She dragged herself onto the sun-warmed pebbles of the beach, her body aching, her consciousness already receding. The white stones were smooth and cool against her feverish skin. She curled onto her side, one arm outstretched towards the water as if to maintain the connection. The last thing she felt was the gentle lap of the waves kissing her fingertips. The last thing she saw was the perfect, unbroken blue of the sky above the cove.
Then, nothing. A profound, absolute nothing. The deep sleep of her kind had taken her, a protective coma to allow for healing and change. The scratches on her skin glistened in the sun. The dark bruise on her shoulder bloomed like a strange flower against her pallor. Her long, curly hair fanned out around her, a dark-gold halo on the white stones.
She was utterly vulnerable, stranded at the edge of two worlds, her song silenced, her power dormant. She did not hear the approaching, silent yacht. She did not see the tall, broad-shouldered man standing at its helm, his sharp, whiskey-colored eyes scanning the beach, widening in shock and then narrowing with a dark, possessive curiosity. She did not feel his shadow fall over her as he waded ashore, or his hands, rough and claiming, as they lifted her from the sanctuary she had fought so desperately to reach.
The sea, her mother and her home, could only watch, its waves sighing a lament against the shore as its daughter was taken...