Page 13 of Ecliptic

Rowen’s impossibly strong arms clasped around me, his fingers interlocking behind my back. We were chest to chest, fully flushed, and he shuddered against me as I shocked him unwillingly.

“Keira,” he grunted in my ear, his body stiff as every one of his muscles strained from the current running through him.

My hair cracked and whipped around us as the sky roiled. The veins in Rowen’s neck bulged dangerously. I tried pushing him off me, but he didn’t budge. The stubborn bastard wasn’t letting go.

Rowen was going to stop me, or he was going to die trying.

The light in his green eyes faded as the ground erupted and splashed around us. His eyes couldn’t close; I wouldn’t let them. Whatever I was feeling right now would multiply if Rowen died—there would be no stopping my rage. But the more I tried to gain control, the more I lost it. There was nothing I could do.

Suddenly, foreign arms wrapped around me from behind, trapping me between two walls of muscle. Both bodies pressed against me in an attempt to smother my celestial storm. Fear bolted through me as I waited for whoever was behind me to start convulsing.

But they never did.

“Stop,” a familiar yet unfamiliar voice begged against thecurve of my ear. The stranger squeezed me tighter, his fingers digging into my skin. “You’re killing him.”

“I don’t know how to stop,” I cried as the two bodies pressed against every inch of me, but the men’s strength was no match for my raging tempest. I was inconsolable as more light exploded in chaos and destruction.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said before I was blasted with a Light that was mine yet wasn’t. It pulsed through me calmly, peacefully, and my body went limp.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Rowen crumpling to the ground in front of me.

I collapsed into the stranger’s arms, and the darkness I feared yet welcomed blanketed over me and carried me away.

7

I woke with a gasp, my body aching from the unforgiving surface beneath me. A breeze tousled my hair, and I winced as the sun beamed into my eyes.

“Careful, star-touched,” Takoda said, his hazy silhouette coming into view. The healer regarded me with soft, worried eyes. “We were unable to move you. You remain where you fell.”

Bits of last night flashed before my eyes in violent strikes of lightning and earth. Panic erupted in my chest. Not from barely escaping Erovos or the presence of death that picked at me like crows on a carcass, but by the pain I had inflicted on Rowen.

Was he still alive?

“Rowen?” I pleaded, my fingertips searching for him. Those nearest to me jumped back and avoided my arm.

“I’m here,” came the deep voice that called to me from across the galaxies, but it was strained. Hurting.

My vision expanded. White-haired members of the Summit hovered over me, their faces creased with concern, and I noticed several warriors nearby, resting their hands on their weapons.

“Do not touch her,” Takoda warned as Rowen pushedthrough the crowd. Despite his emerald presence filling my view, a painful distance lingered between us. It mirrored the moments when he’d held back, the times he feared his true emotions would put me in danger.

When the false queen Aliphoura cursed Rowen, she vowed that if she couldn’t have him, no one could. And the forced separation felt like a painful reminder of our past.

The air pulsed with energy as I examined his exquisitely sculpted face. He appeared exhausted, with a thicker beard, new worry lines, and deep purple smudges under his eyes. It looked as if he’d lived a thousand tortured lifetimes since I’d been gone. “Keira, you . . .”

“I shocked you,” I whispered, guilt hanging from my heart like an anvil. I’d launched Rowen into a tree as if he weighed nothing, which was a feat, considering his body burgeoned with strength and power. His size had always been intimidating, but now it was fearsome. It was as if he’d doubled in muscle mass overnight. “That explains why Sabra wouldn’t let me touch her. Though I’m not sure why this is happening.”

“Whatever transpired with you and Erovos, it has caused the Alcreon Light to surge to the surface of your skin,” Takoda said, his tone clinical yet concerned. “Without a proper channel to guide it, the Light is spiraling out of control, threatening to overwhelm you.”

Wonderful.Where my Light had barely come to me in the past, it was now a weapon I couldn’t control. Even the beautiful dress I’d fashioned was gone, flashed out of existence like a broken bulb, and I realized I was completely naked beneath a linen blanket.

“We were unable to dress you,” Takoda said solemnly. “Or even move you to my dome. We quickly made you as comfortable as possible, hoping you would wake soon.”

I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest. The destruction I had wreaked upon the Wyn village surrounded me. The shame sat heavy in my gut.

My gaze darted back and forth, taking in the once vibrant landscape, now dull and dying, to Rowen’s changed appearance. “How has all this happened in one day?”

“Keira,” Rowen breathed my name. His gaze traced over my face, drinking me in like I was a long-awaited oasis. “You’ve been gone for nearly three moons.”

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