Chapter 79

Ryker

I restedmy hands on either side of the windowsill as I gazed over the land. The lightning lancing across the sky splintered in dozens of different directions, illuminating the night.

Wind and rain lashed the glass while more lightning hammered the ground and struck a building a quarter mile away. Sparks flew off the metal rod atop the roof, but nothing else happened. Thunder erupted in a cacophonous bang; it wasn't strong enough to split the earth like the thunder I could create, but it quaked the realm.

The air crackled with electricity as the magnetic storm ravaged the land. Tempest hadn't gotten its name because of the weather-controlling immortals who lived there; it was because of these ferocious storms that devastated the land at least a few times a year.

They weren't always lightning storms. Sometimes, they came forth as a blizzard like the one that trapped me and my father here six years ago.

Ellery's reflection appeared behind me in the window. It wavered in the glass as she came closer. Until now, she'd slept through the first twenty minutes of the storm, but that last crash of thunder must have woken her.

"A magnetic storm," she murmured.

"Yes."

"You'll be stuck here now."

No one knew why, but when these storms rolled across the land, no one could open a portal. The storms stole that ability from us and even as a lightning bearer it would be too dangerous for him to ride home through a storm this severe.

Normally, the feeling of being trapped by these storms was something I hated. Even before the ophidians imprisoned me, I didn't like being trapped anywhere, but I didn't mind this time. It also meant her mother couldn't unexpectedly return either.

I turned toward her and held out my hand. "There's nowhere I'd rather be," I told her honestly.

She smiled as she took it. "Me either."

I didn't know how much those words would affect me, but joy soared inside me as I pulled her in front of the window. She leaned against my chest as we both watched the storm together.

"I hope Tucker and everyone in the woods will be okay," she whispered as another loud crash of thunder faded.

"They'll be fine. They had lightning rods on the tree houses."

"What about Xanthus? Will he be safe out there?"

"He's smarter than most men; he'll be fine, and he's always refused to be stabled. He's survived many of these storms on his own."

"Good."

The storm continued to ravage the land, but here, with her, I'd found a pool of stillness amid the chaos. The next burst of lightning illuminated the sky and reflected in her striking eyes; she was ethereal in the window, a beautiful woman who seemed untouchable, but she was here with me, and I couldn't get enough of touching her.

Slowly, I turned her in my arms, grasped her hips, and lifted her to sit on the windowsill. When I stepped closer, she opened her legs for me and draped her arms around my neck as I bent to kiss her.

I didn't know what it was like to fall in love, and after everything I'd endured, I hadn't believed it possible for me to experience such an emotion. I still didn't know how I felt about her, but she'd helped heal me in ways I never expected.

She didn't erase all the awful memories, but she soothed their ragged edges. I wasn't as angry while with her, as full of hate, or lost. I was happy again.

Grasping her hands, I pulled them away from my neck and held them against the glass as I entered her. Lightning split the sky and crashed into the earth, but I only saw its flashes as my eyes remained locked on her while I settled deep inside.

Bending, I kissed her as she encircled her legs around my waist and her heels dug into my ass. She arched toward me, her breasts pressing against my chest as the next crash of thunder shook the manor.

With her, the storm we created was more intense than the one raging outside.