The long silver hair of the imposing man was caught back at the nape of his neck in a braided tail that reached clear to his knees. Not the hair of any warrior she’d ever seen, it would make too easy a handle for a foe. A black leather coat lay neatly across a nearby stump, a compliment to the black leather pants that molded to his thighs and revealed every flexing muscle as he plied his axe on the wood rounds nearby. Even his loose white shirt was somehow alluring, plastered to his muscled back and arms with sweat that made it nearly transparent. The bright light of Lurrina’s full face showed him as clearly as full sunlight might have.
She should not be here. Only desperation made her enter the mountains to seek out this man. For most of her life she’d heard rumors of Shadorn, one of the few Night Born that lived this close to the Sun Dwellers. He lived alone and did not interact with any others, not that they would seek interaction anyway. All Night Born were treated as if invisible and beneath notice.
But still she’d heard the whispers, the rumors. It was said he waited for someone or something and would never leave until his task was completed. In the meantime, he lived a simple life in the mountains in a small cabin protected from the power of Stralinga, the sun god, by the heavy woods. A few travelers told of his giving unsought but welcome assistance but that he never spoke to them nor took anything from them. He just disappeared back into the woods.
She had to choice but to seek him out now. This may be the last hope she had to make a new life for herself. Her old life was lost to her. She’d tried to ignore the signs when they’d started. The pallor she put down to illness. The changes to her hair and eyes she’d passed off as a passing illness.
All the denial in the world didn’t save her. She had become Night Born, claimed by the moon goddess, Lurrina. Ripped from home and family, outcast and now almost too weak to travel, she’d finally made her way here.
He may not help her, he had no obligation to. Shadorn may even kill her on sight as a misborn, as her own people had threatened to do. No. Not my people. Not anymore.
“Why are you lurking in my woods?” The melodic voice called out the question. He faced her now and she could see his face, the finely sculpted delicacy of his features belied by the firm set to his lips and his scowl.
She flinched but gathered her courage and stepped forward, wary of his reaction. Her traveling leathers were dusty and worn. An old pair of her brother’s that she’d taken when she left.
“Greetings. Are you Shadorn?” Her breath caught as she asked the question. She prayed he was indeed Shadorn but feared it also.
“I am Sha’dorn.”
He stepped toward her. When only a few steps separated them, he stopped and glanced up and down her body, lingering occasionally.
“My name is …. was… Mikera. Can you help me. Please?”
Sha’dorn caught her when her knees buckled and hefted her easily into his arms. Gently and carefully, he set her on the stump he’d just been chopping wood on. “Are you newly changed? Have you fed?”
She could only shake her head. Ever since her eyes and hair had changed, she’d been unable to keep any food down. Nothing but water. Everything else made her sick.
“When did you complete your change? Did your people not even feed you before throwing you out?” He snarled an almost feral sound. “What has the world come to?”
“I don’t understand.” She almost sobbed. “My skin got paler and paler and I couldn’t stand the sunlight. I’d burn when I’d been in the sun all my life. My eyes changed from brown to this pale, strange color. My hair was gold, everyone said it was like silken sunlight. Now it’s white and so long.”
Now openly weeping she looked up into his face. “And my ….”
He smiled a stunning, sensual smile that stopped her in mid-sentence. A smile that revealed the sharp white tips of fangs. Fangs that matched her own.
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(today’s postid is 26Oct2007)
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