. There was space enough for the leaves to have blown in—and yes, above the line of glass blocks was a small pane of plain glass were Cam could see the uppermost branches of a Ravi-bane tree.

Cam wrinkled his nose. He wouldn't smell pretty, but if he burrowed into the leaves, he would likely be safe from discovery by the Ravineux for a night or two. The luxury of a full nights rest sang a siren song to him, aided in no small part by the possibility of catching another glimpse of the strange man. Setting his pack and emergency bag at the very back of the pile of leaves, Cam took a handful of the smelly leaves and walked back to the doorway. Crumbling them between his hands, he allowed bits and pieces of the bane leaves to fall to the floor as he walked backward. The smell of them would obscure his scent should any of the Ravineux happen to pass in the night.

In the end, Cam stayed in the room for twenty-one risings and settings of the sun. Every morning he would sneak out to follow the man, taking a small portion of whatever animal the man slaughtered or harvesting some of whatever edible he gathered that day. Some of the plants appeared to be deliberately grown in various locations around the edges of the city and some appeared to grow wild. Day by day Cam's hunger to know more about the other man grew, especially after the occurrence of the fifth day. During the third and fourth days rain fell heavily, nearly flooding Cam's little hiding spot, and he had taken seriously the idea of simply moving on. Then the fifth day dawned with clear skies, and a sense of expectancy hovering in the air. The man journeyed from wherever his living place was earlier than what Cam had come in the past days to think of as his norm. Cam scrambled to gather his things to follow, and then nearly overran the man when he hunkered down behind rubble near a watering hole whose existence had been unknown to Cam until that very moment. The man drew his bow, sighting down along the shaft of his arrow with his arm drawing back and back again. Just as Cam could nearly hear the arrow singing though the air, the man let out a low, barely discernible grunt and lowered his weapon before suddenly standing to his feet.

"Go. Go and take your babies to the forest, foolish one. This is no place to raise your young."

Cam blinked in shock. Not only did the stranger speak the same language that he had spoken with Pa-paw Tolly when they were alone, but he let a fat quail run away so that her chicks would not lose their mother. Warm tendrils of a happy feeling spread out in Camden's chest and belly. His mouth smiled without permission, and even his eyes could not help joining in with happy squints.

After that day, Cam chose to continue following the man in hopes that eventually he would lead Cam to a new way into the city, or show him some other skill that would make taking one of the paths Cam knew of safer. He ignored that though these were good and true things, they were not the reason at the heart of why he stayed. Cam stayed because the sight of the man's hair billowing out behind him when he ran fast made his heart take wing. He stayed because the low rumble of the stranger's voice as he thanked the earth and the animals for helping him to survive another day filled his ears with the same feeling as sunshine on his skin, but deep inside. Most of all, he stayed for the rare smile that would grace the man's strong, proud face. That one expression had become as necessary to Cam as the feeling of the sun upon his face or air in his lungs. But finally, after the moon grew full, round and fat and then began to be eaten by the night again, Cam dreamed of Tolly, angry and disappointed in him at first and then only silent, his old eyes shadowed and filled with hurt as he pointed an accusing finger toward the tall glass mountain which lay so near.

Cam woke with his heart nearly pounding out of his chest, and spent the day distracted and jittery. That night, lying in his strangely soft pile of Ravi-bane leaves, so accustomed to them even their strong smell could not drive away the happy feelings watching the stranger bathe at a pool in the forest had caused. Cam fell into sleep thinking of the tall man's red-gold skin, and the way the muscles of his back and thighs looked as he ran through the canyons of the city and across the short plain between city and forest. Cam's mouth filled with hunger and then with spit as he recalled the way the man had looked standing fully naked in water to his knees, hand on his hardened man parts, rubbing, stroking and squeezing the fat girth his foreskin covered until his shaft had grown fully erect. Cam had tingled all over then as he did whenever he remembered the hot, heavy feeling that invaded his groin as he watched the stranger stroking his shaft. The man's reddish gold hand slid up and then down his shaft. The movement of his wrist as he reached the top of his stroke tugging and twisting his foreskin at the tip was a thing of beauty that made Cam's mouth go dry. Oh bright skies above, at the end, when he'd thrown his head back, neck corded with tension and mouth open in a silent shout—Cam had whimpered. Cam's seed had spilled down inside his pants as the stranger's spilled over his hand into the water.

So, when Cam's swollen length woke him in the night, whole body tingling pleasantly and his groin throbbing with special fierceness from a dream where the larger man held Cam tightly, stroking his skin as they flew together over the city, Cam reached down and put his hands where the dream hands had been, grateful that he slept without his pants in the heat of late Spring. He rubbed and squeezed, pulled and tugged, and bit his hand to hold in his cry of completion when the scary joyful feelings burst at the base of his spine again and shot out the end of his shaft. For a moment, he lay gasping as quietly as he could, and then as the euphoric feelings began to ebb, water began to leak from the sides of Cam's eyes, hot and salty. He missed the feel of Pa-paw Tolly's arms around him when winter necessitated they curl together for warmth, missed the feeling of being able to look to the Tolly's wisdom and sureness in the world. Cam pressed his back hard against the bags that Pa-paw had packed full of medicine and love, and wondered when he would ever feel safe again. Water leaked from his eyes for a long time, past the moon's rise, until finally, in the darkest part of the night Cam fell asleep to the haunting sound of a pack of Ravineux howling to one another in the far distance.

The next morning he woke late, and his stranger nearly caught him still asleep in his pile of leaves. Cam woke though, and had time enough to throw leaves over himself and his belongings before the man passed by the doorway. His interrupted night had left him drained in body and spirit. Cam decided to stay closer to his temporary camp, so that he might begin preparations to travel the final distance to the glass mountain. Not until after his red-gold man left did Cam think of investigating in the direction the other man came from every day, but once the idea bloomed in his mind he could not shake it. Finally, and deliberating long enough for the sun to rise to her apex in the sky and then begin to fall again, Cam decided to see if he could find where the man made his home.

The sun began to set before he finally found the place. Cam nearly missed the turn entirely, for the path broadened out again past where the walls came so narrowly together, and there was a place not far beyond that were the way split into three distinct paths. Cam stood at the branching off place for several long moments, looking first down one split and then the next. Finally, unable to decide which would be the best path via any logic he had ever learned, and somehow sure that he must do this now, Cam pulled some of the dried Ravi-bane leaves from his pack. Crumbling one in his hand, he tossed the bits into the air. A gust of wind caught the dry bits, blowing most of the pieces down the center path, a fair amount down the right hand path, and none at all down the path to the left. Cam decided to believe that he would have the least need of Ravi-bane if he followed the left hand way, so he took that turning, placing his trust in whatever forces of good might still exist in the world.

After a length of time that felt as long or perhaps a bit longer than a quarter of an hour as Tolly had taught him to judge with a simple sundial made from a stick, Cam happened on a courtyard hidden behind the ruins of a larger building. Within the courtyard stood a squat cement building with stout metal doors and no windows to be seen. Cam hurried toward the building, uncertain if he had found his strangers home or not, but still hopeful of finding a way inside before the shadows lengthened enough for the Ravineux to begin roaming for the evening. As he clambered down from the rubble of the building hiding the courtyard, a hand shot out from behind a half fallen pillar. The touch, so unexpected and sudden, would have startled him into flinching even if the sensation of sparks striking his skin like embers from a tiny fire had not accompanied the sight and feel of that red-gold skin sliding across his paler hued flesh. Cam jumped back and sideways. His feet landed with a soft sinking feel on what could only be tilled soil, and his mouth pulled down in an unhappy line as he gazed down. His feet were resting on the tender green shoots of someone's—his stranger's—garden. A dangerous sound, half growl, half snort and wholly irritated, sounded from a spot immediately to the left of where he'd just been standing.

"It's too late in the season to start the plants again. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tramp anymore of them down."

Before Cam's disbelieving eyes, the tall, broad shouldered man he had been watching for nearly a full moon cycle stepped into the waning sunlight. His hair fell in long, damp brown waves to his waist, yet his face was as clean as a youth's. Cam wondered if his stranger scraped the hair away as Tolly had, and the thought of his pa-paw brought the stinging and blurry vision he'd been plagued with of late back in full force. The man grunted, and the sound pushed a low keening noise from Cam's chest before he could regain his composure.

With another aggravated grunt, the man strode forward, and up close his eyes were hard and soft all at once, and the most marvelous shade of golden-brown Cam had ever seen. Swallowing down his nervousness, Cam tried to speak.

"I-I-I."

The man's eyes crinkled at the corners, and any hope Cam had of maintaining even a shred of his dignity fell by the wayside. The man frowned, and the little laughter fans at the corners smoothed out.

"I'm sorry. For stepping in your vegetables, I mean. I—can I offer you something in return? I have—"

The man bent at the waist, tossed Cam over his shoulder while somehow securing both the rucksack and the old canvas emergency bag so they didn't fall. He strode across the courtyard, fumbling at the door for a moment before pulled the heavy metal door open. Once they were inside, he set Cam down, turning his back as he pressed the door closed again. He slid four heavy bars across the door, three horizontally and one that slid up into the wall above the door and then back down into the floor just to the inside of the solid metal of the door. A basket of glows, like the ones Tolly used to make, gleamed faintly from the corner of the large room. Locked behind that heavy metal door in a room with no windows and thick concrete block walls, the space lit by the faint light of the glows, Cam felt safe for the first time since the night Tolly had died.

"Thank you for sharing your shelter with me for the night, sir."

The man grunted, setting Cam's bags down by the wall next to the door before he made his way over to the far side of the room. Cam watched him move around the room with only the small flaps of his loin cloth in the front leaving nearly all of him on view. The heavy muscles of his long frame bunching and flexing under the dark reddish brown of his skin in ways that stirred feelings Cam had only known before in dreams. He watched Cam sideways out of startling amber eyes set like precious jewels from a Bairdes story above the high arches of his cheekbones. He pulled a handled object with small, round tipped spikes pushing up from one end out of a small chest set in the far corner, coming to squat next to Cam and holding up the object.

"My name is Seth. You know brushes?"

He made a motion with the little tool, running the small spiked end through the waist length fall of his thick brown hair. Cam reached out a tentative hand. Tolly had let him help some of the little ones with their hair, but they'd never had so nice a tool as this.

"My name is Camden. I have helped with hair, but our tools were not so fine. Flat, with a single row of teeth, they were. Pa-paw Tolly called them combs."

