Page 205 of The Dryad Storm

Tension flares hot through Yvan’s and my Wyvernbond as his mother’s invisible fire explodes into being to lash protectively around him. I glance toward Soleiya, her fiery eyes streaked with pain.

Yvan sends out a tendril of consoling fire to embrace his mother before he looks pointedly at Alder, his jaw set tight. “You hold the clearest reading from the Forest.”

Tension tightens Alder’s forest green features as she nods and rises. “I am Alder Xanthos,” she greets everyone in that timber-steady voice of hers. “I am a Dryad’kin Seer and have been gifted with scrying abilities from multiple lines of lineage. The Prophecy is still embedded in the trees. A battle that determines the future of Erthia is still foretold.” She meets Yvan’s gaze once more, her expression unwaveringly intense. “The Great Icaral against the Black Witch—Fallon Bane.”

My heart constricts as Yvan rises, his invisible fire flowing out to keep tight hold of me. “I’m ready to fight for you all,” he states, violet flame crackling in his eyes.

I can barely pull in a breath, every muscle taut.

“You will not fight alone, Wyvern’kin,” Naga vows, rising along with Ariel, Raz’zor, and the rest of our horde, the power of the Forest’s last stand rising with them. “You will fight this battle alongside an army of your Dryad’khin and with our horde’s full fire.”

Yvan nods and sends out a bolt of invisible fire to them all.

“We go to war in two days’ time,” Sylvan states, “when foliage power reaches its peak and our joint power will be strongest.” He narrows his gaze on Hizar’drile and Vang Troi. “Charge a sky portal to bring us West toward the location of the Verdyllion. And send Dryad’khin envoys to Noilaan and the entirety of Zhilaan to bring as many people as possible to the Forest as quickly as you can. If you’re able, send envoys toboth sidesof Noilaan’s runic border wall and to the Sublands below. And send word to Or’myr Syll’vir and Tierney Calix tohold the Vo.”

“In the meantime,” Vang Troi puts forth, “we need to gather everyone here who holds an in-depth understanding of Erthia’s faiths and mythologies to aidus in developing a plan of magical attack so we can get hold of the Shadow and Verdyllion Wands of Power.” She pointedly looks at Oaklyyn and me, Mavrik and Gwynn, Ra’Ven and Sage and Rivyr’el and others. “Those with powerful sorcery need to runically amplify the power of every weapon and place iron wards on every susceptible Dryad’khin.”

We all voice assent before Hizar’drile’s gaze zeroes in on Yvan. “We deploy the evening after next. As your army, Yvan Guryev. To aid you in bringing down the Magedom’s Black Witch.” He turns to the Dryads, lightning streaking through his eyes. “And then, we fight as the Forest’s own army. To get hold of both the Verdyllion and Vogel’s Wand, and take back all of Erthia from the Shadow.”

Emphatic cries of approval rise, the Zhilaan Forest’s martial energy flooding through us all, the Dryads’ collective power joining the magical surge, my throat cinching tight as I struggle against my surging fear of losing Yvan.

“Elloren,” Yvan says, his hand finding my shoulder.

I look up at him, his gaze locking hold of mine, blazing resolve in it. And love. A love for me that has defied all the odds stacked against us. A love so heatedly potent it fuels the rise of my own defiant love for him, a sudden yearning crackling through the air between us.

My heart in my throat, I stand and press my hand to his chest, right over his strong heartbeat, and he folds his hand protectively over mine. Blinking against the rising sting of emotion in my eyes, I hold his scorching stare, no words sufficing. We’ve been on a collision course since we first met at Verpax University, his love, once he fell into it, like a fixed, burning star.

Yvan’s fire aura breaks loose to brush against my lips in an impassioned kiss and I give in to the bond-pull as well, my fire flowing unreservedly around his, the whole world momentarily fading save for his heat on my mouth and the molten pillar of Wyvernfire connecting his heart to mine.

Chapter Nine

Wyvern Firekiss

Elloren Guryev

Zhilaan Forest military base

An incandescent flash of heat pulses through me, sparks searing across my vision as, several hours later, I catch Yvan’s eye across the Zhilaan base’s lightning-torch-lit terrace, his heat now tracing my mouth in an almost constant kiss.

Our bond’s pull no longer something either one of us wants to restrain in any way.

Open desire blazes through the thread of power he just sent to me, the feel of it like lightning through my veins, stealing my breath and igniting our fire thrall to volcanic heights, the surrounding Forest’s fire power feeding into and amplifying our draw.

Yvan is surrounded by Vothe and two other Wyvern-shifters. The military base terrace is rapidly emptying, the Vu Trin I was conferring with having just departed, our battle plans solidified and lodging doled out, deep night closing in. Torch lightning flickers over Yvan and the Wyverns, illuminating Yvan’s crimson hair and heart-stopping features.

His fiery gaze holds mine, and everything else fades away. We’re suddenly the only two people on Erthia, my surge of emotion feeding into our heated draw as I send out a returning flare of beckoning fire, ready to take him as my own before we go to war.

Yvan’s eyes flash violet as he bids goodbye to Vothe and the others, a knowing look on their faces as he strides purposefully toward me and every nerve ending in my body sparks.

Kam Vin and Lucretia intercept him, and his shoulders stiffen, the caress of his fire around me now so all-encompassing it’s hard to know where the edge of hispower ends and mine begins, every speck of our fire magic lightning-focused on each other.

Yvan listens to Kam Vin and Lucretia, his lip ticking up when Jules and Valasca join them, his fire continuing to stream toward me and over my lips in a fiercely hot tide.

A quick, stolen meeting of our eyes, and we both smile, the two of us seeming to register the outrageous gallows humor of our situation—the Icaral of Prophecy, ready to stand at the leading edge of a Dryad’khin army as we deploy, together, against Vogel’s vast forces, and yet unable to break away from this damned terrace.

The amusement helps me beat back my ever-present fear of losing him. Emboldened, I send another tendril of flame toward him, and Yvan shoots me a look so charged that it curls my toes as Lucretia says something to Valasca, Jules, and Kam Vin. There’s a challenge burning in Yvan’s eyes as he gives me a slow smile and pulses another enticing flush of heat over my skin and mouth.

Desire sears a prickling line down my spine.

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