Page 59 of Lana Pecherczyk

A pause stretched like death’s breath.

One of the others muttered, “Floater.”

River’s posture went rigid. A hush fell over the clearing. Floater was the weirdest insult to sling.

He sighed dramatically and tilted his face to the canopy.

“Ancestors save me,” he groaned, “from the stupidity of shriek owls.” He shook his head and then addressed the offender directly. “You know I’m a Guardian, right?” He gestured down at his uniform, his teardrop mark. “By definition, I didnotfloat and bloat in the ceremonial lake. I became this. A winner.”

“Yeah, well,” the owl shifter blustered. “That Guardian mark doesn’t change what you are—just another crow thinking he’s better than the rest of us.”

“It makes me better at tearing owl wings from their sockets.”

They attacked as one in a coordinated drive that spoke of years fighting together. But River didn’t even bother drawing a weapon. He moved like water through their formations—each dodge precise, each strike devastating, every movement unpredictable and lethal.

Blake’s breath caught as her mate deflected attacks with almost casual boredom. This wasn’t the controlled violence from their first meeting or even at the tavern. This was artistry in destruction. Every movement rippled through his muscles. He was raw power wrapped in snug leather.

He caught the first’s wing and used the momentum to slam him into his companion. Bones crunched. An embarrassingly wimpy shriek pierced the air.

But then a hit landed on River, and playtime was over. His responding strike was a razor-thin slice across their skin with his claw. Blood sprayed. Artery hit with precision.

A wild feminine urge within Blake recognized a worthy protector in her mate. It was instinctive, base, and primal. It went against logic and the knowledge that he’d forced her to stay put, pissing her the hell off. The flash of hot desire was so unlike her that she wondered if it was part of the magical bond. Maybe even part of his animal side bleeding into her through the bond.

Her pondering vanished as she became lost again in River’s brutal dance. Attraction and heat multiplied in her body like wildfire. When he spun and caught the third’s throat with finesse, her mind transformed the scene into something shocking … and arousing. It wasn’t the owl being choked—it was her, pressed against silk sheets. That wasn’t the shifter’s arm bent behind his back—it was her wrists pinned above her head while River’s teeth grazed her neck.

Blake wrenched her eyes away, cheeks heating with a realization.

She’d thought her libido had died long ago. It was just a fact of marriage. But all those times Jeff had dismissed her adventurous lovemaking suggestions, and even called her crude for wanting to fuck in his new office or to try out bondage. Or that one time she’d surprised him in a bedazzled negligee, and he’d balked. It hadn’t been about propriety at all. It was about him. He’d wanted a trophy wife who looked demure and lay still. Someone who made him feel important. Not a trucker-mouthed, defiant woman with talents and desires that didn’t fit his mold. His touches had been empty, mechanical, always about his pleasure while she dreamed of more. The missionary position and two-pump rhythm were as methodical as his morning workout routine.

She wasn’t the one lacking substance. Jeff was.

The notion unlocked something inside her. Something she’d denied for a long, long time. Her gaze whipped back to the fight, to bask in River’s physicality without shame. She didn’t evenfeel scared. He seemed so in control. Hadn’t once reached for a weapon and used only his hands and claws. Almost as if he knew she watched. As if this was a show for her eyes only.

What if it was? What if she didn’t have to feel guilty over how her marriage ended? What if this was the start of her life, and she was free to be whoever she wanted to be? To desire whoever she wanted, any way she wanted him. What if he wanted her the same way?

What you call a mess,he’d said earlier,I call a visual feast.

Her physical attraction toward him surged with a visceral power that stole her breath. She bit her lip to stop herself from moaning.

River stumbled mid-strike, his head whipping her way, eyes narrowing.

The distraction cost him. Two owl shifters caught his arms while the crow drove a knee into his spine. They vanished behind a curtain of ferns, leaving Blake with only the sounds of a struggle and wet, choking noises to interpret.

“River!” she shouted, thrashing against the invisible restraints.

Squeezing the burn from her eyes, she forced herself to calm down. To ignore the sounds of violence. He was okay. He could handle himself. Right?

“Do something,” she urged herself. “Why can’t you do something to help?”

The other women from her time were all magic. It had been days since Blake thawed out in Elphyne. They said she was supposed to be like them—powerful. That she would develop a special gift, but all she had was this bond with River and a tiny spark of awareness when a Well-enforced debt triggered.

She reached for that spark, for any hint of magic that might help her mate. The Well hummed in every particle around her,in earth and air and scattered drops of blood, but remained frustratingly out of reach.

Her desperate gaze landed on the tips of the eucalyptus sapling and a shard of broken vase. The rest was hidden behind vegetation.

You like to make broken things shine,River had told her.

“Come on,” she growled through her teeth. “I have to be worth more than this.”