Finally going to get this train rolling! Release date for my book is October 3rd, 2015! It'll be set free on Midnight, so mark it on your calendars! :D Ancient Egypt mixed with time travel, romance, necromancy, and a whole lot of awesome is coming your way! Sometime in August or September I'll be putting up the info of how to find it on my profile here on fanfiction, as well as on my blog, Wattpad, and other such places. If you don't have access to those, I'll be happy to personally email it to you (since I know there's a lot of guest readers out there who are too cool to have fanfiction accounts).

And to those who get a hard copy on the release date, let me know and I can probably mail you a treat, like a signed copy of my next book or something like that. ^.^ Because extra books are always awesome. I don't know, I have to work it with those who know of what you do once you get a book out there. Publicity and marketing and all that.

And, as always, enjoy your weekly update and review! Love ya'll!

Chapter 29

Something a little awkward bloomed between us, colored with how our friendship use to be. We explored our new little island together bare foot and dressed in the strange, billowy jumpers and tunics that we found for ourselves beneath a tree now and then. The trees hushed and yawned to us, and the light was just bright enough to let in the warmth of the sun. For lunch we'd try out the different fruit, always surprised with each one, and for dinner Link found a little pool full of silvery fish above the waterfall. He spent hours trying to refine a fishing rod because I didn't have the heart to tell him that the fish swam right into my hands if I willed it. My affinity for water had grown more sensitive than ever with the loss of my other, somewhat useless abilities, including the extra strength I had always taken for granted whenever the protective battle-lust overcame me.

Fire was trickier, as not a dead branch could be found on the ground. It was as though the trees were frozen in time at their best health, and death didn't exist.

Just like with the clothes, however, while we were out looking for firewood, we found a whole stack of it, cut and ready, at the root of a tree.

"Do you think this place hears what we need?" I asked.

"Always a way to test that." He gathered up an armful of wood and then looked up into the woods. "Hey, um, I could really use a brush."

We waited, but nothing happened. So we returned to the clearing besides the spring where we had made a fire pit of stone. Link had just hunkered down to organize the try tinder beneath the logs when I spotted a small, alabaster box over his shoulder. He watched me as I went past him and discovered a fine bristled, ivory brush within. I waved it at him and he whooped.

"Is there some flint in there as well?"

Even as he said it, I found it, as though it had always been here.

"Dude, we could live here forever." I said as I handed him the stones.

"And do what?"

But my mind had already leaped several steps ahead of him. We could build a house, settle down, have babies—and even as I thought it I could just see the cute, downy winged children running around my ankles and through white sheets I had just hung up to dry. I could have a big window in the kitchen, so I could look out at them as I washed dishes in the tub. I could polish the floor with pine and weave a rug so thick and plush that my babies could fall asleep on it before the fire as Link told them stories of his adventures.

"-nothing, that's what."

My fall down to earth nearly made me whimper.

"I wouldn't say nothing. We could live here. And..." I stopped there. I still wasn't entirely sure if he and I had reached the same line of thought. There could still be a part of him that hadn't accepted the imprint.

Link, however, had a familiar line between his eyebrows and managed to frown even as he blew the little fire in the pit to life. Above us, a green sort of twilight had settled over our woods.

"What happened to the reason Aspen brought us here? He died to get us this far."

My little daydreams went out like a candle doused with a whole bucket of ice water. I watched myself fold my fingers in and out of each other to distract myself from the urge to cry.

That's right. No little home in sight yet. I had to press on.

We didn't say much to each other as Link too the honors to gut each of the silver fish and skewer them onto some green branches he had taken from some of the trees. The firelight painted flickers of orange and yellow across the white of his feathers, and made the almost metallic gold tips shine. I had yet to see him spread them out since he had crawled out of the spring. It was almost as though he wasn't yet quite sure how to control them. But even folded up, they promised a huge, magnificent span.

Wanting to test the boundaries of our new truce, I scooted across the grass and reached a cautious hand to one of his wings. When he flinched I snapped back with an apology.

"No, it's fine, you just surprised me." He looked back at his own wings. "It's still really weird for me. I don't really feel like they're mine. So, feeling you through them just, yeah. But," he turned back to the fish, making sure they had been secured in the rich earth. "If you want to touch them, you can. Hell knows I can't."

"Why's that?" I didn't need any more encouragement to reach out again. Somehow, his feathers felt different than my own. Silkier. Cleaner.

"I...I guess I'm just a little nervous. Just me being ridiculous." And as though to prove something to himself, he reached around to the same wing I ran my hand down and put his own on it. He wiggled his fingers in the feathers, then shuddered. "So weird."

"Have you tried flying yet?"

"Um," he looked away. "Not yet."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't even know how to open them, don't you?"

"Didn't see you having that problem."

"You forget, I was originally born with wings, you weren't."

"Don't see how that should change anything," he said moodily.

Somehow finding this more amusing than it should be, I got up and tugged a bit on one of his wings. "Then let's practice. We can't very well get back on our quest if you can't fly."

"Now?" The whine made me grin.

"Yes, now, fish take time to cook. Now, open up. Come on."

He got up, giving me his best look of dread, which I laughed at, because I could see the poorly concealed excitement in his face anyways. Looking to each wing in turn, he fingered one, then watched as the feathers twitched under his command. When that's all he got, he looked to the sky in frustration.

"You'd think it'd be like moving an arm."

"It is," I said, taking up a wing and lifting it. "See?"

As I stretched up onto my tiptoes to stretch out his new wing, Link scowled in concentration and watched as his other wing rose up with the one I lifted. Then, it just clicked, and with a flash of fire-lit white his wings shot up high above him, fore feathers stretched out to the canopy like fingers.

