Chapter Eight

Deathbonded

Tierney Calix

Northern Vo River

Tierney swirls her hand through the Vo’s night-dark purple water, her vulnerable River’s returning ripple of affection squeezing her heart. She can sense Or’myr, Fyordin, and Viger just behind her, the four of them grouped on the rocky riverbank, their joint power so intimately bonded, any boundaries between their intermingling auras have frayed.

“I can sense the Vo’s elemental magic gaining importance as more of the Natural World in the West is destroyed,”

she murmurs. Her eyes widen as a new reading flows in from the Vo’s connection to all of Erthia’s waterways. “I sense something else, as well. A shield has just been sent up around the Zonor.”

She looks at Fyordin, who strides knee-deep into the Vo, as well.

“Can you sense its origin?”

Fyordin presses, sliding his hands into the water.

Tierney nods. “Trystan’s power is in it . . . along with Zhilaan Wyvern magic. Can you feel it? And the aquifers of the East . . . they’ve just been linked to a Dryad with strong water magic.”

Fyordin’s Vo-dark stare meets hers. “I’ve a sense of this, as well.”

Astounded by this development, Tierney lets the unexpected magic rush over her for a long moment as she studies her River, her immediate surroundings illuminated by the purple light emanating from the shield-amplifying runes Or’myr has marked on the stone wall beside them. She lifts her gaze toward the Xishlon moon Or’myr crafted in the sky, still hanging just above their dome-shield.

Like a purple battle cry.

Tierney’s blood warms, a wave of affection escaping her hold to rush toward Or’myr. Instantly abashed by this surge of emotion she knows will flow right into him through their bond, she frantically tries to reel it back to no avail.

Her surge of feeling connects with Or’myr like a wave crashing to shore, and she catches him stiffening, their gazes flashing toward each other. Violet lightning flashes through Or’myr’s eyes as he gives her a look of such pure ardor, a hot flush blooms over Tierney’s skin.

They wrench their gazes away, Tierney’s pulse cast into a tight, rapid rhythm, as Fyordin’s water power lashes around her in an aggravated swirl, her Asrai’kin clearly picking up on what’s going on between her and Or’myr.

Viger’s line of Dark suddenly courses through it all in a disquieted vibration.

Tierney startles and flicks her gaze toward Viger. He’s defying gravity, as he’s wont to do, his tall form suspended against the broad trunk of a towering Noi River Elm above their heads like a great spider, his back to the bark, his full-Dark predator eyes set on her.

“That’s good news, that we have help in protecting the East’s waterways,”

Or’myr states rigidly, drawing Tierney’s attention back to his intent, lightning-spitting stare. She can sense him fighting off the bond’s pull to her, sense him attempting to keep his emotions from crackling through it. He peers out over the Vo. “I’ve always known on an intellectual level that this river is one of Erthia’s major arteries. But I never felt it like I do now . . . connected to you all.”

Tierney gulps as Or’myr casts another pained, ardent look her way, prompting a stronger rise of Fyordin’s power to roil through them both. Tierney struggles to ignore it. She can feel the way they’ve all been fighting to see past the bond’s pull, wrenching their focus toward the Vo again and again—they’re all clear that there are more important things at stake than the tumultuous, impassioned feelings simmering through this binding.

“I feel more fully Fae than I ever have before,”

Tierney confides, keeping her gaze firmly on the Vo, “with so much at stake.”

“I also feel more Fae than I ever have,”

Fyordin admits, his voice gruff, conflict jostling through his power. “When my family arrived here as refugees, they were so desperate to assimilate.”

He pauses, grimacing as he shakes his head before he glances at them all. “At times, after I pledged allegiance to the Wyvernguard and the Vu Trin, I wrestled with the pull to be Fae first. But I realize now, my decision to put the Waters of Erthia above all else was the right path all along.”

“You aren’t alone in feeling that Fae pull,”

Or’myr admits to Fyordin, his arresting, violet features tightening with a look of frustration as he glances toward the nearby Noi Cypress grove. “I can sense the Dryad Fae in me struggling to come out of dormancy in response to this Vo connection I feel through you and Tierney, especially in response to the trees rooted in the river. And the Urisk in me . . . I can sense that part of me striving to break free in some new way, as well. My Urisk people . . . we were once known as the Fae Guardians of Erthia’s Stone. Until my people deemed those ancient ways ‘primitive thinking.’?”

A shot of rebellious energy sizzles through Or’myr’s power, making Tierney shiver.

“But those ‘primitive Fae ways,’?”

he continues, “they were intensely connected to the Natural World. I think they were the truer path. I’m increasingly drawn toward that Erthia-connected Fae-ness.”

His gaze slides to Tierney, a warrior light flashing in his eyes. “And toward being a protector of your Waters’ entire bed and its surrounding Forest.”

Tierney holds Or’myr’s gaze for a protracted moment, another wave of feeling for him sweeping through her in a whirlpool rush. His words have the gravitas of a vow, and she’s momentarily overcome with gratitude for his alliance.

Gratitude to them all.

Fighting back the sting of tears, Tierney glances up toward Viger’s shadowy horned form. “You never lost your connection to your Fae calling, did you, Viger?”

she says as she remembers Viger’s heartbreaking dream. “Even though you were reviled for it.”

A bitter expression crosses Viger’s pale face. “Death is reviled by all,”

he states in a voice so low and chilling it shivers straight through her, the vulnerable friend she felt so close to last night gone. “Keep your praise,”

he hisses, every speck of light around them pulsing Dark. “If this River falls, I will become your greatest nightmare.”

