Page 55 of The Dryad Storm

Hatred spits through Vogel’s internal fire as he contemplates how he underestimated the winged Elf-bitch, Wynter Eirllyn. How she fooled not only him, but the entirety of Alfsigroth, all of them mistaking her for a weak little slip of a woman. Easily broken. Easily destroyed. And now, she’s wrested control of a Wand of Power and unleashed a Smaragdalfar army.

But their Resistance force has been fractured, as has the continent-wide Resistance, Vogel muses, the Icaral and her allies successfully cut off from their Subland army.

“Mavrik Glass and his whore’s twinned magic poses a serious threat,” Damion warns.

“For the moment,” Vogel responds as he lowers his Wand, a more controlled lash of fire burning through his lines now. Because he knows how he’ll eventually break through the Subland barrier. Knows how he can get through every defense Glass and his little whore and the Icaral demon can spell into being, even one cast by an evil Wand of Power.

And he knows how to keep them trapped underground until he’s ready to overtake them.

Vogel angles his Shadow Wand down and murmurs a spell.

Gray fog jets from the Wand’s tip and pierces through the mass of storms surrounding them. Vogel can sense his Shadow net fanning out over the Central DesertSublands—a net that will trap the twinned Mages as well as Wynter Eirllyn and her allies underground.

Two can play at the shielding game.

Satisfied, Vogel lifts his Wand. “Prepare for our invasion of the Northern Forest,” he orders Damion before pulsing out a hard flare of Shadow power toward his Shadow-tethered Mage forces.

Damion gives a stiff nod, his green eyes flashing with brutal excitement before he growls out a command to his dragon and the multi-eyed beast takes flight.

Vogel’s grip on his Wand firms, anticipation sizzling through his power, his path back to controlling the Black Witch imminent.

Elloren Vogel.

A remembrance of Elloren’s Black Witch majesty suffuses his mind, his beautiful, green-glimmering witch atop that immense Shadow tree of her own conjuring, ready to smite the entire Eastern Realm.

“My destiny,” Vogel murmurs as he peers north. He can still feel the heated echo of the charge that detonated through both his fire and Elloren’s when his mouth pressed onto hers,bindingthem.

A flare of desire ignites, a firestorm searing through his lines.

Oh, yes, he’ll have her again, that one kiss triggering a ferocious, bottomlesshunger. He wants her underneath him, under his complete control. Wants to furiously thrust his fire into her until he burns all resistance out of her, their joined inferno powerful enough to scorch the corruption from his own body and soul, as well.

Purifying and transforming them both into an unstoppable weapon for the Holy Magedom.

Elloren can’t win against his hold on her fastlines. He’ll subdue her once more and transform her into a pure and righteously submissive vessel. He’s rolled it over in his mind night after night, day after day—how she’ll get on her hands and knees and kiss the ground before him. Thank him for making her whole and pure again.

A hot shiver runs down Vogel’s spine at the thought of all that power bowing to him.

She wasalmost his.

His lips lift into a snarl as he inwardly curses that staen’en traitor Lukas Grey and the Icaral demon Yvan Guryev. It’s their fault that Elloren is hurtling toward the Dryad’s Northern Forest instead of standing here, by his side, under his complete control.

Tensing his shoulders, he draws in the storm bands’ power through his Wand, the desert’s sanctified gray magic filling his lines.

The imperfect vessel can be purified, Vogel silently recites before he mounts the dragon beside him and sends out a mental command to the tethered beast. As if hit by a shock of pain, the dragon tenses its neck then fans out its wings, beats them down against the air and rises along with Vogel’s army, all of them soaring above the spiraling sea of Shadow storm.

Vogel angles the Shadow Wand down and tugs on the storming mass beneath them.

Dragging it forward.

The sea of Shadow storm advances, moving toward the Northern Caledonian Mountains along with Vogel’s airborne forces. Vogel smiles, his spite igniting to battle lust.

I’m coming for you, Elloren.

He narrows his gaze on the Dryad-green mountain range lining the horizon, the Northern Forest just beyond.

And lo, the Holy Ones shall smash through the corruption of the wilds and redeem them.

Emboldened by the sacred verse, Vogel draws in Shadow power, his path forward clear—to wrest the Black Witch and the corrupted Wand of Myth from the grip of the heathen Northern Forest. As he razes it and siphons up its elemental power while he consumes the Fae wilds of the Eastern Realm via his Shadow attack on the East’s water.

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