Title: Snake Singer

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, but the plot belongs to me.

When I next awoke I felt quite different. My body ached, but I wasn't nearly in as much pain as I had been when my eyes had last closed.

I stirred in my sleep, tossing my head from one side of sharp rock to another. The pain from the movement was very little and I was amazed at how relaxed my muscles were. The sleep that I was drifting in and out of was calm and I found myself wanting to go deeper and deeper into the safe sanctuary that my dreams gave me.

I heard a voice, it was soft, muffled and I couldn't understand it. I paid it no mind; I just closed my eyes tighter and tried to go deeper inside myself. The voice spoke again only this time more desperate, as if it were calling out to me. I waited, as though in a parallel universe, not entirely awake yet not entirely asleep. The voice called out yet again, only this time its tone was deeper, and sadder, as though tears were attached to it.

I felt warmth on my face, the strong tingling sensation of warm fingertips across my cheek. The touch was comforting and I leaned my face the other way and let the warm hand cup under my chin. "Danica!" I heard the voice call out, desperation in the strong accent as if begging me to answer. I felt myself coming back and I heard the call again, pleading with me, calling out my name, begging me to awake...

My eyes opened and stinging beads of sleep stung my inner eye as air hit it. I ached to close my eyes again and fall back into my deep sleep, but the man above me commanded my attention. His face was filth-ridden and his jet black hair a mess and tousled over his face as he looked down at me. His red eyes swelled with tears as he called out my name again.

I blinked, afraid that the man above me was just a dream or a fragment of what I wanted to see. I closed my eyes again but when I opened my eyes again he was still there.

He reached another hand down to me and held my face in both of his palms as though it were a delicate jewel. His fingertips brushing away the stray hairs from my face. "Danica" he said again.

"Zane" I whispered, my voice still shaky. I lifted my hands up to his forearms and pulled him down close to me. When he was close enough he lowered his face and brushed his lips against mine, tenderly, lovingly. The sweetest thing in the world was having his lips on mine. When he lifted his face back up I hardly wanted to abandon the feeling of being so close to him again. "Am I dreaming?" I asked faintly, his hands still on my face and his hot breath steaming my face.
"Only if it's my dream" he said sweetly, lowering his head and kissing me again. Only this time the kiss was short and delicate. Sweet and tender skin brushing against mine.

"What happened?" I asked wearily not remembering any kind of escape from the cave where Adelina was holding me captive. "How did I get here?"

Zane lowered his head flatly, cupping his palm against my cheek and feeling the soft skin on my face lovingly. "We found the compound where the rebels were hiding you seven days ago. We killed all that were there, but we could not find Adelina. You had been badly beaten." He continued his eyes angered and icy with rage. "You were unconscious when we found you, and have been ever sense." He took a slow breath, I could tell by the stiffness of his features that he had been very worried. "We nursed you as best as we could."

"Who's we?" I asked, my eye browse furrowing slightly as my eyes searched the cave's structure.

"I was here also." I heard Rei's voice from behind Zane and as soon as he had spoken he immerged from the shadows, his face hardened at first, but a slick smile forming soon. "It is good to see you awake."

I smiled, as best as the sore mussels beneath my skin would let me. "Was it you then?" I asked, "was it you who was singing to me." I remembered that clearly, the soft voice that seemed so familiar yet distant who sang to me after I had been beaten and stroked my face with smooth hands and gave me water. "Was it?" I asked again, but I could tell by the confused look across both Zane and Rei's faces that neither of them had been the one that comforted me when I was hurt.

"It was not me." Rei confessed truthfully, and I knew it to be the truth, Rei wasn't the kind of person who would sing to me, not matter how hurt I was. My eyes traveled to Zane, but he to denied it.

"It was probably just a dream." Zane said comfortingly and I lowered my eyes, I knew that it was not a dream, it had to be real, I knew that it was.

Night lowered its darkened face over the silent land slowly. Zane had helped me sit up and from my spot I watched the sky turn from a delicate light blue to a vibrant red and then a effervescent purple and then finely to a calm black. The sky was filled with stars, tiny beads of light hanging high above me. Zane held me sweetly, his arm holding my sore back perfectly still and applying just enough pressure that maid my mussels relax. "What's to happen now Zane?" I asked, my voice taking on a childish quality as I contemplated what our life would be like now. We were still the royal family but our Kingdome had been taken over by rebels and our place in that new world would be very small.

"We will go to the Mistari Lands; it's the only place that's safe for us now."