Seth grunted, pushing the—brush—into Cam's hands. Turning his back to Cam he settled onto his hind end with another grunt. Cam reached out a hand. Seth's hair was shiny, like blackbird feathers, but softer, much softer. Parting the strands, Cam looked first for the pest that could live in hair, and seeing none, began to stroke the brush though the thick dark strands covering Seth's head without bothering to bind his own hair up first. At the first stroke of the brush, Seth's shoulders released a tension Cam had been unaware he held. Cam began to hum softly, feeling delighted that Seth would give him such a simple way to begin repaying the damage to his garden.

As he finished each section of hair, Cam began to braid the long strands of Seth's hair into small sections to make it easier for Seth to keep neat during the day. Seth hummed in counterpoint to him, his deeper voice providing a springboard for Cam to play in the melodies. Sorrow filled Cam's heart when the end of the brushing time approached. The quiet intimacy of the shared songs blended with the desperately tactile comfort of sliding his hands along the skin and through the hair of another being left him with a floating feeling in his middle and stiffness in his shaft that ached pleasantly. Cam leaned forward to reach the last locks of hair still needing to be brushed and braided, and as he did so the hard bar of his shaft pressed against Seth's side through the age softened fabric of Cam's pants.

The bigger man turned quickly, a fierce snarl contorting his face. Cam dropped the brush, cowering back with hands thrown up over his head. He tried to curl himself up into a small ball, with his soft parts protected to the inside, but Seth's large hands on his hips halted his movement.

"Stop, Cam. Stop. I'm not trying to hurt you. I thought you were challenging me."

Seth pulled Cam's hands down from over his head, but Cam's shoulders still hunched in tightly. Peeking up at Seth through his lashes, he continued to make himself as small as possible.

"What did I do? I'm sorry. I just wanted to finish your hair. I-the others said when I put their hair in braids it stayed neat longer. If you tell me what I did to make you angry, I promise not to do it again."

Cam knew better than to challenge an alpha. One of the first things Pa-paw Tolly had taught him, back before he even needed two hands to count the number of his summers was that he should never directly challenge an alpha. He was then, and remained, too small of stature, and too docile of temperament to be an alpha. He was something different, and that was a good thing, Tolly said. As long as he remembered, and gave any alpha he encountered their due respect. Men were not so far removed from the beasts, the Ravineux had shown that when the change came. So Cam stretched out his legs to expose the part of his soft belly showing above the low waist of his pants, keeping his eyes down and baring his throat by tuning his head up and to the side.

A soft sound from Seth eased some of Cam's worry. Then Seth made a startled humming noise, and his hand landed lightly on Cam's belly. He petted Cam, his hand moving lower and lower in slow, short stroking motions. He made the same low humming sound, and then his hand pushed under the fabric of Cam's pants. The rough strength of his hand closed over the pale, slim column of hard flesh that betrayed Cam's helpless excitement. Pulling at the waistband of Cam's pants, he tugged the material down the full length of Cam's legs. His brown eyes burned a path over every inch of flesh revealed. Pulling the pants free of Cam's feet, he tossed them toward the place he'd set Cam's bags down. One hand returned to Cam's hip then, squeezing, fingers digging into the meat of Cam's rear while the palm rested at the crest of his hip. Seth's other hand made short work of removing his loincloth and the length of rawhide he used to hold his knife sheaths at his sides. The hand at Cam's hip continued to flex and squeeze. His eyes rolled upward in their sockets as his lips parted on a low moan. Then Seth put his other hand on Cam's belly and began stroking down toward his shaft again. Cam whimpered.

"Ah, I see what you were poking me with. Not a challenge at all, hmm? No, this was an offer."

Cam's body felt hot and achy, his hips thrust upward in little hitching motions. He tipped his head farther back, another low whine sliding from his throat before he could find words.

"Please. I did not mean to challenge you, Seth."

Seth released Cam's shaft then, and petted his stomach again. He reached up along the length of Cam's body, tugging his chin down until their eyes met.

"How old are you, Cam? How many summers do you have?"

Cam smiled, because this was an easy question to answer, and Seth's hand on his stomach felt nice, warm and safe again. He shrugged one shoulder up, looking off to the side as he remembered the arguments Tolly used to have with the others about Cam's age.

"Eighteen. I have eighteen summers. Pa-paw Tolly counted them until I was big enough to count for myself. He said that I was always small. The rest of our clan didn't believe I was as old as Tolly said because they only saw that I smaller than all the other children. But after Misha was born they believed. Misha was small boned and pale like me. When he had two summers he was the same size as I had been when Tolly brought us to join the clan. After that they all believed."

Seth's face eased into something less questioning, something that looked almost like hunger but he was looking at Cam as though Cam were the nourishment he sought. Cam gazed back, his eyes open wide and his head filled with questions. Cam waited for the alpha to speak.

"Cam, has no one ever touched you here?"

Seth placed his hand back on Cam's rigid shaft.

"N-no. I never-just me, to piss and sometimes..."

Cam's face flushed, because Tolly had told him it was private, and that he should not share that part of him with just anyone, but only with the one or ones who made his spirit happy. Cam looked up into Seth's eyes, and thought about Tolly's words for a moment, and then he spoke again.

"I touch there, when my shaft is hard, and it feels like... like when I have dreams of flying."

Seth smiled at him again, his eyes turning from amber brown to a deeper shade that made Cam think of sunlight on the pool where he had washed Tolly. Seth leaned down close, murmuring nonsense and strange words into the shell of Cam's ear. Heat flooded through Cam's body, burning brightest directly under whichever point of his body Seth's hands rested on or stroked over. Cam gasped, and wriggled closer, soft mewling noises beginning to fall from his throat. He wanted Seth's hand back on his shaft, and he was fast approaching the point where he might forget to let the alpha take his time and do things at his own pace. Cam wanted, he burned, and Seth's hands pushed the fire higher even as they soothed.

"Seth, Seth-I need..."

Seth hummed again, lowering his head to nip his way down along Cam's chest to his belly and then—oh, bright skies above, he wrapped his warm lips around Cam's throbbing man parts and licked. Cam cried out, white heat bursting behind his eyes. Long moments passed as he shuddered with trembling aftershocks of feeling, and gradually Cam began to feel his mind and spirit return from the place next to the sun where his body had just flown. He realized both his wrists were gripped tightly in one of Seth's large hands, and that Seth was still using the flat of his tongue to lave lightly against the furred sac below the root of his shaft. The delicate touches of Seth's tongue wrenched continued cries from Cam.

Another moment passed before Cam realized that Seth had one—no, two, or possibly three fingers pushed inside of Cam's body, slick and slippery with what smelled like rendered fat, and that he was beginning to move them slowly in and out.

"Bright skies, Seth, what are you doing? I do not think you should touch there, the wastes of food come from that place."

Seth looked up, his eyes wickedly hot, and pressed his tongue down below Cam's furry sac to the soft, sensitive place just before the opening to his body. He pressed his tongue hard against that spot as his fingers wriggled and turned and tapped—

"Oh, oh, bright skies—"

Cam whimpered, trying to pull back. Seth leaned up, pressing a kiss against Cam's stomach.

"It's okay Cam. I'll keep you safe, I promise—"

He laughed the low sound sending shivers through Cam's belly. Seth nipped at Cam's stomach then, and sparks flew behind Cam's eyes as he cried out.

"Again, again, Seth, oh again, that feels so good"

Seth's hands moved to grip Cam around the waist, rolling him onto his stomach and then pulling his hips up into the air. The fingers left Cam's body, returning with more of the sage and sweet-grass scented slippery stuff, pushing in until his hole was slick and loose. Then Seth's broad chest was draped over Cam's back, and his deep voice was growling in Cam's ear.

"Breathe deep, Camden, and blow your breath out hard. I will go slowly with you as the first always should."

Then a blunt pressure pushed against Cam's hole. He drew in a big breath as Seth had told him to, beginning to exhale slowly as he pushed out with his inner muscles. Seth had said to blow hard, but Cam thought he would scream if he did that, and he did not want to scream. The pressure grew and grew, and Cam thought that perhaps—

"Am I too small?"

The question was barely out of his mouth when Seth grunted, pulling back hard on Cam's hips. The pressure peaked, and then something gave way, and Seth was inside Cam. The sensation was the same and yet different from his fingers, painful and darkly thrilling all at once. Cam's breaths went in and out of his chest in rapid, shallow motions, and his skin grew hot everywhere. One of Seth's hands slid up along Cam's hip until it rested on the top of his ass. From there the hard strength of that hand slid up along his back until it reached Cam's shoulder, anchoring him there as Seth's hips thrust forward. Seth pushed forward until his hips were snugged right up against Cam's ass, and then he stilled. Cam panted, tears stinging his eyes. He wanted to run away into the night and at the same time he longed to push back until he crawled right inside of Seth. A low, thready whine sounded, and after a moment Cam realized the noise was coming from him.

"You see? We fit together just fine."

Seth started to move, slow and steady rocks of his hips in and out, back and forth. The burning sensation bloomed into waves of hot, dark pleasure rolling over Cam like sun warmed honey would roll over his tongue.

"Ahhh... Yesssss..."

Cam stopped trying to speak after that, holding as steady as he could, taking the increasingly forceful thrusts with a hesitant delight. Then Seth stilled again, moving both hands to Cam's shoulders for a moment. He pressed against them, pushing until Cam's chest and shoulders were pressed hard against the floor.

"Keep there. Don't move."

Seth's hand went to Cam's hips, the rough calluses of his hands scratching pleasantly at Cam's skin. He tipped Cam's hips so that his low back arched, and his ass pointed higher into the air. Then he began to move again, one hand moving to press in the center of Cam's back between his shoulder blades. As he thrust in the first time, Cam shouted out. Sparks of white flew behind his eyes, and tiny embers of feeling danced up and down his spine.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh."

Seth grunted, and then he licked the side of Cam's neck before whispering into his ear.

"That is the place of pleasure."

Cam tried to nod, but Seth began to pound in and out with hard, rapid movements. Something deep in Cam coiled tighter and tighter until with a hoarse scream from Seth and another explosion of white fire along the insides of his eyelids the world disappeared into a swirl of color that shot along his spine and out the end of his shaft. His whole body convulsed with joyful feelings. Cam floated for a moment before a pair of strong arms wrapped around him and a deep voice hummed nonsense words at the far edge of wakefulness. Then blackness pulled Cam into the world of sleep.

