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“You can’t—”

“Shut up and watch the power you wish you had!” he snarled as the people watching began to moan and sway and writhe around us.

Then he turned to face the people, and he stopped twitching. Stopped writhing. Stopped everything.

He tipped his head up, his chin high and raised his hands. “The dragon power is fueled by flame! And it courses in my veins!” he roared. “The dragons fly and sing and lift me higher. I am the Heir. I am the Prince. And with my Pair, I beckon us forward! To a new magik. The likes of which you have never seen. To a new age, to… the Cruors’ rule!”

I flinched as the chamber shook with their roars, and my skull shivered with the sound of Koa’s shriek of rage in our link.

Fighting Fire with Fire

~ VOSKI ~

‘…let it go, Voski. Trust what has been given to you—you do not need darkness to defeat darkness,’ Kham insisted.

‘It’s not a real spell!’

‘Yet, they believe you draw on magik. We do not impart dark power!’

From the moment I’d used the dark magik to make a show and convince them all that I was casting a spell, my dragon had been quietly, firmly, urgently insisting that I stop.

But I knew. They needed to see something if they were going to believe it.

I deflected Grace’s question about Koa’s fear, and hated myself a little bit for that. But I’d explain to them later. Right now, I had to convince everyone present—including my mother—that I had access to a power they did not.

Which was true, of course. But I couldn’t allow them to see the boundaries of integrity and honor. They’d destroy both of us before we took another step.

‘Trust, Voski. Trust the Creator to assist—’

Turning the knife in my grip so that blade flashed in the torchlight, I cut the last bonds that held Grace to the altar, then crawled up over her, letting my eyes blaze with what the Cruors would see as lust as I straddled her hips in a parody of sex, and braced myself over her.

She stared straight into my eyes, her love and trust shining like a sun, dimmed only slightly by the clouds of alarm that skittered across her gaze.

I prayed fervently I’d never again have need to see fear in her eyes when she stared at me.

‘Brace yourself,’ I sent as I traced the line of her jaw with bloodied fingers. ‘I’m going to tear your shift. I’ll do my best not to bare you.’

Her eyes widened and she bit her lip as I sat back, then took the neckline of her shift in both hands and tore it apart. She flinched as the rend of the fabric echoed in the chamber. But she didn’t fight. The Cruors, watching, anticipating one of their sick rites, shivered.

Breathing harshly, as if aroused, I leaned over her once more. The knife clattered on the marble altar above her shoulder, when I braced my weight on my palms. Grace’s eyes went round.

I locked eyes with her, shoveling love and reassurance through the bond as I made my tone dark with the lust for the body and power together, as a good Cruor would.

“The right hand signifies strength—steadfast, unwavering, and relentless. The left hand is cunning—intellect and foresight applied for victory. Choose. And raise the palm you would offer me,” I ordered her quietly, letting the weaves of magik—that putrid, oily darkness—carry my voice to the rafters so every man and woman present would hear.

Grace blinked. ‘But I’d give you both. Which should—oh, I see!’ Before I could answer, her breath rushed out of her as she raised both hands—both trailing those awful, bloody ropes—and opened them for me.

‘You’re amazing, Grace,’ I sent in the link. Then, with a groan they would read as desire, but in truth was shame for what I’d put her through when her heart was so good, I gripped my own shirt and tore it open, baring the center of my chest.

“Offer yourself. Offer your hands. Meld with me!”

Trembling, Grace raised both bloodied palms and laid them flat at the center of my chest.

The bond jolted at her touch there, and I twitched, crying out. The Cruors rippled with fascination, believing me overcome by the transfer of power. Then, chest heaving, I took my left hand and laid it at the center of her chest.

Grace shrieked and arched under me as much as my weight would allow, throwing her head back and bucking like she’d been struck by lightning.

And then, when she slumped, panting, but never broke contact with my skin, I smiled with the wicked delight any one of them would have employed when they saw their own power manifest.