Page 28 of Dark Hunter's Touch

Her hiss curled up in an icy plume, and the prism went dark. The rainbows winked out, sucked into the glass.

Surrounded by suddenly hungry shadows, Vaile reached for the blue amber necklace. Its power had turned a nameless whelp into a hunter. Without it, he would be…

Well, if he did this right, he and Olette would be alive.

The sword flared with stolen light just as he whipped the chain from his pocket. The pendant arced upward like a blue shooting star.

And the pyramid point of the sword—hungrily drawn to magics—tracked its flight.

Ankha cursed. The Lord Hunter launched himself to her side, reaching for her hands to change the sword’s attack.

But the sword had already chosen its prey, and the fire that licked from its tip was brighter than a thousand amber suns.

The pendant disintegrated in a blue mist, surrendering its magic to the entrapping prism, but Vaile was already whirling away, reaching for Olette. In the stark light, his shadow was blacker than his spread vanes. Her white wings flared as she slapped her palm into his.

A hard wind lifted both of them and spun them between the twisted wreckage of the double doors. He stumbled into her with a distinct lack of fae grace, feeling like an awkward whelp again, still seeking his wings.

Until she pulled him into her arms and her lips found his…

This, thiswaseverything, everything he wanted, everything he had dreamed.

And it would be the last thing he knew before the queen’s magic blasted them into oblivion.

He deepened the kiss, a wild dance of tongues since he would never have the chance to dance with her to the pipes and bells of the fae. Instead, the wind sang around them, whistling through the broken filigree of the doors. The wind lifted their wings, his heart, the edge of her skirt up to her thigh…. He clamped his hand on her bare skin and pulled her hard into his body.

His pulse sang louder than the wind, and his blood burned hotter than any amber sun. Olette’s wisps joined the dance, whirled by her knack. Their little white lights glimmered in the soft facets of the melted diamonds that were caught in the helix winding around them. Between the ruin of the flung doors, Vaile and Olette were caged in a shine of wisps and diamond and twisted steel.

The queen’s fury lashed out again, sharpened by the glass sword, but the delicate web—hardly more than nothingness—that had sprung up at their kiss caught and scattered the blast of magic in all directions.

And shattered the sword.

The courtiers screamed and fled from the deadly shrapnel. Ankha’s shriek was louder yet as the shards of the prism remaining in her hand burned with black flames.

The wisps danced on, free as always.

Olette raised her hand to Vaile’s cheek. “Want to run?”

“Only with you.” He yanked the vial of gate spores from his pocket and scattered a hasty circle.

For a desperate heartbeat, he feared he had used too many on returning the manticore, that the crystal floor was too slick, too desolate, for the gate to bloom, but before his eyes sprang up a circle of ivy. The leafy tendrils wove into the steel lattice. Through the barrier, the queen’s cries sounded far away.

Olette touched the heart-shaped leaves. “Where does the gate open?”

“Someplace we can make our own magic.”

Olette slipped her hand into his. “Take me there, Vaile, my love.”

He kissed her, hard and quick. “I’ve been dreaming of taking you again, ever since that night. But I have loved you far longer than that.”

She touched the curve of his lower lip, and her blue eyes glinted with promises of passion. “As I am yours.” But she looked back over her shoulder between the wrecked doors. “We fae have given up our dreams for illusion. Are they all as lost as I was?”

“You might have been lost, but you found me. You would make an excellent hunter. Or maybe savior.”

“I doubt the queen will see it that way.”

“Her lies and stolen power can’t last. I fear it is the court of the steel-born fae that will come undone in the end.”

He took Olette’s hand and slipped his last piece of blue amber—the ring—over her finger. He raised her hand to his lips, soothing the iron burn across her knuckles; that story would have to wait until they found their new sanctuary.

When the gate magic flared, she raised herself up to kiss him. Her fingers brushed along his jaw and dropped to his neck. The studded collar, long welded in place, sprang open, and he caught his breath.

She half closed her eyes, and the wind of her knack spread his wings with a caress from shoulders to talons. A few wayward wisps tickled under the vanes like bubbles. He had to smile. “I felt that.”

Her answering smile lifted his heart as she stepped into his arms and crossed with him into the gate. “You caught me, hunter. Just as I wished.”