Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DESERT RAIN

“ N o!” I yelled—dread that Gia could now be at risk rising in my throat. I prayed he had bluffed, that he had never even seen her. He never showed any evidence of it, save the knowledge of her name. My eyes fell to the small pile of ash that appeared where the Fae had just stood.

The Dragon circled above me, letting out a loud roar of triumph, followed by more breaths of fire scattered in the air. Numb, I watched him for a few moments until he grew tired and landed on the barren ground. He shifted upon impact and tilted his head at me, his expression inhuman. I slumped, devoid of energy to deal with an unhinged Fae. He came over to sniff me curiously, perhaps my defeated posture posing no threat to his animal instincts. I looked up to see the slits that remained in his eyes.

“Ezren,” I pleaded. “Please, don’t fight me. Come back.”

His expression remained blank. I touched my hand to his. He jumped back upon contact, but I held tight, letting his motion pull me up. I wrapped my arm around him, placing the back of his head in the crook of my elbow. And before he could do a thing, I buried my face into his neck and let out a sob. He stilled. I looked up, tears blurring my vision, nervous to see if the depths of his eyes were still slits. His pupils reformed circles, set in that gorgeous green.

His arms came around me at once, pulling me tighter into him. I wept without restraint. The catharsis was over, and my family was still gone. A part of me had always known it would feel like this, but even now, the rage stayed simmering inside me. Fayzien was dead. And it had fixed nothing.

“It won’t ever go away, you know,” Ezren murmured. “Loss is that way. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes, it has the power of a current trying to pull you under. But you are strong, Terra. You will fight it every day. You may not always win, but you will win more than you lose.” He tilted my face up to his. I found a pain in his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before.

“You killed Fayzien,” I mumbled, unable to say anything else. “Did you mean to? How did you know I needed help?”

“Same as before,” he said, disbelief in his tone. “I heard you scream my name.”

The sounds of screeching from the mountainside ripped into our world before I could reply.

We ran.

The screams grew louder and more unnatural as we neared the edge of the plain. Fayzien had been alone, leaving his company to penetrate the mountain wood and flush out our group. The sun was rising now, not yet visible above the eastern peaks, but high enough to send a glow over the valley.

We were fast, but blind to where the group was, or how they were holding Fayzien’s company back. The warriors did not know they were now following the orders of a dead man. Who would command them now?

At last, we reached the edge of the Nameless Valley. I flowed my magic into the mountain slope’s dirt, running it upwards, hoping to get a sense of what unfolded in front of us. Dane and one of the other Witches appeared in our sight. We ran to them, and they each took one of our arms. A moment later, we were moving through space and time in the unexplainable way of the portal.

The group was north of where we had left them and at a higher elevation. I jogged over to Jana. “Fayzien, he is?—”

“Dead, yes we know.”

“How?” I asked.

Jana placed her hands on my shoulders and spun me around. “Look.”

From our high point on the mountain, I could see the sun reflect off of hundreds of creatures moving between the trees in our direction, like cockroaches scurrying away from light.

“What the?—”

“We ran from the warriors initially,” Jana said, “evading and spelling them to confuse their direction or slow their pace. We figured once you killed Fayzien it would be like cutting off the snake’s head. Maybe we could stop them somehow, convince them to turn around. But then, all of a sudden, they were no longer Fae. It makes sense; Fayzien would’ve never had the support of Viri warriors.” She shook her head. “We should have known.”

“Crona,” Ezren breathed. “By the gods, I have never seen so many. He must have enchanted them.”

“Exactly,” Dane responded. “And masked their appearance with a glamor. I have never heard of a Witch creating a glamor so difficult without Fae help, but… he was part Fae, after all.”

I peered down once more, looking at the small non-flying bat-like creatures that roamed up the mountainside. A thousand strong, scaled and fanged and web winged.

“What are they?” I whispered.

“Lesser Fae, some would call them. Easily masked and charmed. One alone is harmless, and they are rare enough. Some males hunt them, for their scales are known as… performance enhancers. But I have no idea how Fayzien herded so many together. They don’t dwell or hunt in pairs, let alone numbers such as these,” Dane explained, wonder and dread mixing in his words. “I would have thought they’d disperse upon Fayzien’s death, given his spell ending. But they may be so deep in fear and confusion that they’re still moving. He must have drawn on the valley somehow.”

“Drawn on the valley…?” I echoed.

“A thousand years ago, the valley was said to be the source of a Death Witch’s power. She either sacrificed something here, or, well we don’t know for sure. It’s mostly thought of as a housemaid’s tale. Still, the valley has never been named. It seems to… lend and reserve power in abnormal ways. This phenomenon has been documented over the years, but the explanation remains a mystery. Some think it’s what feeds the realm barrier, some have more… sinister beliefs.”

“We should get the hell out of here,” Parson chimed in, refocusing the group. “They’re stupid creatures and have no direction now. We’ll be able to elude them easily.”

“If we leave,” I asked hesitantly, “where will they go? Will they cross into the human lands?”

“It is possible,” Jana said slowly. “There isn’t near as strong of a barrier keeping the magic realm from the human, as there is the other way around. If they are confused enough, they may continue in the direction they were sent.”

