Page 34 of Of Flames and Crows

Yes.

Mae fisted her hands. She stormed across the floor, the fox at her side. Nikolai stiffened when he saw them. Relief brightened his eyes across the flames and the barrier separating them. Alastair welcomed Brimstone with a flap of his fiery wings.

“Mae!”

Another emotion choked the sorcerer’s throat as his gaze roamed her face. Her heart swelled at what she read in his eyes.

“Drop the barrier,” she told Marlena over her shoulder.

“What?” Marlena’s expression grew strained. “But it’s the only thing stopping this building’s foundations from collapsing!”

Mae’s gaze locked with Nikolai’s. “I’ll shield them.”

Marlena hesitated.

“Do as she says,” she told the witches and sorcerers at her command reluctantly.

They shot nervous glances at one another before bobbing their heads. Heat warmed Mae’s blood as she reached for her magic.

“Now,” she ordered grimly.

She raised a hand and silently invoked the spell just as the Council of the Moon’s shields started winking out.

Contain.

A crimson bubble replaced the vanishing barrier. The sorcerers and witches fell back with startled cries as it expanded and filled half the room.

“Wait. Was that a wordless incantation?!”

Violet’s stunned voice reached Mae dimly where she stood within the protective sphere.

“You came,” Nikolai whispered.

Mae closed the distance to the sorcerer, clasped his face, and kissed him. He gasped, his fear echoing through her as his flames engulfed her too.

He wrenched his mouth from hers and tried to push her away.

“Wait! You don’t know what this could do to you!”

“Relax,” Mae murmured. “It won’t hurt me.”

Brimstone shifted into his nine-tailed fox-demon form, flipped the outraged chameleon onto her back, and pressed a giant paw lightly upon her belly.

“Calm down, lizard,” he growled inches from her face.

The chameleon hiccupped and went limp. The fire surrounding her winked out.

“You didn’t kill her, did you?” Mae asked worriedly.

Brimstone let out a sigh that rattled the chandeliers. “Of course not.”

Mae gasped when Nikolai’s mouth landed on hers. The blaze engulfing him and Alastair had receded. She responded to his touch and his lips with equal passion as he took her in his hold, her own arms locking tightly around his neck.

It wasn’t until someone cleared their throat loudly that she realized she was riding his thigh with her leg and that his hands were under her T-shirt.

“We should have recorded this and sent it to Vlad,” Violet told Miles.

Mae and Nikolai unlocked lips stiffly and stepped away from one another under a battery of avid stares. Hellreaver wheezed where he lay against her breastbone.

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