Author's Note: Have I mentioned lately that I hate writer's block? Probably not, considering I haven't posted anything in over a month because of it! Anyway, this book isn't finished yet, but as always, I promise that I will finish it within a reasonable amount of time now that I'm starting to post it.

This book is about Shaun, the wild one. Word of warning -- it's probably going to be a little more raunchy at parts than the previous book. Considering Shaun's personality, I couldn't really make it any other way.

Originally, I was going to have this prologue be the epilogue to the first book, but I thought it would be a pretty crappy way to end the book. Hope everyone enjoys this one...and I hope I can stop having these stupid bouts of writer's block. I haven't even been able to go back and work on old books because I'm so set on finishing these. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

Prologue

There were three things in life that could make Shaun Damarkin turn and run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. He was not a man much given to fear—he’d seen a lot and done more in his short twenty-four years of life, but nothing could shake his steadfast faith in himself. So it was not cowardice that would cause him to run from these three things, but a sense of self-preservation.

One: His father, Iain, whenever he was really, really angry. Iain Damarkin was a vicious son of a bitch, and while he had never, and would never, abuse his children, he heartily believed in settling disputes through a good wrestling match. Though he usually let his children win whenever a brawl ensued—and this included his daughter, Makenna, who could brawl just as well as the rest of them—he didn’t go down without a good fight. The main reason why Shaun preferred to turn and run, however, was because he did not particularly enjoy beating up his father. His brothers, yes. Especially his pansy older brother Emry. But his father? Not so much.

Two: Virgins. His reasoning was simple, really. Virgins expected too much if a relationship got physical, and Shaun never became involved with a woman unless he was going to get laid. It simply was not in his nature to do so. And even worse, virgins expected a certain degree of love and tenderness when it came to lovemaking that Shaun simply did not possess. In fact, he had never actually “made love” in his entire life. In his history of sexual relationships, there was screwing, banging, and fooling around. Varying degrees of the same thing: sex. Just dirty, sweaty sex.

And the third thing that could make him turn and run: His sister whenever she picked up a musical instrument, especially a harp.

Unlike Shaun, who had the amazing ability to disappear for months on end and not earn a bit of censure from any of his family members, Meena did not have the luxury of finding some distant corner of Kittyana to hide in whenever Makenna broke out her harp. Sometimes, she wished she could be more like the free-spirited youngest Damarkin boy, merely so she would not have to endure this torture week after week. Why, this could not at all be good for her baby!

Still, someone had to placate the poor girl. If Meena did not listen to her, one of the servants would be forced to do so, and they had enough to deal with catering to the likes of Iain Damarkin and his household. As if it wasn’t bad enough having a temperamental Lord to serve, they also had to deal with his temperamental eldest son, his temperamental and hormonal wife, the sometimes proper and oft-times crass Damarkin daughter, and Meena’s parents—her parents being an accident-prone Kittish woman and a centuries-old Badikawan warrior trapped inside of a sword.

So Meena listened to the weekly harp performances to save the servants and to save Makenna herself, for no one else in the household other than Meena and the servants would actually pretend not to loathe the girl’s playing.

On this particular day, however, she was not feeling much like pretending. In fact, she had a vicious headache, her stomach was doing somersaults, and she wanted nothing more than to find a soft bed somewhere on which to curl up and moan. Instead, Makenna had called her down for an impromptu performance on the harp, and the girl’s jolting melodies were only making Meena’s condition worse.

Finally, she could take it no more. “I am not feeling well, Makenna. I think I need to go lie down,” she said as gently as possible.

Makenna stopped playing, but she pinned the other woman with a glare. “Are you trying to say something about my music, Meena?” she snapped irritably.

Oh, dear. Her father must have said something to her. Again. “No! Of course not. It’s just…well, you know I have been really nauseous lately, and I have a headache today…”

“Oh, so now I’m giving you a headache?”

“Damn it, Makenna, that is not what I was trying to say, but if you are going to be difficult, then yes! You are giving me a headache, you are making my stomach turn, and I hate having to listen to you play! You are not a musician, you are rotten on the harp, and I really wish you would find a different hobby!” Meena shouted, fed up. Really, this had been one of the most difficult trials to her nearly nonexistent patience, having to pretend to enjoy Makenna’s horrific harp playing in order to gratify her sister-in-law. It was a testament to her increased fortitude that she was able to hold out for as long as she had.

These past four months, during which she had endured thirteen private concerts, had felt like an eternity.

“If that is how you really feel, then fine! I hate this stupid harp anyway!” Makenna shouted back, standing up from the fine chair in her family’s sitting room in which she’d been playing so she could kick the harp to the ground.

This was the first time Meena had ever heard Makenna shout.

And she found out why less than a minute later.

At first it was just a cough, but as usual, the youngest Damarkin tried to disguise the cough as something else—this time a growl. Except the growl only set her off further until she was coughing fitfully into the sleeve of her dress. Meena immediately rose to fetch her some water, but by the time she reached the younger woman’s side, it was clear that a mere glass of water was not going to cure her of this cough. In fact, it was quite clear that this was far, far more than just a cough judging by the blood on the sleeve of the younger woman’s soft, pale blue dress.

“Oh my God, Makenna. You are sick!” Meena cried weakly.

“No. I’m. Not.” Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, she started to cough again, and this time Meena took advantage of Makenna’s distractedness to grab hold of her free hand. When she yanked up the girl’s sleeve, she moaned in distress at what she saw. She should not have been surprised, but that did not make the sight of the little red lesions on the girl’s arm any easier to bear.