# Chapter Three ~ Moonbeam

As Seth lay down, still panting slightly from the delight of helping Camden take the first steps of his journey on the paths of pleasure, he took time to look his fill at the beautiful being in his arms. While Seth had been privileged to take the opening steps with many who had just begun their fully adult journeys of pleasure, none had called to him as strongly as this young man. Some of those Seth had guided in their first pleasuring with another had strong, tall red-gold bodies like his own, broad of shoulder and slim of waist, some curving hips and full ripe breasts... but none had had hair falling like silvery moonbeams from the crowns of their heads. None had been slight and narrow shouldered with a slender shaft Seth imagined entering his ass. None had tasted like home, and none left Seth thanking the sun above that he of all his brethren, had been the one chosen in his generation to learn the ways of pleasure. Though he no longer served the people of his original tribe as a pleasure teacher and guide, his knowledge of the ways to initiate virgins of both sexes had served Camden well this night.

Seth ran the tips of his fingers lightly along the line where Camden's long darkly golden lashes fanned against the pale gold skin of his startlingly soft skin. A sliver of heat worked its way from the base of his spine to the top of his head. Camden did not yet know that he had given more than his virginity to Seth, but when the curiously colored little man followed Seth for weeks, Seth had begun to consider the loneliness of his new life. Camden's presence in his territory brought Seth the joys of watching and protecting what he'd thought lost when the shameer sent him from the tribe. Seth struggled with the absence of pleasure sharing, and guarding the smaller, less capable fighters of the tribe.

When Shameer Talia sent him from the tribe, she had made clear that Seth left with honor, to complete a task sent by the Great Mother herself. Her words comforted his mind, but they could not stroke his skin in the dark of the night, and he could not sink his shaft deep within them when his needs rose. So Camden's hesitant presence brought a quiet contentment Seth could not consider losing, even before the breath stealing delight of being the first to open his body.

Seth sighed softly; easing Camden more fully into the cradle of his own body as he readied them both for sleep. Closing his eyes, Seth did something he had fallen out of doing over the past few seasons spent alone. He thanked the Mother, grateful beyond words that Cam had finally grown bold enough to search out the place of Seth's home fires. Because Camden spoke a tongue Seth understood, he made sure to thank the Mother for the ease of communication she created between them. Seth fell asleep stroking his hands through Camden's moonbeam hair from the nape of the smaller man's neck to where it ended below Camden's shoulders. In his prayers to the Mother, Seth counted out each blessing Camden brought to this lonely place where the shameer had exiled him. The soft slide of Camden's hair was like a slow river's water caressing his skin.

Long nights of guarding Camden's sleeping place without betraying his presence to the skittish man had been followed by longer days of hunting, gathering, and working the gardens he kept at various points around the city. Weeks of little rest took their toll on Seth, pulling him down into a heavy sleep. Once in the night movement and a lessening of the warmth near his body roused him to near wakefulness. A soft murmur and the press of a small, firm palm against his chest soothed him back into a slack-limbed slumber the likes of which Seth had not known for several long seasons of listening only to his own voice.

In the morning Seth drifted in gradual stages up from the dark place without dreams he visited when extreme exhaustion took him. At first, he felt only slightly colder than he ought. His heart beat fast and then faster, and his breaths grew shallow as he realized his arms should be full of a sleepy, sated Camden. When his eyes cleared enough to see the heavy metal door he had hauled from a full day's journey away was unbarred, the pit of his stomach grew sour and hot. Camden had no idea how often over the last moon cycle Seth had dispatched Ravineux who stalked the slight man. Seth had watched Camden well, and while he was confident the other man possessed decent tracking skills, knowledge of the plant world, which might rival that of Shameer Talia, and the wit to avoid conflict when he could, Seth had little faith in Camden's fighting skills. Bright Mother, the Ravineux would serve up Camden as a delicate feast within a week.

Seth shot to his feet, his gaze sweeping the breadth of the room. Camden's bag, the larger one he'd called a rucksack the night before, sat neatly in one corner, but the smaller bag with medicines and materials to dress wounds was gone. Seth tried to hold onto a scrap of hope that Camden was only out in the garden, trying to save the shoots he'd trampled the day before. He knew though, right in the marrow of his bones Seth knew his impetuous new lover was headed into danger.

He threw open the door to find his garden empty, and no sign of Camden having been there at all, save for the crushed plants from the day before. Seth turned back into the secured room, quickly gathering up his bow, a precious steel hunting knife, and as many arrows as would fit into his quiver. His pulse thundered in his ears as he set the dwelling quickly to rights and set off toward the place Camden slept until last night. If he could catch the other man there, he could—maybe—convince him to let go of whatever foolish idea sent him out on his own. Barring that, he might at least be able to persuade Camden to take him along.

Shameer Talia had predicted Seth finding a mate wrapped in mystery, younger than Seth yet crowned with the wisdom of an elder. Perhaps her vision had shown her Camden's silvery hair, and she assumed the color brought by age. Seth's heart beat even faster. Why hadn't he told Camden that he was the one Shameer Talia had seen in her vision? Holy Mother of them all—he was Seth's destined mate, and he was somewhere in the depths of a city overrun with Ravineux, alone.

****

By the time the sun had reached her zenith in the sky, Seth's hummingbird heart had given up beating so incredibly fast, but only because it was humanly impossible to hold a constant headlong, faster than a lightning's strike, pace of terror. Seth tracked Camden first to the poorly defensible room where Camden spent the past moon cycle unknowingly watched over by Seth. Then, his blood growing cold and thick with each step, he followed those same faint tracks right into the heart of a city long since abandoned by all but the Ravineux and the single human in their midst, Seth. Worse yet, Camden seemed intent on traipsing straight into the most thickly Ravineux infested sector of the city as the sun began to slide down from her apex toward the horizon.

Seth watched the waning light with a wary eye. While there was no doubt they would be trapped in the city's center for the night, he harbored a great deal of doubt whether he would be able to find a safe place for himself and Camden to spend the hours of darkness. The cluster of towering buildings he wound his way through held too many dark, hiding places, and already he could feel eyes trailing over him, could feel their hunger dividing him into rapidly disappearing sections of meat to be shared among their pack. Seth tightened his hold on the brutal shard of metal he'd inherited from his elder in the tribe as part of the completion of his training as a pleasure guide. The wickedly sharp bite of her jagged teeth had taught many of the Ravineux packs to fear and shun his small sector of the city, and he sent a fervent prayer out to the Mother that their learned fear of him would grant him time enough to find Camden and secure a defensible den for the evening.

Just as Seth nearly gave up all hope of finding Camden before the sun set, a scuff in the dust just inside the door of an enormously tall building—perhaps the tallest of all the ones around—showed that Camden had gone in sometime after the light rain from earlier in the day. Seth's heart jumped into the ultra-fast, hummingbird beat again.

"Moonbeam, may the Mother protect us both."

With that last prayer, Seth drew in a deep, cleansing breath to clear his mind of all distractions. Slinging his bow over one shoulder and stowing the arrow he had carried in one hand in the quiver on his back, for neither would be of much use in the confines of the building, Seth pulled a second, knife from the double sheath at his waist. Then he made his way with cautious haste into the dark maw of the building that pointed like a single, jagged tooth toward the skies above.

Behind him, in the near distance he could hear the yipping cries of a pack of Ravineux. The noise clawed at Seth's senses, pushing him to move faster, to run, and to barricade himself into the first defensible room he could find. He swallowed down the bile burning at the back of his throat. One of the first lessons a guide of his tribe learned was to master their own fears that they might better serve to guide others into the paths the Mother chose for each. To be a pleasure guide one had to know as much about fighting and growing as one did about the many ways of fucking. The Mother needed her children fed, and safe before they could enjoy the gift of pleasure, and any guide worth his or her guide's mark knew this. Seth's hand reached across his body, allowing the backs of his fingers to brush lightly across the bow, eye, seedling, and heart tattooed from shoulder to shoulder across his chest. The ink was nearly the same reddish brown color as his skin. Those who did not know the ways of the People intimately often mistook their tattoos for scars from fighting or birthmarks. Seth was comforted by their presence on the flesh below his collar bones like a nearly invisible shield for his spirit. Mother grant him cunning, speed and luck enough to find Camden before the Ravineux found them.

The walls of the building closed in around him as he followed Camden's tracks deeper into the structure. Shafts of light fell weakly through a few holes in the walls still, and Seth hurried forward. The dusty floors and lack of offal told Seth the Ravineux did not use this structure for shelter. He wondered at that, for the layout was perfect for them, with many small rooms branching from the long corridor he trod down. Frowning, Seth placed the matter to the recesses of his mind, determined to focus first on finding Camden. After his little Moonbeam was secure, he would concern himself with whatever kept the Ravineux from this place. A sharp cry echoed down from somewhere above just as Camden's tracks led through a narrow doorway with its stout metal door still intact.

"Praise you, Mother, and thanks to Shameer Talia, for surely she has guided him this way."

Seth backtracked a third of the way down the corridor, conscious that every beat of his heart brought the Ravineux closer and hoped he would find something to bar the thick metal door at the base of the stairs Camden had gone up. There in the pile of broken things he had seen as he strode quickly past the doorway a few moments earlier was a short round pole, and a long, stout length of wood. He sheathed his longer knife, and used the now free hand to gather both items up. Turning back to the corridor, his heart sank as he saw that two Ravineux had made it past him toward the climbing way Camden had taken toward the top of the building. He carried both items to the door as quietly as possible. The elder Ravineux missed his approach because he was far more intent on proving dominance over the young one with him. The youth, already battle-scarred and heavily muscled, but clearly new to tracking, met Seth's eyes with a look of entreaty so human his breath stalled in his chest.

Holy Mother, what was this? A Ravineux with eyes of amber hue like one of the people of Seth's tribe, moreover, one who did not raise the alarm of his presence with yipping cries to call in the rest of the pack? Seth made his decisions in the span of time it took his heart to beat three times. He flicked his gaze to the floor, and the young one flickered his lashes in so slight a movement Seth nearly missed it. Then, with a wretchedly human sounding cry, the boy dropped to the ground as though his legs had been cut from beneath him. Seth took the moment of confusion the elder Ravineux suffered to drive his short knife hilt deep in its throat. The boy—no, on closer examination he was a young man roughly the same age as Camden—curled himself into a small ball on the ground. Seth growled low in his throat.

"No time for that. Come with me, or stay for the others."

The halfer—for Seth could clearly see what the boy was—there were no two ways about it. Seth was well aware he ought to simply slit the youngster's throat out of kindness, but he could not bring himself to do so. The young one turned startled eyes on Seth, no doubt wondering how he knew the language of the Ravineux.

"You are not the first halfer I have stumbled over, boy. Decide now, for I have no more time to waste on you."

The boy-man scrambled to his feet, bruises mottling his pale face and standing in livid circles around his eyes.

