Page 179 of A Baron of Bonds
His blue, my green, were there again in an enchanting symphony of power.
His magic roamed, a caress over my hips, pushing down on his, a brush of pleasure over my breasts and up my neck, reaching my mouth to touch my bottom lip.
I needed to come back down. I needed to expel some of this power as it built inside of me before I was lifted from his body into an expanse of time where he could not follow.
“Stay here,” he whispered, bringing himself back up to catch me. “Stay here, with me.”
His mouth met mine, another anchor to keep me from drifting, his hands winding around me once more.
“I…I’m trying.” I saw the grove, the maple trees that spun from the earth around us in the same pattern of the place I had been before. Their seedlings fell, drifting in a dance to the ground, the tree I had burned years ago taking the same place as the one I had charred just minutes ago in another Baron’s presence.
I knew this place. Ibuiltthis place, and I wondered for a moment if I had somehow gone back to it. Not in space, but in time, the first Baron the only thing missing from where I had been.
“You will stay.” He held me still and turned, laying me down on our bed of grass and roots and moss, one hand holding my leg to his waist, the other gripping mine above my head. “I need you to stay. Do not go where I cannot follow.”
The twirling seeds fell into his hair, over our bodies, as he held me to the earth, using everything he had to keep me here with him.
His body was my salvation, my only hope at surviving this transfer of power whole and mortal, and as he slammed into me again and again, I cried out, my body solidifying, my power blooming into a maple tree in my mind, its roots strong, its trunk a solid char of black, leaves a verdant green.
I found my end in his arms, my peak in his mouth on mine, my essential release underneath his hard, warm body, which met with my own in the same moment and place of grounding ecstasy.
Chapter 79
Rev
Five weeks.
It took five weeks for her to ground herself as Karus and as Baron.
During that time, she settled, slipping into her immense power slowly, each day another sure foot into control.
There were days I was sure she was gone. Not in memories like before, but in spirit as I held her body close in sleep, bringing her consciousness back to me from wherever it had gone. I’d tug on that bond between us and she’d float back down to me.
She broke our bed. Twice.
The fireplace mantle once and Lia’s favorite slab of granite.
She used her new combined power in menial tasks as practice, often finding it too much, letting too much of herself into what she tried to accomplish.
When I held the rhyzolm, her power no longer hummed, it fuckingroared, drowning out any other power in the vicinity.
I could no longer check to see if Philius’s power was growing with his training. No longer could I tell if Ilyenna’s power was drained by her growing child.
I only heard her. Only feltherwhen I held it.
When Clairannia and Figuerah arrived with Figuerah’s companion, Nyeimah, the Fortress felt full and light. Laughter around every corner, the three friends reunited as I remembered them before, inviting Nyeimah and Moira to join them on their daily lumen rides and tours of Viridis.
During those weeks, I mostly saw Karus in the evenings, both of us adjusting to our power as we kept to our duties. She took over training Philius and Mychael, doing what she could to catch them up to the same level of Talon, Ilyenna, Rell, and Renn.
My power had been halved, just like my soul the day Karus had joined it. I felt it there inside of the woman I’d grow old with, like a physical piece of me I’d given over to her.
She bloomed and beamed, a radiant sun, as we spent our weeks busy, productive, working together for the goal we both shared.
This would work.
And it would work well.
Two Barons, building a course of life in Felgren to train even more channelers at once and bring more magic to benefit people’s lives.
