Page 79

The air was painted with a red vapor. Odorless and silky smooth on my skin as we pushed through the tangle of woods, the red casting our faces in a hellish glow.

“Not fire.” I hacked a thick branch out of the way with my sword.

The green world looked almost black within the haze, like blood sliding over everything, slipping inside every crevice and crack.

The trees began to thin away, no longer touching, no longer crowding close. They stood spaced apart like sentries on vigil, keeping in as much as they kept out.

I lowered my sword, less cutting and whacking required. Even though we could finally stand side by side, I led the way, stepping out into a little meadow.

I was the first one to see her.

The first one she spoke to in a molten voice, a caress sliding over my skin, wrapping around my throat, sliding down... taking me by the cock and leading me forward.

“Well, hello. I thought you would never get here.”

IT WAS SOMETHINGout of a fever dream. A wine-soaked dusk. A blurred, red-infused illusion.

I felt fuzzy-headed, swaddled in cotton. Pleasantly so. My thoughts were muddled, as though I had consumed one too many mugs of ale, which was... different.

Spirits never affected me. I could drink all day, all night, and never feel the least bit intoxicated. It was unusual. I had even put it to the test before, trying to get drunk one of those nights when the ache went deep and the losses were keen and we had suffered the death of one too many and the hunger for oblivion clamored deep within me.

I had watched others become stupid drunk, unstable on their feet, loud and giddy and not themselves as they succeeded in numbing their pain. Not me. Never me.

Until now.

Mari, Magnus, and Vidar stumbled around behind me like silly children, their laughter and voices tinny and distant in my ears.

A figure emerged through the red. A woman. She materialized like smoke... something from nothing, moving slowly, seductively, languorously, weaving like a ribbon threading through the trees—except when she did not. Except when she moved quickly, like a dart launched, an arrow released, flying from one point to the next in a rushing blur, a swift stroke of paint slashing across the crimson-drenched air.

She was an enticement of curves: breasts full and juicy, as tumescent as melons on the vine and visible beneath sheer fabric; her nipples dusky points brushing hypnotically against wafer-thin material.

Blood rushed to my cock.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my love...”

As tantalizing as the sight of her was... it was her voice that undid me, flowing like sweet wine, dripping thick and syrupy on the air. The sound ran down my throat, settling warm and viscous inside my belly and then winding even lower.

Her face was as hazy as the atmosphere. A watercolor in progress, an unfinished painting, the promise of beauty and euphoria there... shifting, flashing, blurring beneath the red veil that covered everything.

She continued to speak in that captivating voice, her beguiling words wrapping around me.My love. Sweetheart. Come to me. Hold me.

I stepped closer, obeying, and her face snapped into focus... sucking the breath right out of me.

Tamsyn.

Tamsyn as I had never seen her before. Her fiery hair loose, a nimbus of flame around her head, tumbling down her shoulders. Her eyes bigger, brighter. Her lips more luscious... Her body ripe, her skin glowing opalescent in the ruby glow, begging for my hands, my lips, my tongue.

She beckoned for me with slender hands, and I came, most willingly, readily, catching her up in my arms. I buried my face in her hair with a groan.

“My love,” she purred, her delicious fingers in my hair, delicate nails scraping down my throat, chest, back, everywhere, all at once.

I felt her against me, all over, impossibly. But I did not stop to consider impossibilities. I did not question the sudden appearance of her here, like this; the crimson air flowing over us like an ocean wave, engulfing me, sweeping me into its endless depths.

There was only this. Now. What I saw. What I felt. What I needed.

Nothing impossible here. Only Tamsyn.

I pulled back, and then I was tasting her, her candied lips on mine, her honey tongue in my mouth.