“Don’t tell Geyb,” Makenna pleaded, her voice still raspy from the coughing. “Please, Meena, don’t…”

Meena was already halfway to the door, and her expression was stern as she looked back at the other girl, whose pallor had taken on a decidedly sickly shade. “I do not keep secrets from my husband. And you should not have kept this from your family.” And with that said, she turned and walked swiftly out of the room in search of her husband.

“Don’t you think those drapes are a bit too…purple?”

Geybrial tilted his head to the side as he considered the curtains that he was attempting to hang in the room that would soon be his and Meena’s new bedroom. He still had a long way to go on the rooms attached to their suite, and then there was the matter of preparing a suite somewhere for his wife’s parents—preferably on the other side of the wing, and maybe a few floors up—but he’d made a great deal of headway these past few months.

Though his current level of success was mainly because Grif flew over once a week to help, Geybrial would never admit to his oft-sarcastic companion how much his help was appreciated. It was not at all that Geybrial did not appreciate the Xesomelian’s assistance, nor did he lack a desire to show his gratitude. He had simply learned very early on in their relationship that Grif did not like compliments. In fact, he tended to respond to compliments with either insults or verbal threats.

Grif was quite good at coming up with cutting insults, and he was a naturally superior fighter. So Geybrial pretty much kept his gratitude to himself.

“Meena likes purple,” he advised the other man.

“So? It’s your room too, isn’t it? Shouldn’t there be some sort of compromise? Damn, if I had to look at those curtains every night before I had sex with my wife…”

“Since it is my wife and my curtains, I hardly think that your opinion should count,” Geybrial said stiffly. “Just stop denigrating my choice in draperies and tell me if they are still crooked.”

“Yup,” was Grif’s short reply. “About an eighth of an inch too low on the right. Looks like you’re making another hole, Damarkin.”

This would be the fifth. He was beginning to think that Grif kept telling him that the curtains were not even merely to aggravate him. It was certainly something the winged Xesomelian would do.

He was in the middle of setting the curtains down to try again when Meena came crashing—literally—into the room.

This would be the third door she’d broken in the past month. He kept telling her to walk carefully through the eastern wing of the estate, as there were loose boards and construction materials everywhere from the renovations he’d been doing, and yet she still insisted on running everywhere and nearly breaking her neck. He was almost tempted to simply hire workers to finish the renovations for him so he would be around to constantly keep an eye on her. Unfortunately, he knew that his family’s new home within a home would not have nearly as much meaning if he passed the duty along to someone else.

Though he dropped the curtains to help her up, Grif already had her on her feet before Geybrial could even reach her. Unlike most times, however, when she would rise up and dust herself off and smile as she claimed that she was perfectly all right, this time she looked up at her husband with tears in her eyes and trembling hands. “Oh, Geybreel!” she cried, and then she threw herself into his arms and started to sob.

“What is it, Meena? What’s wrong? Are you all right? Is it the baby?” he asked frantically, thinking that surely something terrible had happened to cause her to be this upset.

Something terrible had happened, just not what he’d expected. Not what he would have ever expected, or ever dared believe might happen again.

“Makenna is sick,” she whispered mournfully. “There are red marks on her arms, just like the servants said your mother had, and she is coughing up blood. I think…I think it must be the same disease that killed your mother, and I think that she must have been hiding this for some time now.”

Geybrial did not know what to do. He did not even know what to think or feel. He felt numb all over, as if he’d just stepped into a freezing cold lake and stood there for hours while his insides slowly churned to a halt. When he looked up, he caught Grif’s gaze, and he saw that his friend’s red eyes were suddenly guarded, which meant he did not want Geybrial to know what he was thinking or feeling.

But Geybrial could guess. The Xesomelian spent an awful lot of time staring out windows at Makenna whenever he came to visit, and Geybrial had suspected for a few weeks now that his friend had developed a bit of an infatuation. Apparently, her illness came as a shock to him, as well.

“Your doctors…” Geybrial started, but Grif was already shaking his head, his eyebrows drawn together so marginally that only someone who had come to know him very well could discern just how upset he was.

“I wish I could find a doctor to help her. Xesomelian doctors are the best,” he said gruffly. “But…the type of doctor she’d need…they don’t treat women. And they sure as hell don’t treat outsiders.”

Geybrial was starting to shake. He was not cold, not really. Just numb. And yet his entire body was trembling so hard that he was a little worried he might not be able to keep standing.

“I’ll try,” Grif insisted. “If I can find a way…I will try.” Because there was nothing else he could say, the other man turned and left the room, his brown and gold wings leaving a trail of feathers behind him.

“We should write to your brothers,” Meena said once she and her husband were alone. “They will want to come home…to be near her.”

“Yes,” he agreed. He hadn’t even thought of that. Of course his brothers would want to know. Poor Emry. He’d only just left to be the king’s advisor, and he probably would not take the news well that he’d essentially spent the past year or so unwittingly teaching his sister how to conceal her illness. Mak’s oddly polite behavior suddenly made a great deal of sense.

“I am sure that Emry will return straightaway. I do not think that Regan would keep him in Kurish, not knowing that Makenna is ill,” Meena continued, her voice at once soothing and practical. “But what about Shaun? How will we even find him, let alone trust him to come straight home?”

“Finding him will be the difficult part,” Geybrial managed to say. “Getting him to come home will not even be an issue. Shaun and Makenna were very close growing up, almost inseparable as children. If he finds out she’s sick, neither heaven nor hell will keep him from getting back to her, I guarantee it.”

He only hoped they could locate his brother before it was too late.