My predictions had been right. The sheer size and majesty of his wings could have put mine to shame.

I didn't have long to brood on this, for Link had started to tip. He dropped his wings in a flitter-flatter mess of an attempt to catch his balance before he crashed into me.

Link had been heavy before the wings.

I couldn't breathe, and I had a face full of blond hair and neck. Thankfully, the lack of air kept my stupid hormones at bay.

Link groaned and pushed himself up, wincing.

"You all right?"

When I didn't respond, just kept gaping like a fish for air, he put a hand over my mouth, which successfully slowed my breathing enough to re-inflate my crushed lungs. My gasp for air was less than lady-like.

"Damn!"

"No broken bones, right?"

"There will be if you stay on top of me, you fat lard! Din, what are you made out of, lead?"

Awkward chuckle. "Sorry bout that." And he got half way there before, for some unknown reason, he stopped, knees on either side of my thighs, hands set right beneath my arms. I could feel the tip of his thumbnail against my ribs. His blue eyes shivered on my face, jumping from one eye to the other, than down to my mouth, than down further still.

A hot, heady feeling in my gut shouted a warning. Having wings did not make for comfortable lying on my back, and whatever was going on in his head right now I felt more afraid of than curious. The image of the orange hair beauty couldn't be forgotten that quickly.

"Uh, anytime now. Laying on my back kinda hurts..."

His eyes snapped back to my own and he scrambled back. "Sorry, I forgot. Wing joints." But he hadn't moved back enough. His knees were still on either side of my legs, but I sat up anyways and slid them out from underneath him. My stomach had clenched into a knot that could have been made of lava.

"Look, we're going to have to be careful or else something bad might happen."

"Bad?"

"Yeah. Look, you may say you didn't love Midna, but you did feel something, and I don't want you to...to get any weird ideas."

Link's eyes had started bouncing around me again, but he managed a quiet snort. "I think you're the one with weird ideas, Hanna."

"Cautious ones, mind you. Upchucking your bloody insides isn't something you quickly forget."

"And that will never happen again." His expression looked strange. His eyelids kept shifting, as though thinking to blink, but thinking better of it, and his lips wouldn't close. I could see fangs. Extended. My gut jerked and I slid back enough to get to my feet, my wings half raised, voices screaming so loud to run that I barely heard the plea to stay.

His hand wrapped around my wrist. Hard.

"It will never happen again," he said, solidly, leaving no room for doubt. "You don't have to be afraid anymore."

But my reason was fast leaving me. "Let me go."

Instead he pulled hard, yanking me to him. His touch felt hot.

"Let me go, let me go!" I was screaming now, tears were filling up my eyes. "Please! Please!"

"Calm down, Hanna."

"I don't want to die! Please! I don't want to hurt! I don't want to hurt!"

"Hanna-"

And he pulled me the last distance into his chest, where he wrapped me up in his firm arms. Their strength put my own to shame. There could be no denying his affinity for strength, even if he had yet to realize it. But I tried to fight against him anyways, my wings flapping, black feathers floating into the air.

"Hanna, calm down."

I could only cry and squeal. I could almost feel the pain, almost feel my chest starting to split-

"I love you."

I almost didn't hear him, and he seemed to think so too, for he said it, over and over and over again until I had stilled and fallen limp against him, my wings slumped to the ground.

I could barely breathe. I could smell him now, feel him against me, and his lips brushed soft and warm against my ear.

"I love you, Hanna, I love you."

And, because I've always been a bawl baby, I started to cry. Both relieved and afraid I was in a dream, or worse, being lied to, I clung onto him, knotting my hands into his hair and clothes as thought to stabilize myself in a spinning world.

Then his voice broke into his own sob.

"I'm so sorry. Please, I'm so sorry. My perfect, precious Hanna."

And like the dramatic boobs we were, we sunk down to the ground, holding on tight to each other. At some point Link brought his wings forward with his new found control and brushed his fore feathers against my back, my arms, my own wings.

The touch was one so intimate, it shocked me out of my tears. Never, had another of my own kind...

I met his stormy eyes and I could see the same question in them, the same adventurous curiosity, but before I could confront it he pulled away, tucked his majestic wings back into a tight pack against his back, and turned to the fish.

"These should be ready by the time it get's dark," he said with a muffled sniff. "We should probably figure out where we're going to sleep for the night."

My hands were on one of his wings before I had even thought of it. I tugged, and he allowed me to pull it open to curl my body within it like a blanket. The white wing pulled me closer to him till our noses brushed and I could smell the concentrated musk of his breath. His eyes were shivering again, eyelids and bottom lip drooping.

"Din," he breathed.

"What?" I tucked my face into his neck to avoid having to stare into his eyes for any longer. If my face got any hotter it would explode. Not to mention I was having a hard enough time controlling the heat in my gut from making me do something really stupid.

"Your smell..."

He pushed on my shoulders just enough to get his face down to the crook of my neck. I should have been weirded out by how he sniffed me like that, like some sort of animal, but then, what were we anyways? Winged people, yes, but so much was different about us. How did our kind show intimacy? How did our kind show love? Affection? Need?

This time, when his hot mouth lowered to my neck and his moist lips wrapped around its curve, he didn't stop at my skin. He bit down deep, pushing me down to the ground when I cried out in pain. He didn't let go as his hands ran through my hair, around my shoulders, down my chest, and tugged at the fabric covering me.

The last I saw of him was his dark blond hair before his huge wings closed in tight around us, bringing my own black out to lock with his and plunging us into a tight cocoon of darkness.

Only then did he finally let go of my neck and pressed his bloody lips against my mouth.