Page 84 of The Dryad Storm

Mavrik pulls in a shaky breath. “I know you did. I can feel your grief over it. And I wish I could take it away from you. But, Gwynn, when Geoffrey was tested, he chose the Shadow of his own free will. He saw the full horror the Mages are raining down on the world, and hestayed. But you... the moment you saw—” he gives her a pained, loving smile “—you sought out the Resistance and wentall in.”

An ache slices through her. Because his words are true. She’s seen too much, and it’s over. She can never go back to Geoffrey. She wouldn’t want to. But there’s no solid ground in this confusing, tumultuous new world she’s found herself in.

“I’m lost,” she admits in a shredded voice, tears blurring her eyes. “Following an Alfsigr Icaral toward a Smaragdalfar goddess tree, the whole thing mixed up with a Gardnerian wand myth... everything in our religion, absolutelyeverything, forbidding this type of mixing and confusion. And now I’m falling in love with you, which isunforgivable. Mavrik, I’mlost.”

He moves closer and reaches down to gently take her hands in his. “Sometimes youhaveto get lost,” he insists, his voice hitching with emotion. “Sometimes you have to getthoroughly, horribly, horrificallylost. Or you cannever, everfind your true way. Don’t you think I felt lost when I was confronted by what our people are doing to the Fae? The Fae, who aren’t the monsters of our myths, but justpeople? People we’reabusingandslaughtering? I grew up Styvian, just like you. With that inflexible religion of ours shoved down my throat.” His magic’s a firestorm as he tenses his jaw, his breathing uneven. “But I’ve finally found my true way, Gwynn. And it’s led meto you. And to the Great Tree of all the myths, which most of the Smaragdalfar here don’t want us anywhere near.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what I believe about the Ancient One or Oo’na or the Shining Ones or any religion anymore. But I think there’s a hell of a good chance that maybe, just maybe, the Ancient One is leading us together, not apart.Allof us.”

“Noneof the holy books say that—”

“Then the holy books bethoroughly damned!Thisis my holy book.” He motions emphatically between them. “This, right here. This thing growing between us. And freed Smaragdalfar and Urisk and Fae children. And smiting Vogel’s Shadow. The fight forall of us, Gwynn.All of us, no exceptions. Not Yyzz’ra’s way.Wynter’sway.Mynx and Cael’sway.That’smy holy book. The rigid lines befullydamned.”

“I am falling in love with you,” she blurts out, her voice thick with both passion and pain and mind-bending confusion as she holds his equally impassioned stare. “Ancient One help me, Mavrik, but I am.”

“Thenchoose,” he raggedly states. “Chooseyour mate of your own free will. As a testedadult. As your true, strong self who goes all in. Because I want to go all in. Say the word, Gwynn. Say it, and I’myours.”

Her pulse thuds hot and hard as she holds his incediary stare. A tear escapes, and her magic and feelings break loose and stream toward him, her voice fracturing. “Mavrik, I’m alreadyall in.”

He’s there in an instant, embracing her, choking out an emotional sound as they pull each other close. She can feel his silent tears on her neck as he kisses its nape, murmuring “I love you” over and over, her own tears fully giving way.

And then his lips are on hers, salt-coated and warm.

Then hotly insistent.

She kisses him back eagerly, and their magic fully releases, surging toward and through each other. She groans against his mouth as he deepens the kiss, an explosion of color detonating, the motion of his tongue swirling a luxurious scarlet craving through her every lightline. Then he’s yanking off his cloak, throwing it to the ground, and pulling her down onto it, the two of them hastily drawing off clothing and weapons. She pulls his body onto hers, the surging flow of their magic desperate for connection, desperate for this fully and freely chosen Sealing to each other.

“Is the contraception rune still charged?” Mavrik raggedly asks.

“It is,” she answers, aware of the slight sting of the rune on her hip, caught up in the pleasure of his body pressed against hers.

Mavrik brings his lips back to hers, and Gwynn gasps as he pushes forward, joining their bodies. She tightens her thighs around his, and can feel his magic reading her consent in a rippling rush before they take each other more intensely. Thrilling to his passion, his hardmaleness, and stunned by the whirling rise of pleasure where they’re joined, she hugs him close to getmoreof him, splaying her fingers over his muscular back.

Pleasure floods their entwined power in an almost unbearable rush. She arches her head back just before Mavrik lets out a groan against her shoulder and their magic shatters against each other in a raying explosion of light power, a shock wave of ecstasy flashing through their joined bodies and merged lines.

They still, hearts pounding, both of them breathing hard.

Mavrik presses his lips to her shoulder, and Gwynn shivers, their twinned magic looping around their joined forms in a swirling, delirious embrace, their bodies lit up with every color on Erthia.

“I love you, Gwynnifer,” Mavrik says against her shoulder, the words rough and impassioned.

She reaches up to sift her fingers through his hair as tears pool in her eyes, her old life fully gone, but a new one just beginning. He raises his head, a profound look of love in his golden gaze as his eyes meet hers, light magery crackling over his lips.

“I love you too,” she murmurs as she opens her heart to both him and all of life’s confusion and gives in to their binding fully. Gives in to itall.

Mavrik slides his warm palm over her cheek, and Gwynn’s breath shudders as he threads his fingers deftly through her hair, then leans in to kiss her color-singed lips, his kiss intoxicatingly slow and deep, a kaleidoscope of affection flooding their twinned magic.

“My beautiful Light Mage,” he murmurs against her lips before drawing back a fraction, the edge of his light-sparking mouth lifting into a seditious smile. “Now that we have all that established, let’s go strike down that Varg rune and open a path through the Dryad barrier behind it.”

Chapter Five

Golden Star

Elloren

Northern Forest

Eighteen days after Xishlon

Raz’zor’s blaze of warning sears across my eyes, his red, gold, and purple flame briefly cutting Yvan, the Dryads, and the giant ravens surrounding me from my vision once more.

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