“We just have to get close enough for Sera to sense me.” Keane leaned on her more than Nellie expected. She stumbled and finally caught her balance.

  “Sera, huh?” Nellie sighed. There went any plan of using Keane to get over her…issues. “Yeah, should have figured you’d have someone waiting at home for you. Just my luck.”

  “Have you no man who calls you his, Nell-ee?”

  “Just Nellie. And I did. A fiancé. We were going to be….” Nellie really didn’t want to go into the humiliating details. “It didn’t work out.”

  Keane stopped walking and caught her hand in his, drew it to his chest and waited. She looked up to find him watching her with those oddly blind and penetrating eyes.

  “He didn’t want me,” Nellie admitted out loud for the first time in three months. “He wanted to use my connections. To get a job. Advance his career.” And Bruce had advanced, stepping on her heart on his way up the collegiate ladder. “We aren’t together anymore.”

  Because once he’d gotten what he’d wanted, he’d dumped her for his old girlfriend.

  “Good.” He brushed his lips against her fingers. “He did not deserve a powerful woman like you. You come from a very strange world, Nellie.” His arm slid around her shoulders and Nellie grinned into the night. “Are all the men you meet so undeserving?”

  “Remains to be seen, Keane.” She pulled him along beside her. “That remains to be seen.”

  * * *

  “At some point I’ll actually be able to see this Citadel of yours, right?”

  Keane heard Nellie’s voice through a buzzing hum that was growing louder in his head. How long had they been walking? Hours? Days? He’d lost track.

  The zephyr poison was wreaking havoc with his magic, what little he had left of it, not to mention his mind. He had to keep present, keep control, otherwise the shielding protecting his people, his men, would collapse and expose them all to their enemies. Another reason to meet with the alliance at the summit. He needed more fighters.

  Reality was warping, twisting in on itself. Had he still possessed his sight, he would have been dealing with hallucinations. Instead, he heard voices, ghostly voices screaming at him, accusing him. Condemning him. Warning him.

  “Hey, stop that, Sparky.” Nellie’s hand covered his. She squeezed before she stumbled to a stop and pushed him back against a tree. “I’m not fire resistant.”

  “Stop what?” He’d been shivering so hard his teeth hurt, but the second she touched him, his fever cooled. His head hadn’t ached this bad since he’d first lost his sight. Nausea swept over him and he doubled over.

  “The fire manicure.” She leaned down and touched his face. “It’s your magic, isn’t it? It’s fritzing out on you.”

  “How do you know about mag—” His mind began to clear and he could breathe without pain. He lifted his head long enough to look around, to attempt to get their bearings. She’d led them into another clearing. He wondered if the lush grass beneath his booted feet was as soft and welcoming as it felt. It was all he could do not to lay down and surrender to the exhaustion creeping over him.

  “I have a pretty good memory,” Nellie told him. “Don’t tell Clara, but I was reading those stories when she wasn’t. Bowen has the real magical power. You’re more adept with a sword and dagger. And with words. I should find you some more water.” She started to leave, abandoning him, removing her hands from his skin. And when she did, the pain, the voices, the dizziness returned. Stronger than before.

  “Wait!” Keane grabbed her and hauled her back, slipping his fingers between hers to see if what he believed was true. “Don’t leave me.” The utterance of weakness nearly drove him to his knees.

  “I won’t go far. You have to drink something. Who knows how much longer we have to walk.” Nellie’s entire body went tense. He could feel her hand tighten around his as she stood and turned to face the path. “Um. Keane?”

  Keane struggled to keep coherent. While he’d been concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, the back of his mind had been working on the possibility that there was far more to Nellie than either of them realized. Even more than he could have dreamed. Was it possible…. “I need to do something.” He tugged her toward him, tightening his fingers around hers as he drew her into his arms.

  “Uh….” She squirmed in his hold as he molded her curves against him. He slid his finger under her chin and tilted her face toward his. “I thought you said we needed to…oh. You’re going to kiss me? Really? Figures. You’re delirious, aren’t you?”

