Page 152 of The Dryad Storm

“Have you given leave of your senses as well, Fyordin?” Or’myr bites out as he aims his wand at the Asrai in emphatic warning, purple lightning forking around it. “Noneof us own her. Stand down. The both of you. Or I swear to Vo on High, I willmakeyou both stand down.”

A hard punch of realization hits Tierney as she quickly scans the tattoo covering Or’myr’s chest—the Goddess Vo’s purple dragon manifestation, the purple Xishlon moon held in the dragon goddess’s claws...

Tierney blanches, feeling as if the bank beneath her feet is giving way, as she’s faced with the awful possibility that none of her dreams were solely her own, and Viger was able to read all three of them through their bond.

Her mortification and anger surging to monstrous heights, Tierney yanks her arm from Viger’s grip, slashes her hands through the air, and hurls out a powerful wave of storming energy. Viger’s serpentine bindings blast apart as she breaks clear of his thrall.

Barely.

“What inall the hellsis going on?” she cries as her thunder booms and rain begins to sheet down. She levels her furious gaze on Viger’s abyss-black eyes, Fyordin’s Vo-blue ones, then on Or’myr’s lightning-spitting look in belligerent question, hoping against hope that she’s wrong.

“Tierney,” Or’myr says tightly, “we’re all bound more intimately than werealized.” He shoots Viger a narrow glare as her winds whip around them all. “When we woke up, we were flooded by an awareness of... all of our mutual dreams.”

A fiery flush sears through Tierney. “Holygods...” she rasps out.

“She is bound to me beforeall!” Viger hisses at Or’myr and Fyordin.

In a blur, Or’myr levels his wand on Viger, his Strafeling geo-aura bursting to purple life and pulsing around his tall frame. “Think carefully, Viger,” he warns, his tone low and lethal. “If you want her to hate you, then, by all means, continue down this path.”

Viger’s lips twist into a vicious smile. “Death is hated by all, Strafeling.” He raises his hand and snaps his Dark-clawed fingers, and Tierney is instantly swept into the irresistible pull of his thrall, her feet skidding toward him once more, as if gravity has found a new origin point.

Him.

A shock of hurt pierces Tierney as she digs in her heels and struggles to resist Viger’s pull, heart-stricken by his outrageous imagining that heownsher. She curses herself. Curses how she truly grew to care for him over these past few months. And suddenly, she can barely pull in a breath, deeply pained and thrown and flat-outfuriousas she holds firm against Viger’s mounting draw and the covetous flow of Fyordin’s burgeoning tempest.

With a growl, she draws on the Vo’s might, pulling it into her palms. A cry tearing from her throat, she thrusts out her hands, and two storming blue bolts stream from them, blasting away Viger’s and Fyordin’s powers.

Trembling with righteous anger, Tierney meets Viger’s ferocious gaze, sensing through their bond that she can’t rival his full power as she draws more storming magic into her palms, but she’s well past caring.

A shiver of out-of-control conflict slashes through Viger’s Darkness as he abruptly draws his thrall down.

But it’s too little,too late.

Tierney bores her piercing glare into him, wildly upset and breathing hard, furious atallof them. Furious at Viger and Fyordin for thinking they own her. Mortified over their collective dreams. And inexplicably furious at Or’myr for the intense, unwanted emotion their dream-coupling triggered to life inside her.

“Noneof you own me,” she declares, struggling to hold back a typhoon. “Do youhearme?Noneof this matters, andnoneof you ever had a chance with me. I’malready spoken for!”

Or’myr blinks at her, seeming thrown. “There’sanotherman?”

She glares at him, frustrated beyond all reason as their power strains toward each other’s. “That’s thelastthing I need,” Tierney cries before turning and storming off toward her River.

“What do you mean ‘spoken for’?” Or’myr calls out from behind her, his voice strained.

“She means the Vo,” comes Fyordin’s harsh reply.

Hands at her hips, her breathing forcefully measured, Tierney’s steps halt as her soles meet the Vo’s cool water, every terror flooding back, too fast to handle—

The V’yexwraith demon.

The Mages and the Marfoir.

The terrifying Shadow poison sent into the Vo’s waters.

So much river life, so quicklydestroyed.

Tierney reaches up to rake her fingers through her long, tousled hair, the Vo catching her ankles in a swirling embrace as she’s flooded with wave upon wave of clarity over how Viger’s Death Fae mating bond has caused them all to lose their senses.

She turns to say as much to all of them when a winged, Wyvern-like figure appears in the sky. Her gaze pivots west to find a whole host of winged figures flying in.

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