I move to lunge at him, seize his Wand and strike him down, but find I’m unable. Instead, I slowly push myself up from the stone, panic mounting as I’m unable to stop myself. Bucking and writhing against the prison of my own body, I still before Vogel.

Vogel reaches up to gently stroke my cheek, an intense look in his pale eyes. I inwardly howl out my protest, wanting to drive his Shadow Wand straight through his eye as he slides his palm around my neck, leans down, and slants his mouth against mine.

Everything in me roars against the contact as he grips the back of my head, his Shadowfire cataclysmic as it spirals through every inch of my body, claiming me like a Wyvern would, Yvan’s golden-fire connection snapping off.

I realize, in a rush of shock, that Vogel has not only stolen my fasting to Lukas...he’s wresting hold of Yvan’s Wyvernbond.Turning me into his fire-bonded mate.

It’s horrifyingly wrong, this corrupted Wyvern binding. Full of a desperate, controlling want as Vogel clenches tighter hold of me and forces his fire into my mouth, his flame sizzling through me in a devouring array.

He draws back, breathing hard, his eyes gleaming with off-kilter excitement as his steel-hued fire streams through me in a revolting caress. “My fastmate,” he breathes, nostrils flaring.

An explosion of golden fire breaks out in the distant sky, bolts of flame spearing over the river to knock a wide swath of Vogel’s legions clear out of the heavens, blasting them into a bright conflagration. My world implodes as Vogel forces me to take in the winged figure advancing toward me in a blur of golden fire.

Yvan!

We’re no longer fire-bonded, but I can sense Yvan’s incoming furious blaze of power.

“Hand my fastmate a wand,” Vogel orders, not taking his penetrating gaze from mine.

A Shadow Mage strides forward and hands me a pale Snow Oak wand. My gut clenches tight as I recall that Snow Oak is a power-enhancing wood, the tree necklace Lukas gave me back at university spinning into my mind as my alarm skyrockets.

Fight back! I can almost hear Lukas snarl. Drive the bastard out of you!

I tense, straining to hurl my power’s aura out against Vogel’s hold, but this time his grip on me doesn’t budge and I’m magically forced to reach out, my fingers clasping the wand’s hard handle. My corrupted power surges toward the wand with apocalyptic force, my fingers fusing to the weapon as my wand hand takes on a silvery glow.

Another Shadow soldier advances, leading a multi-eyed dragon forward as an army of Mages on dragonback stream onto the huge ledge, followed by a swarm of wraith bats.