  He stopped, feeling her warm breath against his face. Her surprise confused him. “Did this fiancé of yours never kiss you?”

  “Yeah, sure. Personally, I never really got what the big deal was. I mean, what can someone do with a kiss? It’s just lips and tongue and—” She shrugged. “Never did much for me.”

  Even in a weakened state, Keane was up for a challenge. “Let’s see if that holds, shall we?” He brushed his lips against hers.

  “Oh.”

  Her gasp exhilarated him, the buzz of excitement and attraction masking, at least for a few moments, the effects of the poison coursing through his blood. He felt his strength returning, fighting against the infection even as his desire for more overwhelmed reason.

  “Was that all?” she whispered.

  “I hadn’t planned for it to be.” His sight flickered. “Would you like more?”

  “Uh-huh.” She slipped her hand around to the back of his neck, her fingers pressing into his skin as she urged his head down toward hers. “I think I’m becoming a fan of experimentation.”

  In the shadow of grey, he saw her tongue flick out to moisten her lips. Had he had his full sight, he might have thrown all reason to the wind and made love to her as his final act of life. Every cell in his body tingled as he dipped his mouth and pressed his lips against hers. Teasing at first, testing. This time when she gasped, he took full advantage and angled his head, diving deeper, pulling her closer, dipping his tongue into her mouth to tempt hers into a dance he found himself wishing would go on forever.

  His hand continued to flex around hers, fingers clenching, sliding, rubbing as he continued the kiss, drawing all the tension from her body and leaving her lax and pliant in his arms as his own body grew hard with desire.

  When the wound in his side began to throb anew, he knew he’d reached his limit. Knew if he didn’t put a stop to this now, he very well never would. Every female he’d ever been with faded from his memory, replaced by the image of a bright, green-eyed smile of a round-faced woman who held no understanding of her own appeal.

  “I think this is one time I’m very glad to have been wrong,” she murmured against his lips.

  “About?” He drew his mouth away and pulled her forehead down against his chest. He was breathing heavy. The pain in his head exploded like a million unseen stars. He squeezed his eyes shut, clung to her as the pain gradually receded.

  “Kissing. And if that’s what you’re capable of while you’re injured and bleeding, I can only imagine what might happen once you’re well.” She stiffened in his hold. “I mean, if it was okay for you. And, you know, might want to do any more kissing. With me.” She tried to pull away, but he held on. “Please tell me the ground is soft enough for me to dig a hole to crawl into?”

  Keane kissed her again, this time without the pretense of caution, but because he needed to. Needed her. Beyond how she made the darkness recede. She filled an emptiness he hadn’t even realized he had. “You will not be needing to crawl into any holes.” He stroked his thumb across her face. A face that as he opened his eyes, he could actually see smiling up at him. “Nellie.” Her name came out as a whisper, a prayer perhaps. He let his hand drop, released her other hand, moved back so they were no longer touching.

  And fell back into the darkness.

  “What?” Nellie stepped toward him. “What is it? Is the pain worse?”

  “No.” He held out his hand and the instant she took it in hers, the darkness eased. “No, it’s not worse. Just…different. Come here.” He pulled her in again and held her, his mind racing. He’d been told there was no cure to his blindness, that there was no hope that he’d ever regain his sight and yet….

  Nausea rolled through him with the force of an undertow. Was it possible this woman could end up being his greatest strength and weakness?

  “How much further is it?” Nellie guided him to the ground, staying close, her hands on his bare neck, his face, holding his hand. Whenever she touched him, wherever she did, it was as if he’d been released from this prison he’d called home for countless cycles. “Tell me what you need me to do?” She asked. “Go ahead? Find someone?”

  “I don’t want you out here alone.” He shook his head, unable to clear it now of the haze that was overtaking his thoughts despite her touch. “Not safe.” The hallucinations were coming back, the sounds of heavy booted footfalls pounding through the forest. Dracha’s soldiers would be looking for her. Looking for them as by now, surely, they knew to be searching for two. “Nellie—”

  “Quiet! I hear something.” Nellie’s frantic whisper had him trying to sit up, but he groaned as new pain sliced through him. He could feel the poison moving into his chest, pressing against his heart, his soul. The center of all that made him who he was. “Come on.” She shoved him to the side and got behind him to drag him under the arms and deeper into the protection of the woods. “Maybe if we’re quiet they’ll keep going.”

