Page 25 of The Iron Flower

The uncomfortable warmth in my face stings hotter, my feelings a tumult as I remember his eyes on me while I danced with Lukas Grey. The sense of his fire.

And that look of fierce longing.

We sit there for an uncomfortably long while, privately fuming, barely acknowledging my younger brother, Trystan, when he emerges from the cave.

“Hi, Ren,” Trystan says uneasily, glancing warily from me to Yvan and back toward me again, as if gauging the tension.

I murmur a barely audible response and glower at the crackling fire. “So. Ren,” Trystan starts tentatively as he takes a seat by me. “You went to the dance...with Lukas Grey?”

I shrug, avoiding Yvan’s intense green eyes.

Trystan is quiet for a moment. “Are you...withhim now?”

The fire unexpectedly roars higher, sparks exploding in random patterns. Trystan eyes the flames with a raised brow, his eyes darting from Yvan to me in question.

“I went to the dance with Lukas,” I sputter defensively. “That’sit.”

Except for the kissing. A great deal of kissing.

The fire flares again, almost catching my skirts alight, and I’ve a sense of Yvan’s heat flashing turbulently through my lines. I yank the silken fabric behind my legs and look to Yvan with startled accusation, only to find him staring into the center of the fire with predatory focus.

And I wonder if, like me, his power is quickening inside him.

Fire Fae power.

The fire quiets to a normal crackle as Trystan silently pulls out my white wand and starts practicing spells, the five silver stripes edging his uniform glinting in the firelight. He conjures a tight ball of water that hovers in the air just above the wand’s tip, then tosses it toward the fire, watching as it bursts into a hissing cloud of steam.

My affinity lines prickle to life and strain toward the white wand, my wand hand tingling as a sullen envy takes hold. I wish I could be like Trystan, able to access this burgeoning power and wield it through that wand.

Dejected, I watch my brother try out a variety of water spells as thoughts of Yvan and wands and the evening spent with Lukas gust around in my mind, upending my emotions.

A rustling in the forest catches my attention. Yvan rises, turning toward the sound. When Tierney pushes clumsily through the evergreen boughs and into our clearing, I breathe out a sigh of relief—until I see the tears glistening on her face.

I rise, as well. “Tierney, what’s the matter...” My words fall away as a shadow flows in behind Tierney, first resembling an inky puddle, then like water bubbling up, up, up into the air.

I step back in alarm as the thing rapidly takes on the size and shape of a horse—a horse made of roiling black water.

“Holy Ancient One...” Trystan breathes as he bolts up, brandishing my wand.

Firelight illuminates the fantastical creature with orange-and-red undulating lines. Its head swivels toward me, obsidian eyes focusing in tight.

“It’s all right,” Tierney assures us, her voice coarse from crying. “This is my Kelpie, Es’tryl’lyan...”

A palpable wave of fury lashes out at me from the Kelpie as its lips pull back to reveal icicle teeth. It abruptly lunges for me, and I cry out in fright, stumbling backward to the ground.

Fast as lightning, Yvan throws himself in front of me and flings his arm toward the creature. A torrent of flame explodes from the bonfire and surges toward the water horse just as Trystan casts a line of Mage fire at the beast’s side.

The Kelpie shrieks and rears back, steam hissing from its huge form.

“Control your Kelpie!” Yvan orders as Andras bursts from Naga’s cave brandishing his rune-axe. Ariel hovers at the cave’s entrance, her black wings flapping agitatedly, pale green eyes wide.

The water horse bucks wildly, clearly in pain, as it sends up billows of steam.

“Stop!” Tierney cries to Trystan. holding her palms out, desperation in her eyes.“Please!”She turns to the Kelpie and lets loose with a torrent of impassioned words in another language while the creature writhes, its watery hooves splashing against the ground, kicking up mud. As it struggles and rages, the Kelpie fixes me with a predatory look of hatred so strong I flinch back. Then its wavering form collapses into a puddle and streams back into the forest.

In an instant, Yvan is down on one knee beside me, his unnaturally hot hand grasping my arm. The contact gives me a sudden sense of his fire power, unleashed and whipping protectively around me. His normally green eyes have turned a startling fiery yellow.

“Elloren,” he says, “are you all right?”

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