"W-with you. Please."

Seth took his turn at casting a surprised glance. The youngster spoke to him in the language of Seth's people. He did not have time to dig to the bottom of this mystery right now, much as he might like to. Seth blew out a sharp breath, turning and gesturing for the boy to pick up one end of the board he'd dropped to kill the elder Ravineux. The youngster flicked a nervous glance Seth's way, moistening his lips to speak.

"I am called Ith."

"Come, boy. We'll find a better name for you along the way."

With that, they made haste to secure the door to the climbing place, buttressing the long slab of wood with the short pole of metal. Then they began to climb as swiftly as possible. Seth had a moment's dilemma deciding if he should allow the boy to go before him, where he might encounter Camden first, or remain at the rear, where there was always the danger of betrayal. In the end he chose neither, keeping the boy directly at his side. Ith—and he would not continue to call the boy by that name, not when it would only mark him out as a halfer, causing strife and woe for him everywhere he went. With his pale skin and sometimes green, sometimes brown eyes he would never pass for one of the people. At the same time the boy looked and acted differently enough from the Ravineux that without the clear cultural implications of his name most would think him harmlessly foreign rather than one of the most feared branch of humanity.

The wild fluttering of Seth's heart, which linked somehow to Camden, began to grow worse. Seth roared in outrage, flinging himself up the stairs at a furious pace, the boy running silent as death by his side. His lungs began to burn, and his legs felt weak as a newly born fawn's by the time they reached the halfway point to the top of the climbers. Far below, Seth could hear the Ravineux howling at the door he'd barricaded against them. They were no fools, this pack. If they could not break the door down, they would try to wait him out, for he could only come back out as he'd entered. The horror lay in the correctness of their assumption. In the days before the Ravineux came to have such a tight grasp on this city, Seth had climbed this tower once. The terrible smells emanating from the starkly white room at the top of the tower—visible only through a small opening covered in a clear, hard substance—had driven him quickly from the place, and he struggled to understand why Camden would choose this of all places to go to ground.

They pounded around another corner and nearly fell through a gaping hole in the climbers. The boy at his side gave the hollow, gasping sound which only extreme fear called to the surface before lifting a trembling hand to point to the far side of the climbers. Against the wall, a few foot widths of solid metal and stone jutted out from the wall, leaving a narrow but passable way up to the next level. Seth strode across the intervening space, setting his foot on the first riser. The boy swallowed audibly, and fell into place immediately behind him. Once, half-way across the space with its deadly drop down to the risers a full level below, Seth stepped onto a solid looking portion of metal only to have it give way beneath his feet. The boy's hand on his shoulder, pulling him abruptly back was the only thing saving him a nasty fall.

The near miss jarred a fragment of memory loose in Seth's mind, and it fell bright and clear across Seth's eyes. All his anger and fear turned cold and still. Camden spoke once only, in a whisper he could not know that Seth had heard, of Tolly sending him on a quest. Seth knew quests, knew the burden of them to be a heavy thing for both the giver and the receiver. Camden's quest had involved a glass mountain—here he looked out the empty places that fed rapidly dimming shafts of light into the climbing place, looking down on the city spread below him like a child's toy—and a magical elixir that held more of scientific manipulation than actual magic.

# Chapter Four ~ Elixir

The whole way through the city, Cam wondered if he should have waited and asked Seth to come with him. But if Seth said no, then they would have fought, and there was no time for that. Wrapped safe and warm in Seth's arms, Cam had finally slept deeply enough to dream for more than a moment. He'd dreamed of the last night before the Ravineux came to the home he used to share with Pa-paw Tolly. In the dream, just as had happened then in his waking life, Tolly had drawn out the old book with slightly shaking hands. With a pained grimace, he'd slit open it's binding to pull a folded sheet of shiny material he called plastic. Then Tolly unfolded the material, pausing to clear a wide spot on their floor until nothing remained but bare cement before carefully laying out the drawing.

Tolly called the drawing a map. He told Cam they could not wait much longer, one moonrising or perhaps two at most, but that they must make their way to the place the elixir was kept by the end of that set amount of time. They had no choice, lest Cam fall prey to the same illness that his father had fallen to before him. Cam turned startled eyes on Pa-paw at those words, because he had never heard Tolly speak of his father before.

Tolly ran a trembling hand over his lined face.

"There was never a time—never a right time, sprout. I'm to blame in part for his death and yours if we don't get you that elixir. I knew well enough what those grubbing bastards were up to. I worked for them for years. Oh, not in the labs, mind you. Hah. Never that—no, I was a guard. Still, I had eyes. I saw what they did to those boys, the changes happening after they gave them the first round of treatments. Yes, they were desperate, we all were after the meteors struck and the new diseases they brought began to decimate the world. But—oh, hell—you've no idea what I'm talking about, Sprout."

Cam watched Tolly closely, wondering if he had the oldster's disease where the mind played tricks. Tolly met his gaze with a grim steadiness that spoke only of determination and ironclad will. Cam shook his head.

"No, Tolly, I—what is a lab? Meteors, I—those are the sky rocks that shoot through the air, yes? What has this to do with me?"

Tolly's eyes grew solemn.

"At the end, Sprout, one of their experiments went wrong. Instead of a cure, they made one of the diseases strong enough to change those susceptible to it into—monsters."

Cam reeled at the implications.

"The Ravineux?"

Tolly nodded, the corners of his mouth pulling farther down as his eyes grew dark with memory.

"Your father was visiting the lab that day. He wasn't a subject in the round of experiments that made the Ravineux. He was there for a checkup, and to get the final dose of elixir to complete his immunizations."

Tolly stopped suddenly, his eyes squeezing shut and his body shuddering. He drew in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly before continuing.

"The grubbers were—they knew someone had made a mistake. Knew they'd set off the chain of events that led to the Ravineux, and had a bloody good idea what the bastards would become, Sprout. The unscrupulous doctors there gave your father something different that day. Something to make him different enough to change at a cellular level was injected into his body instead of the vitamin cocktail he was told he'd be receiving, along with a monitoring chip. I'm glad of the chip, because it's how I found him later. I—wait Sprout, let me get this out. I listened to them that day, after he left. Arrogant bastards were bragging about what they'd done, until another man came in and shut the whole operation down. The last one was a military chap, said they were going into permanent custody for their crimes against humanity."

Cam made a questioning noise then, not really wanting to interrupt, but not really understanding either. Tolly looked up from where he'd locked his gaze on their little basket of glows. A wry smile wove its way across his face.

"Eh, you don't know what a military is, do you? They... were a bit like our hunters. The military... well, when they got it right, they protected the people. They were alphas mostly, and they kept their—tribes—safe."

Cam nodded. Alphas and hunters he understood. Tolly gave one of his sunrise smiles, and turned his gaze back to the glow basket.

"They'd already done the damage though, lad. I knew your pop was a good boy, with a young wife. So I stole his address and one of their locaters, in case he'd moved, and went on a little hunt of my own. I didn't have a job no more, and the world was starting to crumble anyways. Saving him seemed like the least I could do."

Cam's eyes were stinging at that point. He glared down at the ground, trying hard to make himself brave enough to look Tolly in the eye when he asked the next question.

"He and my mother—Tolly, Pa-paw... what happened to them?"

A low, unhappy sound escaped Tolly.

"She ran out of birth control pills a few months after I found them, and though we tried to find a clinic to steal some from, the only place that we could find was overrun with the first wave of Ravineux. I—tried to teach them how to count the days and avoid having sex on the days she'd be likely to get with child—we hadn't found this place yet, and with the way we had to run and hide day to day being pregnant was a death sentence, really. She... they tried to wait, Sprout. But after one especially bad run in with the Ravineux, they sort of celebrated a bit too much, and along you came."

Cam blushed at hearing, even second hand, about his parents having sex. Tolly gave a little bark of laughter, patting his hand before he went on.

"Anyways, we found a safe enough spot for a bit, and she was right healthy—right up to the end, least-a-ways. I didn't know as much then about herbs and healing, Sprout. I didn't know a woman could bleed to death from birthing, or that sometimes, if you have the right herbs, you can stop it. I'm so sorry I failed her and more sorry than I can say that I failed you as well."

Tolly paused, clearing his throat roughly.

"Your pop wasn't the same after she passed. He—ah, Sprout, he loved you something fierce, but it wasn't enough to fill that big part of his heart she'd lived in. He didn't do anything deliberate... he just got careless I guess. And one day it cost him a bad mauling by some Ravineux. The changes in his body didn't take well to the virus in their saliva—oh, that's right, you won't know that word. A virus is what makes sickness, lad. When he was sick, and wouldn't get better no matter what we did, we decided to go back to the lab, looking to see if there was anything left after the military and the looters got through, anything the Ravineux hadn't destroyed. We found the Ravineux and the looters must not have ever gotten in, because everything was still sealed up, and it was only my security code that got us in at all."

He paused again, this time taking a sip of the tea long since gone cold next to him. Cam watched the movement of Tolly's throat impatiently, biting his cheek to keep the disrespect of blurting out, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" locked behind his lips. Tolly shot him another of those half amused-half sorrowful glances, took another swallow of his tepid herbal tea, and continued on.

"We found the military had never come back to clear the place out. Things did go to hell pretty quick back then. So we found all the things just as the scientists had left them—and best of all, we found this journal. One of them, Simmons I think, had grown a conscience and started trying to figure out a way for the ones like you to survive the changes they'd inflicted on your parents. He came up with a secondary potion—one to complete the transformation, and finally make you truly immune to the bite of the Ravineux. The end of the journal, only the last few pages really, was water damaged and unreadable, but the rest we were able to puzzle out enough to know there was a time factor to taking the second dose of his elixir. The first could be given any time after the child was born, but the second dose must be taken before their rapid growth stopped and their bones settled into the fully adult shape and size. It was too late for your father, but you, Cam... there's still time. I was hoping to find one of the hunters of the native tribes... they had a head start on the rest of us in understanding how to live in this new world, and they have the best hunters and trackers alive today in this part of the world aside from what's left of the military men. But I don't begin to know how to reach those men, and we can't wait any longer. We'll have to start this week, or next at the latest. We have to get you back to that lab, and find the elixir for you. My code should still work, Sprout, and the numbers and their sequence is written here."

Tolly turned the book toward Cam then, his age thickened fingers tracing over strange shapes on the paper. Tolly shook the slim journal at Cam.

"You memorize these shapes, Sprout, and the order you have to press them in. When you get there, if I'm with you I can punch the code into the keypad, but if I'm not, you need to know how to do this."

