Page 203 of The Demon Tide

Before I can stage a protest, Vogel’s clawing branches impale me once more, a gasp torn through my throat by the explosive agony as Shadow floods my lines. A dazed hunger swirls through me as my gray-lit gaze sweeps over the clearing. Branches everywhere.

Wandseverywhere.

Just one touch, Elloren, Vogel intones in my mind, as his power suffuses my lines with silvery heat, so potent it makes me shudder. Noi Birch. Plum Cedar,he gently whispers.One touch and you’ll sense thewhole tree...

I clamp my teeth hard, staggering backward as I constrict my lines in an attempt to throw off his thrall. Because if I pick up any one of those branches, it will beover.

“He’s in my head, Ariel,” I say, a tremor kicking up all over my body. “He’s infiltrated my fasting and he’sinme. Don’t let me touch wood...”

Vogel’s presence rams through me. My eyes roll back in my head as I lose control over my body. He darts me forward with a rough growl, leaping toward a branch as I rage against his invasion. My fingers close around wood.

Ariel slams me to the ground and whips me onto my back, her elbow coming painfully down on my arm. She wrests the wood away and hurls it aside, then pins my hands against my chest, straddling me, her eyes scorching as Vogel forces me to struggle against her. I snap my teeth at her in a feral attempt to tear into her flesh. To bite those wings of hers clear off her back.

“Icaral demon,”my mouth seethes, my voice deepened into Vogel’s chilling, male tones as she keeps me pinned to the ground.“I see you.”

Ariel grins, baring teeth, her eyes widening with wicked delight. “Oh, you see me, do you?” She flicks her wings out to their full, powerful span and leans in close. “Well, take a good, long look,Marcus.” Her smile sharpens, her eyes two lethal embers. “Go straight to hell, you rotted piece of Mage filth. You made a mistake when you failed to break me.”

Vogel laughs in the back of my mind, and a swell of violent outrage rises within me. I painfully wrench in my lines, regaining a sliver of agency.

“He’s laughing at you,” I rasp against Vogel’s grip as Ariel keeps my arms pinned with her knee and expeditiously rips a strip of dark fabric from the bottom edge of her tunic.

“Oh, go ahead and laugh, priest,” Ariel snipes, flashing him a belligerent grin as she yanks my wrists together and binds my hands tight. “I still won’t let you take her.”

Vogel roars back into me, shooting agony through my lines and wresting hold of my lips. I bare my teeth at her. “I’ll rip your wings off,” I hiss with a vicious smile. “And feed them to you,demon spawn. Then I’ll shove nilantyr down your throat until you beg for more.”

Horror flickers through Ariel’s eyes at the mention of the powerful drug, a growl rising from her throat as I rage against Vogel’s cruelty and tense my lines against his unbearable hold, wresting tenuous control over my voice and body once more.

“Ariel,” I roughly force out. “I can’t hold him back.”

“Then we’ll find a way to break his hold on you,” Ariel viciously counters, the golden conflagration in her eyes rising.

“Destroy me and get to safety,” I insist. “Get back to Naga. He’s coming for me.”

“No,”Ariel snarls, and I’m stunned by her foolish tenacity. “I’m going to bring you back to my horde. Naga can burn him out of you.”

Vile winged thing!

Hot tears glaze my eyes, Vogel’s dead tree pulsing against my vision. “I can’t risk him getting full hold of me again,” I vehemently press. “I almost killed everyone in Voloi. The Prophecy is right, Ariel. My magic...it’sevil.And if by some miracle Yvan survived, I need to be struck down so that he can be the one to prevail and fight.”

Vogel’s rage explodes inside me.

“I don’t believe in prophecies!” Ariel lashes back with blistering defiance.

“It doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not!” I cry out. “It’sreal!”

Ariel’s look is a scorch of lightning. “Thensubvert it!”

The whoosh of powerful wings beats down from above, and Ariel and I jerk our heads toward the sound. Ariel springs to her feet as three Shadow dragons fly into our clearing, glowing-gray-eyed Mages on their backs.

Dread strikes through me as Ariel darts forward, pulls her wings in tight and lifts her taloned hands. Her fingers ignite to gold, the glow of the Mages’ corrupted eyes burning bright as they lift their wands in unison.

With a growl, Ariel throws her hands forward, a stream of fire coursing from her palms just as the Mages blast streaming bolts of Shadow forward to collide with her flame, yellow sparks exploding sideways as she halts the bolts midair. Dark branches tendril out from the relentless streams of gray magic to form a tangling wall, and Ariel’s fire rises against it to form a counter-wall of golden flame as they push mightily against each other’s power. Ariel skids backward, arms extended, leaning into her blazing power as the Shadow wall ignites with steely fire.

The gray-fire wall crackles unnaturally downward, burrowing into the forest floor. The ground beneath Ariel’s feet begins to buckle as the Shadow advances against her fire, a crevasse filled with dark flame forming just behind her.

Ariel looks at me over her shoulder as she’s pushed toward it. “Run,” she says.

Heart slamming against my ribs, I set off at a sprint into the forest, hands bound and straining against Vogel’s press of power. I’m devastated to be leaving her, but horrifically clear that all is lost if those Mages get hold of me. The trees’ hatred and fear pour down on me from all sides as I speed over branches and brush, the dark Forest increasingly illuminated by my eerily silvered vision.

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