  Keane tried to speak, to tell her it wasn’t any use. Dracha’s men were well-trained. They would search every inch of the Forgotten Realm if even one suspected there was something or someone to aid Dracha’s agenda.

  He should have sent her on, in the direction of the Citadel. Erian would be watching for him, for them. Erian and Bowen. The only two people he trusted without hesitation. But there were no words to be found. She piled branches and leaves on top of him before moving away, taking the light with her.

  But there…in the back of his thoughts, pressing into his mind, he heard a familiar cry. “Sera,” he murmured, before he surrendered to the pain.

  * * *

  Nellie remained hidden behind the thick trunk of a tree that’s bark molded beneath her touch. She welcomed the unexpected softness as she planted her feet in the ground, keeping one concerned ear on Keane’s increasingly uneven breathing, the other on the heavy footfalls echoing through the woods. She gripped the tree hard and as she did, heavy leaf-tipped branches dipped down and around her, as if bending to her thoughts to conceal her. “Keane,” Nellie whispered as the tree limbs behind her rustled and shifted and blanketed him from sight. “Thank you.” She pressed her forehead against the tree.

  Panic and uncertainty set her heart to racing. What had she gotten in to? Trapped in a magical world with telepathic trees and a sexy, blind warrior? It was as if her mind had gone on vacation and chose to reignite the imagination she’d never embraced as a child. Dreams, fantasies, like the ones she had of her mother coming back, had never brought her anything but disappointment. Certainty, facts, those were predictable. Emotion-less. Safe.

  But now…magic was the only answer she had for so many things, including that mind-blowing, self-esteem building kiss not even her wildest dreams could have conjured. Men like Keane didn’t look twice at women like Nellie. How was it he couldn’t see her yet couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her?

  He certainly couldn’t keep his hands off her. She shivered against the thought of what those hands, what those fingers, were capable of in the best of circumstances. She blew her hair out of her eyes. Would that she’d ever get the chance to find out?

  Excitement and uncertainty bloomed deep within her, stagnated by her constant companion, self-doubt. Put her in front of a hall filled with lecture attendees, behind a lectern speaking to colleagues with twenty years more experience, and she’d knock it out of the park every time. But relationships? Men? Nellie pressed her lips tight together. She’d had only one serious one: Bruce. And he’d done enough damage to scare her off even trying again. Until Keane. Because of Keane, the doubt was fading…gradually. Because of what Keane—a blind man—saw in her.

  Nellie’s head shot up as voices echoed beyond the clearing, not in the direction from which they’d come, as if someone was in pursuit, but from where she and Keane had been headed.

  Nellie crouched, making herself as small as possible. Gut instinct told her these could well be his own men Keane had referenced, but could she take the chance when he was equally convinced Dracha’s soldiers were hunting for them? Keane was in such bad shape that if those approaching weren’t the good guys, what could stop them from killing Keane on the spot?

  Her muscles tightened. I will protect him.

  Resolve overtook fear. He’d risked his life to save hers. He’d continued to try to do so even as that poison wreaked havoc with his body. The least she could do was put herself between him and…whatever that approached.

  A loud crash followed by an earsplitting shriek had her shrinking back. What the holy hell was that? She peeked out around the tree, lifted her hand to pry apart the branches as an enormous shadow dropped into the darkness and swallowed the small clearing beyond.

  Nellie gasped, straining to see, to comprehend what had come from the sky. The creature changed color as it moved its large feathered head like a scanner, aiming its gaze deep into the trees. Copper and gold mingled with yellow and oranges, a brightness she hadn’t seen since she’d first arrived in this world. Living fire. The warmth it conveyed drew her to her feet. She took a step forward.

  A branch snapped beneath her foot.

