Page 130 of The Demon Tide

Yvan nods again, a devastated ferocity in his luminous eyes.

“Where did the Vu Trin bring you?” I ask.

He swallows and shakes his head, as if attempting to clear his mind of overwhelming anguish so he can answer me. “At first...to a Vu Trin base far north of here. And then, after Vogel attacked...to one of their subland military bases. In the northeast, past the mountains.”

“I felt your fire coming from the northeast,” I say, feeling constrained around him even as my fire aura rears and manages to break loose, rushing straight to him.

A flare of his own power wrests free to arc against mine, sizzling through me. I gasp from the all-encompassing heat of it, my vision flashing gold, our bond’s draw an agony to resist. I want to fling myself at him. I want to embrace him and merge our fires completely.

But, in this, I have to let him go.

“Yvan,” I say, my voice and fire shot with contrition and impossible want, “I’m sorry...”

He gives me a blazingly impassioned look. And then, he’s closing the distance between us, his arms coming tight around me as I grasp hold of him and cry. We cling to each other, and he reaches up to stroke my hair.

He brings his forehead to mine, but doesn’t move to kiss me, even though his fire shows no such hesitation, the sear of his heat suffusing my lips and coursing over my skin in a heady rush. My palm is curved over the hot skin of his waist, my other hand wrapped over his shoulder, but I don’t pull him closer. Because I can feel it in our joint fire—we’re both clear that we need to let this go.

Yvan brings his hand to my cheek, and I feel the surprising, light brush of claws, his voice throaty when it comes. “I will always be your ally.”

I nod. “I know it. I know you are.”My love. My beautiful, winged love.

“Tell me,” he says, his expression gaining a determined edge that strikes me as heartbreakingly heroic, which only shatters my heart anew. “Tell me everything you know about Vogel and your power.”

We talk deeper into the night, Yvan’s Wyvern senses primed to detect any approaching threats, and I’m filled with the sense of falling back in with my closest friend as I tell him everything. Yvan’s arms and wings stay loosely around me as we talk, the both of us having given up on restraining our fire, which refuses to obey any moral lines as we embrace each other with our power more heatedly than we should. More heatedly than we ever will physically again.

“You took down three scorpios, four wraith bats, and a kraken?” he says with no small measure of surprise, his finger tracing a light arc on my arm, his touch trailing hot sparks.

“I did.” That familiar yearning for Lukas and Valasca and Chi Nam rises.

“Well done,” Yvan says with a slight smile that prompts another fierce upsweep of emotion. I return his rueful smile, overcome by how beautiful he looks in this moment.

And then we’re not smiling.

“Elloren...” Yvan says, low and throaty, a conflicting spark of desire racing through our joint fire, the air between us growing combustible.

His nostrils suddenly flare, his head jerking toward the door.

“What is it?” I ask, my heartbeat kicking up as I reach for my blade.

With astonishingly fast reflexes, Yvan turns, raises his hand, and bursts a bright ball of fire to life just above it, ready to be hurled at the door as its lock clicks back and it opens.

A cloaked Jules Kristian stands in the doorway’s frame along with Lucretia Quillen, her purple wand in hand, along with Mora’lee and Professor Hawkkyn, who has a Smaragdalfar crossbow and quiver strapped to his back. Behind them, Commander Kam Vin stands on a small hovering rune skiff docked against our ship’s walkway, her sister, Ni Vin, piloting the craft’s runic controls, the sisters cloaked and garbed in their black military uniforms. Both are fully armed with runic swords and star weapons. A black scarf is knotted around Ni Vin’s head under her cloak’s hood.

Urgency crackles through me as Yvan pulls the ball of fire back into his hand and lowers his arm, his volcanic aura whipping protectively around me.

Mora’s silver eyes have gone wide and are fixed on Yvan and his outstretched wings, horns, and fiery eyes. “Are you who I think you are?” she gasps.

“This is Yvan Guryev,” comes Jules Kristian’s coolly measured reply. “Blessedly alive, it would seem. And you’ve already met Elloren Grey.” He gives both Yvan and me a warm, conspiratorial smile. “Mora, you’re looking at the Prophecy.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

FLIGHT

Elloren Grey

Voloi, Noilaan

Eastern Realm

---