Page 177 of The Demon Tide

Confusion ignites over his mention of Yvan. “Lukas...”

“Isawyou with him.”

Pain spears through me, straight through my center. “What do you mean?”

“Vogel can mindlink to you off and on,” Lukas says, voice strained. “He forced the images of you and Yvan on me, trying to turn me against you.”

Remorse drives into me with ravaging strength, like a bolt through my chest. I can tell from the tension on Lukas’s face that he saw Yvan kissing me. That he saw it all. “I’m sorry,” I choke out, stripped raw.

He shakes his head, his mouth tightening into a harder line. “Don’t be.” And then a heat enters his gaze that’s so saturated in love for me, my heart can barely hold it. “Elloren,” he says, “I know you chose me.” As if forgetting himself, he reaches for me and...

...his hand closes around my arm, his grip real and firm, his form no longer translucent.

We both freeze, the entire world suspended in this one moment of terrifying realization. And then Lukas’s look of dawning horror is subsumed into something fierce as his gaze rises to meet mine.

“I love you,” he says, voice guttural. “I’ll love you forever.”

And then he grabs hold of me, pulls me close and brings his mouth passionately down onto mine.

Sparks strike to an inferno, fast and hot, my whole body shuddering in response to his sudden, rampant pull on my power, a radiant surge of love for him shearing through my heart. My lines contract toward his with such force I feel as if I’m turning to molten steel, welding to his body, a dizzying rush overtaking me as my inferno of fire, storming rush of wind and water, and one bright violet shard of light flow into Lukas with catastrophic force, his lines lighting up like an invisible torch from the force of his power and mine commingling as I’m drawn into the cave and his form once more.

Lukas lifts his wand arm, my arm inside it, his deep voice vibrating through me as he murmurs the Fire Strike spell, filling his wand with a devastating level of power. Then he lunges out of the cave’s alcove and draws his wand arm back just as Vogel’s pale eyes meet ours. Lukas thrusts the wand forward with a growl, our combined magic roaring into it with Erthia-shattering force.

Our power slams into his wand’s tip, then ricochets backward.

Our vision ignites, a harsh groan wrenching from our throats as our magic’s backflow stretches our lines with unbearable force, the pain like the torching of every vein. We fall, our backs colliding with the stone ground, stars splashing across our vision.

Vogel smiles and levels his Wand at ours as we convulse, hot agony strafing through our bodies, the wand in our hands crackling with sizzling energy before it’s rendered to ash. Vogel murmurs another spell and we grunt as dark vines lash out in a blur to bind us in tight coils, our arms rigidly outstretched, a vine wrapping around our mouths in a tight gag.

Vogel steps forward to loom over us as Lukas and I furiously struggle against the vines, his red-eyed envoys closing in to bracket his sides. Lukas knifes a murderous glare at him, but I can feel the stark desperation sizzling through his power.

Vogel meets Lukas’s gaze with venomous calm. “Did you really think I knew nothing of your incursion into my magic?” He tilts his head, pale eyes glinting. “Did you really think I’d give your guard an unblocked wand?” His gaze sharpens on Lukas, a vicious light in it. “Don’t think for asecondthat I don’t feel her inside you.” He motions to his demonic envoys with a slight flick of his Wand. “Consume him.”

“NO!”I cry against Lukas as the envoy-demons rush forward, morphing into their true, fiery forms. Teeth of flame sear into our shoulders and our backs spasm, the impaling pain like multiple knife-strikes. A growl chokes from our throats as claws of white-hot fire dig into our sides, the ripping pain unendurable as our vision fractures and the world goes black.

CHAPTER TEN

SHADOWFASTING

Elloren Grey

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

When the world springs back into focus I’m encased in a new body. Lukas is lying at my feet, blood streaming from fiery gashes on his neck, shoulders, and sides, his expression blank, his eyes full of gray fire.

My emotions spin into chaos, roiled by a love so fierce it bucks my hold.Lukas!I yearn to scream, but I can’t move, my devastation whiplashing into a violent confusion.

I’m paralyzed, Vogel’s Shadow surging over my affinity lines in a writhing violation, his dead tree branching through my mind. I look down and find myself in Mage soldier garb, the white bird on silken black marking my flat, masculine chest, a silver Erthia orb pinned near my shoulder.

The mark of Gardneria’s High Mage.

Rage spasms through me.

I’m going to kill you!I lash out from where I’m trapped inside of Vogel as his gray tree winds around my lines in a viselike tether.And then we’re moving, Vogel’s vicious triumph infusing my frenzied thoughts as he forces me to survey his endless lines of soldiers and dragons and Shadow creatures. He doesn’t slow as he drags me past them, their heads pivoting toward him with terrifying synchronicity. Then he turns, and we advance through a narrow, dark stone tunnel, its far end suffused with violet light that intensifies as the tunnel opens onto a small, flat terrace.

Vogel strides onto the windswept ledge, a precipitous drop before us, a cool breeze whipping at our hair, a dark mountain range spread out to either side.

And a luminous purple moon hanging overhead.

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