LITMIR.BIZ

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by the runes on his wrists and ankles, now it fought him whenever a strong emotion was triggered. “I can’t…don’t come any closer, else…else…”

      “Else you’ll make incredibly hot, fast love to me?” Her voice was filled with amusement, even as it stroked over his skin like the softest of silks, making him shudder with want and need and desire, all tangled up with the soul-deep love he felt for her.

      He moaned, and suddenly, she was there, her summery scent of flowers in the afternoon sun filling his senses, her hands on his back, stroking him, no doubt intending to convey comfort, but it was too much, all too much.

      “Allegria,” he snarled, whirling around, his gaze scorching over her body despite the faded and worn Bane of Eris tunic that obscured it. “If you don’t want me to pin you up against the tree behind you, and impale you on a penis so hard it could probably be used to take down the tree itself, then you had best run. Now.”

      She eyed him for a moment, concern making the gold flecks in her ebony eyes glitter. Then suddenly she smiled, and without a word, peeled off both the tunic and leggings that covered her lush, long legs, legs that he knew wrapped around his hips perfectly, as if she had been created just for him.

      A wordless moan of need escaped his lips. Unable to bear it any longer, he almost ripped off his own tunic and breeches, then lunged, the chaos driving him into action. But his love, his need to give her the pleasure she brought him just by existing, tempered his movements, gentling his actions so that when he suited deeds to words and pinned her against the tree, she was moaning into his mouth, her legs wrapped tightly around him as he plunged into her body.

      They didn’t last long, but that, too, was common in recent days. Before he’d been forced to consume chaos magic, he had preferred to pay lengthy homage to her body before allowing himself release; now it was simply a matter of trying to bring her pleasure before he lost all control.

      “I have to say,” Allegria noted a few minutes later, when he let her slide down his body until her feet were once again on the ground, “I really don’t mind your chaos moments. I know you don’t like them because you think it’s the chaos controlling you, but really, Hallow, that was perfectly splendid. Fast, but splendid. Your hip flexibility is a wonder to behold. And that little twist you did—hoo! If such a thing were not unsavory, I’d say you should hold classes to teach other men how to do that thrusting twist. It was most effective.”

      He laughed even as he bent to retrieve the clothing that had been strewn on the branches and ground, one half of his mind filled with sated thoughts, the other worried that his need for her was growing stronger each day. “I appreciate your wishing to share the twist—which was inspired by the very same twist you used when you rode me last night—but I would have no idea what to charge for such a class, let alone where I would hold it. My heart, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

      He asked the last when she grimaced while lifting a foot to pull on her leggings, making quick work of the cross ties. “Not at all, although if we have very many more of the false alarms that kick your chaos magic into a blaze, I will end up walking funny. I grimaced because I had a twinge in my posterior. All that time sailing has weakened my saddle muscles.”

      He gave her a quick leer as he finished dressing, calling out an answer when Deo bellowed impatiently for them before saying, “I will be happy to massage your abused parts later, but if I tried it now, we’ll both be walking funny.”

      She took his hand as he led her through the woods back to the road, casting him a glance that turned from amusement to concern. “We’ll figure out something, Hallow. I’ll talk to Deo about adding more runes to the cuffs. Mayhap that is all that is needed.”

      “Mayhap,” he said, but he had a feeling it was going to take more than a few extra containment runes to push the chaos back to its dormant state.

      * * * *

      It took them two days to ride to Kelos, but the rune that Deo recommended when they stopped the first night seemed to help cage the chaos beast that raged inside him, so that by the time the lone standing tower was visible in the distance, Hallow felt a bit more in control, and ready to face what lay ahead.

      “I have to admit that I’m surprised we haven’t encountered any Eidolon,” he said quietly to Allegria where they rode at the rear of their company. Deo and Quinn, the lifebound captain who’d grudgingly allowed himself to be swept into their plan to subdue the Eidolon before turning their respective attentions to locating Nezu, argued over the best way to remove troublesome spirits from the mortal plane. “No one I spoke to in the three towns we’ve passed through has seen so much as a ghostly wisp, let alone a murderous thane and his soldiers.”

      Allegria gave a little shiver, rubbing her arms before deftly keeping her mule Buttercup from nipping the rump of the horse in front of them. “You don’t know just how deadly that thane can be. If he’s out of his crypt, and as angry as Sandor said, then I suspect he’s laying plans that go beyond the mere slaughtering of people near Kelos.”

      “What sort of plans?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. He had little knowledge of the Eidolon other than what Allegria had told him, and brief mentions in the journals of the former Master of Kelos. “Do you believe they wish to rule Kelos? There isn’t much there but the spirits who are bound to the land, and they are mostly peaceful.”

      She raised an ebony eyebrow, silently reminding him that both the captain of the guard and the other spirits had attacked them when they’d first arrived at Kelos.

      “Mostly,” he repeated, smiling at her.

      “I don’t know what the thane is up to,” she answered after letting her fingers trail over his hand where it rested on his thigh. The chaos magic threatened to wake up at her touch, but he clamped down hard on it. She hesitated, her brows pulling together for a few seconds. “I just have a feeling that he’s up to something. When Sandor said that the Eidolon were running amok, I had the same sort of idea you had—that they were killing anything that lived. But no one seems to have heard of the Eidolon doing anything. It just seems odd, don’t you think?”

      “Yes,” he said, absently capturing her hand when she would have withdrawn it, and twining his fingers through hers. “I think that Deo will have the opportunity he seeks to destroy spirits, although I have no idea how he expects to do that when chaos magic is powered by the act of death.”

      “I have the exact same worry. I might be able to do it, though.” Allegria sighed and glanced upward, where a few fluffy clouds hid Kiriah Sunbringer from their view. “If Kiriah would remember that I exist, that is.”

      Hallow decided that the time was right to broach a subject he’d had some time to think over. If nothing else, it would focus his attention away from just how warm her hands were, and how much he loved their touch. “Does it not occur to you that perhaps Kiriah is withholding herself from you in order to protect you?”

      She shot him a startled glance. “Protect me how? I’m a lightweaver, Hallow—wielding Kiriah’s power is what I do. I shouldn’t have to be protected from it.”

      “Not her power, no, but—” He hesitated, thinking of how best to put his thoughts into words that wouldn’t insult her. “But perhaps she wishes to keep her power from you so that it cannot be used by another.”

      “Another? What other? Who could possibly be able to use the power of Kiriah other than a lightweaver, and possibly a priestess of her temple?” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Sandor might, but I can’t believe she would misuse such a blessing. Besides, one of the older priests once said that in her youth, Sandor had a sword made up of sunlight, and that she used it to banish the old ones. She has plenty of power of her own, so she need not poach mine.”

      “Old ones?” he asked, his mind quickly rifling through the various facts gleaned from his readings. “The stone giants?”

      “Yes. But no one has ever seen this sword. Once, when I was a girl, I asked Sandor if it was like my light animals, and she told me it was not a subject fit for discussion, which

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