Veil of Shadows (22 page)

“Touch it,” Elina said, lifting her hand, letting it hover about the tendrils of power swarming around them.

Back inside her body, inside the cabin, Syn felt Elina’s hand—twined with her own—lift.

In the energy plain, she lifted her hand and glided it just above the energy. She didn’t touch, but she felt it warm her skin nonetheless.

“Take it,” Elina ordered.

Syn sank both of her hands into the energy. Part of her mind warned of caution, but Syn couldn’t be cautious, not now. The power . . . it called her now. And through the power, she could feel Elina.

“Reach for me.” Elina extended a hand, although it wasn’t a physical hand. In the energy plain, they were not touching. Elina offered a link, a connection to her own strength. As the power pulled and tugged at Syn, she reached out and joined her power to Elina’s.

Their energies merged, and immediately, Syn felt the energy steady around it. It continued to wrap and wind about them, but she felt
connected
—connected in a way she hadn’t felt since the Gate went down. Grounded. Secure.

“It’s working,” Syn murmured.

The two grinned at each other and then they focused and reached out for Lee.

Syn felt drugged.

With a wide, wobbly smile on her lips and her heart racing, she slipped inside her dormer and leaned back against the door. A laugh bubbled out of her as she cupped her hands together. She focused, and there . . . right in her hands, flame danced. A small, fiery little ball. The grin faded from her lips as she focused, and slowly, the little ball of fire began to spin. Her eyes narrowed and the ball constricted, then expanded, responding to her unspoken commands with ease.

“It worked . . .”

Abruptly, she realized she wasn’t alone. Her skin burned, and without seeing him, she knew who it was. Through her lashes, she cast a glance around her dormer and found him leaning in the doorway that led to her small, personal bathroom. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and he stared at the flames she held in her hands, an unreadable look in his eyes.

She closed her hands, banishing the flames just before the fire would have burned her flesh. Holding his eyes, she lowered her hands to her side and stared at him.

“I never realized just how fucking erotic it would be to see a witch using her magic,” he mused, shoving away from the door and starting toward her.

Syn blushed. “Erotic?”

“Hmm. Erotic. Earlier, when the three of you were doing this, right before Elina and you started on Lee, you had this look on your face.” He stopped in front of her and trailed a finger across the line of her mouth, down along her neck, tracing the line of her cavinir tunic and stopping at the fastener, centered between her breasts. He caught it and started to drag it down, slowly, bit by bit revealing more of her flesh. Syn brought her hands up, resting them on his hips.

“You had this look . . . It was almost the exact same look I’ve seen on your face when I’m inside you. I still can’t decide if I’m jealous or not.”

Her breath caught in her throat and her heart skipped a couple of beats as he reached up and pushed the tunic off her shoulders. It caught on her elbows, but when she went to tug it away, Xan caught her wrists and dragged them overhead, pinning them to the wall.

Against her belly, she could feel the hard, thick ridge of his cock and she groaned, rubbing against him. Xan shuddered and leaned in, using his weight to still her body. “Stop it,” he muttered.

“Why?” she asked, turning her face and pressing her mouth to his neck. She licked him, tasting salty sweat and man.

“Because I’ve got a mind to seduce you, but I can’t do that if you turn me into a slobbering, raving maniac in the next five seconds, now can I?” Shifting her wrists to one hand, he reached inside her open tunic and cupped her breast. He circled the nipple with his thumb and murmured, “I was watching you—terrified that something would go wrong, and you’d get hurt. Then you started breathing fast, heavy . . . like you are now. A blush turned your cheeks pink and you smiled, the same way you’re smiling now. You were aroused, and it drove me mad. There I stood, worrying that you were in danger, and you were aroused.”

He pinched her nipple and raked his teeth down her neck. “Were your nipples hard like they are now?”

“Yes . . .” Her breath hissed out of her, and she jerked against his grip, desperate to touch him.

He stroked his hand down her middle, toying with the waistband of the formfitting cavinir she wore, then slipping his hand inside.

Syn groaned as he pushed two fingers inside her aching sex.

Xan growled against her neck and rasped, “You’re already wet. So fucking wet . . .” He jerked back and let go of her hands abruptly. Syn wobbled, caught off balance, reaching out to brace her weight on his shoulders. He removed her tunic and flung it across the room and then he went to his knees in front of her, jerking her boots off, and then her trousers. She was naked before him in under a heartbeat.

She fisted her hands in his silken, midnight hair and whimpered as he leaned in, pressed his mouth to her. “So wet,” he muttered, circling his tongue around her clit. “So sweet.”

Her face flaming, Syn closed her eyes. As quiet as he was, it never ceased to amaze her how much he liked to talk at certain times . . . like now. When he was licking her flesh, when he was pushing two fingers in and out of her body in a quick, steady rhythm, he liked to talk. Dirty, wicked words that were almost as erotic as the feel of his mouth on her, as the feel of his tongue circling around her clit.

“I want you to come,” he said gruffly. “I want to taste it. Want to feel it. Come for me, Syn.”

She whimpered and arched closer, desperate to be as close as possible. He caught her thigh and guided it up, draped it over his shoulder. Her other leg threatened to buckle and she swayed. Then he used his hands to steady her, hold her as he shifted lower, lower . . . replacing his fingers with his tongue.

