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The kiss aread’s ar so fast against hers She felt dizzy, but safe, too; a wonderful

feeling

But the approach of hisIt was just like the first ti to suck her soul out and ead’s until they were both one person Until he knew her

every secret and she had no place to hide

And the worst thing Was that she kneasn’t Morgead doing it It was that outside force doing it to

both of the helplessly

Whether ant it or not And we don’t want it, Jez told herself desperately We both hate it Neither

of us wants to share our souls

But then as he still holding her, still kissing her? And as she letting hi through the smoke-screen of protection she’d

thrown around herself to brush her thoughts as lightly as a ead’s

essence in it; she could feel his soul, dark and bright and full of fierce e to fight this or even holding back He was going farther than the pull forced hiift that sent her reeling And she couldn’t resist it Her mind flowed out of its own accord to

touch his, tendrils of thought wrapping around his gratefully The shock of pleasure when she let it happen

was frightening-except that she couldn’t be frightened anymore, not now

And then she felt hi hers, holding her ht exploded behind her eyes

Jez! Morgead! What’s wrong with you two?

The thought was foreign, cold, and unwanted It broke into Jez’s warly Jez tried to push it away

Hey, look; I’ive us a sign, okay?

Morgead roan It’s Vol I have to kill hi occurred to her Oh-wait Where are we ?

It was a good question A weird but necessary question It took thehts from each other and rise back to the real world

Where they see under the ruins of a redbud tree, aread’s shoulder, Morgead’s face pressed into Jez’s hair

At least eren’t still kissing, Jez thought abstractedly She could feel herself flushing scarlet The rest

of the gang was standing around theuys want?" Morgead said brusquely

"What do ant?" Raven leaned forward, dark hair swinging Jez actually saw both her ht blue

eyes underneath "You three juot out of control We put it out and

came down to see if you were still alive- and then we find you here hanging on to each other and totally

out of it And you want to knoe want? We want to know if you’re okay"

"We’re fine," Morgead said He didn’t say anything more, and Jez understood Neither of them had any

desire to talk about it in front of other people That could wait until they were alone, until it was the right

time

They didn’t need to express this to each other Jez simply knew, and knew that he knew

"What about her?" Thistle pointed to Iona, still asleep on the sidewalk

Jez was alreadyto the child She checked the little body over, noted the even breathing and the

peaceful expression

"She’s fine, too," she said, settling back She held Thistle’s gaze "No thanks to you"

Thistle’s cheeks were pink She looked angry, embarrassed, and defensive "She’s just a hu up to his feet He towered over Thistle, who suddenly looked

very small "Which you’re not," he went on unsym-pathetically "You’re just a-a sixteen-year-old Shirley

Teht, both of you!" Jez said sharply She waited until they shut up and looked at her before

continuing "You-be quiet and let ead "And you-if you ever try

to hurt a kid again, I’ll knock your head off" This to Thistle, who opened her

Jez nodded "Okay, that’s settled Noe’ve got to get this girl home"

Val stared at her "Home?"

"Yeah, Val" Jez picked the child up "In case you , she’s not the Wild Power"

"But" Val wriggled his broad shoulders unco?"

"There’s a first tilared at him

"But, then-who is the Wild Power?" Raven put in quietly

"Who knows?" It was the first time Pierce had spoken, and his voice was low and distantly alinted in the red light of the sunset, and his dark eyes were ht

But of course he was right "If this kid isn’t the one-well, I guess it could have been anybody at the

scene," she said slowly "Anybody worried enough to want to save her One of the firefighters, a

neighbor-anybody"

"Assu the blue flash on the tape really was evidence of a Wild Power," Pierce said

"I think it was" Jez glanced at Morgead "It sure looked like blue fire And it certainly was some kind of

Power"

"And Grand in San Francisco," Morgead added ’It all

fits too well" He looked at Jez slyly "But it couldn’t have been anybody at the scene, you know"

"Why not?"

"Because of what you said about that line in the prophecy ’Born in the year of the blind Maiden’s vision’

That o Before that, Aradia couldn’t have

visions because she wasn’t alive"

Goddess, I’ht of that She gave hirin Not o on," Raven said in her prago back

inside to discuss it? So eventually and see us with an unconscious kid"

"Good point," Jez said "But I’ the kid holanced at him; he had his stubborn expression on

"Okay, but just us Two h" She turned to Raven "The

rest of you can do what you want tonight; try to figure out who the Wild Power is or whatever Well

ain tomorrow and see e’ve come up with"

"Why wait?" Val said "It’s only dusk We could h for the day" And Goddess kno I’ to Aunt Nan, she thought wearily Not toher with an odd expression "So you’ll have to report to Hunter that we failed," he

said, and there was a probing tone in his voice that Jez didn’t like

"Yeah, I’ll tell him you screwed up," she said heavily "But that we still have some options Unless you’d

rather I just tell hi a second chance" She kept looking at

Pierce until he looked away

When she turned to Morgead he was scowling, but he didn’t say anything He silently started toward

their bikes

They couldn’t talk while they were riding Jez was too full of her own thoughts anyway

She was finally free to consider those lastBut also enlightening

She knehat had happened to theht It was the

soul-ead and I After all our fighting and challenging each other and everything It’s

so strange, but in a way it makes sense, too

And it’s really a pity that even if we both survive the next week or so, we’re never going to see each

other again

The thought came from some deep part of her that was utterly heartless and practical and saw everything

in the cold light of truth

Because unfortunately the universe had picked the wrong person for Jez to be soulmates with It had

picked one that would hate her and want to kill her once he realized what she really was

Bad h She realized, di hysterical

It had been such a long day, and she was so tired, and so hurt, and she’d failed in her ead was in love with her, but there was just no hope Small wonder she was punchy and an

e off her bike

There really was no hope Even in that last encounter, even when Morgead had been revealing his soul

to her, Jez had ed to keep her own secrets buried He didn’t know He had no idea that the girl he

was in love as ver to him to steal the Wild

Power out from under his nose and end the hopes of the vampires for a world without humans

He was ambitious, she had always known that All he’d ever cared about was cli

more power She’d promised him a position in the neorld order-while all the ti as

hard as she could to make sure that the neorld order never caive that deception He would never even be able to understand why she had done

it

So you have to forget about him, the cold-and-practical part of herinside Jez that even tried to argue

It was dark by the time they reached the Marina district As they approached the housing project, Jez