Page 141 of The Shadow Wand

People who see me only as a weapon to wield or destroy.

It all floods through me. The very real danger to so many lives if I don’t survive and learn how to fight. But my odds of survival...they’re so horrifically bad.

I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,I anguish with every beat of my heart.

I’m scared. Not just scared. Terrified. I start to tremble.

Lukas’s hand takes firm hold of my arm. “You arenot alone.”

The way he says it stops me short. I open my eyes to meet his gaze full on. He’s so sure. Like it’s a simple, unassailable fact.

It’s not enough to heal the gaping wound in my heart, or to extinguish my debilitating fear, but the certainty in his voice bolsters some central part of me. Enough for me to roughly wipe away my tears and take the robe he’s now holding out to me.

I contort myself to try to put the robe on under the sheet, giving him a look of censure when he does not avert his eyes. But when he holds out his hand again, I take it.

Lukas gives me a slow once-over as I rise, and I marvel at him, stunned that he can be so brazen. I shoot him a grimace as I pull my robe tight.

Heat flares in Lukas’s eyes. He lifts his hand and gently slides it along the nape of my neck and up through my hair, his thumb caressing my jaw as he sends a stream of his affinity fire through me, both the fire and the motion of his hand soothing.

I close my eyes and intentionally pull on his flame, my breathing and my mortal panic loosening. Steadied, I look up at him.

Lukas nods with a look of calm approval, as if acknowledging that I’ve steeled myself. He smiles. “If the world were not about to end and I’d already courted you properly, I’d peel that robe off you, pull you onto the bed, and ravish you again.” His finger idly traces the skin along my robe’s neckline as I gape at him.

His simple, straightforward lust at a time like this is so outrageous that it makes me cough out an incredulous laugh in spite of myself. I can tell by the amusement dancing in his eyes that this bawdy humor is his attempt to comfort me.

It strikes me that trying to be close to Lukas is like being allied with a cobra. It’s unsettling comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

And as much as I want someone to hold me, I don’t need a sentimental ally right now. Lukas may be cold and harsh at times, but I need someone hard. And this dangerous, ruthless man is promising to help me get out of the Western Realm alive. At great personal risk.

An unexpected wave of gratitude washes over me.

I reach up to rest my hand gently on his shoulder, stand on my toes, lean in, and softly kiss his mouth.

Lukas’s eyes darken with yearning as I draw back a fraction.

“If you kiss me like that one more time,” he says teasingly, his voice velvet smooth, “Iwilltake you again. Vogel be damned.”

I slide my hand back through his hair and run my thumb lightly over his lower lip, a flare of desire rising in me that takes me by surprise. I let my hand fall away and step back from him.

He’s watching me closely with those predator eyes of his.

I take a deep breath, determination rising. “I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.”

“Elloren...” he says, hesitating, serious now. “I need to shield your magic. To prepare you to face Vogel. It will be easier to do if I kiss you.”

I nod, understanding that this is suddenly a very different thing.

Lukas slides his hand behind my head, pulls me in, and brings his lips decisively to mine. I gasp as he sends a rush of his power through me, then gasp again as his power tugs hard on my earthlines, wresting control of my branch magic and weaving it over my other lines, his own magic encircling then coalescing around it. To slowly, methodically create a wall, layer by layer, just under my skin.

Of solid, impenetrable magery.

Lukas and I stride through the center of the arboretum’s forest, our hands tightly clasped, my Wand wrapped in cloth and hidden again in the side of my stocking, Chi Nam’s rune stone in Lukas’s pocket. Our small army of Level Five guards is tight on our heels. My whole body itches for escape, and I can sense the bowstring-tight tension that’s vibrating through Lukas’s contained fire.

Everything is washed in ruby light, the green illumination from last night replaced with innumerable red glass lanterns hanging from countless branches, suffusing the world in a lurid scarlet glow. Outside the windows, storm clouds hang so low that their bulbous, steely forms almost touch the arboretum’s glass ceiling.

It’s as if the very sky is closing on us.

My fireline gives an anxious flare against Lukas’s tight shield as we near the edge of the indoor forest then emerge past it to face down the dense crowd of Mages spread out before us.

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