Page 213 of The Shadow Wand

Lukas smiles. “Do you want to live with me, Elloren?”

Yes, I want to live with you,I think. And share your bed.

But it’s more than that, I realize. It runs so much deeper than that.

I hold Lukas’s searching gaze. “I do,” I tell him. “I want to make my life with you.” Even as I say it, I’m hit by a pang of sorrow.

Yvan.

He’s gone,I harshly remind myself, pushing away the grief that rises at unexpected moments. You’re fasted. And sealed. To someone you’ve grown to care deeply for. You need to let Yvan go.

“We won’t be able to live together initially,” Lukas says, growing thoughtful. “It would draw the Vu Trin straight to you.” He moves closer and enfolds me in his arms, his lips brushing against my hair. I can feel his sultry smile in his tone. “We’ll have to meet in back alleys and sordid taverns.”

I pull back a fraction, serious. “I want to stay together. No matter what comes.”

Lukas’s gaze turns as serious as mine, strong emotion flashing in it as something new takes root between us. “I want that,” he says. “I want to be with you. Always. No matter what.”

Tears fill my eyes as affection wells inside me with unexpected force.

And love.

Love for Lukas Grey.

“Elloren,” Lukas says, his voice thick with passion as he pulls me in for a heated kiss.

Our affinity branches twine as tightly as our embrace as we give in to our craving for each other.

And our love for each other.

Overcome, I start to close my eyes as I let myself fall even more deeply into both Lukas’s kiss and his ardent affection, just as movement in a nearby tree catches my gaze.

A glint of predatory eyes.

Many eyes.

Many eyes on the same strangely elongated bat, Shadow tendriling up from its leathery wings as the rune on my abdomen starts to sting.

Fear strikes through me like a hammer to an anvil.

I push away from Lukas and grab tight hold of his arm, my lungs constricting as confusion ignites in his eyes and his fire.

Lukas whips his head around to follow my line of sight just as Chi Nam’s military-grade runic dome barrier around the Vonor blinks out of sight, like a candle effortlessly snuffed out.

“Lukas,” I rasp out as the wraith bat and several others extend their wings and begin to lift off from the tree as one, the many-eyed bat trailing smoke. My wand hand reflexively reaches for the Ash’rion blade as I notice the deflection rune marked on the many-eyed creature’s chest. “Don’t use magic!” I cry.

Lukas’s expression turns savage as he pulls me back, lifts his wand, and throws out a slashing line of fire to whip out across the unmarked bats as they launch themselves into the air.

Every bat save the many-eyed, elongated one bursts into flames and hurtles to the ground with an earsplitting shriek.

Lukas yanks me roughly behind him as the elongated, rune-marked bat lands before us with a hard thud and darts at Lukas with cobra-fast speed.

Lukas ducks to the side and the incoming beast crashes against the Vonor’s stone wall, quickly righting itself as Lukas pulls his sword, lunges at the bat, and slashes the beast in two.

One wing and half its lower body severed, the elongated bat sets every eye on me and throws down its remaining wing. It thrusts its taloned tip down into the stone like a dagger as it lets out a rasping shriek, snaps its teeth, and pulls its mutilated body toward me, trailing dark blood as I ready my blade.

Enraged, Lukas lunges forward, lifts his sword, and brings it down, slicing the beast’s head off, its eyes remaining open and pinned on me.

Dragon shrieks split the sky, and our heads whip up as several dragons soar in. The image of a dark tree made of Shadow shudders through my mind as the dragons begin to circle the Vonor in a wide arc and alarm spasms inside me.

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