Page 58 of The Demon Tide

I reach up and fist my short, dark hair. “You can start with this,” I tell her.

Vothendrile

By the time Trystan finally emerges from my great-aunt’s shoppe, my emotions are a turbulent mess from hours of pacing the streets and repeatedly checking for his reemergence. The city is cast in twilight, the purple flower-and-heart decorated runic orbs strung over the streets and lit with a soft violet glow.

Trystan pauses, his eyes finding mine as I push myself off the plum tree I’m leaning against and freeze.

A complete metamorphosis has taken place.

Trystan brazenly holds my gaze as the entire world recedes around us and I pull in a shuddering breath.

His eyes are lined with kohl, the contrast changing their color from deep forest green to a blazing emerald, and the effect is so stunning that a frisson of lightning shivers through my power. There’s something deeply erotic about the look, an edge to it, even though wearing kohl is all the fashion for Noi men and a common style by now.

On Trystan, it’s fiercely compelling.

And his hair is a vivid blue. The black gone. Completely gone.

He’s had my great-aunt pierce him. Multiple times. Black metallic hoops decorate both brows and line the entire length of his ears, and a small ring loops through one side of his lower lip. I fight back the outrageous desire to let my teeth elongate and tug on that lip piercing.

And the tattoo.

Sweet Holy Vo, the tattoo.

A sapphire dragon head covers the entire side of his neck, its serpentine body disappearing under the collar of his clothing. Blue lightning is marked all around it, forking over the entire column of Trystan’s throat.

His Noi tunic and pants are a bright violet blue, a sapphire dragon embroidered down his tunic’s side, a twin to the dragon on his neck.

Storming energy crackles over him as I hold his gaze, our powers sizzling toward each other with the force of twin bolts of lightning. A hint of a smile lifts Trystan’s lips as his power strengthens, a force to be reckoned with.

And I get the sense, as my eyes remain locked with his devastatingly arresting gaze, that I’m staring at the real Trystan Gardner for the very first time.

Trystan notices me eyeing his tattoo all the way back to the Wyvernguard, and then again as he pauses inside his bedroom’s door. Those sexy, kohl-lined eyes of his are intent as they watch my gaze slide down his neck and along the imagined path of the tattoo.

Over the imagined planes of his body.

“Does it drape over your chest?” I ask, my voice thick with a strengthening tide of desire for this beautiful, startlingly courageous, outrageous man.

Trystan doesn’t answer. He simply narrows his gaze at me as the storm inside him whips up, lightning flashing. Then he steps back and throws off his tunic.

Sweet Holy Vo.

My breath catches in my throat, lightning pulsing through my veins over the sheer beauty of him. His lean chest, glittering green. The huge sapphire dragon snaking down his entire side, its tail disappearing over his hip bone...

When I lift my gaze to meet his, there’s a challenge in Trystan’s gaze. A dare.

I see it in his eyes, his readiness to take more than one leap into the unknown this evening. There’s an unmistakable invitation in his stance, and I suddenly want him with everything in me. I want to cross his room’s threshold and guard him as closely as possible.

But I don’t budge. Because this won’t be light and breezy. This won’t be a diversion.

This would be something world-upending and true.

So, like a coward, I hesitate, letting the boundaries between us stand. I let fear of the sheer strength of this thing growing between us stand. As I violently fight a desire for him that’s so tight and hard, I want to fling myself through the doorway and into his arms, and sink my teeth into the base of his neck, claiming him as my own.

But still, I don’t budge.

Trystan’s gaze darkens, a flash of sheer pain in it as he gives me a hard look then pushes the door closed, and I feel it snap shut, down the entire length of my spine.

Trystan

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