AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No. Lio knew what she needed. Her Grace.
He fed more of his power into her. The Lustra magic pushed back like a sharp, protective thicket closing her off from him.
No. Lio’s shouted it through the passageways with his mind magic. Do you want to lose your Silvicultrix? Perhaps your last and only one? Let me help her!
“Reach for me as hard as you can,” he said to Cassia.
“I’m trying.” Her voice was so faint.
Body contact might stimulate the channeling. He flung off their clothes and stretched out behind her, spooning against her. He pressed a hand over heart, massaging her chest. Her skin was so cold. Her blood quieted, and her mind began to drift toward unconsciousness again.
He was so afraid that if she slipped under again, she would not come back.
“No, Cassia, stay with me!”
He stretched his magic, reaching into the roots of the Lustra’s ancient power.
She isn’t only yours anymore, he cried to that inhuman presence. She is mine too. She needs us both.
It flung him away. He wanted to rage at it, but it cared nothing for fleeting emotions. It obeyed only natural laws.
But Grace was the natural law that ruled his and Cassia’s blood.
If he bowed to the Lustra’s laws, would it acknowledge Hespera’s?
Lio bit his wrist and scattered his blood across Cassia’s sallow skin and the pale moonflowers.
“Take me,” he said, “for her sake.”
He stopped wielding his magic. He released it and let it drift unbound, an offering to the Lustra, as he sank his fangs into her throat.
The power reaching up through her seized him and twined him into the arcane pathways inside her. The channeling surged to life. With a heave of breath, she stirred in his arms. She scrambled back against him, as if desperate to mold as much of her body to him as she could.
You’re safe, he said deep in her mind, his arm around her. I’ve got you. You’re safe.
The cycle of her blood and his magic flowed between them. He tasted the vital flavor of the wilds. That wildness seemed to take hold of him. Energy coursed through his body, and a jolt of lust hit his groin. He grunted in surprise, trying to resist the way her buttocks pressed into him.
A cry sounded from within her aura, echoing through the passageways. The Lustra, calling out. To him.
He stiffened against her. He would not give in. She had almost died. Now was not the time to put any strain on her.
But the demand came again, primal and undeniable. He was her mate. He must obey the natural law.
The law in their blood and bodies was the same, he realized. When she needed him, he would withhold nothing. But no matter what the Lustra asked of them, it was Cassia’s Will that he heeded.
Do you need my body? he asked.
She moaned his name, rubbing weakly against him, already wet. Need you…all of you.
Hooking his arm under her leg, he parted her. He gave into the need to thrust inside her. As her tight channel enclosed him, another flood of his power opened between them, matched by a surge of Lustra magic from the ground beneath. Her heartbeat strengthened.
She relaxed in his arms, surrendering herself to his body. The act of trust set something afire inside him. Her need was desperate, her strength gone. He would be her strength.
Instinct told him what he must do for her. With a growl, he finished their feast and began their mating.
The soft petals of the flowers crushed under her as he turned her over. When her chest touched the earth, the Lustra magic burst up into her, making her heart race faster.
With a kiss on her temple, he positioned her, pillowing her head on her arms. He held her shoulders, pressing her down into the current from below. Then he shoved her thighs apart with his own so he could penetrate her deeper. She let out a soft cry, arching her back.
