Her cheeks and neck were flushed a delicate pink. A few tears still clung to her face, spots of bodily water that seemingly caught the light of some unknown source.

I should have found it strange, but I didn't, these shining spots that bejeweled her. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps it was a bit of her hidden aura showing through. Her aura, the frictional light her two souls created, should only be visible with second sight. It wasn't supposed to be beheld with the physical eye, and that it was doing so, now on multiple occasions, made me wonder if this was a new challenge on our hands.

With my free hand, I touched one of the glittering teardrops. It came away easily, clung to my fingertip, no longer lighted.

The glowing pinpoints were positioned as such on her face that I didn't think she realized they were there. She did not know she was leaking aura. What she saw on my finger was a regular teardrop. Micah, however, saw. His worried look told me he did. We kept it to ourselves, not wanting to spoil the moment for her.

With a slow blink, Aurora brought my hand up to her face and sent her lips gently across my knuckles. The gesture stopped my breath, rendering me as still as stone as she spoke. Her words that followed brought forth the remembrance of a conversation we had had earlier tonight. Standing mid-creek, with the current pulling at our legs, I talked in incomplete riddles, for I had a question for her, balanced precariously on my lips.

For it wasn't the time, nor my place to be asking. I could only impress upon her that I wished to fantasize that the answer to my unspoken request was her.

Gazing into her eyes now, I realized she knew what the question was. Maybe not in so many exact words, but she knew the essence of it.

Aurora touched lips to the back of my hand again and told me, "I'll be the answer to your question, if you'll answer mine."

At last, I exhaled, at last I could take in breath after breath. "Ask it, please." My hand spasmed in her gentle grip.

"Do you want to be with us? Join us?"

With the force of my response building in my center, I went to answer immediately, but found that I could not. Her other hand went over my mouth, fingers splayed wide across my one cheek. The gold mark on her palm was a hot spot against my silenced lips.

"Tell me not with words, but in the manner I understand...please." She wanted me to kiss her.

I wanted to—needed to—take her into my arms and give her all I was worth, in the hope that my inherent value was enough.

I hesitated. I shouldn't have, but the pause was there. Not because I wasn't prepared to fully commit, but rather, I thought of the last time we kissed—the first time. Back at the creek, she was in heat. The draw of it, the intoxication, had nearly driven us to breeding, but I didn't sense the call to mate coming from her now. Neither did I taste the metallic essence of her overflowing emotions from earlier. No, what I sensed now rising between us in our closeness was a sweetness. Faint at first, then stronger after the impassioned moment with Micah.

"She tastes of peaches," Micah spoke into my hesitation. He saw my need for explanation. "It's how she experiences love, gives love. So you better stop twiddling your thumbs and kiss our girl."

To kiss her was to give her my answer; and answer her I did.

I gave her my resolution to be by their side always, committing myself via my mouth, my body, and my soul. Or, at least, that was what I imagined I could do with my innermost being. I pictured my desire for her as overflowing, rushing out of myself after tonight's revelation that I loved the young woman I held in my arms. I envisioned my feelings for her bubbling up to pour into her mouth, and she responded.

It was as if something inside of Aurora opened to me. It was brief, but it was distinct. In response to me, it rose up out of her, a sensation that made me think of feathers falling onto skin. It was in my mouth where her tongue caressed mine, slid down my throat to almost tickle my innermost depths before it was gone. Fleeting, but very real. An otherworldly real.

Reaching behind herself, she pulled Micah closer to her to have him cuddled close at her back. It seemed at first he was unsure of his place, figuring out how to join in. It brought to mind his words of uncertainty earlier, which hinted at his not knowing how to share.

But then he figured it out. In no time at all he had the back of her cloth wrapping loosened, and he was kissing a pathway down her spine.

At her mouth, I was getting a hint of the tang of before, the mating pheromones, but it was faint and hardly consequential. Instead, what I found myself partaking in was the sweetness on her lips. The peach essence. Her saliva had thickened, gone syrupy with it. This, coupled with a bit of feedback I was getting through her from Micah had me quite distracted from what the pheromones would dictate when calling a male.

