PROLOGUE: ALEX

Gasp for me! Scream for me! Yes, that's it!

I held her in place, gently, to allow her thrashing body to do all that it would do as everything came rushing back for her. Legs and arms spasming, heartbeat fluttering like a frantic bird trapped in the ribcage beneath my palms, pressed firmly against her breastbone. My life-saving pumping of moments before had stilled when she finally regained consciousness.

Head thrown back. That's it, my darling. Scream for me! Let it all out, Aurora! Expel my breath from your lungs. The air I forced in to animate you once again.

The arm. Yes, it was in a bit of a wretched state, but it could be fixed, made whole. Though little comfort that would be to her now as the immediate pain of it had stolen all intellectual thought. Aurora's fathomless blue eyes were not seeing me. There was something off about them. Something not normal. Of course the great light given off by the energy blast would have left her dazed and temporarily blinded, but still...there was something not right about her eyes' appearance. Unseeing, and yet seemingly focused on something that no one else could ever behold.

She was fighting me now. This pip of a girl, small of stature, slender limbs, pallor pale like waning moonlight as it meanders through the ink black spread of her mussed hair. She pitted her surprising strength against my own. She planted her teeth in my wrist as she bucked wildly, desperate to be free of me, all the while she hugged her broken arm, the hand flopping limply at the wrist. Her cries went low, becoming the wails of a wounded animal when I wouldn't allow her to break away.

Piteous snatches of her sobs reached the surrounding hillsides and echoed back. Located as we were on a cliff in a remote, forested section along the night-darkened waters of the Allegheny River, there were no nearby houses, no one within direct hearing distance. And yet the sound did carry. It traveled between the tree-thick hills, so that when her wails of agony finally reached the closest town, they would be plainly heard and recognized for what they signified: a person in trouble. Although no one would be able to guess the origins of these cries. The authorities would be dispatched; they would come searching.

We needed to get off this rock.

"Aurora!" Micah's harsh bellow when he finally came to.

The devvi that played the role of Aurora's steadfast guardian was sprawled out on the ground nearby, where the blast had apparently blown him back. The lightning male up righted and dragged his haggard self, arm over arm, over the abrasive, stone-chipped terrain to where I knelt with her. She didn't seem to hear him yelling for her. Those oddly focused eyes were wild with the desperation of her injured situation. The sharp grip her teeth had on me had pierced my flesh. Yes, I was definitely bleeding now.

"Aurora," Micah called out again when he was finally close enough to place his hand on her one knee, trying to keep a hold when she sought to kick him off. She was even winning in her blind struggle against his well-muscled grasp, her panic-driven strength sending her squirming away from his gentle, but firm grip. "Little one, we're okay. Calm down."

"Give it another few moments," I advised. My voice was utterly calm, its usual refined tone. A small piece of my brain wondered how this could be. I wasn't heartless. In fact, I was so full of compassion for this girl—this pair—that when I beheld their situation upon the rock, trapped, encircled by an endlessly long sky devil, and the brilliant, white-hot blast that had followed to overtake the entire hillside and the sky, I thought, for the life of me, that they were surely gone. Vanished, vaporized before my bedazzled eyes. Somehow, in my temporarily blinded state, I had managed to drive my Corvette across the bridge and find the dirt road that led through the woods to the cliff, though the front end of the car did meet up with a very solid tree. As I leapt from the still moving vehicle seconds prior to its unfortunate park job, how I had wished to the core of my being I had been up there with them during that fateful moment. That I, too, had been vanquished in the passionate thralls of that searing light.

Oh where had that brilliant blast come from? Surely not this girl, who was presently thrashing under Micah's and my hovering touch. But then again, why not this girl? This lovely creature whose mother's womb had so painstakingly shaped and crafted her. The seed that would eventually become this wonder had started three rivers deep as my people would say. For every woman is born with her whole lifetime of eggs already formed and so Aurora had once been a seed of a seed. Her seed inside the fetal body of her mother who in turn had been inside the womb of Aurora's grandmother.

Finally, Aurora became quiet, passed out. Her jaw went slack and my wrist came free. I ran my tongue across the small wound almost absently and it immediately knit over. Unconscious, she sprawled on the ground, broken but not defeated. Excruciating pain could be as good as any anesthetic. Merciful, but never gentle. Only humane in the barest sense of the term. Again, the need surged in me to move us quickly to safety before others came searching, but we could not yet move her. Not before we checked her over.

Wanting to be fast but sure of my diagnosis, I moved about as quickly as thoroughness would allow. I examined her while Micah sat by her head. He shifted her upper body to place her head in his lap. He ran fingers through her long black hair, currently in a wild state, combing it smooth around her upturned face. Her mouth was soft. There was an echo of the previous harrowing moments in her now placid expression, the tension around her closed eyes and the way her nose was scrunched up.

"Her skin seems oddly tight," Micah remarked as he touched her face. Her dark eyebrows were drawn together as if in perpetual question. He caressed her cheeks, trailing fingers soothingly across her worried forehead even as I made mental note of his comment as I ran my hands up and down the rest of her body.

