Page 70 of Earth-Bound

I was going to like living with Terrund.

Chapter 29: Terrund

Ifelt incredibly powerful and couldn’t help but reach down into the earth, smiling at it and willing it to thrive. I felt along the fields and out, out, testing the range of my senses. I could feel the earth further than before. It wasn’t as far as I’d been able to feel at the height of my strength but I was getting there, growing strong with my mate by my side and his flavour on my tongue.

He was watching me with a small smile on his lips, his eyes soft and full of admiration. I couldn’t imagine what a sight I looked, blissed out and dazed, my britches around my ankles and my power brimming inside me, spilling out and making the soil vibrant and the moss at my back multiply and spread.

“You look fuck-drunk,” Joe said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Fuck-drunk,” he repeated, and leaned close to me. “I like it. I’m going to put that expression on your face a lot.”

My senses stretched out further, almost as though I were spreading my arms to encompass everything around me, toofilled with excitement and love and happiness to contain it in my earthly body.

I felt the soil and the layers below that had built up, the different compositions of the soil as I delved deeper and deeper with my senses. There was power nearby and I stretched towards it. Three dragons, filled with the magic of shifting, the dryad, whose magic complemented my own, and the witches. One was a burst of bright power, thrumming with vibrant colours and dark shadows and bright light, and the other was a soft glow, barely noticeable. It was a safe, kind power, but not very strong.

I searched further, further than I thought I could feel. Joe’s hands wrapped around my hips and his lips brushed against mine. I almost gave up my search to focus fully on the sensation but I wanted to know how strong I was. I wanted to know what had happened to the earth while I’d been trapped.

And so I searched and Joe’s lips worked my own and then his tongue probed into my mouth and it felt amazing, and I could taste my mate, his essence, and my own seed lingering. It gave me a rush of excitement that sent my senses speeding out, too much for me to control.

I had spread my mind out wide, covering miles. I could feel theuasalterritory at the edges of my consciousness, a place I’d never been nor wanted to go. As I skirted round it, though, I felt as though perhaps it had changed since I’d last sensed it. There was a different power layered in among the others, the thousands of years’ worth of spells built up to protect them from the dragon-hunters.

I was too weak to test it and I didn’t want to get too close. The earth was responding to my presence, flourishing, and that was enough.

I skirted round the dragons’ territory and searched outward, nearly at the edge of what I could—

There was another power. Right beside the dragons’ boundaries.

I felt the way that power touched the earth, the magic it drew upon, and my eyes flew open and my senses snapped back to my own body. It jarred me, making me gasp and flail as though I’d fallen from a height.

Joe clutched at me, keeping me upright.

“Terrund? Terrund, are you ok? What happened? Did I do something wrong?”

“No! No, Joe, you were wonderful.” I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close to me, feeling his warm body pressed against mine and the hard muscles of his shoulders under my palms. I spoke into our embrace. “I need to speak with the dragons. Now. It’s important.”

“Ok, if you want. Are you sure you’re ok though?”

“Yes. No.” I tried to explain. “I will be absolutely fine, I assure you, it’s just that the dragons are in danger and I must warn them.”

Joe’s beautiful eyes became stormy. “In danger how?”

“A dragon-hunter is nearby.”

“Ah.Shit.”

“Please, we must get to them quickly.”

I was worried for my new friends – and it was strange for me to think that an earth spirit had somehow become friends withdragons– but that didn’t mean I liked it when Joe steppedback and gave me room to pull my britches up. I set off as quickly as I could.

We hurried along and I was walking as swiftly as I could. Joe was beside me. I grabbed his hand. “Is this ok?”

His face relaxed as I took hold of his palm and wrapped my hand around it. “Yeah, this is fine. So what exactly can hunt a dragon?”

“Theridire. They’re a particular type of witch, I suppose. Trained specifically to hunt dragons. They are extremely powerful, extremely deadly and extremely focused.”

“Will this dragon-hunter hurt you if they find you?”

---