Page 198 of The Dryad Storm

I can sense him warring against his desire for this link even as his note of caution strikes home. Because we can’t risk upending our power in unknown ways, not with this war against the Magedom looming.

“Then we wait on the bite,” I offer, steeling myself for what’s to come. “But I don’t want to wait any longer to fully belong to each other.”

“I don’t either,” he passionately returns, wildfire in his eyes.

“Be with me tonight,” I offer. “I want you as my full mate before this fight comes.”

In answer, Yvan wraps his arms and wings around me and pulls me into a kiss that quickly turns explosive, both defiance and love in the hot press of his mouth, the covetous motion of his tongue, the molten feel of his hands claiming my body, the two of us letting ourselves burn for each other in this brief moment at the top of the Zhilaan Forest.

Before Yvan takes up the mantle of the prophesied Icaral, and we all go to war.

Chapter Six

Shadow Claws

Fallon Bane

Shadow wasteland west of Noilaan

Fallon Bane watches as the Eastern Realm’s distant storm band barrels toward her and Marcus Vogel. Barbed frost ices through her lines along with an infuriating confusion, her hair increasingly blown back by the mammoth storm band’s mounting winds, thunder booming through it as it rapidly traverses the Central Continent’s Shadowed land.

Marcus has portaled just the two of them here, their joint power formidable, to be sure, but not able to strike down this incoming storm band without seriously weakening them both.

She turns to Marcus Vogel to find him watching the incoming chaos with unnerving calm and even more unnerving inaction, the Magedom’s Shadow storm bands lining the horizon to their backs instead of movingbefore them, where theyshould be, ready to smash into the East’s attack and siphon up all that elementalpower.

“Why are you not sending our storm bands forward?” Fallon demands of Vogel, the incoming storm band’s bursts of blue and white lightning flashing over the planes of his green-glimmering face.

In answer, Vogel turns, sets his silver-fire-rimmed eyes on hers and smiles.

Fallon can’t suppress her shiver of excitement—it’s the most predatory smile she’s ever seen. Every nerve in her body grows deliciously cold as Vogel turns back toward the incoming storm band then inexplicably strides toward it without a trace of intimidation, Shadow Wand in hand.

Both confused and aroused, Fallon watches as Vogel halts, thrusts his Wandforward, then lifts it in a strong arc, as if summoning something from the Shadow-smoking ground.

Huge storm spiders suddenly burst up from the sand in a line as long as the attacking storm band, their thoraxes marked with Shadow runes. As one, the spiders dig their legs into the earth to keep from being blown back by the storm band’s increasingly violent wind as they face it down. Then they still.

Fallon’s confusion ices back to life as the storm band rises like a tidal wave, the wind growing so fierce that she has to lean into it to remain upright.

What is Marcus playing at?she rages.Storm spiders aren’t powerful enough to keep this storm band from crashing through their defensive line and straight into us.

As if hearing her internal protest, Vogel shoots her a sly look over his shoulder before angling his Wand downward and blasting a thin bolt of Shadow into the distant ground.

“Rise!” he commands, and the Shadow fans into a circle of gray, pooling mist.

Fallon’s eyes widen as huge, pale gray horns appear in the misty circle, followed by an egg-flat face, nothing on it but a slash of open mouth holding row upon row of sharp, gnashing teeth. A slim Shadow tether extends from Vogel’s Wand to the huge thing’s neck, like a smoking leash.

The V’yexwraith, Fallon realizes, eyes wide—the Shadow Wand’s corporeal form that her brother, Damion, described to her in vivid detail.

The V’yexwraith’s slender body continues to rise, pale gray spikes flowing back from its shoulders and the edges of its form. Bubbles appear on the creature’s flat face and morph into one Shadow eye after another until there’s a whole teeming mass of them. The beast is now taller than the Valgard Cathedral, a mist of silvery Shadow power haloing its frame.

The creature barely sways, impressively strong against the incoming storm band barreling toward its back. Fallon’s fingers twitch around her wand, her pulse ratcheting into a faster rhythm as she bites back a howl of alarm.

“Tether and consume!” Vogel roars, silencing Fallon’s burgeoning protest as he thrusts the Wand toward the demon.

The V’yexwraith rounds on the storm band. It lets out a shriek that spikes pain through Fallon’s ears, then throws out its slender arms and flicks its long, pale fingers toward the storm spiders at its sides.

Multiple lines of Shadow spear from the V’yexwraith’s fingertips and collide with the spiders, tethering them to the demon like insectile marionettes as the stormband darkens the sky, its western facing wall only paces away.

The V’yexwraith demon thrusts its palms toward the approaching storm band and lets out another ear-splicing shriek.

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