Tierney narrows her eyes at him, holding his stare, refusing to be intimidated. Asrai warrior energy surges through her, infused with the strength of churning rapids. “So, we don’t let it fall,”

she shoots back.

A bold idea lights, widening her eyes as her gaze swings to Or’myr’s wall of runes. She levels a finger at it. “We should runically connect our Deathkin binding to the Vo’s shielding. So we can flow even more of our power through it.”

She pivots back toward Viger. “Can it be done?”

There’s a beat of hesitation, Viger’s gaze boring into hers as the ramifications of what she’s suggesting shivers through everyone’s linked power. “It can be done, Asrai,”

comes Viger’s bone-shuddering reply.

They all still, a momentous tension sizzling through their bond.

Or’myr shoots Viger a cautioning look. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if we runically bind our primordial linkage to the Vo’s shielding, and the river falls . . . we’re brought down with it. Yes?”

“If this River falls,”

Tierney cuts in, slicing the air with her hand, “everything is lost. There’s no ‘losing the Vo,’ Or’myr.”

“I agree,”

Fyordin says. “We need to do whatever it takes to protect our Waters.”

A tidal wave of Tierney’s gratitude fair explodes out of her to storm through Fyordin, and he meets her flow of power with an embracing rush, an enamored look liquefying his gaze that has Tierney fighting the urge to throw her arms around him, fully liquefy them both, and merge with the Vo.

Viger lifts a hand and bursts into mist, drawing everyone’s attention as a portion of his Darkness takes the shape of a suspended black Deathkin linkage rune. Viger’s disembodied hiss sounds out, the rune streaming toward Or’myr until it stills, hovering before him.

“Bind this linkage rune to the Vo’s shielding, geomancer,”

Viger charges as he rematerializes halfway up another tree’s trunk, defying gravity once more as he leans against it, his chilling, emotionless tone a wall.

Or’myr casts them all a grim look, then motions toward the suspended rune. “We’re all decided, then? We permanently link our binding to these Waters and stand or fall with the Vo and its supporting land and stone?”

Tierney’s pulse kicks into a faster rhythm as a palpable assent floods their connected power.

Without another word, Or’myr lifts his wand toward their shielding’s largest foundational rune and draws the suspended black rune onto the purple-glowing rune then murmurs a series of spells. Four misty ropes of Dark power flow from Viger’s rune to connect with the center of all their chests, just over their hearts.

Or’myr lowers his wand and sets his gaze on Viger.

Viger’s lower half shivers to mist, and he pushes himself off the tree and hangs suspended in the air as he murmurs a Deathkin spell, the sound of his voice coming from everywhere at once, sending vibrations through their commingled magic.

A booming CLAP knifes through Tierney’s ears, and she flinches, the world shuddering to full Dark. A hard pull yanks on their Deathkin bond, a wheezing breath punched from all their lungs as their bond fuses to the shielding’s foundational rune then streams through the River’s shielding, their connection amplifying.

Warmth blasts through Tierney’s blood, her attraction to all three of them surging.

All of their eyes snap toward her with raptor-focused intensity, their fused power shot through with a swell of emotion-fueled attraction stronger than the pull of the Xishlon moon.

Or even a hundred Xishlon moons.

Tension crackles in the air, and Tierney can feel all three males striving to beat down the sudden surge of bond-fueled want.

“I doubt any trace of Shadow can get through our shielding now,”

Or’myr mutters, then clears his throat as he looks at the shield, a line of his invisible lightning forking around her and sending gooseflesh breaking out over Tierney’s skin. “Everyone should get some sleep,”

Or’myr suggests, glancing at her. “I’ll activate alarm runes to alert us if anyone tries to breach our defenses.”

Flustered, Tierney gets up, ready to flee from all of them. She’s not even several paces away before steps sound, close on her heels, Fyordin’s power eddying through hers, her own steps halting as she turns toward him.

“Tierney’lin,”

he rasps, his power breaking loose to stream around her in a rippling caress as he takes hold of her arm and leans in close. “Come with me, Tierney’lyn,”

he huskily offers, his eyes glazed with feeling. “Come rest with me at the bottom of the Vo.”

Viger’s and Or’myr’s powers flash through their bond, the intense jolts startling Tierney, all of them understanding from the flow of Fyordin’s power that he’s offering more than sleep.

Her pulse thudding, Tierney looks toward the ground, toward the wilds, anywhere but at Fyordin and the Vo, suddenly hyperaware of the Sanjire plants growing everywhere, as common in the East as dandelion weeds are in the West . . .

She dares a glance at Fyordin, swept up in the seductive urge to let him draw her to the bottom of the Vo and feel his Asrai form against hers as they dissolve into each other . . .

“I . . . I need to be alone,”

she stammers, pulling away from Fyordin’s loose grip.

Not daring to stay near any of them for one second longer, Tierney strides away at a fast clip, the caressing stream of Fyordin’s power only heightening her wanton draw to give in to this bond-pull.

She can feel the three males’ attention fixed on her through the bond, even after she rounds a rocky bend and all three of them are cut from sight.

Tierney finds a small, isolated inlet by the water’s edge, sits down on an outcropping of stone and remains still for a long time, a small beaver briefly joining her, her lower legs dangling in her Vo’s night-dark waters. The River’s swirl of love whirlpools through her as she lets her complicated emotions settle.