There was a string of the shapes, and then a drawing of a little box with the same shapes—numbers—placed within it. Tolly's brows drew together and his mouth flattened into a grim line.

"Memorize it lad. The journey will be a difficult one, and at my age—well, we'll be lucky if I make it far enough to get you there."

Cam's heart jolted at that.

"No, Pa-paw, you are a strong fighter."

Tolly laughed, the sound like a handful of tiny stones being shaken in cupped hands.

"Hah. I am at that, Sprout, but with the Ravineux, you must be fast as well. Age has robbed me of my speed, so we must pray for luck."

When Cam's eyes opened from the dream, he had known he must leave then. His body had been starting to feel—wrong somehow. He didn't have much time left, a day or two at most before the elixir would no longer work properly. There was no more time to waste, and so he left, praying to whatever absent or present gods might hear. In his entire litany of prayers, one thing repeated again and again. He prayed that if some distant god or goddess existed, heard him, and took time to answer, they would send Seth after him.

# Chapter Five ~ Climbing to the Sun

When they reached the top of the climbing place, Seth bolted for the open doorway directly across from him, pausing only long enough to bark sharply at the youth by his side.

"Watch for the others. If you hear them, call to me in man speech, not the Ravineux tongue. Be certain you do this."

The young man nodded, firming his chin as he turned to face the stairs. There was something about him that niggled at the back of Seth's mind, but he couldn't say what it was, and before he could puzzle further over the matter two things happened simultaneously which rendered his previous words null and void. The cracking noise echoing up from below came at the exact same time as a wrenching scream of agony came from the open door before them. The Ravineux boy—the half human, half Ravineux boy bared his teeth.

"Go, hunter. I will break the stairs in the weak place we climbed over. The others fear falling, and will not try to jump across the gap."

Seth nodded. The boy's plan was sound. He called the climbers by a strange name, but Seth understood him well enough.

"He is my mate. I must—"

The boy's eyes flickered strangely, seeming almost to light from within.

"Yes. I smell the mate bond on you. Go. I will stop them."

He turned, darting back down the climbers at a breakneck speed. Seth prayed to the Mother to assist the boy in his task. He would need her aide to reach the weak place in the climbers before the others of his pack climbed up beyond that place. If he reached the spot in time, he would need even more help in breaking the way and leaving a large enough gap the others would not risk jumping the gap. He disappeared downward into the gathering gloom, leaving Seth to wonder if he would ever see the boy again.

Another terror filled cry came from within the open door, urging Seth to leave the matter of the boy to the Mother. He needed to concentrate on his saving his mate, and once that was accomplished, he would look to the possibility of saving the halfer boy. The room was as starkly white as he remembered save for the faintly golden skin of the man sprawled on the floor, one hand clutching an empty vial. Seth could spy no marks on Camden to account for the terrifying cries emitted only moments before. Until his little moonbeam woke, Seth could only wait for answers. He quickly searched the room finding a handful of musty blankets in a nook below one of the hanging shelves along the far wall. Gathering them up, he made Camden as comfortable as he knew how, and then returned to the door to the climbers to see if he could help the Ravineux boy. When he reached the second level down from the white room, there was a sudden swelling of noise from down below. Crashing stone, screeching metal, and above it all the boy's bright tenor calling out—

"The way is broken. Wait until sunlight floods the world—"

Then the sound of flesh striking flesh echoed upward, followed by a wailing cry and... nothing; utter silence lasted for several long heartbeats. Seth opened his mouth to call out to the boy. Instead, yipping cries from below sealed his lips as he listened to the Ravineux discuss the boy's punishments to come for allowing the prey to slip past after hunting squad alpha was killed. Worse yet, he spoke in the tongue of the beasts. Other sounds drifted up, and Seth had a horrifyingly close seat for the brutal beating they administered to the boy. Not once did the boy reveal the presence of a second person, and when their arms grew tired of beating the boy, the Ravineux dragged him away to wherever they secreted their den.

A faint moan echoed down from above. Seth thanked the Mother it hadn't come until after the pack below decided to leave. He hurried back up to find in his absence that Camden had begun to thrash and moan, and had become hot to the touch. Not certain what Camden had drunk from the vial, but unwilling to chance the Ravineux returning, Seth chanced giving him a dose of valerian lightly laced with nightshade. Holding Camden's nose shut forced his mouth open, and pouring the tincture in was easy with his much smaller, lighter mate propped across his lap. Camden settled into a deep, motionless, and thankfully silent sleep. Seth took what rest he could curled around Camden's body with his broad frame placed between the smaller man and the door to the laboratory. Nothing stirred in their tower for the rest of the night.

****

Cam climbed up from the depths of sleep with slow deliberation. Something was different. He prodded at the difference with his mind, unwilling to open the heavy shutters of his eyes. They had shutters at the zoo, when they lived in the gamekeeper's cottage, before the increasing Ravineux attacks drove them into the cells Tolly said the animals lived in once upon a time.

The name caught at the soft underbelly of his dreams, flinging Cam from being small again, rocked gently to sleep by Tolly to fully wakeful remembered sorrow. He whimpered. Tolly was gone... but then, whose arms held him? Cam forced his eyes to open.

Seth.

Oh.

Seth had followed him. A hard shiver racked his body, and Camden recognized it from the stories Cam told. This was the start of the transformation, and they had to get someplace safe as fast as they could, because in less than two days Cam would be fighting for his life, and he would need Seth free to do nothing but care for him. They had to get back to Seth's home, and do so without leaving a trail the Ravineux could follow.

Another deep spasm shook Cam's body, the pain radiating out from the center of his upper back. Hot shards of fire shot along his limbs. Cam grunted, biting into the soft inner flesh of his cheek so that he would not cry out in agony. How he bore the transformation would have much to do with what he transformed into, so he determined to be as brave as he knew how.

When the edges of Cam's sight ceased dancing with sparkles of white light, he wiped his sweaty palm against the side of his pants and then lifted his hand to shake Seth's shoulder. Seth woke in a rush, rolling Cam beneath him and remaining crouched there for a few moments with teeth bared in a snarl he turned toward the door. A few heartbeats passed, and then some of the tension ran out of Seth's body. Lowering himself until he only lightly covered Cam, he pressed a feather light kiss to Cam's mouth.

"Why did you leave?"

Cam shook his head.

"There's no time Seth. I-I'm going to be very sick. Soon. The medicine-it stopped me from dying, but if I don't have a safe place to recuperate from the illness the medicine itself brings, I may still die. We have two days at most to get somewhere safe before I collapse."

Seth's darkly tanned face paled. He rolled off Cam and up to his feet in one fluid motion. He stared down at Cam with an indecipherable expression for a moment before holding out a hand.

"Come."

Seth waited until Cam reached up and then, with a gentle tug, he pulled Cam fully to his feet. Cam swayed where he stood, and Seth immediately stepped forward to slide an arm around his waist. Cam smiled shakily up at Seth.

"This is as good as it gets, hunter. I'll get weaker and less steady on my feet until the fever comes back, and then you must keep water in me until I wake again, you understand?"

Seth turned toward the door, moving Cam around with him, never letting go of the smaller man's waist.

"I understand."

What followed then was a nightmare of rising heat and disappearing vision as Cam slid slowly into the grasp of the transformation. Cam recalled stumbling once on the stairs and falling down half a flight of them before Seth could catch him. Then Seth swept him up in his arms and carried him that way until they reached a long gap in the stairs. Seth eyed the span dispassionately, and then grunted out a single order.

"Curl into a ball with your arms over your head. This will hurt."

Something in his voice stopped Cam from questioning him. Instead he did as ordered, an inner part of him crowed in delight at the ability to follow his alphas orders without question. Once he was curled up tight, Seth threw him across the gap. Cam bounced twice before he struck his head on one of the descending stairs. There was a flash of biting red pain, a swiftly falling blackness, and then nothing.

# Chapter Six ~ Transformation

The moment Cam left his arms, Seth saw his error. Cam's body was so light he would overshoot the small flat place on the other side of the missing floor. Running back up the climbers until he was halfway to the level above, Seth turned and charged back down, running full out and using his last step before empty air to push forward with all his might. He caught the edge of the broken floor on the other side with his mid-section. With his legs dangling in space and all the air knocked from his body, it took a moment for him to catch his wind enough to pull the rest of the way up. Once that was accomplished, he found himself next to Camden's once again still body.

Running his hands carefully through the moonbeams of Camden's hair, he found a place where a lump grew rapidly outward. That was good. The only time Seth had seen a man hit his head as hard as Camden just did and not grow a lump on the outside, the man had never woken from his sleep. He could hope that Camden would wake after a while. However, because he did not know the time Camden would wake, he bound the smaller man's hands and gagged him, lest he wake noisily as they snuck past a pack of Ravineux. Then he slung Cam over one shoulder, pushing his bow tight against his neck on that side. Carrying the weapon that way was uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as they would be without food this coming winter. Sheathing his shorter blade even though it was better for fighting in enclosed spaces Seth drew the longer blade. He could not risk Camden being bitten by one of the Ravineux on top of the insults his body currently fought against. As prepared as he could be, Seth sped down the steps with cautious haste.

Upon reaching the base of the tower, he nearly fell over a bloody heap of flesh. It was the Ravineux boy, lying naked and barely conscious directly in front of the stairs. Seth nudged the boy with his foot. The youngster winced silently, slitting open his brilliantly hued eyes, swirls of green and blue fighting for dominance in a field of amber. The boy said nothing, pressing a hand to his side and rising shakily to his feet. Seth realized after a moment of watching the boy cradle his jaw with one hand whilst the other pressed to his side that the youth could not speak. His jaw was broken.

"Halt, boy. I must bind your jaw and ribs in case we have to run."

The boy stopped, and his eyes as they turned to Seth's were limpid pools of desperate need. Seth answered the unspoken question there, sure that it was the same one that had been echoing through his own head since he first saw the boy.

"You come with us, boy. You are no Ravineux. You are no man either, but I think you are something closer to a man than one of those beasts."

The boy nodded, and then went white with pain. Setting Camden carefully down, unsure what made him trust this boy so implicitly, Seth dug through Camden's bag. As he reached the roll of bandaging material, he saw that Camden had placed several more of the vials from the lab above into his bag. Seth eyed them warily but let them remain for the moment. He pulled off a long piece of bandaging and then beckoned the boy close. What sort of name was Ith? Perhaps... he could call the boy Zithar? Yes, that was close to what the boy knew, but would not be immediately taken as a Ravineux name. The sound of it was close enough to Seth that many would think the boy of his kin.

