Final Prophecy 05 - Blood Spells Read Free Page A

the proper answer, the dutiful one. And the warrior within her meant every word of it, even as the woman yearned to turn back the clock.
    “We need to—”
    “Uplink,” she interrupted.
    He exhaled. “Patience . . . ,” he began, but then trailed off and reached out to her in return, pausing just before their fingers touched. Magic curled between them, hazing the air red-gold. The hum changed pitch, inching upward as their eyes locked.
    Desire flared, coming from the inextricable link between magic and sex, and the power of the jun tan marks that still joined their souls even though the connection of their minds and hearts had waned. She didn’t feel the added power that had once come when the jun tan link opened fully, joining them heart and soul. But there was heat and need, and an ache of longing.
    “Don’t shut me out.” She hadn’t meant to say it, not in front of the others, and certainly not in the middle of the Triad spell.
    Always before when she had talked to him about how he put up walls between them, she had gotten blankness edged with frustration, and his reminder that they had a job to do. This time, though, she caught a gleam of gold and a flash of pain.
    The sight surprised her, leaving her slow to react when he leaned into her, whispered her name, and kissed her.
    And oh, holy crap, what a kiss. The soft warmth of his lips was a shocking contrast to the hard control of the man who’d been facing her only moments earlier. They touched just at that single point of contact, with nothing holding her in place; she could pull away, should pull away.
    Instead, she leaned in and kissed him back.
    Their tongues touched and slid, and his flavor caromed through her, lighting neurons that had been dim for months now. Years. She felt the vibration of his groan, though the sound was lost beneath the escalating hum of power that surrounded them as heat raced through her veins. Excitement heated her blood, coming both from sex magic and the thought that something had changed, that he was finally seeing her, finally connecting with her the way the other mated pairs joined up within the magic. Psi energy flared as he shifted against her, lifting an arm as if to pull her closer.
    Instead he took her hand, pressed their bleeding palms together, and completed the circle of ten.
    Power zinged through the uplinked magi, and the red-gold buzz of magic went to a bloodred shriek that drowned out Patience’s cry of surprise. Frustration slashed through her, coming less from the interrupted kiss than from the fact that he’d used it—used her —to provide the final power surge they had needed to trigger the spell. The kiss hadn’t been about them at all. It had been about necessity. Damn him.
    The world lurched, and suddenly she was moving without going anywhere, her spirit-self peeling out of her corporeal body and caroming sideways into the barrier. Then there was a final wrench of magic as the Triad spell took hold, gripping her with an inexorable force that warned her there was no going back. Not now. Maybe not ever again. Gods.
    She tried to take the anger with her, knowing that it was better to be pissed than depressed. But as gray-green mist raced past her, laced with lightning and the smell of ozone, all she could do was close her eyes and launch a forbidden plea. Please, gods, don’t pick us.
     
    You’re a dick. The growl came in Woody’s voice, filtering out of the blur of transition magic. Even though Brandt hadn’t seen his winikin in two years, Wood remained the voice of his conscience. And it had a point.
    He shouldn’t have kissed Patience in the middle of the Triad spell, shouldn’t have touched her beyond the necessity of the uplink. But for a second there, he’d felt a flash of their old connection, a spark not just of chemistry but of the simpatico they used to share, back when they made each other stronger rather than nuts.
    And damn, it’d felt good, like old times. Problem was, she wanted