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She moaned into me, her words against me, around me. Near. Far. Everywhere.

The sound of her voice echoed and reverberated all around me.My love. I need you. You need me. You. Need. Me.

Her words started in my ears, and then poured into my blood, burrowing into my bones, pooling in my marrow, my soul.

I was drunk with it. Drunk with her.

You need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me you need me.

She was not wrong. I needed her.

I was panting. Reaching for her, desperate to haul her closer and bring her inside me.

She shifted away but did not break contact. Her fingers stroked my cheek, her smile for me alone even as she made room for the others, greeting Mari and Magnus and Vidar as they came at her like ravenous wolves, their eyes glazed, charged, intoxicated by her.

They leaned into her, desperate and starving, taking her with their hands and mouths, and she devoured them right back.

She kept that hand on my face, her fingers a lifeline, a tether, and I watched, too befuddled to do anything except arch into her touch, soaking it in, absorbing everything about her that I could asshe kissed Mari, then Magnus... encouraging Vidar to drop to his knees and seize her hips, nuzzling his big face against her belly.

Something dark and hostile stirred beneath the pleasing fog, beneath my buzzing, humming lust, cutting through the fizz in my blood. A growl rumbled up from my chest.

Tamsyn’s bright-eyed gaze locked on me, and dimly I thought her eyes were not quite right. The amber not quite the correct shade. There was something black and gleaming beneath the usual fiery glow. Black and deep as a tar pit, something that sucked you in and never let you out.

Her face flickered then, went in and out like a guttering candle flame fighting for air. In that brief struggle... a hint of something else,someoneelse glimmered beneath her features before her familiar countenance took hold again.

I scrubbed a knuckle against one eye, trying to clear my vision. When I looked again, it was Tamsyn.

Achingly beautiful Tamsyn.

I didn’t know what I had seen in that blink of a moment, but it was her again now, tenderly stroking my face, kissing my warriors, letting them touch her everywhere even as she reached for me, pulling me in closer, her hand leaving my face and sliding down my chest, her sweet words both soothing and thrilling.I am yours. You are mine.

Magnus’s hand went to her breast, and something revived in me. Growling and snarling, I shoved him away. I shoved them all away. Standing in front of her, chest heaving, I glowered at them as I lifted my sword, murder in my heart.

She made a tsking sound, her hands coming up to my shoulders. “Come now, my love, none of that. There is more than enough of me for everyone.” The seductive purr of her voice wrapped me in its fold like a warm blanket, softening me, dousing my wrath and binding me to her will.

Frozen, I could only watch her as she dropped down onto her knees before me, her hands reaching for my belt. Her words breathed ice over my fevered flesh.I am yours. You are mine.

27

Tamsyn

IMADE MY WAY NORTH. THORA’S ADVICE HAD NOT DETERREDme. Besides. Where else could I go? Where else did I belong?

I recalled those mist-encircled summits as though they were from a dream. My panicked tear through the sky felt as though it had happened in another life. And I supposed it had. It had happened to someone else.Somethingelse. Not the girl I appeared now. And yet I recalled the perfect calmness that had settled over me when I’d looked at those mountains. The peace, the sense of surety—refuge. Considering I didn’t feel that way about anything or anyone anymore...

I was headed to the Crags.

I held the compass Thora had given me in my hand, marching determinedly in line with the little jiggling arrow. There was no sun here in the skog. Only a canopy of tangled branches and leaves blotting out the light. No way to determine which way was north without this compass. Another reason to be grateful for Thora. I would be lost if not for her.

And yet the compass wasn’t the only thing filling the cup of my palm. Beneath my glove, my hand sparked and buzzed with awareness.

It had throbbed that way ever since I awoke in the barn—even before that... since I was blooded to Fell—but now my body was one great amalgamation of feelings and emotions and sensations,sparking with heat, a great throbbing force as I strode forth. It was impossible to fixate on my hand when I was being bombarded on all sides. When there were so many distractions, so many things happening, churning through me.

The air was changing. From thin to thick. From water to syrup. From a murky opaque, typical of a dense forest, to... red.

A red film draped over everything.

Another mystery in a growingly bewildering world.