"Boy. I will not call you Ith... but perhaps Zithar. It will be an unusual name, but no one will gut you as soon as they hear it. Hold still now so I may bind your jaw and ribs."

The boy flinched more than once, but made no outcry. Seth gave him an approving nod.

"You will make a fine hunter, boy. Come, we have to make our way out of the city before nightfall."

The boy's eyes grew large. Bracing his jaw with one hand, he gave a single nod. Seth slung Camden over his shoulder again, and then reached for the handle of his long knife. His hand hesitated in the air above the weapon before moving on the worn leather of the shorter blade's handle.

"Boy—Zithar, take this. I need your strong arm to help get us all safely from the city. I can guard our right side, but carrying Camden this way I cannot guard the left as well. Will you guard the sinister side for me?"

As he had hoped, setting the boy a task that demonstrated Seth's faith that the boy would not betray them boy caused the youth to stand straight and move with more confidence. It was good the boy was proud. He would need that pride to haul his broken ribs and aching jaw the full day's journey to their first resting spot. Later, if the Mother granted them more days to add to the spans of their lives, the boy would need that pride even more. The dusky ash tones to his skin, the swirling blues and greens that appeared in his eyes when strong emotion took him—these things would all set him outside the norm, and for those who knew what to look for, mark him as a halfer. He needed a chance though, and he would never get one if the Ravineux could track his scent right to their doorstep. So, despite the danger of Camden's coming illness, Seth dare not make a straight line for home. It would be far too easy for any hunter worth his salt to trace them, especially with the strange, strong scent Camden was putting off and the faint traces of blood the boy unknowingly left with every single step.

Seth guided them to the shores of the great lake instead, for he was aware the Ravineux shunned the place with good reason. During the daylight hours there was no trace of shade for them to hide in—oh, bright skies above, he might be leading the boy to his death.

"Zithar, do you burn in the sun as other Ravineux do?"

The boy braced his jaw again before moving his head in a careful side to side motion.

"Do you burn more than an ordinary man would?"

The boy nodded slowly up and then down. Seth grimaced.

"When we get beyond the city, I will give you one of the cloths from the room I found Cam in to protect your head and face from the full brunt of the sun."

Seth hadn't planned for the boy being at the bottom of the stairs, and had taken only one of the blankets from the tower room. Shameer Talia would laugh at him now though, miring himself in guilt for failing to see into the future. She had always told him that such was the province of Shameers and the destined ones, but though she would answer any question he had about the Shameer, she would say nothing of the destined ones. Seth was no fool though, and he knew this meant his life must twine closely with one or more of those called by destiny to lead the People into the future. He felt one corner of his lips kick up into a lopsided smile.

"Come, Zithar. We have far to go before full dark arrives."

****

When they arrived at the place the shelter Seth knew of should be, there was only a pile of broken rubble. Seth wanted to howl with outrage, but bit his tongue until it bled instead. To make so loud an outcry here would be the same as giving his body a thousand shallow cuts and then lying down in the center of a Ravineux den—he would be no more than a memory come morning, with even his bones gnawed down to nothing. Casting a frantic glance out at the horizon where the sun already hid behind the tall buildings at the city's center. Swinging his gaze out in a wide arc, he caught sight of something in the water less than half the distance he would have to traverse to regain the city's edge to hunt for shelter there. The thing looked like a floating building, but stayed steady were it was as he watched for as long as he dared.

"Zithar, you must hold fast to me with one hand; hold even tighter to your knife with the other hand. Strike out at anything that approaches you from the left. I will take care of anything that comes from the right. We go there."

Seth pointed his long knife at the floating building. Zithar turned almost white, but stood his ground, grasping tightly to the waist of Seth's loincloth on one side. As they waded into the water, Seth could feel the boy tremble, and only his need to give the boy a strong male to look to for guidance stopped him freezing in place and shaking twice as hard. The water lapped coldly against his feet and then his ankles. Seth knew how to swim, but he had swum in small ponds and rivers, places where one could see the bottom where the water touched the earth. He also had never tried to swim with two people clinging to him. He hoped the water was shallow enough to wade out to the building. The cool lapping sensation of the lake crept up to his knees, and then to his waist. He held Camden's bag up, resting the old canvas against Camden's back.

When the water reached the bottom of his chest, Seth paused to take stock. There was perhaps no farther to go than the length of the garden in front of his home. If the level of the water did not rise, Zithar could walk unaided. If the water level continued to rise, he would have to carry the boy and Camden. Seth took a step forward. The water rose to his chin abruptly and a choked off hum of terror sounded to his left.

"I've got you."

Seth grappled the boy up onto his other shoulder.

"Sit still and hold Camden's head up above the water."

The boy reached around Seth's neck to put a hand under Camden's head. Seth moved his mate around so his back rested on Seth's shoulder, thus making it easier for the boy to raise his head above the water. Then he took a deep breath and continued forward as quickly as he could. The water reached to just above his eyes before they reached the building. Fortunately, it was not floating, so Seth could climb up the side. Zithar clambered off his right side first, and then the slight weight of Camden was lifted from his left shoulder, a grunt of pain from the up until now stoic Zithar measuring out the cost of the action. Seth quickly hauled himself up, gazing back toward the city. When night fell fully, they would be invisible out here. They needed to be as silent as possible to ensure they went entirely unnoticed.

Camden lay sprawled on a bit of grass, his hands twitching in their bindings. His pale gold skin was flushed, despite just coming out of the cool water. Seth reached out to press a palm against Camden's forehead, unsurprised when he found his mate burning up. Zithar made a low noise like an animal caught in a trap. The sound echoed over the water, and both Seth and the boy froze in place. As their eyes met, Seth could see from the bright swirls of blue in the amber the depth of the boy's discomfort with their present situation. Camden twitched again, a low moan reverberating out over the water. Seth quickly picked him up and started searching for a way into the building. On the far side of the building, facing the direction of the rising sun they found a door along with evidence they were not on the strange island alone.

****

Camden roused just then, and finding his hands bound and his mouth gagged lay still, assessing the situation. Seth's chest swelled with pride that his mate would respond so well to what must be a terrifying situation. Groaning, he wiggled and mumbled behind the gag, presumably to get Seth's attention. Seth idly swatted at his bottom.

"Well little moonbeam, did your Tolly tell you anything about this?"

With those words, Seth swung Cam off his shoulder and set the smaller man on his own feet. Cam was immediately faced with the sight of a slim, lightly muscled man with enormous black wings. He gasped, his knees weakening a little. Seth kept an arm around him, working at the gag on his mouth with one hand. When Cam's mouth was finally free, he turned his head up to Seth.

"Yes, he did. He said there were others in the study, and that some of them got the second treatment before everything was shut down. He wasn't sure, but he guessed based on what he'd seen, and a few of the entries in the journal, that the second treatment could end like this."

The man lurking in the shadows paid no mind to either Cam or Seth. His eyes were locked on Zithar with a burning intensity, the same bright blues and greens the boy showed in strong emotion swirling in the black depths of his eyes. His voice came out sounding rusted and little used.

"Ith?"

The boy sidled closer to Seth, his whole body trembling. He pressed tightly to Seth's side.

"His name is Zithar. Who are you?"

The slender man made a ragged sound, like a laugh pulled sidelong through a thorn bush. Shaking out his long black hair, he turned eyes the exact same mix of brown and green as Zithar's on Seth.

"I'm his brother, Zxian. I thought they had killed him already."

Zithar drew in a huffing breath, clearly expressing his disbelief in the arch of one brow. Seth would wager his entire crop of carrots that if the boy's jaw weren't shattered he would openly scoff at the man. Glancing between them he could see clear evidence of a relationship in the shape of their jaws and the swirling browns and greens of their eyes. Seth rolled his eyes heavenward. There was even a hint of blue showing in both their eyes now, and though the expressions on their narrow faces were perfectly opposite, they still looked startlingly similar.

"Zithar, could we put aside your relationship or lack of one with this man long enough to take shelter? Full night is nearly on us."

Zxian nodded and Zithar grunted in affirmation, both actions occurring nearly in unison. Both ceased abruptly when they realized they were agreeing with one another. Camden cleared his throat.

"With all due respect, do you think we might do this inside? And preferably it will be somewhere with both a comfortable place to lie down and still be somewhere I can grow a pair of those without being eaten by the Ravineux?"

Zxian and Zithar both jerked as if Cam had slapped them. Seth growled.

"Not you two idiots. He means the ones over there in the city."

Cam lurched, his back bowing as he began to scream. Seth clapped a hand over Camden's mouth, raising his eyebrows at Zxian.

"Inside? Today perhaps?"

Zxian shook himself as though coming out of cold water.

"Yes. Yes. Bring him in. He won't be quiet, but the Ravineux won't cross the water. Their bones are too dense to swim."

Seth shot the man a sharp glance, wondering how he came to know about the density of Ravineux bones. Zxian met his gaze with a cool, level look of his own before turning into the building. He led them up to the fourth floor of the building, where they windows still had the same clear, hard substance as the tower in the city. Zxian tapped one when he noticed Zithar staring at the substance.

"It's called glass. They used to make it for all the windows before—"

Zithar dropped his eyes, his voice coming out thin, hollow, and slightly muffled because of the bandage holding his jaw in place.

"Before the Ravineux—before we came?"

Zxian growled this time.

"You're not like them, Ith—Zithar. You're nothing like them. Even as a baby you wouldn't be cruel like they wanted you to be."

Seth left them to work out their differences for the moment, concentrating on getting Camden to the pallet of blankets he could see by the far wall. Zxian had a whole rope and wood structure built to hold a fat bag of what appeared to be—Seth did a double take—his own feathers. Camden screamed again, his whole body going rigid in Seth's arms. Lowering him to the bed, Seth watched as Camden's back bowed and his jaw clenched tight. His eyes rolled back in his head after a moment, and his body went limp. Zxian walked slowly to the bed, offering advice in a low, soothing voice.

"You'll want to roll him onto his stomach. The wing buds are probably trying to push through already, and if he's lying on them it will only hurt more."

Zithar crept up on Seth's other side, pressing his body up against the older man's side as small whimpers escaped him. Seth absently stoked his hand through the boy's hair. Zithar's trembling eased, but he stayed tightly pressed against his chosen protector. For his part, Seth found trying to turn Camden over more than he could manage, especially in his exhausted state.

"If I may help?"

The diffident offer of aide triggered a burning in Seth's eyes and a matching tightness in his throat that spoke volumes about how far past his breaking point he had pushed himself. The same indefinable thing that had led him to trust Zithar so implicitly reared up in his soul in response to Zxian's offer. Wrapping an arm around the boy next to him, Seth surreptitiously checked the bandages around his ribs while turning his head to meet Zxian's gaze.

