Twin Passions: 3 by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

I to allow you to live when you have taken them from us?”
    Her hand refused to pull her sword free. Her arm refused to make the killing blow. All that seemed willing to obey her commands now were her legs. And she used them to turn and run as fast and hard as her weakened body would allow from the warrior who brought her magick alive in a way she had prayed she would never know.
    In a way that proclaimed her the natural Consort of a traitor.
     
    As she turned to run, Torran sent his magick, weak at it was, to cover her. To protect her should she actually leave them alone, without her warmth and her tender care.
    To protect her.
    He could not risk harm to her. He could not allow her to travel alone, with naught to defend her but her own sword.
    Nay, not his Consort. His Consortress. The Sorceress destined to be Consort to both himself as well as his younger brother, Rhydan.
    The woman created by magick to match him perfectly, to ease the heart and complete the soul of himself and his brother.
    As the magick left his body and cleaved to her, he fell back to the furs, his hands clenching in them as he stared at her, ached for her.
    Long before, he had known of love, its mysteries and its charms. And much longer before he had known the agony of her belief that he and Rhydan had betrayed all she held dear, he had ached for her.
    He had watched her weep as a young child, had watched her plead with a cold and unforgiving mother. Each time, he and Rhydan had sought to comfort her, their spirits holding fast to her, their warmth wrapping around her.
    He’d only wanted to hold her. To ease her tears, to ease the pain that raged at her. How it had torn at him and Rhydan to see her pain and to be unable to comfort her with nothing more than the ghostly warmth they had provided.
    Then, to feel her pain these past weeks, to feel her magick reaching out to them, filled with such confusion and betrayal, had burned through their souls like a white-hot blade.
    Her magick had not been the only one reaching out though. Their power had reached out for her as well. She had the ability to put a stop to the game the Veressi had all but forced them into. Her magick and her place as their Consortress afforded her the power to reveal her place as their chosen one, and as the woman they could not turn from.
    Yet she had not used the power to do so.
    She had ached. She had raged. She had watched them in anger and in hope and her magick had reached out to them, stroking them, torturing them with need. But she had not revealed herself to them, nor forced them to do so.
    And now, she ran from them.
    From them, from her fears, her desires and the crimes she had feared they had committed.

Chapter Three
     
    Astra wanted only to run.
    She wanted only to escape the pain and the knowledge of her actions, the knowledge of the emotions she couldn’t contain and feared would destroy her. Destroy her as they had all but destroyed her ancestors.
    Run for the curve in the cavern that would lead to the tunnel and then to—freedom?
    Nay, there was no freedom.
    She was brought up short by the feeling of magick. A sensual, heated caress filled with gentleness and rich with male regret as it stroked along her arm, twining about it. There was no sense of restraint; there was only the sense of regret, hunger and a need to ease her pain.
    A need to ease her pain? Their magick wrapped around her, warmed her and, surprisingly, strengthened what little magick she had left inside her.
    Swinging around, facing them, her breathing harsh, tears clogging her throat as she stared back at them with a desperation born of the heartache tearing her asunder.
    Why could it not be rage? She could have dealt with the rage, she had known its like before, and she had survived it.
    The touch of their magick, both their magick, the palest of blue and the darkest of blue, ignited a sizzling reaction within her. As though the spores of magick that filled her being were suddenly coming alive