My gaze darted to Nelle's mouth when she flicked her pink tongue over her lower lip and made it glisten. A desperate groan clawed from my throat. I was ravenous for those perfect, lush lips.

"A kiss," I murmured, my voice edged hoarsely with demand. And a part of me distantly felt the twang rippling down the dark magic that tied us together.

Without hesitation, Nelle sank closer to brush her mouth against mine. Her warm breath fluttered against my cheeks as she parted her lips and kissed me. Her kiss was softly sensual like a summer sun sinking beneath the horizon on a balmy day, the sultry hues of fire alighting the sky. The burrow was filled with my desirous moans as yearning skittered across my skin and strummed an impulsive chord in the deep recesses of my soul.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, warned that part of me which remained apart and aware.

I knew instinctively she was doing this to please me.

I had to stop her.

I had to stop myself.

Whatever this was, whatever influence she was under, she wasn't clear of mind to tell me what she wanted. She needed to be the Nelle I knew, strong-willed, surly, and clever enough to try manipulating me to undo the rope around her throat, not this submissive girl poised to give me whatever I wanted.

Nelle didn't protest when I broke the kiss and levered up on my elbows, forcing her back. I carefully eased out from underneath, tucking my legs to the side of her. She looked curious, but not offended.

A muffled sound of padding across carpet came from outside the burrow, before a snuffling nose nudged at the rugs hanging over the bed, making them rustle. Sage gave an anxious whine. Nelle didn't blink, didn't acknowledge her friend.

Sage whined once more for Nelle's attention, while pawing beneath the draping rugs, his claws hooking on the silky sheets and blankets bunched around us.

It wasn't until I moved my head to look in Sage's direction, that Nelle did too, eerily tracking my movement.

I inched toward the edge of Nelle's nest and she stalked me like an animal. Wispy fur and soft cashmere brushed against my body as I shouldered my way through the rugs hanging like a curtain around the tall-framed bed. I rolled out from underneath, rising to my feet, and greeted vibrant sunshine.

Nelle followed, pushing upward to stand beside my bed, which was a fucking mess with the rumpled rugs and furs hanging over its edge. She'd stripped it right back to the mattress, dragging the silk sheets and thinner blankets into her wyrm burrow.

Nelle stared back at me with my eyes in her delicate face. Both of us were naked, and a sheen of perspiration coated her feminine curves, shimmering along her temples and the high cut of her cheekbones.

It was an unreasonably hot day and the tower was a fucking baking oven. While Sage trotted eagerly to Nelle's side, I headed straight to the air conditioning and turned it on. Streams of crisp air rushed over my heated body, cooling the beads of sweat. I tipped my head back and sucked up the fresh air flowing down from the vaulted ceiling, untainted by us.

I braced my hands on my hips and shook my head to flick the limp locks of hair away from my eyes and tried to get a firm grip on my muddled mental state.

Glancing over my shoulder and through the cut space of the tower. Judging by how high the sun sat in the sky, it appeared I'd slept right through to noon. Sunshine showered down blistering heat that poured into the room, along with the soft sounds of everyday life, footsteps, and chattering voices that flowed around the Keep. A trio of birds flitted across the azure sky, and the tinkling sound of ivory keys floated on the breathless current of a hot breeze. Caidan was playing a mashup of modern songs on the piano in the music room. A favorite pastime of his.

Raking a hand through my damp hair, I tugged in frustration, a dull sting spearing across my scalp as I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. Swiveling around, my bare feet scuffed across the carpet, as I scooped up my boxer briefs and tugged them on before facing Nelle. "What's up with you?"

Nelle tipped her head sideways and her hair dipped and swayed over her breasts with the movement. Her elegant eyebrows drew together with perplexion, but she didn't answer me, instead, she copied my movements, stepping into her panties and sliding on her bra. As yet, she hadn't uttered a single word. My eyes honed in on the intensity of her gaze fixated solely on me.