"Please."

The elder halfer's lips turned up in a faint curve.

"Let me just get around to the other side of the bed first. That way if he lashes out..."

Zxian's voice trailed off, his dark eyes resting on his brother. Ah. If Camden reacted badly, his blows would be aimed away from Zithar. Seth's shoulders eased. Zxian put the boy's welfare first, as a protector should. An answering smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Yes. That way I will not have to move the boy until he sleeps deep enough to remain sleeping."

Zxian raised one brow while lowering the other and tilting his head slightly to the side. Shaking his head slightly, he moved around to the opposite side of the bed, reaching for Camden. As his hands settled on Camden's skin, the small man began to groan and thrash about. Zxian slipped his hands under Cam's shoulder and hip. He dragged Cam closer to him and then rolled him to his stomach. Seth hissed as he took in the bloody patches on Cam's upper back. Zxian glanced up at him.

"No, no, don't worry. Those are good. It means the wings are coming through. We need to make sure he stays on his stomach until they come though fully. We can probably untie his hands now as well."

Seth reached for the handle of his long knife, grimacing as he wondered where his short knife had ended up. His fingers brushed over the hilts of two knives, however. He ducked his head to one side and peered down around the tangles of Zithar's long black hair. The boy had snuck Seth's short knife into its place in the double sheath without his noticing. Seth's eyebrows flew upward as he considered the implications of that. Shaking his head minutely, he drew his short knife, grateful to have it handy. Zxian would find it far easier to cut away the knotted bonds around Camden's wrists with the shorter blade. He held the knife out handle first. Zxian made quick work of slitting the ties from Camden's wrists.

"I wish we had something to ease the pain. I had nightshade, but my supplies have run low and I cannot harvest more until the fall."

Seth hummed low in his throat, pleased he had foreseen the possible need for this at least. He jerked his chin toward the corner where he'd dropped Camden's bag.

"He has some in there. Make enough for the boy too—I am sure his ribs and jaw are broken."

Zxian nodded curtly.

"I suspected as much when I saw the bandages—but—how do you come to have nightshade? I did not think the people of your tribe allowed its use."

Seth narrowed his eyes at Zxian's breadth of knowledge and lack of movement.

"We can discuss the laws of the People after these two are dosed to ease their pain."

Zxian's face changed color abruptly as a tide of red rose from his upper chest to flood his cheeks. He bit his bottom lip, eyes sliding away from Seth's before he jolted into motion. He rummaged in Cam's bag for a moment, made a quiet humming noise, and then returned to the bedside with the pouch containing Camden's dangerous herbs. Setting the bag down, Zxian spread his hands.

"I'll have to brew some tea... I could only find the nightshade dried."

Seth nodded as his hands continued to stroke lightly through Zithar's hair. The boy was nearly asleep now.

"I'll watch them while you do that."

Zxian hurried from the room, elegant black wings trailing behind him. Seth listened first to his feet pattering down the stairs and then to the occasional mutter drifting up from below. Seth raised his eyebrows at some of the more inventive curses and exclamations, as well as at Zxian's nearly fluent grasp of the People's language. Zxian must have spent time with one of the tribes. Camden stirred, whimpering and making small, restive movements. Seth hummed one of Shameer Talia's soothing songs, and alternated stroking Zithar's hair with gently petting Camden's arm. The skin on skin contact with Seth seemed to settle the small man, and he fell silent again.

As he sat, Seth began to take a full accounting of his surroundings. Zxian had made a home here that was as defensible and sturdy as the one Seth had built. There were several other striking similarities which further reinforced his supposition that Zxian had spent time with the People. He eyed the frame that suspended the pallet above the level of the floor. He also had some things which were marked in their difference, and Seth hungered to learn more about those things.

After a while, Zxian returned from below, a large ceramic bowl in his hands. Steam wafted gently from the top. He set the on the floor close to Seth before sitting down beside him and pulling the bag of herbs within reach. Gesturing toward the steaming bowl he spoke in the same low voice he'd employed before.

"I thought it would ease your mind to watch what I put into the water. You may taste it first if you'd like, or I will."

Seth regarded him while he tried to breathe around the iron band suddenly constricting his chest.

"Bright skies, what did they do to you Zxian?"

Another tide of red swept up Zxian's torso to wash over the crests of his cheeks. Again, he turned his gaze away from Seth, this time looking toward the bag in his hands.

"Which group?"

Seth drew in a hard breath. He knew that some of the tribes of the People were not as tolerant as the one he was raised in, but all that Zxian's words, and lack of them implied—he would have to share knowledge of this with Shameer Talia once he knew the full story. She could bring the matter to the attention of the People's ruling body, the council of the Shaman and Shameers. Seth kept his voice as steady as he could.

"If you would prefer to taste the water beforehand as proof that you have not tampered with it, I do not mind. This is not necessary, Zxian, but if it will ease your mind... I have no objection, as long as you leave enough of hot water to make tea for both our patients."

Zxian swallowed hard enough that Seth heard it clearly.

"I-I will brew the tea, and then drink a small cup before I dose the other two, if you do not mind standing the first watch while I sleep off the effects."

Seth nodded.

"I do not mind."

Within a short span of time, Zxian pronounced the tea ready. He told Seth how much to give Camden and Zithar, and how often for each.

"I have not slept overmuch in the past two moon cycles, for the Ravineux have been restless, and I did not know why. Since I hoped that Zithar was still alive, I continued to search the city for him every night. Don't worry about the tea though. I tasted the brew a few times as I made it to be sure it reached a strong enough potency to be effective against their pain."

Camden cried out softly, drawing both their attention. Zxian swayed where he stood. Shaking his head, he bent and scooped up a small earthenware cup a quarter full of the tea, waiting until Seth looked back at him before drinking it down in two rapid mouthfuls. He made a pursed lip face afterward, his nose wrinkling and his cheeks sucking in as though he bit into something foul. He coughed for a bit, made one retching motion, and then held a hand up.

"There, you see? It can be drunk though it tastes foul. They may fight drinking the whole cup, but make sure they do."

He swayed again before lowering himself to his knees, continuing in a rapidly slurring voice.

"I'm a little sensitive to belladonna, so this may make me a bit drowsy."

Zxian had barely finished his sentence before his eyes rolled back in his head and he started to slump sideways. Seth growled, catching him with the arm not wrapped around his brother. He grunted, clenching his jaw as he realized he had no one to share his frustration with.

"I'm surrounded by a pack of fools. Every one of them thinks he can pull the sun up from the edge of the sky all alone. Even though I've just met him I can see the man is exhausted. I will give Cam and Zithar slightly less than he advised though, in case the brew is simply strong."

Seth continued to grumble as he eased Zxian down to a horizontal position as best as he could from where he sat. Then he set out a pallet for both the brothers before scooping out a cup of the tea for Zithar. Rousing the boy only enough to command him to drink, he pressed the cup to the youngster's lips, mindful that he had to pour the liquid in slowly to accommodate the bandages. Zithar moaned, but continued to drink even as his nose wrinkled up and his brows drew together. In the end he drank every drop of tea in his cup before he sank slowly back against the nest of blankets Seth had piled together for him.

Seth turned to Cam next, stroking his hand over his mate's sweet face repeatedly. Cam did not rouse, and finally Seth lifted him half into his lap, pressing his mouth against Cam's. A rusty chuckle tickled against his lips.

"That's quite the way to wake."

He coughed and sputtered before continuing.

"I may not be up to doing anything for a while though."

Seth pulled back, a gentle smile on easing across his face.

"I have some tea for you to drink, little moonbeam."

A faint smirk danced across Camden's face.

"I hope it has nightshade in it."

Seth lifted one brow upward.

"Of course. Here, drink for me."

After a single swallow, Camden pulled back, nose wrinkled and lips pursed together.

"You didn't sweeten it?"

Seth held the cup back up to Cam's mouth, tipping his chin down and meeting Cam's gaze steadfastly.

"Drink."

Camden wrinkled his nose again.

"Bees. You've heard of them. Make this wonderful stuff. Honey."

Seth rolled his eyes and tilted the cup up against Camden's lips.

"I gather the pain comes in waves, and that you've not reached the worst of it yet. Please Camden, drink for me."

Cam gave Seth an apologetic glance and opened his mouth. Seth poured the remaining liquid in. Cam wiggled in his lap, pressing closer to Seth's chest until he lay with his ear right up against the wall of Seth's chest. He kept his face pressed against Seth's body as he spoke in a quiet voice.

"I'll have to take the second dose of the elixir tomorrow."

Seth squeezed his eyes shut, and wrapped his arms low around Camden's waist.

"No."

Cam's small hand petted Seth's chest.

"Once started the process cannot be stopped, Seth. Without the second dose my body will still break down, but the reformation will happen too slowly, and I'll die."

A long silence followed his words, and then, "Darkest night damn you, Camden. Why? What purpose does this serve?"

Cam continued to pet Seth's chest, the feather light strokes gradually easing him back from the abyss of anger he hung poised to fall into. Cam sighed.

"I promised Tolly. I promised my Pa-paw. Because of my parents being in the experiment, I had to have the elixir to complete the changes. Pa-paw Tolly said my father died because he didn't get the second dose quickly enough... and that the same would happen to me without the taking both doses."

He shrugged; gut roiling as he relived the strain of the last few months.

"My parents passed the beginning of the change to me, but Tolly believed I needed to finish the transformation or risk the same end as my father."

Seth's arms tightened around Cam's waist. Pressing the palm of one hand lightly to the moonbeam bright hair spilling over his chest, Seth crooned a song about the sunrise to Cam until Cam's eyes fluttered shut and stayed that way.

# Chapter Seven ~ First Flight

In the days that followed, Seth came very close to smashing every vial of the elixir that remained. His ears would likely never be free of the sound of Camden's screams, and his back would take months to lose the knots put there from tension, anger, and utmost terror. During the second night—or was it the third?—night of the transformation, Camden had run a high fever. During the dark hours, closer to the morning than to the day before, his fever had peaked. His skin was so hot it was uncomfortable for Seth to touch him, and his cries of agony had run one into another until with a convulsive leap, Cam had thrown himself off the bed. When he hit the floor, he'd gone still, ceasing to breathe entirely. Seth's heart froze in that moment. Snarling at the other two to get away from his mate, he'd swept Camden up into his arms, crushing the smaller man's back against his chest and beating his fists against the center of Cam's chest.

