Winded Read Free Page A

sent a mixture of excitement and dread
through her. It was the spectacle of his giant head lowered, his eyes burning
bright in the gathering shadows, his unwavering study of the patch of flora
below their leaning stone. Something in his stance warned her to be cautious
and she responded immediately, without question. He wasn’t telling her to stop.
He merely suggested that she tread carefully on this strange, unexplored
terrain.
    Blood…send it on the Wind.
    The words, Ball’s gravelly words, seared themselves into her
brain.
    Ball always knew what to do in these situations. Moments of
decision were never unsettling to him as they could be to Vetiver. Her
companion was omniscient in so many things, it was second nature to her now
that she listen to him without question. So she bent and took the blade in her
left hand. “A payment in blood, then.”
    Such a price was demanding, but her need was great. She’d
never performed a spell that required her blood, though she knew from the books
she’d studied her whole life that they weren’t entirely uncommon. Dangerous but
not forbidden—Ball would never have suggested it otherwise. Because she wished
to receive such a great boon, she would spill the blood from her receptive
hand. She would bleed, pray and hope for the best.
    “Please light my path.” She let the words float out into the
air and wrapped her right fist around the naked blade. She squeezed and
twisted, flaying open her skin on the razor-sharp edge. A spray of blood, black
in the night like tiny shards of jet, flew out into the air, raining onto the
thirsty flowers waiting down below. “Show me the way. I am ever your servant.”
    But damn, did it hurt.
    The wind howled louder. The scent of night jasmine grew
strong. The blossoms bloomed larger. Vetiver held the blade doggedly, her blood
flowing faster. The pain went deeper than the cut, touching her soul. But it
was a pain she weathered, knowing the virulence of it signified a great
shifting in the universe.
    For a while she failed to notice the ground bulging at the
base of the rock. It wasn’t until the stone under her feet cracked right
through that she was startled back to reality. Ball was pulling at the hem of
her shift insistently. Wrapping the bloodied blade and her oozing hand in the
folds of the cloth, she let him guide her down safely.
    The earth groaned and Vetiver grew fearful. What had she
done to upset the elements so? Ball was pacing, her heart was pounding in her
head and the ground shook so hard she was dizzy. The trees wailed. Her hair
blinded her, whipping about her head, stinging her exposed skin. The armlet
burned where it wrapped around her muscle, glowing like Venus in a clear night
sky.
    The bed of flowers bulged upward violently, a geyser of soil
and broken blooms spraying high into the air. The scent of old earth clouded
her senses. The breeze was now a dervish, tearing at everything in its madness.
    Two fists thrust themselves up into the air, breaking out
from the ground.
    Vetiver gasped, then shrieked when arms followed. Ball stood
between her and whatever it was being birthed from the ground, but it was
little comfort. A dirt-caked head emerged, then broad, heavily muscled
shoulders. As she watched, Ball pressing her back, a man sprouted in front of
them. Fully formed, hair straight and long, cut sharply just above his broad
shoulders, clothed in unusually fashioned raiment, he climbed out of the womb
of earth like a golem fashioned of blood and soil.
    His gaze glowed like fire. A faceted flashing of amber,
citrine and golden sapphire, his eyes were gemstones that glittered in the
shadows. The dark lashes that rimmed his eyes like kohl were thick, and the
same dark shade of his hair. His skin would be bronzed, she hazarded a guess,
though it was impossible to be certain, shrouded as he was beneath the grime and
layers of cloth he wore like a sherwani .
    Her eyes fell down the length of him—and there was a lot of
length of