Page 137 of The Shadow Wand

Astonishment ripples through Lukas’s lines. He sits forward, his invisible fire guttering. “Did you just say you drank tirag in Cyme with...Valasca Xanthrir?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I grin at him and take another sip.

Lukas pulls in a deep breath, pondering. “Well, the odds of our survival just got a whole lot better. If we can get you through the Pass, that is.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the Vu Trin are aligned with the Amaz. And once they tell them that you’re the Black Witch, the Amaz will send the head of the Queen’s Guard for you.”

I raise a brow at this. “Well, that’s a lucky stroke of fate. She’s my friend.”

Lukas cocks his head and lets out a long sigh. “It’s a relief to know that Valasca Xanthrir is not likely to kill us. How did you ever come to drink tirag with her?”

I tell him the story of Marina, the Selkie, and how we had to travel to the Amaz city of Cyme to enlist the help of the Amaz to free all the Selkies, and how I encountered Sage Gaffney there. “I had a headache that evening,” I tell him, “so Valasca gave me some tirag. I drank quite a lot, and quickly found that spirits make me feel...” I give him a slow smile. “...quite loosened up. Much like your fire.”

Lukas’s eyes take on a suggestive gleam. He sends out a warm, embracing line of flame. “Would you like to feel more of it?”

My magic flares toward him, a hard stream of it flashing into his lines, and Lukas shudders slightly in response. I smile at him. “I would.”

Lukas seems amused by my brazen gaze. He stands, takes the glass from my hand, sets it on the table, then pulls off his tunic in one smooth motion and throws it over the back of the chair.

It’s a shock, his partial nudity, and a hard spike of desire flashes through me. I swallow as my gaze wanders over his handsome frame.

There’s a knife marked with Noi runes strapped to one of his upper arms. Another small spare wand that’s rune marked strapped to the other. His chest is muscular. Mostly smooth and shimmering green in the dim light, dark hair shadowing its center.

A line of black hair disappears down his pants.

My lines warming, I quickly look back up at his face and find that his smile has turned feral.

Lukas removes his wand, his knife, and the sheaths, then sets them all on the table next to my Wand. He sits, removes his boots, and reaches under each pant leg, removing rune blades strapped just underneath.

“Sure you won’t need them?” I challenge, attempting a fierce look.

“As dangerous as you are, I highly doubt it,” he jests. He sets the second knife next to the first one and flashes me a grin. “You seem increasingly friendly.”

“You’re incredibly attractive.”

He smiles at me and picks up his wand. “Lie back,” he gently prompts.

I comply, and he softly murmurs a spell. Thin, dark lines flow from his wand and encircle my body, brushing lightly over me in a caressing net, sending out delicious sparks, some muted by the clothing, some startlingly pleasurable where they touch down on bare skin.

My breathing deepens, the sparks radiating a delicious vibration down through the core of me, and a moan escapes my lips. “Oh, that’s nice, Lukas.”

His eyes take on a carnal light. “It’s a lot more fun with your clothes off.”

I stare at him for a long tension-fraught moment as the lines dissolve then disappear, my words soft and sly when they come. “Then take them off.”

For an instant all is still. The fire crackles in the fireplace. Neither of us moves.

Lukas is next to me in one streamlined movement, the bed dipping from his weight. He focuses on me with searing intensity, his hand sliding up the center of my camisole as if he’s determining where to start first.

The camisole is off in three gentle decided tugs. The rest of my clothes in a single smooth motion. He has the ardent intensity of an artist. No hesitation. No awkwardness.

He leans down and his mouth claims mine as he lowers himself onto me, his long, muscular body pressed decadently against mine, excitingly hard and warm to the touch. Our affinity fires race toward each other, earthlines rapidly interweaving, and I can sense Lukas’s affinity flames straining against his careful control.

He seems to get hold of himself and pulls back the way he did when we played music together. His touch is lighter now, his firelines more contained. He waits for me, letting the intensity build as he kisses me ardently and his fire strokes down my lines, the heat surging forward, then pulling back again—a dance. Rise and fall. Teasing me by withdrawing. Then giving me a heated glimpse of his full power.

Slowly, I catch on, and we begin to find each other’s rhythm, faltering less and less, exploring each other’s bodies and magic. I revel in the hard muscle of his thigh beneath my palm. The jut of his hip bone under his pants. The caress of my power on him here, his hands firm on me where my magic sparks with a burgeoning longing for him.

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