Page 153 of The Shadow Wand

His sentiment is so kind and so heartfelt that my warm affection strikes into a blaze, and I yearn, in that moment, for a way to bring down the wall of grief around my heart, even though I know that the wall may never fully come down.

I loved Yvan with everything in me, and I might never recover from his loss, but I can feel my battered heart opening up a small space for Lukas.

And I realize, in that moment, that a heart is a thing not so easily destroyed by the shadows.

“I want you to kiss me,” I tell Lukas, yearning to fill up that space in my heart with him and his fire and keep hold of him there. Wanting to drive back the shadows.

Lukas gives me an impassioned look. “Elloren, I’ll kiss you all night if you want me to.”

The ache to be close to him ignites and quickly fires up to a blaze.

“Did you bring the Sanjire root?” I ask throatily, my heartbeat deepening.

The question flickers on the air between us, as if writ in flame, our magic giving an insistent pull toward each other.

Lukas breathes out a sound of disbelief as he gives me a heated, significant look. Then he reaches into his tunic’s pocket, draws out the vial, and hands it to me. The vial’s glass catches the crimson lantern light as I unstopper it, pull out a tendril of the root, and place it in my mouth.

Lukas’s gaze turns molten as I chew the root and swallow.

We stare at each other for a long moment as heat flares in the air between us. Then Lukas draws me into an embrace, his lips grazing my ear. “Are you sure, Elloren?”

“I’m sure,” I say as our magic weaves together and every inch between us sparks with heat. “I want you,” I tell him, certain. “And we’re stronger together.”

“For the good of the Realms, then?” Lukas purrs, his deep voice thrumming straight through me along with a shimmering flash of his power.

“For the good of the Realms,” I agree, surrendering to the pull as our affinities spiral around each other.

Lukas brings his mouth to mine, and it sends a heated charge through us both as thunder cracks, our magic fuses, and the whole world catches fire.

CHAPTER TEN

TRACKED

ELLOREN GREY

Sixth Month

Caledonian Forest, Gardneria

I wake up to find Lukas gone from the shelter, his steps scuffing the ground outside, the rain ceased. No sounds of dragonflight above.

My affinity lines are all wrong.

It’s as if, during the night, the forest pierced through each line with a minuscule hook then pulled the lines taut in every direction away from my wand hand, giving me the sensation of being a fly caught in a spider’s vast web.

Caught by the trees.

Stiff from sleeping on the ground as well as the disquieting sensation of being tethered to the trees, I clumsily throw on my clothing and push my cloth-wrapped Wand into the side of my boot, then step out of the hut into the cool, damp air.

Lukas is tightening the girths and securing our packs to the horses, his masculine form washed in the otherworldly gray light of dawn, a gauzy mist hanging in the air, rendering the surrounding forest dreamlike, as if all its hard lines have been erased.

Our eyes meet.

Lukas’s eyes narrow. “Elloren, what’s wrong?”

I glance around at the wilds, disturbed by the sudden absence of the forest’s ire. “The trees,” I say, my throat tightening with distress, “I can feel them pulling on my lines. Stronger than before. It’s like they’re actively trying to distort my power so that it can’t reach my wand hand.” I survey the ground around us. Then, finding a wand-like branch, I pick it up, the affinity power inside me leaping toward it.

“Elloren, they can’t harm you,” Lukas insists. “They’re conduits of power, nothing more—”

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