Page 63 of The Dryad Storm

Sweet holy gods.

A ravenous energy enters his kiss, and an undertow of her darkening water power breaks loose to capture them both.

Viger shudders against her as they lapse into a frenzy, as if desperate to meld power, their kiss turning devouring as gravity gives way, the two of them now prone and submerged in Tierney’s dark waters, waves whooshing around them.

A sense of Tierney’s Vo River bond abruptly rises, deep in her core, then gives a magic-upendingpull.

Shock flashes through both her aura and Viger’s as they liquefy, the two of them suddenly flowing through the aquifers under the Northern Forest, racing southeast through nature’s watery Matrix, pulled by Tierney’s tether to her kindred Vo River,the tether now startlingly and fully bound to another power...

Viger’s thrall.

Tierney’s natural sense of Erthia’s waterways blurs as their speed increases, their fused auras funneling, flowing, and switchbacking through underground waterways, then up through countless aboveground tributaries, rivers, and streams.

Before sloshing to a sudden halt.

Abruptly, they shift to solid form, still caught up in Viger’s Darkness, their bodies wrapped around each other, the two of them lying on what Tierney immediately senses is the Vo River’s damp, sandy riverbank, at least a league upstream from Voloi...

Dizzy with vertigo, Tierney blinks, Viger’s Darkness receding to reveal an unnaturally gray twilight. Viger is on top of her, their limbs entangled, his tongue flickering against her neck as they lie there entwined.

At Fyordin Lir and Or’myr Syll’vir’s feet.

With a stinging bolt of alarm, Tierney takes in Fyordin’s expression of burgeoning fury and the explosion of purple lightning in Or’myr’s green eyes.

Before she can voice her protest, Or’myr and Fyordin launch themselves at Viger and haul him off her, Fyordin’s water aura rushing out to lash around Tierney with protective force. Viger wrests himself from their grip in a blur, horns up, dark claws snapping out as he thrusts his palms forward.

A sonicboomsplices through Tierney’s ears as an arc of Viger’s power blasts from his palms and punches both Or’myr and Fyordin backward through the air.

They hit the riverbank, and Tierney flinches, but they’re back on their feet in a flash, Or’myr pulling a wand and Fyordin conjuring a roiling ball of water above his palm.

“Stop!”Tierney cries as she hurls herself between Or’myr, Fyordin, and Viger.

“Release her from your thrall!”Or’myr growls at Viger, his eyes spitting purple lightning as he levels his wand at the Death Fae.

“I’m not under his thrall!” Tierney counters in an unfortunate shriek. “If anything, he might be a bit under mine!”

“You dare summonDeath?” Viger booms at Or’myr and Fyordin, his disturbingly low-pitched voice pulsing in from all sides, every hair on Tierney’s body rising, the twilight world strobing Dark with his primordial power.

Ridiculously unintimidated, Fyordin and Or’myr take a confrontational steptowardhim.

“Why are you linked to her,Deathkin?” Fyordin demands as he readies a hurricane level of power in his suspended ball of water. “I can feel your incursion into our Vo bond! We summonedTierneyhere.Notyou.” His storming eyes flick up and down Viger. “What have youdoneto her?”

“He didn’t doanythingto me,” Tierney snaps, swiping her hand at Viger. “And I can handle his thrall!”

Viger swivels his gaze to hers, eyes gone fully Dark.

A single pulse of his power sends Tierney’s thoughts careening, the world flashing to black, a chill, claw-sharp warning racing down her spine, his unspoken message clear—No, in fact, you really can’t handle my thrall.

He’s holding back, Tierney realizes.He’s been holding his power back all along.

Viger turns and squints at Fyordin, twin black snakes now looped around his shoulders. The serpents let out a hiss that seems to come from everywhere at once, and Tierney is momentarily lost to the siphoning sensation of Viger reading the full extent of Fyordin’s and Or’myr’s protective fear pertaining to her, his power strengthening against it.

“Tierney and I are now linked,” Viger states in a bone-resonating tone, his Darkness consolidating into ropy lines of black smoke, suspended around them both. “Bound by our Xishlon kiss.”

Shock explodes through Tierney, every last trace of intimidation falling away.“Bound?”she sputters.

“Wait,” Fyordin exclaims, outrage gleaming in the Vo-hued eyes he’s locked with hers, “you took theDeath Faeas yourXishlon’vir?”

Tierney gapes at Fyordin, bristling at the ire in his tone. But the angry response clamoring in her throat lodges tight as she takes in the betrayal flashing through Fyordin’s gaze.

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