A/N: I know that it has been countless months sense I have updated or even touched this story. I would like to thank the devoted and wonderful people who have not only read and reviewed all of Snake Singer but have also been dedicated to this story. It is my fondest wish to finish this tale in the near future, but in the months that have kept me away from this story I have managed to forget where I was planning to go with it, so I am in the process of planning a new ending and new plot summaries. Though this chapter is a little fuzzy at times, half on it being written back in April and the rest in September the voice might be slightly different. I also apologize for the ending, it is not the usual cliff hanger endings that most of my chapters tend to end with but I hope that once I rediscover where I was planning on going with this that the excitement and adventure of these pages will once again be rekindled. Again my many thanks to the readers who have stayed devoted to this story, and to all of the new readers who have discovered it, I thank you.

Chapter Thirteen

The rain continued to fall. Icy pellets so stunning that my skin prickled and pounded with their force. Another raven came at me, this one larger then the first that I had driven away. It's long beak clamped and snapped down on my arm before I could stop it and as I shock my arm to shoo it away it tore a slice of flesh away from the bone. I winced in pain, almost buckling down at the shock and pressure of the wound. I wanted to scream out, seeing the blood pure down my arm like water from a facet, and trickle to the ground in large puddles.

I tightened my grip on Danica, she was soaked, as I was, and the weight of water on her cloths increased her weight.

The raven came at me again, but I quickly smacked it with the side of my arm that was not injured. The blow stunned the animal and I was given a desperately needed free moment to decide what my next move would be. It was pitch black and through the darkness and the rain I could barely see enough feet in front of me to find the entrance through the gate. I ducked into the thin tree line that grew against the stone of the fence. The shelter gave us relief from not only the rain but also the attacks of the raven, and whatever other guards this place had for its defense.

"Come on Danica;" I pleaded, I could feel her limbs lighten and fall with each step that we took. I had no idea what Theron and the guards had drugged her with. A medicinal drug that would only leave her unconscious for a while, or, as I feared, a poison that would leave her dead for defiling Jeshickah's order and rule on this place.

I couldn't stop; I had to keep going, even though I was feeling the life slip away slowly from the woman that I still loved in my arms.

My wounded, free hand was against the stone fence. Tracing, as best I could the groves and indents on the stone. I couldn't see anything in the lack of light that this night was affording me and I needed to know how to get out of this place. This wall had to have a door; an entrance, and exit, somewhere that you can come and go from.

"Well, what have we here!" I heard the voice like thunder in this storm of rain and emotion. I recognized the tone, and the accent, the slight hiss between the words. I turned and through the tree line I could see the form of a man, not much older then I, though years tended to be immeasurable by appearance to my people. The frighteningly red eyes, so like my own, which I had hid so long were staring me down mercilessly as the man stood perfectly still with his arms crossed. He was a Serpiente, if his looks and his voice were not a detection then his half changed form and extended Viper fangs were. "Zane Cobriana, my long lost king. Do forgive me if I do not bow before you."

This boy, this shapeshifter who seemed so oblivious to the things that I hade done not only for my people but for the safety of the ones I loved hit a cord with me. Like an instrument programmed to a certain tune which had long sense been abandoned to time and measurement was now finally being played again. I felt my fists clench, despite my wounds, and from between my lips I could feel the familiar sharpness and tingle of my Cobra fangs, long dormant growing again. I blinked my eyes, and when I opened them again I knew that they had returned to their natural red. Smooth, and flawless red that told anyone near that I was a king, a leader from an ancient blood line. I parted my lips and let my Cobra voice hiss from deep within my throat, a call, both frightening and beautiful to me.

Out of madness I slowly propped Danica against the fence and lunged toward the appearance. Within a matter of seconds, before I had reached him, he and I both changed into our true forms. Our snake forms. A form so real to me, yet after so long without it so strange. I felt the change take over me immediately, my emotions, my senses all shifted and changed. Hopelessly I was lost in the beauty of this new skin, and the pain of my limbs breaking and resetting was glorious joy between my lips as I hissed again.

Black scaled against the white scales of this Viper tangled through the rain and on the grass that felt so slick and smooth under me. I lifted my snake neck upright and hissed again, showing my fangs and curling my tale around this boy, who had never known what it was to take a life out of hate, only duty. His form buckled under me, I felt his skin crack and I felt the cry from his lips reverberate through both of my forms, though one was now deeply locked inside the other. Within the measure of a moment everything had come back to me, my past, so easily numbed and doubted now so strong inside of me. I felt the fear of being a child in times of war. I felt the venom fill my mouth and fall from my lips at the hatred that I felt toward the Avian's after so many of my family had been killed. I felt the senses and emotions that one who has killed can only feel.

In my Cobra state I was ruthless and lost within the skin that I thought had been lost to me. Danica, and the families that I had lived with sense my time away from her, those I have loved and lost, were all separate from me now. In this form I was not the mate that Danica had once loved, the man who had hurt her so deeply. I was not the son, that my father had loved when he held my hand on Python hill. I was a snake, I was angry, and I wanted to feel this boy die against me.

I tilted my head back, feeling the stretch of scales and flesh tense for the first time and I lowered it and sunk my fangs into the side of the young Vipers neck. I held my teeth there, feeling the thickness of his scales and human flesh between my lips. I wanted to go deeper and taste the blood still flowing through his veins but I could not. The shock that I felt from the tail that I had curled around him brought my fangs out of him and made me slither away quickly. The venom I had injected had caused him to start changing back into his human form.

Still in my Cobra form I sat paralyzed, seeing this young boy dead on the ground, his body curled in an unnatural position that only a snake would be comfortable in. His white flesh gleamed up at me, like an illuminated candle in all of this darkness. His red eyes were still open, as though life still breathed into his expression, unaware that death had already taken him. I changed back quickly, wanting to be rid of my Cobra form as though it were a deadly disease that would kill me inside the senselessness that I felt while in its structure. I stood; feeling the ach in my legs that time had left so strangely in me. My mouth was dry except for the venom that I had released from it. I licked my lips, tasting the bitter poison on them. I wiped my hand against my lips, my face, all of my skin, wanting the scent and feel of this boy's death off of me. I lifted my face to the sky, welcoming the rain still falling on my violently. What had I done? The question seemed so empty in me. I had no idea, no reasoning behind my ruthlessness.

I approached this boy, his face still alive with expression and his eyes, still deep red staring me down. I bent my knees, no longer feeling the rain against my skin as though a shield had been placed above me. I lifted my hand, and slowly closed those eyes, so unique to my people, so beautiful and so passionate about the ways of our land. Lost. Lost to this boy and now lost to me. With my hand on his face, brushing his stiff features into the submission of their fate his body jerked. The poison was still flowing through his veins, hitting each nerve slowly, still, even after death. When he moved I heard a sound, a jingle that made me take my hand away. The metallic ring could only be one thing. Keys.

I searched through each of his pockets until I found them, three sets of keys on one single ring. I held the silver escape routs in my hand, wondering if one of them was the one that I would need to get Danica and me out of this place.

"Zane," I heard from behind me, I turned and could see Danica moving her head, slurring her speech as she came in and out of her lethargic sleep. I stood; ready to go to her, but then I stopped. The boy's face was haunting me, I had never killed an opponent that was not worthy or willing to fight me, and never had I been so willing to deal out death in such effortless terms. The thought frightened me, chilling me more then any rain could.

I shock myself out of it, going over to Danica and rising her up in my arms. My wounds long numb now to pain, I could feel nothing more then my desire to leave this place and never return.