Eventually, she slumps, unable to fight the pull of sleep any longer. Pushing herself off the stone, Tierney drops into the Vo’s waters until she’s fully submerged, then swims down into its deep center, fish circling her. Curling up against the silty bed, exhaustion gripping a firmer hold, Tierney melts toward sleep.

She’s drifting aimlessly when a misty swirl of Viger’s Darkness ripples through her subconscious like a distant caress, triggering a dream. Slipping into her dream like warm honey sliding from a spoon, she finds herself caught up in the seductive sensation of Viger’s long form wrapped around hers, his teeth pressing lightly against the base of her neck.

Heat shivers over her dream-form’s skin, the cadence of Viger’s breathing tighter than it was when they kissed in the Northern Forest, the hungry nature of his embrace prompting an enticing shiver through her. Silvery-black ribbons of Viger’s thrall swirl around them, beautifully surreal, as if painted there by an invisible brush. The ribbons still, along with Viger’s breathing.

You’re here, he shudders through her.

“I am,”

Tierney responds, heart fluttering, as she reaches up and runs her fingertips over Viger’s hard cheekbone, then back through his silky midnight hair, tracing her thumb along the edge of his pointed ear. She leans in and brushes her lips against his, waiting for his dream-kiss. Suddenly hungry for it.

Tierney . . . there’s danger in this. Viger’s thought ripples over her skin.

“Maybe in real life,”

Tierney whispers against his lips, feeling giddy with desire, “but this is only a dream. Do you want to give in to this draw?”

His thrall stills, his power shivering over her, trailing ardent heat.

Yes, Asrai, comes Viger’s low, almost tortured answer.

“Then give in,”

she urges, a rush of heart-quickening anticipation sizzling through her.

The energy coursing through Viger’s thrall takes a turn for the feral, and he leans down and brings his lips to the base of her neck, every one of Tierney’s nerves tingling to life as his tongue flickers against it. He slides his mouth toward her shoulder, his teeth touching down once more as he stills, his heart thudding against hers.

“Are you going to bite me?”

Tierney throatily teases, every inch of her caught up in pulse-quickening excitement.

She can feel Viger’s ripple of amusement. His teeth touch down a fraction more, the pressure dancing on the edge of a sting. Say the word and I’ll consume you, Asrai’ir, he murmurs, his deep voice vibrating through her power, his lips now tracing a line along the base of her neck, his serpentine tongue flicking against her skin in an enthralling motion.

She presses her body seductively against his, and Viger breathes out a sound somewhere between a wicked laugh and low groan, her desire ramping up, hot and hungry . . . before she stills, a small sliver of her lust-addled mind triggering a pause.

Remembering that he’s a primordial Death Fae.

“What do you mean by ‘consume’?”

she asks. She meets Viger’s stare, his pale skin surprisingly flushed. He smiles, giving her a look full of the forbidden edges of midnight. And then, he opens his midnight lips, and his forked, purple tongue flickers out.

A ragged breath shivers through Tierney as she’s overtaken by the startlingly pleasurable phantom sensation of Viger’s tongue flickering all over her body—all except for the place she’s the most lit up for him.

A hot flush suffusing her face, Tierney holds his hypnotic stare. “Since this is just a dream . . .”

she suggests, her thoughts scattering as she grows quiet, both fear of the unknown and a brazen lust for it mounting.

Viger’s smile gains a sultry edge. What does your dream-self want, Asrai?

“What do you want?”

she hedges, nerves frayed, her desire struggling to break through her nervous trepidation. “Show me,”

she more firmly insists. “I want to know.”

Viger blinks, and her clothing and his tunic disappear.

Tierney is unable to stifle her shocked laugh, amusement bubbling up through her fugue of nerves. “Shy one, aren’t you,”

she teases.

Viger lets out a low laugh, his Dark eyes sharpening on hers. Are dreams a place to be shy?

“No,”

she admits, heatedly aware of his gaze flicking over her form, lighting her every nerve. Her pulse deepens with a stronger want as her gaze wanders over Viger’s naked chest, black snake tattoos marking its muscular expanse, their serpentine forms rising from his pants, which only stokes her nervous amusement higher.

She traces a trembling finger over one of the serpents, her breathing growing erratic as the muscles of Viger’s stomach tighten against her touch and she continues to trail her finger lower and lower . . .

. . . then slides her fingertip just under the edge of his pants, the desire to consume him gaining serious ground.

What do you want, Asrai? Viger asks again, the possibility-fraught words shivering through her.

Reckless hunger rising, Tierney blinks, and the rest of Viger’s clothing vanishes.

A hotter rush of desire courses through her widened eyes as she drinks in his entire body, his dark horns rising.

Viger’s hands slide to her hips, pulling her insistently closer before he stills, clearly waiting for her to voice her consent.

I want to know what this is, she thinks through their bond in a sudden blaze of emotion, shocked to find her words easily sliding into him via their strengthening linkage. Her breath hitches as she decides to delve deep and bare her whole heart to him. I want to know what this is before the Shadow War comes. Even if it’s just a dream.

Viger studies her, the whole world stilling, his entire thrall receding. She can sense his desire burning in it like a dark star, yearning to collide with both her power and her heart.

“Sweep me up in your thrall, Viger,”

she demands. “I want you to.”

Viger’s question shivers through her. Are you sure, Asrai?

In answer, she reaches up to grab hold of one of his horns and pulls him into an intense, tongue-twining kiss, the deepest recesses of her water power coursing out to ripple through him.