It was as if, by simultaneously holding her, and touching her, a three-way connection had opened up. I knew, without seeing, where Micah was at on her body. Not only did I sense where his hands gripped her waist from behind and the gently placed kiss on the skin between, but it was as if I too were holding onto her waist and had my lips on her back, even as I took hold of her shoulders and my mouth worked the delicateness of her throat when she tilted her head back for me. I even understood that what he was doing on her lower back was beginning to tickle her. The small, eager sounds she'd been making became a burst of laughter.

Kissing me once on the forehead, she rolled over then. I was faced with the smooth expanse of her back. Micah had worked the wrapping open so that she was exposed from the shoulders down to the top of her buttocks. Presently, he had moved up to the pillows to kiss her mouth and tug on the front of the wrapping. I knew he was feasting at her lips from the phantom taste of peaches in my own mouth.

I placed a hand on Aurora's back, sent fingers lightly tracing the day-old scar my cousin had carved along her one shoulder blade. It was a faint, pink curve across otherwise unblemished skin, now dotted with more of those gold specks that accentuated her spine.

I kissed the scar and laid my cheek upon it, hoping that she knew I regretted it with my whole heart.

Moving close, I rested against her back. I let my one arm dangle over her hips so that I loosely hugged her from behind while I idly nibbled at one shoulder.

It seemed that Micah too had noticed the connection we shared through her. "Alexander, can you sense what I am doing."

"Yes." My one hand curled at her hip as I replied, "You're cupping her right breast." I could feel the distinct, hardening knot of a nipple playing between my fingers. Of course I held nothing, and yet, when I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensation, it was as if her body quivered against mine in response to something I was doing.

Eventually, our girl fell asleep in a woven tangle of our arms and legs. Heavy, slow breaths soon came from the other at her side. Micah had much to sleep off as well. She had drained him, so to shut down and sleep was to literally recharge for a lightning devvi. It was the gradual way. Another, speedier method of recharging involved taking a thunderstorm head on.

But for once we were without a storm, even though our valley had seen a tenfold increase in restless weather since Micah and Aurora arrived at the end of summer. They had come to my valley seeking refuge, needing a place to keep Aurora safe, and in tow they seemed to bring with them a boil of trouble, a sun devvi male who had posed as a replacement guardian in order to position himself closer to her.

Micah and I did not know to what end this sun was pursuing her. My valley guards had been beating him back at every intrusion he had chanced. No, we would not allow him to get to the girl snuggled deeply asleep in our arms.

Golden marks, physical growth, and perhaps a new ability to emotionally overflow. Before she had fallen asleep she had turned over again to give me her front. Her breath was a slow coming and going of warmth against my face, her forehead touching mine. I imagined the center gold mark there pressing to my skin.

Micah began to snore softly from his place at her shoulder. His chin resting against her upper back.

I could not sleep, so I let myself wander. I closed my eyes with my forehead still pressed to hers, and indulged in scanning her body. I ran about in her bloodstream, checking the white blood cell count, analyzing the red. Mingled with the moist air moving in her lungs, and finally ended my wandering bone deep.

All the other times I scanned, I did so with diagnostic purpose. Now that I was merely touring, I came across something I'd never picked up on before. Something that was truly out of the ordinary. The feel of her bones, the slight vibration there that alluded to a difference in her molecular structure. Something I'd only ever come across one other time. As I lay there, I was reminded of the portion of meteorite I had once been allowed to handle. It had traveled from the center of our galaxy and was speculated to be millions of years old. It had been unusual and foreign and now, as I lay there, I was sensing something just as alien in our girl. I wondered what it meant?

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That's it!  The end of book 2's prologue.

Make sure to add book 2:  Fire, Water, Burn to your reading list to get updates. I anticipate to begin posting new chapters in August 2021.

Did you know that you can get the entire book one SUN CATCH HER as a FREE EBOOK on Amazon, Kobo (worldwide), and Barnes & Noble (US)?  I'll leave the links for that in a comment here.

I am also looking forward to making SUN CATCH HER available for sale as a print book through Amazon, also by August.

Visit my author website at www.threeriversdeep.com for updates and amazon/kobo/barnes & noble links to the books (including the SUN CATCH HER free ebook).

I hope to see everyone back for book 2!  FIRE, WATER, BURN  Until then, please stay safe & healthy. Love to you all!  ~Tiffany