forearm to him, the sight of my sealed fastmarks triggering the harrowing memory of his family’s estate being swallowed up in blue fire.
“Lukas,” I say as he takes hold of my arm, places his rune-marked wand’s tip to my skin, and murmurs a spell. “I’m sorry about your family.”
Lukas’s gaze flicks up to mine, a flash of anguished conflict passing through them. His affinity fire rears then abates, as if he’s violently stamped it down. “Do you mourn your aunt?” His voice is full of virulent emotion as he keeps his wand’s tip pressed to my skin.
Discord wrests hold of me.
Aunt Vyvian was family. Someone who had been in my life since I was a young child. But how could I possibly mourn the woman who threatened to harm my brothers? Who used me as a tool to maintain her political power and gloated at the thought of my pain?
Who was responsible for the death of my beloved uncle Edwin?
My angry conflict morphs into a knifepoint of grief for my uncle.
“No,” I force out roughly, my fire now a disjointed mess that’s running chaotically hot against the underside of Lukas’s shield. “I don’t mourn her.”
Lukas slides his fingers dexterously along the small runes worked onto his wand’s hilt as if he’s playing a complicated instrument. Threads of glowing blue course from his wand to flow across my skin.
I study him with concern as runic sorcery tingles over me. “But, Lukas,” I press, “this was your whole family...”
Lukas’s firelines spike with a surprising level of ferocity. But then his invisible flame pulls in taut once more as a hard wall of his earth magery clamps down around his lines and his searing green gaze flashes to mine. “I do not mourn them,” he spits out in a blaze of conflicted pain, then focuses back down on the work at hand.
My mind reels from his admission, which is even more jarring, because we can’t lie to each other and I can feel the truth in his words. But then I try to imagine a family with only Aunt Vyvians in it. And I realize, with deep remorse, that Lukas’s entire life has been that way. No one to truly care about him. Everyone around him worshipping and loving power and prestige above all else.
“Would you mourn me?” I ask, the question escaping me as rune sorcery courses over my skin.
Lukas is silent for a moment, his gaze pinned on the blue magic branching along my wrist.
“Yes, Elloren.” His gaze lifts to mine. “I would mourn you for the rest of my life.” I send an answering rush of warmth toward him as I take in the impassioned look in his eyes. The very same look he gave me last night, when he merged every last part of his desire and his magic with mine.
Raw longing.
And something even stronger than that.
Our fires mingle in a heartfelt caress, tears stinging my eyes as I hold Lukas’s emotional gaze and the web of blue lines pulls into my arm, teasing through the shield just under my skin to form a stronger barrier.
Another crack of thunder booms, breaking through our momentary bond.
Lukas glances at the storm-darkening sky then cuts me an uneasy look as he gently releases my arm and resheathes his rune wand. “We need to go,” he says as he briefly caresses my arm.
“How far do you think we can get before the storm breaks?” This part of Gardneria is famous for its storms, and the longer they gather, the fiercer they are when they finally let loose.
This one has been gathering for a while.
“To the base of the Caledonian Range,” Lukas says, as white bursts of lightning briefly illuminate the angles of his face, giving him a stark look. “We need to put more distance between us and Vogel. We’ve only a small window of time.”
Dread wells up inside me. “Before what?” Thunder cracks as lightning skitters across the sky.
Lukas’s eyes are a flash of warning. “Before night falls and he’s able to hunt you with stronger magic.”
* * *
The storm continues to gather, like some enormous beast that’s patiently tracking us. As the day slides closer to night, the clouds thicken and billow angrily, shaking out thunder and lightning like an enraged fist but still holding back the torrent.
Every so often, Lukas signals for me to halt beside him, an urgent look in his eyes as we dismount. He slides his arm around me and pulls me into an impassioned kiss, sending