Viger groans, his thrall sweeping them into its spiraling power as he breaks the kiss and slides his mouth down to the edge of her shoulder once more, tongue flickering as his sharpened teeth bear down . . .

. . . then lightly pierce her skin.

Tierney cries out as a wild rush of pleasure courses through her. Brazenly pivoting herself toward Viger, their movements dream-blurred, he thrusts forward and they join.

A gasp of pure excitement breaks from Tierney’s throat as she grips his strong body, the dream-amplified pleasure more intense than anything she’s ever experienced, surging through her, eddying through her magic as she eagerly firms her hold on him, urging him on, and Viger responds with feral vigor.

A groan tears from Viger’s throat that vibrates through both their bodies and Nature itself as their joint rhythm takes on a more frenzied pace, a growl working its way out from the base of Viger’s throat, his claws biting into her skin.

A spiraling, magic-exploding rush of ecstasy shatters through Tierney, followed by a rapids-strong, cascading shudder of pleasure that widens her eyes and blasts her power into a swirl of molten steam.

Viger snarls her name, pressing himself pulsatingly deep as he floods her with his Darkness, his lips and teeth clamping down on her shoulder. The sting of his bite prompts one last, wild lash of ecstasy that’s so strong it catches the Natural Matrix surrounding them in it, and Tierney is overcome by a sudden awareness of a sea of Darkness forming on all sides and rushing toward them as the Balance around them begins to careen off-kilter . . .

Viger’s silvery thrall flashes to life and blasts outward as their eyes meet, bright with urgency. A look of intense emotional pain tightens Viger’s gaze as three words shiver to life in the center of all his fears, bright as beacons. He blinks once, and snaps out of existence, and Tierney is pulled, rapids-fast, into the tunneling Darkness.

The departure of Viger’s Deathkin energy dampens the aura whirling around Tierney as her dream-self dissolves into her water form. The Darkness fades, a vivid blue flashing to life all around Tierney as her dream morphs into a completely different scene.

Fyordin’s water form wrapped around hers.

“My Asrai’ir love,”

he murmurs as they both begin to solidify, liquid warmth shifting to strong hands running along her back with fluid finesse, Fyordin’s Vo-blue lips catching hers in a kiss shot through with the River’s embracing power.

Am I truly daring to dream this too? Tierney questions as she lets her dream-blurred self fall into Fyordin’s enticingly fluid kiss, waving away her distant sense of confusion.

Swept up in Fyordin’s vortex of desire, they roll through the warming water, the surrounding Vo rippling every glorious shade of dream-heightened blue.

“Tierney’a’lin ruuushh muu Asrai’mir . . .”

Fyordin murmurs against her lips, the magic he’s swirling around and through her turning tidal as they merge.

Caught in the current of their Vo’s power, Tierney throws her head back, opens her mouth and draws in a stream of water, arching against Fyordin as his hunger gains ground and she matches his fluid rhythm.

Fyordin’s Vo-blue eyes lock with hers, his gaze sharpening into what seems like a more vivid, astonished awareness as a faraway edge of Tierney’s mind startles against their outrageous joining.

It’s just a dream, she thinks, as Fyordin catches her up in another kiss and Tierney brazenly gives in to the pleasure of it, thrilling to the cresting-wave feel of his body’s motion, the Vo’s full power coursing through their joining like a tsunami about to break . . .

A hard flash of purple light suddenly overtakes the surrounding blue, casting Tierney into a fuller confusion.

Fyordin grips her harder, his arms flexing around her back with covetous force, hands splayed out in what feels like a desperate attempt to hold on to her as he murmurs to her in a passionate stream of Asrai.

The scene shatters, as if blasted away by an explosion of superior magic, and Tierney is drawn into a new one.

A purple room shimmers into being around her, blurred at the edges. Wavering, deep-purple trees are set in the surrounding walls, everything violet misted.

A purple-hued man pressing her into a bed, kissing her with lightning-rod fervor.

Shock lances through Tierney.

Or’myr.

Tierney gasps as a streak of Or’myr’s purple lightning forks through her body and connects with her power, shocking through her inner storm and electrifying it.

Amplifying both his magic and hers.

It’s explosive, Or’myr’s kiss, but there’s no pain in it, the startlingly electric sensation sending her sliding rapids-fast into a sizzling place of pure want.

Or’myr breaks the kiss and meets her gaze, lightning pulsing through his eyes with feverish light. “I love you,”

he says, giving her a look so intense it’s almost tortured. “Tierney’lin, I love you so much. I have loved you since our first moments together. And I will love you forever.”

And then his mouth is on hers once more in a claiming kiss, his magic surging through hers with impassioned force, emotion bolting through Tierney over his ardent declaration as a rush of love for him breaks through her power. She draws him closer, Or’myr’s body joining with hers in a surge of purple lightning and her rushing rapids.

Tierney gasps, the explosive energy of their coupling flowing not just through each other, but into the entire riverbed, sending an unexpected wave of re-Balancing energy straight into it.

Tierney cries out as they hold each other, incandescently lit up by the way Or’myr is driving sheer geopower into both her and the Vo’s bed, the pleasure Erthia-bendingly intense, every last trace of her power, vivid blue and deepest Dark, shifting into a sensation of ecstatic alignment.

As his power Balances her.

And suddenly, Tierney wants this connection more than she’s ever desired anything. Wants Or’myr to turn not just the Vo’s waters but every last shred of her power blazingly purple.

