Page 208 of The Demon Tide

Before I can wonder who this Three is who is about to end me, the woods open up and I’m carried into a starlit clearing. A frisson of awe races down my spine.

An Ironwood tree stands in the middle of the clearing, towering above all the others.

It’s taller than the Valgard Cathedral and shrouded in gauzy green mist, its mammoth branches rising to hold up the predawn sky. I can feel the tree’s focus turning with planetary force as it fixes its attention on me.

A great, magical tide breaks from the tree and crashes forward, my eyes blown wide-open as its cataclysmal power sweeps into me, rushing around my lines with what feels like an incoming tidal wave of all the elemental magic in the world.

Vogel rears up with heightened ferocity.

His gray magic blasts around my lines with unbearable force, clawing in. I throw my head back and cry out, afraid I’ll be torn clear apart, as my lines stretch toward the tree’s incredible pull and Vogel pulls in turn. The realization hits me—

Three is III of myth. Descendant of the Sacred Source Tree from all the religions I read about in Jules Kristian’s books. The Mages’ Source Tree.Everyone’sSource Tree. The heartbeat of the Forest, holding the power of all the elements combined.

Set against me.

III’s power is like a storm with no end as it slams into me with wave after wave of typhoon-force magic. Vogel’s power flattens against it like a sapling bent to the wind, granting me some slim agency over my besieged body as Vogel bucks against the elemental onslaught.

The Dryads drop my netted form and I cough out a pained huff, trembling against the fight for my lines. Pine and Vicious hoist me free of the net and force me to my feet, my broken ankle screaming. Grabbing one of the branches sheathed at his side, Pine murmurs what must be a spell, and my leg-bindings turn to ash. They begin to drag me toward the Great Tree, my ankle buckling as both Vogel’s and III’s power battles through me with bone-shuddering lashes of force.

Strengthening his control over my will, Vogel scrabbles my feet painfully against roots and uneven ground in a desperate effort to halt my advance.“Heathen tree!”he forces from my mouth as his control slips.

The beat of wings sounds on the air behind me, a rush of golden Wyvernfire aura blasting down from the heavens above.

Vogel whips my head around, explosive shock igniting in us both as Yvan swoops into the clearing, dark wings outstretched, an avenging blaze in his eyes.

My heart bursts wide-open as surprise shudders through the Dryads’ combined elemental power and Vogel’s manic hatred detonates with the force of a thousand runic explosives.

Winged demon!

My emotions seared through by the full rush of Yvan’s fire power, I take him in with one astonished sweep of my gaze, seeing golden streaks of fire where the tears in his wings once were.He’s healing himself, I realize, stunned to the core. So much stronger than he was in Verpacia.

Icaral of Prophecy strong.

“Elloren!”He steps forward, his fire aura surging through me.

“Get back, Wyvernkin,” Pine commands. Both he and Vicious tighten their hold on my arms as the Great Tree grapples with Vogel’s clenching grip on my lines.

Yvan holds up a gold-glowing palm, his eyes like burning stars. “Let her go or I willtakeher from you,” he warns, the threat of violence clear in both his tone and coiled posture.

Vogel forces a hiss from my mouth, a harsh sting overtaking my fingernails. Before I can register what’s happening, my hands jerk out with brutal force and slice through my bindings with new razor-sharp claws. Then Vogel whips my body around and lashes my arms out at the Dryads, catching Pine in the shoulder and Vicious in the arm.

Their faces are masks of shock as they leap back, my demonic claws trailing Shadow.

My gaze pivots to Yvan as the Great Tree battles against Vogel’s hold and Vicious readies her staff. Pine draws a branch that ignites with a green glow, the tang of elemental power crackling through the air. Yvan leaps toward me, alarm burning in his eyes as he knocks the weapons from the Dryads’ hands.

Incredibly, Vogel’s hold on my will drops away in that second, my control over my body abruptly restored even as Vogel battles III’s power back. The reason for it swoops down in a terrible rush.

It’s a trap.

Vogelwantsme to move toward Yvan.

Hewantsme to get a fraction away from the Great Tree.

Because the second I do, he’ll regain enough power over me to clamp fully down on my will and magic, then grab a Dryad weapon and decimate them all.

I meet Yvan’s gaze for a heartbeat, the familiar heat flashing through the air between us, the split second stretching out as I remember it all—that time in the university kitchens when I first saw him smile at little Fern. How I started to love him in that moment, both of us fighting the tide of that love for months to no avail. How he challenged me over the next year, fiercely prodding me to change my mind about practically everything. How we worked together to free Naga and struggled to free Ariel. And then...that night in the North Tower—how he said no to our coupling, even though we were so hungry for each other, even though his body betrayed his powerful want. He put me first. He’s always putting me first.

And that first Wyvern kiss—the feel of his fire bond spiraling through me as we embraced. He jumped in with his whole heart. He’s always jumping in with his whole heart and fire.

---