As head of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Paranormal Operations Unit, Clay Chiles has found a place where he can serve with honor and a surrogate family to replace the one he never truly enjoyed. When he meets Elven warrior Arondel and begins to build the partnership he had never hoped to find, life seems good. Still for two life-long loners to merge their lives, hearts and minds, an occasional conflict is bound to arise.<br><br>Clay’s discovery he has not only a father but a half-brother on Arondel’s home world of Elvenheim creates new and different challenges -- can he accept and trust relatives so different from all he has known? Can they accept him? Finally, faced with incredible tasks and dangers, Clay and Aron are torn asunder. Will the strength of their still- fragile bond be enough to bring them through hell and back to one another’s arms?

Runes of Redemption

::Now.::Aron shut his eyes, let his mind merge with Clay’s, and focused on his beloved home world, on a hill-built home and on Balinor. Their combined SOS went out into time and space. Whether or not anyone received it, they had no way to know. Even moving at greater than the speed of light, the transmission might take seconds or even longer to arrive at its destination.


They could do no more. Aron knew he’d done his best. If this was where he was to die, at least he and Clay would go together. They still clung to each other. He touched his raw, dry lips gently to Clay’s. ::I love you. We will be together in death and in future lives.::


As if from a distance, Clay’s reply came back. ::I love you, too. I truly believe we are bonded for eternity.::9


The buzz of a telepathic transmission was at first akin to static, an irritant Clay wanted to brush away. He hovered on the edge of consciousness, parched, seared, and desiccated, clinging to life by little more than a thread of will.


Chapter 23