Violet light shudders through Tierney’s vision, the whole world igniting as glorious, violet energy detonates more intensely through both their forms, blasting through her straight into the riverbed. A guttural cry escapes Or’myr, his long, muscular form shuddering against her, his heartbeat a hammer.

“Tierney’nuu’fya’lir,”

he raggedly says in Uriskal as errant threads of his lightning detonate over her skin and his.

Tierney, my beautiful love, she translates through the bond, emotion tightening her throat and blurring her eyes. Overcome, she pushes gently against his chest, and he draws a fraction away, so much lovestruck feeling in his eyes that her heart trips into an erratic rhythm.

Her gaze skims his chest, and surprise lashes through her.

There’s an image of the dragon-goddess Vo encircling the Xishlon moon tattooed over its expanse. She meets Or’myr’s eyes, stunned anew by the level of passion firing there . . .

. . . and something more.

Something so right that Tierney feels the very earth beneath her shift.

Both wildly thrown and wildly drawn in, she struggles to hold herself back from him, rocked by a sudden, ardent longing she’s never known the likes of before.

A click of recognition seems to spark in Or’myr’s eyes, and he blinks at her, as if seeing her with new blazing clarity. His eyes widen, and pain ripples across his expression before he blinks once more and the entire, purple-tinted dream snaps out of sight.

Tierney shivers awake at the bottom of the Vo. The riverbed is soft beneath her back, and electric energy courses through her like a pre-storm charge.

Eyes closed, she pulls a deep, long breath of her River’s sweet water into her lungs and stretches her blue limbs, sensually hyperaware of her body, her charged magic flowing seamlessly into the Vo’s riverbed, and its surrounding stone . . .

Tierney’s eyes snap open, a hot flush suffusing her skin as she hurtles into a sudden remembrance of her dreams.

Her pulse skyrockets.

Sweet holy gods.

And . . . Or’myr.

Joining with him, in particular, felt so outrageously right, his gloriously grounding energy still pulsing through her, drawing her focus away from the darkest, most forbidding corners of her Waters and more intensely toward the pulsing Life within them.

My sweet love, Tierney sends out to her River and every plant and animal that lives in it. She rolls her head to the side, protectively leaning her cheek against the Vo’s bed as she’s struck by a fleeting sense of Viger’s thrall lashing through their bond like the sting of a whip, there and gone again in a flash of Darkness.

Tierney’s pulse amps up because there’s something off about Viger’s power, a brutal edge to its energy that’s deeply alarming. Tierney casts about for an explanation, the most obvious triggering a hot rush of chagrin.

Might Viger have sensed her dreams?

No, she assures herself, her flush growing uncomfortably hot. They were all hers, her own private imaginings, played out in her own mind.

Tierney stills, hunting for her central binding to Viger to get a sense of his location, and a brighter spark of concern lights. Her Deathkin bond to him has solidified, tendrils of his Darkness wrapping tight around her power’s core.

Covetously tight.

Tierney’s disquiet intensifies.

I need to find him, she realizes, beating back the reflexive dart of mortification over the scandalous dream-couplings.

Pushing off the riverbed, she swims to its bank and breaks through the Vo’s predawn surface . . . and the scene she’s met with whisks her breath away.

The Vo Forest’s foliage has transformed into a stunningly vibrant show of colors overnight. The riot of hues edging the leaves are reflected by the Vo’s slow-flowing surface, an early autumn chill in the air. The sky has lightened to a deep sapphire, the color glinting off the bond-Darkened runes dotting their dome-shield’s entire surface.

Tierney draws in a bolstering breath and steps onto the rocky riverbank, then whisks the water off her body, reassuring herself that, as mortifying as the dream effects of the strengthened bond between herself, Viger, Or’myr, and Fyordin might be, her beloved Vo is more powerfully protected now that it’s linked to that bond.

And she can’t deny it—a part of her feels decadently lit up by her new dream-knowledge of this thing most everyone at the Wyvernguard seemed to have full knowledge of already, with their Xishlon festival and shockingly open ways. Even though she’s never been with anyone outside of dreams, she now owns part of that knowledge, too, and feels powerful in the knowing, both desirable and full of her own potent desire, the feel of her River’s power of creation coursing straight through it . . .

“Unbond her, right now!”

Or’myr’s angry voice booms from just past the rocky embankment, and Tierney freezes.

She’s stunned by the level of vitriol in Or’myr’s tone, a blast of his Geo-Mage aura flashing through their bond in a crackling, purple rush. Alarmed, she rounds the stony bend . . . and emerges into utter chaos.

Viger, Or’myr, and Fyordin are facing off, all of them glaring murderously at each other, fists balled, muscles tensed, seeming ready to tear out each other’s throats.

Tierney’s concern surges as she takes in Viger’s sharpened horns and how his form is shirtless like the others, the snakes tattooed all over his chest writhing to life. His dark claws are out, body coiled for attack as he stares Fyordin and Or’myr down.

Wait, a part of her mind blares, Viger truly has snake tattoos?

Viger turns, his solidly black eyes arresting hers.

Before she can react, Viger’s snake tattoos elongate and slither toward her, the serpents encircling her and enveloping her in a tight, black spiral. Viger bares his teeth and hisses.

Her feet skid across rocky sand as she’s pulled clear to him in a blur, her outrage storming to life.

“What in the name of all the gods are you doing!”

Tierney snarls.

Viger’s hand clenches down around her arm, nails biting. “You’re mine,”

he growls.