"No. No. Don't leave me. "

He thrust Cam away, and then yanked him back, beating on Cam's chest again with one hand while the other hand gripped his waist tightly. Turning the man's slight form in his arms, he pressed his mouth over Cam's.

"No. I can't bear it. Don't leave."

Holding Cam's slight weight, both arms now wrapped tight low on his waist, Seth rocked back and forth with his eyes tightly shut. Hot, salty tracks of sorrow ran unchecked down his face until a small hand brushed against his cheek. A breathy whisper sounded.

"Seth."

Cam's head still lolled back on his neck, but his eyelashes fluttered against the stark pallor of his cheeks.

"Stop beating me."

Shock stopped his mouth first and then Seth shouted with laughter as his tangled emotions tripped over one another.

"Oh, my moonbeam, promise you will not leave."

A fluttering of the small stubs of wings that had thus far pushed their way out of the depths of Camden's body glanced across Seth's arms.

"I promise."

Then, with a soft sigh, Cam went still again, though this time his chest still rose and fell. Seth did not sleep that night. Seven more days passed before Seth could bear to leave Cam's side for longer than it took to see to his bodily functions. On the eight day, Cam woke with reason in his eyes again, and his skin was cool to the touch. He lay on his stomach, for the great white wings he had grown would accommodate no other position.

Zithar burst in to tears, and then ran out of the room with a flaming red face. Seth could find no fault with the boy, for water ran unchecked down his cheeks as well. Zxian hurried after his brother, and Seth gave a passing thought to wish the uneasy truce they'd managed in light of Camden's illness continued. Putting the two from his mind for the moment, Seth hurriedly slid an arm around Camden as the slighter man pushed up to his feet. Cam stumbled, and his wings spread out behind him, fluttering until he regained his balance. They flexed restively as he raised wide eyes to Seth's face.

"I have wings."

Seth shook his head.

"Of course you do, Moonbeam. How else would you fly from tribe to tribe teaching them—well, whatever it is you're going to teach them?"

Cam's mouth dropped open.

"I-how did you know about that?"

Seth lowered his lashes.

"I watched over you. Those nights after you came to my territory at the edge of the city... I guarded you as you slept. Sometimes, before you slept, you would speak aloud to your Tolly. I listened."

Camden's face flamed bright red, and Seth was reminded of the other things he'd listened to as well. He chuckled, bending his head to brush a kiss against Camden's temple.

"Come, my beautiful prince of the air. I think it is past time you let those wings you fought so hard to gain take you to into the heavens."

Camden's eyes lit up, and Seth bit back all his words of worry. Camden was meant to fly, and he? He was meant to follow all the days of his life, ensuring that his moonbeam always had a safe place to land. Cam scampered to the door, his wooziness seemingly forgotten in the excitement of fulfilling Tolly's quest for him. He paused at the door to beam back at Seth.

"Tolly would be so proud. I climbed the glass mountain all by myself, Seth, and found the magic elixir to transform. I did it."

Seth shook his head as he smiled.

"Yes, you did, Camden. But I think your Tolly would be most proud that you saved your own life. That was all he wanted, Moonbeam."

Camden's smile managed somehow to both wobble, and grow brighter. A thin sheen of moisture coated the brilliant amber of his eyes.

"Yes. Tolly wanted to see me an old, old man."

****

Four days later, Cam stood at the top of the building, his wings fluttering in the early morning breeze. Zxian, unlike his half-brother Zithar, had inherited the Ravineux sensitivity to the sun. Therefore he had spent the past two nights showing Cam how to leap into the air, turn, and land. They had taken short flights, but Cam's bright white wings and the silvery fall of his hair meant they could not venture far from their strange island without fear of the Ravineux or one of the other night dwelling predators attacking. Today he was going to take his first solo flight, and they had decided that he would fly over the city for a short while and then return to their encampment. Seth insisted on being able to find him, so Cam had picked the glass mountain as the place he would stop to rest before he returned. They both knew the location, as well as the easiest route to get there on the ground.

Cam's entire body was quivering. He turned, stepping forward into the circle of Seth's arms and going up on his tip-toes to press a kiss to his frowning lover's mouth.

"Zxian says it only takes a short span of time to fly there, Seth. He could fly that far the first day he knew himself again, and I have spent two full days—well, nights—flying with him and another day simply resting. I can do this."

Seth's arms curled up around his shoulders.

"I know. I just do not like the idea of you going where I cannot go."

Camden shook his head.

"You will always be able to follow me, Seth. You followed even when I left you no trail."

Seth snorted, a derisive sound that was accompanied by the slow raising of one eyebrow.

"You left a trail a blind worm could follow at high speed"

Camden laughed, and then settled back onto the soles of his feet.

"I promise, you will always be able to find me, Seth. I feel you here—"

He lightly touched one hand to his head and the other to his heart.

"—and you feel me there as well I think."

Seth's eyes flashed brightly, and then he took Cam's face in his hands, pushing down with his thumbs to open Cam's jaw before sliding his tongue in to map out the breadth and width of Cam's mouth. Pulling back when Cam was beginning to feel hot and needy, he shook Cam's face lightly with his large hands.

"Yes. And I did even before you drank that foul concoction. I will always follow, so be careful were you fly little moonbeam."

Camden nodded his assent. Seth turned him back around, pushing gently at his lower back. Cam took a step forward, eyes still locked on Seth's face. Seth lifted one side of his wide mouth in a lopsided smile. Everything in Camden stilled, and his heart grew wings of its own. He turned his head to the sky, running the last few steps to the edge of the building they stood on the roof of. At the last moment, he leapt upward, throwing his wings wide and then pushing them down in a powerful thrust.

For a single heartbeat, Camden's body plummeted. Then his wings thrust down again, and he sliced through the air in a smooth, sweeping motion. Circling the island once, he watched as Seth leapt from the high side that faced the city, his body cleaving the water as cleanly as Camden's cut through the air. Then, his heart beating faster than the wind rushing past his ears, Camden lifted himself into the sky.

# Epilogue

Zxian watched the mated pair leave from the same shaded corner where he'd watched their approach to his island. He glanced to the far right of the room where his brother lay sleeping. The boy's pale skin glowed like the little round stones Zxian found sometimes in the clams he dug up along the shore line. Zithar slept still because he had argued long into the night with Seth, demanding they take him along. Seth, bless his long seeing eyes, had steadfastly refused, finally telling the boy bluntly that his still healing injuries would hinder rather than help them. Zithar subsided then, his face sallow and his eyes glassy with tears he refused to shed. Zxian tried to comfort him, wrapping an arm around the boy to draw him close. Zithar had turned, hissing and growling, his flat human teeth bared as though he would bite. Zxian backed away then, and Seth had comforted Zithar, swearing on the life of his mate that they would return within three days at most. Zithar still cried himself to sleep.

A glint of white and gold against the solid blue sky caught Zxian's attention. Squinting to focus, he whispered after the retreating figures.

"Talia, you were right. My brother is saved, and another flyer is born into the world. Now I have only to find a place where my brother can be free among a people that will love him for who he becomes as he grows to be a man and not despise him because of where he was raised."

He knelt in the shadows, pulling a small knife from the sheath at his side. With only a flicker of hesitation, he drew the sharp edge of the blade along his palm, hissing quietly as his flesh parted and blood began to drip from the wound. Holding his hand over a small bowl of hardened clay, he milked the small wound until the bowl was half full. Behind him, the pallet the boy lay on rustled.

"Why are you bleeding?"

Zxian turned sharply to look over at the boy, noting how his brother's pupils dilated a bit more as he watched. The tip of the boy's tongue darted out to swipe across his bottom lip.

"I know you need blood, and I guessed you would not drink straight from my veins."

Small fangs protruded from under the boy's upper lip.

"Do you drink as well?"

Zxian shook his head.

"No. But I used to feed you when you were a baby. Our sire thought you snuck up on me at night and stole what you needed. It's why he didn't bash your head in against a pile of rubble when he realized you wouldn't be a Flyer like me. He said at least you might learn to be a proper Ravineux."

Zithar growled from deep in his chest. Zxian stood, carrying the bowl across the room to where the boy now crouched in his blankets.

"Take it, Zithar. It won't hurt you, I promise. I'll find a way for you to get your blood without your new friends knowing, and I promise you never have to go back to live with our sire. Okay?"

He held out the bowl of blood. Zithar snatched the small vessel from him, practically slavering as he raised it to his mouth to sip. Gradually color began to seep into the boy's pale skin like dawn painting the sky a thousand rosy hues. Zxian's chest felt tight and full as his heart beat a long slow rhythm against his ribs and his wings fluttered against his back.

"Yes. Drink, little brother. I will make sure you never thirst again. We have far to go, you and I, before we find the place we can belong. When your friends return, then the real journey can begin."

# Titles by Cherie Noel

Soldier of the 569th:

The Soldier and the State Trooper  
Cuddle Time Chicken Soup

Rescue Twinks:

The Counterfeit Claus  
Worth a Thousand Words  
By Any Other Name

Stand Alone Titles:

Changeless  
Tian's Hero  
Angel Baby  
Kiss and Tell  
The Faery Tree  
Flight of Fancy  
Shadow Dance  
Quality Control  
Christmas Rum Balls

# Author Bio  
Cherie Noel

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker...ummm, eww, every chance I get, and I surely would if these damn characters would ever shut up. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida and raised...er, is all over the damn place a sufficiently descriptive term? No? Then how about this? Tinker, tailor, Indian chief...Ooooh, especially when smexy men are involved (!), only under duress, and did the cheek-bones give it away?

Seriously? I've lived in Washington D.C., Virginia, Upper Michigan, Texas, New York, California, and Alabama in the United States; Hessen in Germany, London in England, Masirah Island in Oman and...sometimes it was in a house, sometimes in a tent, and sometimes anyplace I could find to lay my head.

I've been in love with words since before I drew breath, and I don't see that ever changing. I write stories. Sometimes I write music with them, sometimes they're poems, and lately, to my great delight, erotic romance. I write all sorts of characters, and every imaginable romantic grouping. Being a fan of the deliciousity of hot men I often write about romances between men. Yum. Smexy man to the second...or third power...now that's the kinda math I can get behind... I do write about other groupings as well, whenever and wherever the characters holler loud enough for me to hear 'em.

The hair curls or frizzes as it will, the eyes are green and tend to look in two different directions—no, really—and the rest is subject to change. You know the guy who didn't know if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man or a man dreaming he was a butterfly? Yeah, that's me, but substitute drag queen for butterfly and wacky, wild ex-Army chick for man.

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