Page 171 of The Dryad Storm

I shrugged them off, struggling to harden what was left of my shattered heart against their startled flare of protest as they flew off to the branches above in a flurry of hurt and confusion.

A misery so acute I feared I’d retch swamped me, and I doggedly avoided looking at the winged innocents. Unable to bear the pain of any type of connection forming between us or with the surrounding doomed Forest—a Forest that kept swirling unbearable, embracing love around me.

Because it would soon be dead. Like my Northern Forest was dead. LikeIwanted to be dead.

It’s over, my broken heart beat out.

Nature isover.

“I know what it is to want to die,” the Icaral, Ariel, blurted out, her tone blade sharp.

My gaze snapped to her, the Icaral’s expression shot through with such a blazing level of sincerity that my misery whipped into even greater turmoil.

And fury.

So potent it could level galaxies.

I took a menacing step toward her, my grip firming on my staff, ready to smash her Icaral head right off her Wyvern’kin shoulders.

I took another warning step, snarling, my rage so intense it singed acid into my lungs. “You knownothingof what I feel, Wvyern!” Casting a belligerent look toward Raz’zor, I found his crimson-fire eyes focused on me, unblinking. Everything about him disturbinglyother. More reptile than human.

But that wasn’t the most disturbing thing about him.

The most world-upending thing was the intense understanding simmering in his blazing red eyes, his gaze shot through with such leagues-deep pain it prompted a tidal-wave rise of my own misery, the swell of agony unbearably intense.

“Get away from me!”I screamed at them, drawing on what shreds of Forest power I could without a kindred connection to conjure a cyclonic ball of elemental power above my staff.

NOOOOOO!the Forest shuddered through my every withered rootline as the doves and other wingeds broke into agitated squawks and wing ruffling, every tree and kindred clamoring for me tostop.

I was unmoved by their protest, ready to blast these Wyvern’kin straight through their futile dome-shield and into the waiting Shadow.

The Wyvern’kin said nothing. Instead, they remained fixed in place, eyes locked with mine, their stares full of that wildly unsettling understanding. And then, as one, they threw their wings down in an emphaticwhooshand launched themselves into the Forest’s canopy, where they perched on branches high overhead.

A hissing conversation in their Wyvern tongue ensued before they seemed to come to some agreement, the Icaral flying off after giving me a long, pained look, and the pale Wyvern remaining.

Refusing to leave.

I snarled and hurled out curses at him before turning and stalking deeper into the woods, pointedly ignoring the curious animals that followed, rippling out their vulnerability and love to me. Because it crushed the remaining shreds of my heart to know that their home was about to die.

The Wyvern found me that evening.

He remained there, straight through the night, watching me from up high in winged-human form. He retreated briefly when I shook my fist and screamed at him. But then, as I crumpled into a ball of utter despair, he reappeared in the canopy above, a silent, stubborn presence, refusing to leave.

The next night, I’m balled up on the Forest floor, sobbing for my destroyed Forest and kindreds.

That’s when the Wyvern approaches me once more.

I’m too worn down by grief to scream at him. To summon power and attack. Todo anything but grieve for my dead Forest. For all the soon-to-be-dead remaining Forests.

He crouches down in human form on one knee, pale wings pulled in, alabaster horns curved above snow-hued hair. “Horde to me, Fierce One,” he says.

I blink up at him.“What?”I spit out, not believing his sheer audacity.

“Horde to me,” he hisses again, emphatic, his crimson eyes lighting up the night.

I want to hurl every last shred of my power at him. I want to hurl it at themall.

“Why are you doing this,” I rasp at him, voice choked.

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