Wait . . . what?

Or’myr draws his wand and levels it at Viger. “Get your hands and your bond off her.”

Tierney’s full storm bursts to life inside her as she levels a furious glare at Viger. “I asked you what you’re doing?”

Viger bares his teeth at her. Claiming you, he snarls through the bond.

Tierney’s storm surges, rapids-fast, and breaks free. Dark clouds roil into being overhead, a fierce wind picking up around them all as she narrows her gaze at Viger. “Do. Not. PROVOKE me.”

An aggressive smile rises on Viger’s dark lips. You imagine your power a trace of mine?

“Unhand her, Deathling,”

Fyordin growls, his stance confrontational, his invisible water aura bursting forth to rush around her. He raises both palms, roiling spheres of river water blasting into existence to hover above them. “She belongs to me and the Vo.”

Tierney’s eyes widen over Fyordin’s outrageous declaration as well as the staggeringly potent amount of Vo might he’s drawing up and readying to unleash straight at Viger.

“Have you given leave of your senses as well, Fyordin?”

Or’myr bites out as he aims his wand at the Asrai in emphatic warning, purple lightning forking around it. “None of us own her. Stand down. The both of you. Or I swear to Vo on High, I will make you both stand down.”

A hard punch of realization hits Tierney as she quickly scans the tattoo covering Or’myr’s chest—the Goddess Vo’s purple dragon manifestation, the purple Xishlon moon held in the dragon goddess’s claws . . .

Tierney blanches, feeling as if the bank beneath her feet is giving way, as she’s faced with the awful possibility that none of her dreams were solely her own, and Viger was able to read all three of them through their bond.

Her mortification and anger surging to monstrous heights, Tierney yanks her arm from Viger’s grip, slashes her hands through the air, and hurls out a powerful wave of storming energy. Viger’s serpentine bindings blast apart as she breaks clear of his thrall.

Barely.

“What in all the hells is going on?”

she cries as her thunder booms and rain begins to sheet down. She levels her furious gaze on Viger’s abyss-black eyes, Fyordin’s Vo-blue ones, then on Or’myr’s lightning-spitting look in belligerent question, hoping against hope that she’s wrong.

“Tierney,”

Or’myr says tightly, “we’re all bound more intimately than we realized.”

He shoots Viger a narrow glare as her winds whip around them all. “When we woke up, we were flooded by an awareness of . . . all of our mutual dreams.”

A fiery flush sears through Tierney. “Holy gods . . .”

she rasps out.

“She is bound to me before all!”

Viger hisses at Or’myr and Fyordin.

In a blur, Or’myr levels his wand on Viger, his Strafeling geo-aura bursting to purple life and pulsing around his tall frame. “Think carefully, Viger,”

he warns, his tone low and lethal. “If you want her to hate you, then, by all means, continue down this path.”

Viger’s lips twist into a vicious smile. “Death is hated by all, Strafeling.”

He raises his hand and snaps his Dark-clawed fingers, and Tierney is instantly swept into the irresistible pull of his thrall, her feet skidding toward him once more, as if gravity has found a new origin point.

Him.

A shock of hurt pierces Tierney as she digs in her heels and struggles to resist Viger’s pull, heart-stricken by his outrageous imagining that he owns her. She curses herself. Curses how she truly grew to care for him over these past few months. And suddenly, she can barely pull in a breath, deeply pained and thrown and flat-out furious as she holds firm against Viger’s mounting draw and the covetous flow of Fyordin’s burgeoning tempest.

With a growl, she draws on the Vo’s might, pulling it into her palms. A cry tearing from her throat, she thrusts out her hands, and two storming blue bolts stream from them, blasting away Viger’s and Fyordin’s powers.

Trembling with righteous anger, Tierney meets Viger’s ferocious gaze, sensing through their bond that she can’t rival his full power as she draws more storming magic into her palms, but she’s well past caring.

A shiver of out-of-control conflict slashes through Viger’s Darkness as he abruptly draws his thrall down.

But it’s too little, too late.

Tierney bores her piercing glare into him, wildly upset and breathing hard, furious at all of them. Furious at Viger and Fyordin for thinking they own her. Mortified over their collective dreams. And inexplicably furious at Or’myr for the intense, unwanted emotion their dream-coupling triggered to life inside her.

“None of you own me,”

she declares, struggling to hold back a typhoon. “Do you hear me? None of this matters, and none of you ever had a chance with me. I’m already spoken for!”

Or’myr blinks at her, seeming thrown. “There’s another man?”

She glares at him, frustrated beyond all reason as their power strains toward each other’s. “That’s the last thing I need,”

Tierney cries before turning and storming off toward her River.

“What do you mean ‘spoken for’?”

Or’myr calls out from behind her, his voice strained.

“She means the Vo,”

comes Fyordin’s harsh reply.

Hands at her hips, her breathing forcefully measured, Tierney’s steps halt as her soles meet the Vo’s cool water, every terror flooding back, too fast to handle—

The V’yexwraith demon.

The Mages and the Marfoir.

The terrifying Shadow poison sent into the Vo’s waters.

So much river life, so quickly destroyed.

Tierney reaches up to rake her fingers through her long, tousled hair, the Vo catching her ankles in a swirling embrace as she’s flooded with wave upon wave of clarity over how Viger’s Death Fae mating bond has caused them all to lose their senses.

She turns to say as much to all of them when a winged, Wyvern-like figure appears in the sky. Her gaze pivots west to find a whole host of winged figures flying in.

