Page 62 of The Dryad Storm

Naga sweeps her golden eyes over her unbroken ones before swiftly shifting back to full dragon form. She breathes a line of fire through her nostrils, her expression turning raptorial.

We fly, free Wyverns, she sends out to them.We will journey to the Northern Forest.To find Elloren the Unbroken and Yvan Guryev, our Icaral’khin. And to battle Vogel and his Shadow horde alongside them.

A collective ferocity rises in the air, the horde’s linked fire mounting in potency, and Raz’zor thrills to it as they all move to the cavern’s large mouth and shift to dragon form once more, save for his Icaral horde mate, Ariel the Unbroken.

A slice of emotional pain singes through Ariel’s fire and Raz’zor’s gaze snaps to hers, catching her feral look of frustration to be so firmly anchored in human form. An unbearable yearning is spearing through her fire that Raz’zor understands on an intimate level. The yearning to be fully dragon.

His heart aching for her, Raz’zor joins Naga and their entire, gathered horde as they send out a hot rush of bolstering fire to Ariel. Sparks light all over Ariel’s wings, and she shudders as the yearning in her fire whips through them all with tortuous force.

Someday, unbroken one, Naga sends out to Ariel.Someday, you will rise in full dragon form. Your true form. Have faith, fierce one.

Ariel holds Naga’s flaming stare for one tortured moment, but then her fire surges, whipping through the horde’s. She flicks her sparking wings defiantly out to their full span and lets loose a teeth-baring growl. Raz’zor’s own growl bursts forth as the entire horde roars out their approval through the horde bond in sound and in flame. A unified army of fangs and claws, muscle and fire.Shadow-burningfire.

Naga roars out a battle cry and throws down her wings, and they take to the sky as one, Ariel’s raven soaring beside her, the mountaintop air deliciously cold against Raz’zor’s fire-hot wings. They soar over the huge Vo River, then north over grayed Vo Forest, their horde taking on a V formation, Naga the Unbroken in the lead. Ariel and Raz’zor exchange a fiery look of alliance, and they all blast through the unnaturally bunched gray clouds and spear forward like huge arrows toward the Vo Forest hiding place of Elloren’s allies, a location Raz’zor is aware of through his connection to Or’myr’s line of purple fire.

We’re coming, Dryad Witch, Raz’zor vows as their horde fans their wings out as one, their combined fire rapidly heating to a churning inferno filled with one unified will.

To save the Dryad Witch and the Icaral of Prophecy before Vogel can take hold of them.

And to burn the Magedom toash.

Chapter Fifteen

Vo Guardians

Tierney Calix

Northern Forest

Eighteen days after Xishlon

Tierney watches, transfixed, as Yvan and Elloren draw each other into a passionate kiss beneath the Great Ironwood Tree, III. The giant raven beside her shivers, Tierney’s palm pressed to the great bird’s onyx feathers, as Elloren and Yvanignite.

The conflagration enveloping Yvan and Elloren blazes gold, then...green.

The backflow of their magic’s green aura blasts through Tierney’s rising water power, the surrounding world briefly tinting with the color. The Great Tree’s planet-strong magic pulses through it all, its verdant mist flowing outward to enfold the surrounding Dryads and giant ravens and kindred animals as well as both Tierney and Viger, who’s standing behind her. A buzzy static still tingles over Tierney’s skin from her Dryad-portal journey here with Viger and the giant ravens.

The Great Tree’s mist flows into Tierney, a sudden craving for the Natural Balance overtaking her, filling her with vertigo as she’s swept up in the unmooring sensation of the whole of Erthia tipping off-kilter, desperately needing to be righted, her water magic taking a swirling turn for deep-waterdark.

Abruptly hyperaware of Viger’s primordial magic pulsing against her back, Tierney stiffens against the urge to let her magic fall into his, the memory of his all-consuming Death Fae kiss quickening her breath.

The green-tinted world shudders into a darker hue, and she turns to find Vigerright there, his horns up, his midnight eyes intent on hers, as if he’s caught up in the same memory, the palpable flare of his low-resonating, primal energy deepening her pulse.

She swallows as a phantom-caress of Viger’s living Darkness traces her lips, theGreat Tree’s powerful aura swirling through both his thrall and her water aura, intensifying the potency of their attraction.

As if the whole of Erthiawantsthem to fall into each other and fully join their magic.

Asrai...Viger’s rattled voice shivers through her, achingly resonant.

“What magic is this?” Tierney wonders aloud as she holds Viger’s stare, the feral current rising between them like blackened water crashing against a dam that Tierney yearns tobreak.

On instinct, she grasps hold of Viger and pulls him close at the same time that his strong hands take hold of her and he fully wraps his thrall around her, her heart tripping over itself as he draws her into a kiss and she’s enveloped in a swirl of his intoxicating Darkness.

A moan escapes Tierney, the darkening scene wavering and growing blurred as the Forest and the Great Tree and everyone surrounding them is overtaken by Viger’s deep-night thrall.

Tierney arches against him, all rational thought swept away as they go skidding, rapids-fast, into a whirlpool of pure, magicalwant.

Give me all your fears, Viger shivers through her mind as he deepens the kiss, gravity giving way as Tierney surrenders to the swooping sensation of dropping down with him into Erthia’s center. Trembling with want, she opens her mouth to him, opens herself up to his flickering, purple tongue as it twines around hers in an entrancingly serpentine way that has heat curling through her body, the intoxicating motion of his tongue hinting at the things he might be capable of if she joined with him fully.

---