Page 77 of Her Dreadful Will
“We can’t stop dancing,” he whispered. “It must continue until we’re fully opened to receive the moonlight.”
Fully opened to receive—oh god. A flush of liquid heat surged between Soleil’s thighs. She distracted herself by asking, “The other night, how did you channel all that power through yourself?”
“Any witch with a radiance level in the twenties or higher can do it. But it takes time for the energy to build, for the channel to open. There has to be a sense of unity and purpose among the dancers.”
“Unity, and purpose.” His lips were so close she could have licked them. She licked her own, languidly, looking into his eyes.
“Stop,” he said jaggedly. “We have to focus on the magic right now.”
“But you said that witches could regenerate their radiance sexually.”
“It’s a theory, and I won’t risk your health on a guess.” He moved away, opening space between their bodies. “We’re doing this the right way, the sure way. We’re refilling your energy. And then we can talk about what else you want.”
The sweetness of him broke her inside, and from the rift surged new emotions. They raced through every crevice of her soul—places she hadn’t known were parched until the flood rushed in to soothe them.
He cared.
Reallycared. Deeply. Selflessly.
She released the tension at her core, the resistance to the energy he had lent her, and she embraced it, welcomed its wandering whispers. It wasn’t dark at all. It sparkled along her veins like stars, flared in her mind in a burst of white light streaked with silver. Its edges rippled, decorated in twisting patterns of delicate black, like the most exquisite lace, but ever-changing, a kaleidoscope of possibilities.
This wasn’t just Achan’s energy—this was the moon.
She lifted her hands and it rushed through her, suffusing every cell. When she was full of its light she reached out blindly and seized Achan’s hands. He gasped, caught in the waves of power soaring through her, through him, spiraling around them both. Soleil pulled him close, pressed her whole body against his, and watched his eyes go pearlescent white like the moon itself.
The trees—they’d grown shorter. The candles were further away and the moon was nearer. Wind lashed the treetops, ripping leaves free and sending them skyward in a reckless spiral of black flakes.
Why were the treetops so close?
Soleil looked down, and her breath hitched in her throat.
Her feet dangled in mid-air, far above the ground.
“Achan,” she whispered.
He laughed breathlessly, his eyes coming back into focus, regaining their color. “I know.”
He swiveled his wrists, lifting their interlocked hands higher, and great clumps of sod tore free from the ground beneath them and floated upward, trailing black earth like confetti. Power raced from Soleil into Achan and back again, flaming through their skin, roaring in their minds—because they were one now, caught in an ecstasy of radiant magic. So much of it, pulsing in great waves before it blasted outward in a widening ring of silver light.
The forest spasmed and swayed with the impact of the magic. A nearby oak cracked in two, its nearer half leaning perilously toward them—but Achan deflected the oncoming trunk with a flick of his fingers.
An alarm pinged in Soleil’s mind.
Destruction. Bad.
“We have to stop,” she whispered. “I want to go back down.”
The moment she said it, the channel of magic tapered away to a thread, vanished in a wisp of pale light. Swiftly they sank back to the broken earth.
Soleil stared at the damaged tree.
“Can you teach me how to fix it?” she asked.
“You shouldn’t try it now. You need to start small.” He flicked a hand toward the oak, and the broken half whipped back upright. The trunk sewed itself smoothly back together.
Soleil caught her breath at the sheer power of him, the things he could do. Again she understood the reverence she’d sensed from his coven, the slavish devotion in Zillah’s eyes. The same admiration glowed inside her, blended with a warm rosy delight because out of all the billions of people on the planet, she was the one sharing that moment, that power, with him.
Achan spread his arms and threw back his head. “Wow. I feel amazing. You?”