Alarm flashes not just through her power, but through Fyordin’s, Or’myr’s, and Viger’s. Viger’s low hiss vibrates through their bond, the world around them pulsing Dark as the winged army of black-clad soldiers soar in and hover above their translucent dome-shield, the soldiers horned and night dark in hue.

Zhilon’ile Wyvern-shifters.

Or’myr holds up a cautionary hand as one of the figures swoops lower than the others, flying down to the shield’s surface. “I know him,”

Or’myr says warily. “Vothendrile Xanthile’s brother, Gethindrile.”

A low growl rises in Viger’s throat. “I sense a threat,”

he hisses.

“By order of the joint Zhilaan and Vu Trin forces,”

Gethindrile booms, his wings beating on air, “drop your shielding!”

“Can you let only him in?”

Tierney asks Or’myr.

“I can,”

Or’myr answers as Vothe’s brother waits. Or’myr glances toward Fyordin and Viger, an unspoken search for confirmation in his eyes.

Both Fyordin and Viger give him quick nods of assent, drawing up their power as Tierney gathers her own. Seeming satisfied, Or’myr calls out, “Only Geth comes through!”

before he points his Wand-Stylus toward Gethindrile, murmurs a spell, and blasts out a thin bolt of violet lightning.

A small opening in the shield forms on contact, edged with raying, purple light. Vothe’s brother soars through it, the opening snapping shut behind him. Landing gracefully on the bank before them, Gethindrile has a combative look on his chiseled onyx face, bright white threads of lightning forking over his skin.

“Gethindrile,”

Or’myr greets him, wand leveled.

The Wyvern-shifter’s wings snap in tight behind him, Gethindrile’s gaze sweeping over them all in a tight glare. “You were all summoned by the Vu Trin to come in for questioning weeks ago pertaining to your relationship with the Magedom’s Black Witch.”

Or’myr lets out an aggravated sigh. “Well, I declined the summons, Geth.”

“I flat-out ignored it,”

Fyordin states, crossing his muscular arms in front of his broad chest as he and Tierney silently continue to draw up a formidable level of water magic, Or’myr quietly gathers his lightning, and Viger stealthily readies his full Darkness.

“You cannot just ignore a military summons,”

Gethindrile counters, lightning practically spitting out of his dark eyes.

A hard pulse of Viger’s Darkness strobes through the surrounding world, twin black snakes suddenly draped across his shoulders. The serpents open their mouths, purple tongues flickering as they hiss at Gethindrile.

“You think you can summon Death?”

Viger asks, lethally quiet, his lips lifting into a vicious grin. “Death does the summoning, Wyvern’kin.”

Snakes are suddenly streaming in from the Forest and River to surround Gethindrile, Viger’s ire clearly piqued.

Easy, Tierney thinks to him through the bond. He’s not our true enemy.

Viger glares at her, then glances pointedly toward the Wyvern army hovering high above. We are depleted. His voice shivers through her. The bulk of our power is flowing into the Vo’s shielding. And I sense a warring threat coming off of them in waves.

Unease rises in Tierney. Point taken, she concedes.

“You are being ordered,”

Gethindrile states formally as he eyes the gathering serpents, “by the commanders of Noilaan and Zhilaan’s joint Vu Trin forces, to immediately unshield the Vo River. Comply, and your ignored summons will go unpunished.”

Tierney’s Asrai power rears alongside Fyordin’s. “The Magedom has attacked our River from both ends,”

Fyordin growls before describing their battle with the V’yexwraith and Vogel’s forces. “Why would you want it unshielded?”

“We have need of this river’s elemental energy,”

Gethindrile answers. “To blast through the shielding the Black Witch and her forces have placed over the Dyoi Forest and the Zonor River. We need to draw on all of the elemental power of that land and water to create a storm band strong enough to battle Marcus Vogel’s Shadow storm bands to the west of us. The Mage forces have close to total control over not just the Western Realm, but the continent’s entire center, including Northern Ishkartaan, and they’re about to invade Southern Ishkartaan.”

Shock hits Tierney like a hammer blow. She can feel it reverberating through Viger, Fyordin, and Or’myr as well, straight through the bond.

A threat. There’s a threat to the Balance here.

Coming from their own side.

“If you draw up enough power from the Dyoi and the Zonor for a storm band,”

Fyordin warns, “you’ll consume too much. You’ll not only throw the East’s Natural Balance into utter disarray, you’ll completely destabilize the East’s weather.”

Gethindrile glares at him. “Marcus Vogel has mowed down almost the whole center of the continent. If he comes here, he’ll destroy the entire East. And you’re worried about weather that we control?”

Fyordin’s jaw hardens, a maelstrom in his eyes. “Your arrogance will be your undoing,”

he snarls. “Zhilaan only ‘controls’ the weather when working with a Balanced Natural World. But that Balance will be blasted into chaos if you destroy the Zonor and the Dyoi. We’re holding our shield.”

“The Asrai are right to stand their ground,”

Viger agrees, serpent calm, but there’s nothing calm about his full-Dark stare. “Too much of the Natural World has been lost. Lose more, and you will bring a Full Death Reckoning down on your heads.”

Gethindrile’s expression turns explosive as he casts a daggered glare at Viger. “Do you even care what’s at stake here?”

Viger’s teeth elongate as he snaps them at Gethindrile, his snakes flashing fangs. “Do you have any idea how close I am to being drawn into a Reckoning, Noi’khin? How close all the Deathkin are? Do you have any idea of the cruelty involved in trying to right even one slice of a destroyed Balance?”