Syn cried out as he stiffened his tongue and started to fuck it in and out her pussy. He was growling, pausing every now and then to mutter something against her flesh. But her brain couldn’t process it—couldn’t think. All she could do was feel . . . All she could do was feel
him
just before she flew apart.

She was still struggling to catch her breath when he stood and caught her in his arms, carrying her to the bed. She sank against the thin mattress, closing her eyes as she labored for air.

He joined her, catching her sigh with his mouth as he rolled on top of her and settled between her thighs. “Wrap your legs around me,” he whispered. “Pull me close.”

She did, shuddering as it brought them together. He throbbed against her, thick, hard and hot. “Xan . . .”

Against her chest, she could feel his heart, beating fast and heavy. Forcing her eyes open, she reached up and covered his heart with her palm. Staring into his gaze, she said, “Make love to me.”

As he sank inside her, they watched each other.

As he started to rock against her, they watched each other.

As their climaxes burned ever closer, they watched each other. Syn’s lashes drifted low and she whimpered, arching and rocking her hips, needing more, needing all. Xan caught her chin in his hand and angled her head back. His voice a rough, insistent growl, he rasped, “You look at me.”

She forced her eyes open, staring at him from under her lashes.

It hit her low and hard, rippling and echoing, dancing through her body, pulsating inside . . . like a drug.

Staring at him, she reached up and caught the back of his neck, dragging his head down and kissing him. Hungry. Desperate for his kiss, for his taste. For him.

Xan was becoming her drug, she realized.

Something she needed every bit as much as her magic.

Maybe even more.

“Commander, if we’re going to do this, now is the best chance we’re going to get,” Syn said, spreading the map flat on Kalen’s desk and indicating the route she’d chosen for the next supply run.

“How many soldiers are you planning to take?” Kalen eyed the map. His face revealed nothing, but she knew he dreaded these supply runs.

Cautiously, she said, “I only want one squadron.”

His eyes flashed silver, but that was the only change in his expression. His voice was flat as he asked, “Have you gone and developed a death wish recently, Captain?”

“Not hardly.” She lifted a hand when he opened his mouth again and said, “Please. If you’d let me explain. A smaller unit will move quicker, make less noise. And . . . I want to go with them. Now that the magic is available to me again, I can provide far more in the way of offense than a full-sized unit.”

A troubled look passed over Kalen’s face. “You’re so certain that it’s safe.”

“I am.” Syn knew he wanted to believe that, knew he wanted to trust her . . . and she also knew his fear for Lee made him wary. “I know it’s safe for
me
. For Elina. We’ll have to proceed with caution with Lee, because we don’t know what’s going to happen when she uses her gift—if it will react differently since she has Gate magic—and we don’t want anything alerting the Anqarians. But I’m stable. Lee’s stable. Elina’s stable. I can feel it. I’d know if something was wrong, and that’s not arrogance, or wishful thinking—I’d just know. I’d feel it.”

She glanced down at the maps in front of her and then back at the commander. “We need these supplies, Kalen, and you know it.”

He nodded. With a heavy sigh, he rubbed the back of his neck. “This net—what helps you, Elina and Lee anchor one another. Is
it
stable?”

“Yes. It’s like a shield, almost. We’ll reinforce it and add to it over time, and when the time comes that we need to add more people to it, we’ll have to adjust, but the net itself, it’s very stable, and maintaining it—it takes nothing from me. It’s fueled by the same energy that fuels my magic.”

Long, heavy moments of silence passed. A muscle ticked in his jaw and then abruptly, he nodded. “So be it. You’re the witch, Syn. If you say it’s safe, then I have to trust that.”

She stared at him, not entirely certain she believed what she’d just heard him say.

“You’ve never let me down yet, Syn.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “I shouldn’t have let myself forget that.”

Then he settled in his chair, studied the maps. “Let’s go over this. And you’d better make it good . . . I still don’t like the idea of such a small team.”

Before he could change his mind, she outlined the plan.

“We can make better time, get through the forest quicker. We’ll take the baerns, one for each of us and a few extra to help bring back the supplies.”

When she was done, he gave her a narrow look. “You should have made it better, Syn. Still don’t like the idea.”

Syn didn’t particularly like it herself, but it was a good plan. It was a solid one. Choosing her words carefully, she explained that. “Kalen, whenever we make a supply run—or go
anywhere
more than a few hundred yards from the camp—we tend to lose men. Sometimes, it’s just a few; sometimes, it’s a lot. Every once in a while, nobody dies. We take larger numbers because those larger numbers give us more strength when confronting the demons, yet when we have larger numbers, we have a high casualty rate, too. But I can provide that same strength, and if we have half the men we usually take, we can move quicker. We can make it safer when we stop for the night and I can set up defenses that will keep the demons from catching us by surprise while we sleep.”

“I know the positive aspects, Syn.” Kalen leaned back and stared off into the distance, brooding. “I used to lead scouting teams, remember?”

Of course she remembered. That was where she’d met him—for the first few years, she’d dressed as a boy and just made herself useful around the camp. Then she was finally assigned to act as one of the scouts, and Kalen had been in charge of her unit. The two of them had been working together for close to twenty years.