Disclaimer: Twilight is all Stephanie Meyer, I own nothing.

AN: Yay! Here we are, the official kick off! A lot sooner than I expected, so enjoy, cause I most certainly did ;) I give you Desert Rose!!!

For those of you who had difficulties with the intimacy and occasional strong language, I'm telling you now they will be present in this one as well! Consider this my one and only warning, cause I'm not repeating it every chapter that may hold some ;)

Prologue: Coming home

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POV: Nadira

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The wind blew up the fabric draped around me, I squinted into the distance, trying to make out how far it was back to the settlement. Living in the desert was nothing like I had expected, the sand course, slit through everything, not a piece of cloth survived it's relentless attacks. The drought was another thing all together, my skin felt as if it would rip open whenever I moved, the bursts in my lips unable to heal before they were exposed to the harsh environment once again.

Temperature was the hardest thing to get used to, blistering heat during the day, the exact opposite of the bone chilling cold that arrived when the sun sunk below the horizon. More often than not, Fathiya and I shared a bed at night, attempting to stay warm within our little house built out of walls thin as paper. Both of us trying to deal with the constant longing to the men we had left back at home to come here, but it wouldn't be long now.

Zaïra, one of the elder women amongst our group, who was basically in charge, told us she thought we were ready. We had been working very hard each and every single day, trying to reach that exact point as soon as possible. It was impossible to imagine how much I'd missed him, being away from him felt like I was slowly dying inside. After eight excruciatingly long months, it was finally happening, I would see Embry again, the idea alone made my insides tingle.

"We're almost there!" Fathiya's muffled voice came from behind me, I nodded in agreement.

A few days ago we'd been given the assignment to travel to the nearest big city for supplies we couldn't get in the local town. The four of us had made it there in a little over a day, camels weren't that fast, there we had gone from here to there to find what we needed. Now, three days later, we were returning, almost having finished our very last assignment. The day after tomorrow we'd be on a plane heading back to LaPush, the place we truly considered home.

Though we had suffered a lot, I didn't regret coming here, we truly had learned a lot. At first most of our time had gone into learning Arabic, which went pretty fast because we were constantly surrounded by women who spoke no other language and our genetically enhanced ability to learn. It didn't take us long to be told about our ancestors, which served to understand ourselves better, which was needed in order to start our actual training.

For instance we learned, that the true art within our ability to holding and throwing fire, lay with in controlling it. The difficult thing wasn't to put force behind it, but to contain it, until you were able to hold a single flame to light a candle. The only reason it had been blue before, was because we had been blowing it out of proportion, over heating it and turning it blue, so we were only to create short bursts of it.

It was similar with the protective bubble we could conjure up around us, whenever danger was close, which wasn't supposed to be a bubble at all. Instead it should fit around us like a glove, learning about control and self containment was the key to successfully living with our gifts, while at the same time never posing a threat to others.

All that we needed to learn about healing lay more in the knowledge department, rather than the practical, which was a welcome relief in between physical training. For instance, whenever we healed somebody part of our essence was transferred into the one we were treating, and part of their into us. So it was absolutely imperative to pay attention to whom you would be healing.

That's where the seer within us played a big role, apparently it was our most important gift of all, since the one we originated from was a very powerful seer. It took by far the most training to master that part of us, and Zaïra told us to keep practicing when we were living back home again. Soon after we started working our minds, I was able to hear Nessie within our connections, without any problems at all.

We had missed so much while being here, the birth of Nessie and Jake's beautiful daughter Aurora, as well as the arrival of the other two babies that had joined the pack family in October of 2014. Our own birthday's had been celebrated here as well, both of us had turned eighteen. As had pack member that had imprinted on Fathiya, Taylan and his twin brother Logan, her adoptive sister had turned 19 not long after we'd left.

But the one thing we would be there for, was Leah and Tom's twins turning one, since we would arrive home the 15th of march, three days before their first birthday. I'd seen everyone I'd left behind, but kept close to my heart, through my gifts. Now I understood Embry's dreams better, since at first we needed our sisters support, to be able to get through. Which was exactly what he'd seen during those months, every time I had put the images in his head unconsciously, which was another thing we'd accomplished doing deliberate while here.

The moment Zaïra had called us with her, we were positively ecstatic, as soon as we mastered enough of the language, we had made an agreement with her. She'd tell us when she thought we were ready, but we were never allowed to ask about it, not even once. Later we understood that it had been another part of restraining ourselves, since we had itched to ask her about a million times already, though we never actually had.

We had arranged everything while being in the city, and the car would pick us up tomorrow at one in the afternoon. We had already packed what little we had to take with us, and were headed towards a celebration in honor of our accomplishments and at the same time served as a farewell party. We had come to love our sisters here, so we were very happy to be given the opportunity to spend some time with all of them, and to say goodbye.

That night we ate our bellies full and round, and drank way too much wine along with it. There was live music, which sounded very chic, but in reality meant nothing more than a few hand drums, a cither and a number of lothars. The cither, which looked like a big bellied guitar, and lothar, a straight flute, had been unknown to us when we arrived, but we had grown accustomed to its sounds and melodies very fast.

We sang and danced throughout the night, after which we slept until it was time to go, it was weird after all this time having to do with just the basic necessities, we got into an overly luxurious limousine. Or actual flight would leave at three in the morning, so we had a hotel room in the city in order to prepare ourselves for the long journey home.

At the hotel we ate, slept and changed into one of the few sets of remaining clothes we had left. In the desert we hadn't had any use for our regular clothes, so they had been out of use for months. Resulting in them being way too big, but it would do for now. During the first flight we were able to remain fairly calm, but our anxiety grew with each passing minute during the second.

We had told no one yet, wanting it to be a surprise, but when we were in the car that would drive us back, we weren't able to keep it to ourselves any longer, Fathiya contacted Romy, and I Nessie.

"Nady?" After opening the connection I waited for her to respond as usual.

"Hey Ness!" I knew she could hear the excitement in my voice.

"What's going on?!" She asked apprehensively.

"Guess what?! We're on our way back home!" Her squeals rang loudly through my mind, but I welcomed it with open arms.

"When will you be here?" She demanded after settling down.

"Within two hours!" The since was so absolute, I was almost sure I'd lost the connection.

"And you're telling me now! I've got to go, get everything ready! You need to come straight here, I'll gather everyone!" I wanted to tell her not to, but she was already gone.

~*~

Arriving in LaPush was the most surreal experience I'd had so far, we had instructed the driver to head over to Jake and Nessie's, I hadn't seen it yet, but I knew where it was. We peered out of the windows to take in as much from the familiar surroundings as we could. It felt different, though nothing had changed, except for us.

Before we could get out of the car, it was surrounded by family members and friends. Leah was the first one to pull me into her arms, Nessie after that, but when Tom and not Embry was the next one to hold me close, I started worrying. Scanning the faces around me to find his, I knew he was close since the connection was so strong, yet I couldn't see him.

Panic took over me, I didn't understand, where the hell was he?! Then I glanced up at the window facing us, where he stood inside the house, looking at me, tears streaming over his face. Forgetting everything and everyone else, I ran inside through the open door and threw myself at him. He caught me effortlessly and held me so tight I could hardly breath, after a few moments he loosened his grip on me slightly, making it possible for me to speak again.

"I missed you so much Embry!" My voice strained from crying, but this time, they were happy tears.

AN: I worked really hard to get this to you so fast! So you better show me how much you appreciated me staying up all night by reviewing ;) It'll get you the next chapter so much faster!