Page 163 of The Dryad Storm

“I want to test your lightning,” she offers, serious. “To see if it’s just in your kiss. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“Tierney...”

“Shh, just don’t kiss my mouth.” She leans in and runs her lips down his warm neck, then kisses him at the base of it.

Or’myr groans low in his throat, his grip on her waist tightening. He draws back and stares into her eyes, his own lit up with incandescent streaks of purple lightning as he carefully searches her gaze, as if affirming that she’s sure.

Tierney’s heartbeat turns erratic as she leans back and runs one trembling finger down his chest, sliding it lower... and lower...

The world spins, and the next thing she knows, she’s on the ground, Or’myr above her. Her power surges toward his and she gasps, thrilling to the feel of his long, hard form pressing her into the ground, his lips on her neck in a tongue-swirling kiss that shocks radiant, electrified pleasure through her entire body. Her back bows against the sensation and she moans, wanting more of him, as a much stronger shock of lightning flashes from his mouth straight through her neck and a jolt of searing pain knifes through her.

Stars flash against her vision, and Tierney lets out a strangled cry, shoving at Or’myr, barely able to see through the scalding pain lancing through her neck and shoulder.

Or’myr immediately rolls off of her, and she recoils then bolts into a sitting position, wincing from the agonizing pain that feels like a flaming brand pressed into her skin.

“Oh, Tierney,” Or’myr says, as tears blur her eyes and he curses himself, the pain swiftly tamping down to a more manageable scald. Teeth gritted, Tierney struggles to catch her breath, her emotions a wild torment as the pain dissipates.

“I’m okay,” she insists, feeling wrung out. “It’s gone... the pain’s gone.”

Or’myr gives her a stricken look before he gets up and rakes his fingers through his hair, cursing again in Uriskal.

Tierney hugs her knees, shivering as she inwardly curses both her power and his, as well as fate and all the elemental magic of Erthia.

“I can’t do this,” Or’myr says in a shattered voice, shaking his head, a torturedlook in his eyes. “You’re right. Compared to what we’re facing, this doesn’t matter. At all. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been falling for you from the moment I met you and I can never have you. And now I’ve been thrust into this cursedgardenwith you along with two other men. I cannot do this, Tierney.”

Tierney glowers at him through tear-streaked eyes, vulnerability cracking her dangerously open. “So, you’re no longer my friend, even?”

“Iamyour friend.Always.But I also happen toloveyou. And seeing you with other men, even if it was just a dream...” He pauses, lightning flashing in his eyes. “Iwantyou. And right now, it’s hard not to hate every man who’s able to touch and kiss you without causing you terrible agony.”

“Or’myr...”

“You have to leave me be in this,” he sets down, adamant. “Until I can have you, which isnever, we can’t pursue this, even in dreams.”

Tierney gets up and tries to go to him, but he steps back, a wild look entering his eyes. “Tierney, you willshatter my heart.”

“I’d be with you if I could!” she cries, her voice breaking as a storm cloud bursts to life over her head. “I realized that in the dream... I do care for Viger and Fyordin. A great deal. But I wantyou.”

“And I wantyou,” he fires back, eyes burning. “Onlyyou. But fate won’t allow it. Believe me, I’ve tried to parse out some magical way around our clashing magic, but we’re both too powerful.” He brings his hands to his hips and forces a deep breath before meeting her eyes once more. “If we survive this, go find your comfort where you can. Embrace the whole cursed garden if it pleases you. Butthis, Tierney—” he motions between them “—we have to find some way to block this attraction. Because Ihave tofocus on the possible end of Nature rather than my own yearning for someone I cannever, everhave. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take my currentlyout-of-controlpower and use its force to blast a line of purple moons into being in front of the Eastern Realm.”

Tierney nods stiffly, stifling her ocean of tears, and Or’myr giver her one last purple-lightning-spitting look then walks away.

Tierney lies just under the Vo’s lapping waters that night, staring up at the sky, watching Or’myr on the distant riverbank as he conjures a line of purple moons in the sky, ready to transport them west through the line of magic he set down inside the V’yexwraith’s Shadow power, her emotions a turbulent mess.

Unable to fight off the pull of sleep any longer, she succumbs to its embrace as Or’myr’s line of moons flash a deeper purple and blink out of sight.

Viger opens their dream-linkage and comes to Tierney that night.

She startles at his sudden presence beside her, the two of them sitting side by side atop a huge gray stone desert arch, his pulsing draw to her held staunchly back.

Fear ripples through Tierney’s power as she takes in the nighttime scene before them—leagues and leagues of Shadowed wasteland spread out around their every side, charred Forest under a poisoned, gray sky, slashes of Shadow storm bands marring every horizon.

“Tell me this is only a dream,” she implores as she takes in the Central Continent’s devastation. She turns toward Viger. His horns are absent, claws in, his thrall’s suspended ropes of Darkness slowly encircling them both.

“It is not only a dream,” he says, his multitoned voice low and dread filled, seeming to envelop them from everywhere at once.

Tears sting Tierney’s eyes as it hits her anew—what they’re up against. What the Natural World is up against. She takes in Viger’s contained presence and how he’s maintaining complete control over his thrall, even as he allows a slender pulse of what he feels for her to escape his hold, that slim trace of it filled with a mind-bendingly potent rush of sheerwant.

Realization grips hold.

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