“And they could wreak havoc on entire human villages.” My observation held a question.

“Yes,” Ezren cut in. “They could.”

The monsters were gaining ground fast now, nearly three quarters of the way to where we stood.

“We can’t let that happen.” My words were more of a plea than a statement.

“I could try a different spell,” Dane thought aloud. “To freeze them, maybe for an hour or two at the most. It is a tricky one, like a counterweight to my fire. I’ve only done it once, and I’ll need to link with someone. It should work, but I’m too drained to do much more than that.”

“Do it,” I said. “If nothing else, it will buy us time.”

Jana shared with Dane, and together they sent a freeze down the slope of the mountain, which settled through the trees like an unforgiving frost. The Crona stayed fixed, contained for the time being. And thus began the debate.

Dane was hollowed out. Jana too, having forfeited the last of her reserves. Parson had shifted maybe six times in the hour; he couldn’t put down a thousand rabid creatures with whatever Fae magic he had left. The rest of the group was tired, emptied, or lacked the skill to offer a solution. It seemed it would come down to Ezren or me.

“Ezren could shift again and burn the suckers,” one of the other Witches mused.

“That would only work if someone controlled his Dragon form,” Dane refuted. “And I do not have the strength to bend the will of a Dragon right now.”

“He listens to me.” I swallowed. “Well, sort of. I think my voice calmed him.”

“That’s not enough,” Dane said. “Controlling his actions takes skill and practice, which we clearly don’t have time to develop.”

“I don’t really remember the time in my shift. I fought to stay present, and I heard Terra’s cry on the plain, but… it was distant. I didn’t have control,” Ezren admitted.

“Terra could split the Earth again, let the ground swallow the bastards whole,” Parson chimed in. “Like when she trained with Dane.”

“Far too risky,” Jana countered. “If she too greatly disturbs what lies in that valley, well… we don’t know the consequences. She could risk the collapse of the realm barrier entirely.”

“I’m not sure I could do that anyway,” I said quietly. “The valley does not respond to me.”

“Could you suffocate them with your Earth storm?” Dane eyed me with suspicion.

“You mean raise up dirt from the mountainsides and individually asphyxiate each one?” He nodded, and I considered. “Maybe…” I grimaced. “I don’t know if I have enough strength to do it.”

Jana inclined her head. “The blood of your power is life. To cause death to a thousand creatures individually would be a tax.”

“You need your damn Siphon,” Dane muttered to himself, but then he looked at Jana in realization. She studied him a moment and then turned to Ezren and me.

“A joining might do it—but even that doesn’t produce such a surge in power. But if you performed a coupling…” Jana trailed off.

In an instant, Ezren’s face was alight with rage. “Absolutely not.” Ezren’s body tensed, his eyes blazing.

I felt a small punch in the stomach, now that I knew the coupling meant sharing power through… intimacy.

“Ezren, you must set your past experience aside. Terra is not Esmie. She is made of the Earth. She is far stronger than you give her credit.” Jana’s words had a gentleness to them, as if she spoke to calm a wild, cornered dog.

“You know Esmie isn’t the only reason your suggestion is so foul,” he growled.

Foul? Ouch.

“Ezren, please consider the alternative—hundreds, thousands of humans could be at risk,” Dane begged.

“You’ve heard my answer.” Ezren’s voice was low.

“Leave us, please,” I said, my eyes trained to the ground and my face heating. At once, they retreated, making to find the horses should we fail and need a fast escape.

I turned to Ezren when he spoke, “I’m so sorry, Terra, that they would suggest such a thing, truly, I would never?—”

“How dare you,” I breathed, “make this decision without my input, and while I stood right in front of you.” My body felt alight with a myriad of emotions, including the ember of desire for him that never died out, even on the battlefield. “You didn’t even ask me what I wanted.”

He stared at me almost blankly and opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it.

“If I’m so revolting to you that the idea of being with me to save human lives is horrifying, well, I’ll gladly ask Parson or Jin or anyone else to lend their services,” I bit out.

“It’s not only my involvement in a coupling that disturbs me, it’s yours.” His stare was wild. “A coupling is extremely dangerous for any Fae or Witch, but it is particularly so for females who have never lain with a male before.”

The color in my cheeks intensified. “And what makes you so certain of… that?”

“Terra, I can scent it all over you. Not just desire, but… new desire.”

I gaped at him, the heat singeing my face now. I nearly lost my nerve, but something more important than my embarrassment won out. Determination, fear of lost human life, and need .

“I want to do the coupling, Ezren. And I want to do it with you.”

He came to me at once, his palms cupping my cheeks and his fingers running into my hair. “Terra, you will likely lose all control. And my magic—you’ve seen it. It’s old and strange and unusual for a Fae. We have no idea how our powers will mix. It could kill you.”

“But we do know, sort of,” I breathed. “We’ve done the joining, and our magics seemed to combine instinctually when we kissed the first time.”

He shook his head. “That is nothing like the coupling. Couplings are wild and unpredictable occurrences of power and magic. They can bring beautiful things or absolute destruction. Trust me on this.”