Micah's wary eyes watched where I touched her. I knew he would have done this very same thing, examined her to locate every injury, big and small, if I had not been here. I felt the pressure of his scrutinizing gaze as I let my awareness of all things anatomical sink below where I laid palms on her, running my diagnosing touch along her shoulders, her sides, and down each leg. Next, I pressed firmly below her stomach and guided my hands up the middle of her body, moving above her waist, between her breasts, ending with both hands encircling her neck. I pressed my fingers into the base of the skull where it met with the spine.

"Core scan is clean," I announced, and Micah seemed to let out a held breath. "Feet and hands are good," I continued after handling each. I was especially careful while examining the right hand, the one whose arm was curled in at her side. This limb we knew was injured. It would be better examined and dealt with when we got her home.

"Even the hand that released the blast is okay? The one she draws with?" His voice came out thick with what almost sounded like a moan of disbelief. I swallowed down my own desire to sob as I reassured him her dominate hand was fine. The adrenaline of having to perform CPR was wearing off. Indeed, now my legs were trembling. The situation was finally affecting me. See, not heartless. Just ready to take action during the heat of the moment. I swallowed again, hard, struggled not to gag. I could get sick later if there was still the need. Down the river, the fire department whistle was going off. Soon there would be sirens from whomever was dispatched, fire truck or police. Maybe both.

Micah's next words mirrored my thoughts, "We have to get moving."

"Yes, we do. Though I'm afraid my car is parked hood-first into tree." I spared a glance down into the woods. There was light there, a soft illumination that brightened the undersides of the trees turning them a lighter shade of green. One headlight was out, but not both. And surely the taillights were still lit. Any emergency vehicles crossing the bridge would see the oddly placed car lights and wonder if it was the source of the screams. "We need to make haste to get her back to the estate. Can you fly her there?"

He said that he could, even in his disheveled state. He gingerly moved about to gather her and then stiffly rose with her cradled, the injured arm resting against his chest. If he was somehow hurt, I couldn't tell where. Not without touching him. The spotlight that usually lit the U.S flag that flew at this historic landmark was apparently blown out during the energy blast, though the flag itself hadn't fallen causality. I could still hear it as crisp flapping in the riverside breeze.

And with the lingering presence of scattered clouds, there wasn't enough moonlight to see much of Micah's appearance, or Aurora's for that matter. There was a tightness to her skin that I was concerned about, the sum of it located upper body. Also her face, as Micah had previously mentioned. My first impression was it was the onset of burns, but during my examination I hadn't detected any.

"I want to get her into the healing pool. Do you remember where it's located? Micah?" I repeated the question twice before he responded with a distracted yes. He was staring down into her face. Only then did I realize her eyelids were half open. Are her eyes glowing?

I leaned in closer. They were glowing. A soft, golden light. I stared down into that slight ambience, thinking how the morning sun was similar. A wash of buttery light shining between the silhouetted trees; a wash of buttery light highlighting dark lashes.

Blinking, I shook my head with a numb understanding that I was breaking free of something that had captured me, and not knowing how long I had been mesmerized. Sirens of a different sort had taken up where the fire whistle left off, the alarm of many vehicles on the move.

Micah seemed to shake himself free at about the same time. "We need to get moving now!" He said as he began to shift away.

"Yes, of course. Get her to the healing pool." I heard distant echoes of an odd sort as those last words spilled from my lips. In that moment, looking back into her heavy-lidded eyes, radiating honey and amber, my Mother's words of long ago were wrapped up in mine. Get her to the healing pool—if he wants to build a healing pool for the estate, then he should.

It was a sucker punch to my gut. Her voice, so wispy, feathery light. It held in it a profound duality, for hers was an ethereal tone that could carry in it a great influence. Especially when she was arguing with my father.

Mom's words, and then his. Not so much actual words coming from him, more so an embittered impression left on my heart from a years-old discussion. Her clearly heard voice was a cleansing mist that melted away his undefined cynicism. Mother had supported my instinct to install a healing pool when I was building my estate. Father had made it perfectly clear that to have such a thing on the premises was a symbol of weakness; that I wasn't strong enough to conquer my enemies unscathed.

Micah turned, and the movement broke my fixed gaze on Aurora.

It had been incredibly odd, just now. Was I really hearing their voices? I had a mental picture of a finger dipping into my mind, stirring memories, disturbing that which had been repressed. Something about Aurora had triggered it—something about her face... Maybe?

Thinking it through, I struggled to pin down my thoughts. Recall had become slippery. The only thing that came to mind was the color gold. Although for the life of me, I couldn't understand why. Gold what?

I shook my head, hoping to clear it. The sirens helped. Their on-the-move blaring was descending the hillside opposite where we dallied. They were heading for the same blue bridge I had taken here. Their rapid approach triggered a reaction from Micah. With a few unsteady paces, then a jump, he was up in the air. He moved in upward bursts to make it appear as if he were leaping from object to object on things that were invisible to me. He did this until he'd gained enough altitude, and with one final thrust he was off, flying faster than human sight could detect.

With the previous moment still haunting me—the question of why I couldn't recall the trigger of it nagging—I quickly discarded my shirt and unfastened my pants. Micah had a head start. He might beat me to our destination, but not by much if I took the river home.

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And the prologue continues...keep on reading/next section!