“I think you have your answer,”

Or’myr calmly states.

Gethindrile cuts them all an outraged look. “The East trusted you. We let you all into our Wyvernguard.”

“You did,”

Tierney shoots back. “To protect the East. And we’re going to do just that. By protecting her largest rivers and adjacent forested land.”

Gethindrile’s face twists with disgust, lightning leaping through his eyes. “You’re no longer Vu Trin,”

he growls.

“So be it,”

Fyordin growls back, ignoring the pain Tierney senses strafing through his power. “But we are Asrai.”

He exchanges a look of ferocious alliance with Tierney before pointedly glancing at Or’myr and Viger. “And they are our Asrai’khin.”

Fierce emotion strikes through both Viger’s and Or’myr’s powers, straight through the bond as a surge of love for all three men rises inside Tierney, the power of the Vo swirling around and through them all.

A look of cold reappraisal tightens Gethindrile’s features. “You can’t fight us off forever.”

A laugh escapes Or’myr. “We’ll sure as hell try.”

Gethindrile hisses at him, baring his teeth. “We should have known better than to let the grandson of the Black Witch into Noilaan.”

A dart of anger sparks through Or’myr’s power, Gethindrile’s cruel words roiling Tierney’s internal tempest as Gethindrile thrusts his wings down and takes to the air, soaring toward the shield, angry crackling threads of lightning trailing in his wake.

Or’myr briefly opens an exit for him, and Gethindrile soars through it, then hovers in the air above the shield for a moment to confer with two other Wyvern-shifters, before the entire unit of soldiers fly back west. Throat tight, Tierney watches them wing toward the half-destroyed peaks of the Vo Mountain Range, likely assembling a large military force there to magic their storm band into being.

Holy all the hells.

Tierney turns back to her three Asrai’khin, the strength of their bond pulsing with troubled force. “What now?”

she asks, at a loss.

“I will travel to the continent’s central lands,”

Viger states grimly, turning his abyss-like eyes toward the half-decimated Vo Mountain Range. “And get a closer look at these storm bands Vogel has set in motion.”

Viger’s gaze collides with Tierney’s, those three words that live at the base of his line of fear suddenly escaping his hold to pulse through her with heart-striking force.

A knot of emotion tightens Tierney’s throat, her internal storm rearing, surprise welling to find herself loath to be separated from Viger, despite all her anger and confusion over his actions.

“Viger . . .”

she starts, but before she can get out another word, he bursts into multiple crows made of mist and takes to the sky.

Winging west.

Or’myr, Tierney, and Fyordin watch him leave in tense silence.

“He certainly has a flair for the dramatic,”

Or’myr notes, bringing a hand to his hip before spitting out a few Noi curses under his breath.

“Can we push our shielding west somehow?”

she asks him. “To join it to Elloren’s and Trystan and Vothendrile’s shielding?”

Or’myr glances at her sidelong. “That’s what I’m thinking. We’ll need two runic focal points of Asrai power to accomplish that, placed north and south.”

“Give me a rune-marked stone, and I’ll carry the focal point south,”

Fyordin volunteers, a quiver of fierce reluctance eddying from his power to rush around Tierney. He looks straight at her, a current of love for her streaming through their joined magic and flowing to both her and their River as Tierney struggles to bite back her rise of reciprocal feeling.

“I need to be the one to go,”

Fyordin insists. “I can more easily evade Vu Trin capture, since I have the most knowledge of how they operate.”

Tierney nods, grasping the truth of his words. And as much as she was angered by Fyordin’s domineering attitude toward her earlier, she can’t help but be impressed by how they’re all putting aside their differences and jealousies to save the East.

“Goodbye, Asrai’ir,”

Fyordin says, holding his forearm out to her.

Tears stinging her eyes, Tierney reaches out to grip him. She can tell from the pained reluctance streaming through his power that he’s saying goodbye to more than just their proximity.

Visible lines of their water power flow around each other’s forearms, and Tierney blinks back tears, steeling herself as she murmurs the traditional Asrai farewell she’s overheard both Fyordin and her other Wyvernguard Asrai’kin use again and again—“Asrai’ir m’yor’ith’illian.”

May the full flow of Erthia’s Waters go with you, Asrai’ir.

“Asrai’ir sil’thrier,”

Fyordin responds. And with you, Asrai’ir.

Then Fyordin gives her a bittersweet smile, releases her forearm, takes her hand, and lifts it, tenderly kissing its back, a knot of emotion tightening the base of Tierney’s throat. Fyordin releases her and strides into the Vo, raising a hand to both her and Or’myr in farewell, before diving underwater and dissolving into their Vo, streaming south.

For a moment, Tierney stares in the direction Fyordin is streaming toward. She turns to meet Or’myr’s gaze, his body and pants slick with her rain. She finds him studying her, one purple brow cocked, and warmth blooms on her cheeks as an inconvenient spark of attraction rises, an all too knowing look heating Or’myr’s gaze.

“Let’s just get to work, shall we?”

Tierney self-consciously offers.

“Good idea,”

Or’myr responds kindly. He sighs, a trace of welcome amusement dancing in his eyes as he peers up at their shield, then points his Wand-Stylus toward the stone wall of runes that anchor and feed energy into it. “Let’s set up our northern focal point of power, right there.”

He gives her a quick, loaded glance. “Seems a good place to channel all our pent-up . . . energy.”