  The creature whirled around, its body shifting colors once again, this time to a purple that matched its glowing amethyst eyes. Nellie’s mind reeled. Not a dragon. Not a bird. But a glorious combination of the two. This was the creature she thought she’d imagined as she’d fallen through the sky. No scales covered its massive body; its feathers appeared as soft as down, its wings held tight against its body as three feet scrambled to face her as it stretched out its short neck and opened its sword-straight beak.

  The creature screeched.

  Nellie slammed her hands over her ears, squinting against the stinging vibrations moving through the air. But she held her ground, took a step forward and, when the creature closed its mouth, Nellie held her arms out to her sides. “You can’t have him.”

  A squawk this time. The creature moved closer and quirked its head. Its solitary front foot clenched in the ground, the damp grass squelched beneath its six talon-tipped toes.

  “He’s under my protection.” Bravado she’d never felt before swelled within her. If she was going to go out, she might as well make a stand first. “He’s sick. Injured. He’s no danger to you.” Yeah, that was a smart thing to say to a potential enemy. Move along. This isn’t the warrior you’re looking for. Nellie forced herself to keep calm and appear unthreatening. The closer she and the creature got to one another, wonder and amazement overtook the fear.

  “Stop!” a male voice blasted, from behind the creature which reared back in response and struck out with its foot. Nellie’s heart jumped into her throat, but she rejected the order and kept her eyes pinned to the creature’s, determined to find a way to drive it off before it could attack—and probably kill—both her and Keane. She held up her hands in a surrender like gesture, her mind racing for a solution should the creature decide to turn its deadly attention squarely back on her.

  “Nellie.” Keane’s weakened voice broke through the darkness as he came stumbling out. He had one arm wrapped tight around his torso. Blood had begun seeping through the bandage and his tunic, staining his sleeve now, dripping onto the ground.

  “No, Keane, stay back. I’ve got this.” That bubble of hysteria she’d been swallowing for hours burst to the surface. “I don’t know what I’ve got, but…stay back!” She moved one hand toward him.

  The creature whipped its head and dropped to the ground so hard Nellie stumbled into Keane, who grunted in pain. His free hand grasped her hip, his fingers digging through the fabric of her skirt and jacket.

  “No!” Nellie yelled as the creature’s head swooped in, hundreds of thin razor-sharp teeth glistening against the darkness of the night only inches from Nellie’s face. “You can’t have him.” Nellie closed her eyes against the hot oily breath the creature expelled.

  “Nellie, come away.” Keane took a step back and tried to draw her with him.

  Nellie dug her heels in. There was nowhere for her to go, nowhere to run. Even if she wanted to.

  “No. I can’t let it hurt—” She gasped as the creature closed its beak, ducked its head, and pushed its forehead against her outstretched hands. “What. The. Hell?” Nellie didn’t know what to do other than sink her fingers into the soft feathers of its head. “Oh, wow. Wow. Keane, this is amazing. It’s….” She’d never seen or felt anything so miraculous in all her life. Wonder swelled around apprehension, dulling her fear.

  “Seraphim,” Keane’s hold eased, and he circled around to place a hand on the creature’s neck. “She found us.”

  “Seraphim,” Nellie repeated, grateful the darkness would hide the embarrassed blush erupting on her face. “Sera. You weren’t talking about another woman. You were talking about her.” Nellie took another step closer, lightened her touch on Sera so she could add her other hand. “You are beautiful, aren’t you?”

  Sera’s throat feathers ruffled as she let out a noise that sounded like a chuckle. She lifted amused eyes to Keane who looked as shocked as she felt.

  “Keane,” Nellie whispered but as she drew her gaze from Sera to him, she saw his grip on the creature tighten before he slumped to the ground. “Keane!”

  Nellie dropped to her knees as the forest around her erupted. Dozens of hooded, black-clad figures darted out of the trees, torches and weapons raised, giving a wide berth to Sera, who had extended her wing over both Nellie and Keane. Nellie found herself dragging Keane’s limp form across her knees as she leaned back against Sera’s leg. He wasn’t moving. He was barely breathing, but as she grasped his hand in hers, he squeezed back.