I pulled away from his touch. “And you know so much, do you? Is it that you only want to couple with that female everyone keeps mentioning? Esmie? What, is she the one who left you and broke your heart?” I asked, bitter.

“Yes, she did,” Ezren bit out, the words sending something sharp to my lungs.

He let out a loud sigh. “She was my wife. We were married two decades, and she wanted a babe more than anything. I persuaded her to do the coupling; I’d been told it could help one conceive, and only virgins were at real risk of death, anyway. So we did it. And…” He paused, taking another breath. “And I killed her with my power. So yes, she left me, just like everyone else,” he spat. “And yes, it broke my heart. It was no one’s fault, but my own.”

I shuttered my eyes, feeling the loss radiate off him. So that was the source of pain I’d recognized in his eyes earlier, when he told me about the ebb and flow of never ending grief. “I’m so sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself as tears ran down my face.

“I can’t have your death on my conscience, Terra, I can’t.”

I went to him, placing my hands on his chest. Sending one’s power into another was an intimate act, as I’d discovered when Fayzien non-consensually did it to me so many weeks ago. After sharing with Jana, I knew how to do it right—only proceeding if I felt willingness from the host.

One probe of power and I sensed his intrinsic acceptance. So I flowed my magic into him, gentle but firm. He let out a low moan that vibrated through my core, a sound I’d sell my soul to hear again and again and again.

“Why can’t you trust me,” I murmured to myself.

“I do trust your strength, Terra. It’s mine I don’t trust,” he murmured, eyes glazed. I dismissed his words by pushing my power further into him.

“Do you feel me, Ezren, in every inch of you?” I whispered.

He nodded, his head tilted back, his breathing labored. “Open your eyes and look at me.” He did. “I am sorry for what happened to your wife, I truly am. But answer me this, honestly. Did her power feel like this? Could you feel her strength possessing you, like mine does now?” I searched his face for the answer.

Plain truth laced his words as he said, “No. No, it did not.”

I withdrew my power from him, and he looked away. I didn’t have to ask again. He knew I’d made up my mind, and he didn’t have the willpower to keep denying me. Of course, his constant pulling away, the way he could not look at me now, hurt. But, I had made up my mind.

I walked to the middle of the clearing and sank my palms into the ground. I didn’t have to do much, for the Earth was witness to our decision, as it would always bear witness to me. Immediately, trees and brush and root sprouted with the joy of fresh blooms, forming a private room around us. Flowers ran up the vines, and wisteria grew in a knitted canopy over our heads. My clothes were replaced, too; silkworms skated over my body, cleaning and leaving only the fine weaving of their proteins on my skin. In their wake, a sheer and loose shift pooled around my knees. Finally, four large trunks emerged from the ground, shaped into the posts of a bed, the mattress growing out of supple grass. I looked around at my creation, a splendid private garden, an oasis on a mountain, shrouded in soft morning light.

I beamed. “Thank you,” I whispered.

My eyes met Ezren’s, which sparkled in reflection of all that had grown around us. His clothes, too, had changed, his torn battle dress swapped for silken trousers that left little to the imagination. My gaze wandered down his body, lingering on his sculpted abdomen, and falling on what lay beneath his tunic. He swelled there, I could see, and the sight sent a buzz of adrenaline through me.

I remained still on the ground, kneeling several feet from our earthen bed. He stalked toward me. I tore my eyes from him, looking at my hands to steady my rapid breathing. Once he arrived, he stood silent. I felt his eyes roaming my body too, knowing he could see nearly all of me.

“I know you don’t want to do this, so we can just get it over with,” I mumbled, falling victim to insecurity. He bent over and placed two fingers under my chin, lifting it so that I peered up at him. I was acutely aware of his manhood now, just mere inches from my face.

“No,” he said, his voice like gravel, not unlike the animal tone he possessed when the Dragon blood still flowed through his veins. “If you want this, if I’m to be your first male, I will do so by delivering you every ounce of pleasure you can take,” he said, now in command. “So no, I will not just get it over with.” He extended a hand, pulling me to stand. His face was grave and serious, yet the desire was there, plain as day. “Promise me you’ll fight the power overtaking you, fight to control it, to set it out with intention.”

“Okay,” I responded, barely hearing him. The heartbeat in my chest rang in my ears as much as in my womanhood.

“Now tell me again, Terra, tell me you want this,” he breathed, his lips a mere inch from mine. “Tell me you’re sure.”

I let my gaze run up the length of his body, landing on his emerald eyes, on fire as ever. He looked at me then, really looked. His stare was wild with unbridled hunger, mingled with bewilderment. He looked at me like he’d never seen a woman before. Like I was an oasis, and he hadn’t had water in days. As if I could be his salvation—a spring well in the desert—or a figment of his imagination.

That look made me feel more naked than if I’d removed my shift. It said a thousand things and made a thousand promises. It undressed me and destroyed me; it coaxed a wetness between my thighs. Points formed on my breasts in friction against the sheer silk that covered them.

But mostly, the way Ezren looked at me woke me up. It made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever.

Alive.

I nodded and realized I was starving, too. “I’m sure.”