Her emotions beneath my flesh were unusually quiet like a slow-moving brook, and I couldn't quite work them out. I closed my eyes, searching deep inside, pushing deeper and deeper into my being, into my very soul to find those moonlit stands of power that bound us together. It wasn't like the time she'd fucked me stupid with us wrapped around one another in endless lust. This time the rich resonance strumming down the lines of power was calm, comforting...happy.

Holy hells!

Surprise jolted my eyes open and my heart stumbled with shock.

I clapped a hand to my mouth instinctively curling into a smile. I couldn't stop the wondrous grin, even if I wanted to. Nelle was happy, actually happy being with me. There was a sense of harmony between us, with warmth and affection flowing from her to me.

What the hells could have happened to inspire that reaction toward me?

I'd fallen asleep right beside her—fucking on her if I remembered correctly—and kept her close. And she'd...?

An echo of sensation prickled my body where she'd stroked my arm gently, nuzzled my throat, warm lips murmuring against my skin as she'd petted and calmed me. She was the one who had banished the nightmare with tenderness. Maybe whatever influence she was currently under was because this time we'd shared a deeper connection than just physical attraction.

And me...? I analyzed the silvery threads of dark magic connecting me to her, which were much stronger, brighter, more powerful, and there was a strange urge to push back, to lean into her and make her...

Utter astonishment locked every muscle in my body taut.

And my breath escaped with a whoosh.

It slammed into me, hard, exactly what was going on between us.

Impossible.

Yet entirely possible, especially with what we were to each other.

Nelle was under the influence of the sway.

The godsdamned sway.

The reason for her surrender.

I began to idly pace around the room, running through the information I'd gathered through the years. What did I know?

Draxxon and Hamon had a mind link.

Which I didn't. My mind remained empty of another presence.

But I thought, as I felt the harmony humming between Nelle and I, that the sway was a simple way of saying that they trusted one another implicitly, and the tamer's will was the ability to push back at the wyrm to direct it in battle mentally.

I came to a halt in front of Nelle. She stood unnaturally still, watching me with big eyes, fringed with thick lashes. My gaze trailed over the rope coiled around her neck, partly obscured by the heavy thick hair falling over her chest. Zrenyth's magic supposedly bound the wyrm inside Nelle, nullifying its power. Maybe the wyrm wasn't buried as deeply as expected. Maybe Zrenyth's magic was fraying. But as I sifted through our connection, I didn't detect the beast. This connection, this sway, was with Nelle alone. She was bonded with her wyrm, and her traits, as I'd grown to know her, were much like the beasts. Fiery and impulsive and quick of temper.

Her wyrm wasn't corporeal and was formed from flames. Though there was sunshine in its wyrmfire, it was also made up of moonlight, like the frost wyrms breathed. And more curious, the beast could shift its fire between infernos of heat or skin-shredding ice.

Nelle looked like moonlight, but inside she was lit up with sunshine.

My hair ruffled as I shook my head, giving up trying to figure her out. The girl was a fucking enigma.

What I did know was that I had to test the sway.

I raised my hand and held it palm outward, focusing on wanting her to reach out to where my hand was poised, pushing a mental command back down the lines of power.

Nelle kept her gaze on mine as she raised her palm to meet mine. We weren't touching but for the electricity pulsing and fizzing between our palms, tingling down my arm and sparking at the tips of my fingers. I raised my other hand and she did the same. I leaned slowly sideways and she mirrored me as we moved back and forth from side to side, both of us swinging like a pendulum on a metronome.

My senses honed in on the music floating from the Keep. Caidan began playing a song I recognized, Lorde's 400 Lux, the upbeat tempo awash with a hint of melancholy. The song title was rather apt for a girl forged from sunshine.

I closed my eyes, sinking into the song, feeling out the rhythm by tapping my foot in time to the tempo. The silvery threads of dark magic strummed a sonorous chord deep inside. I wrapped my demand, my tamer's will, around those internal threads of power binding us together and concentrated on what I wanted. I didn't want us to hold one another. I needed to test this out without us touching so I could lead her in the dance with the sway, a mental connection rather than a physical one.

It was easier to mentally push against her by focusing on the music and envisaging the movement. Flicking my eyes open, I started out easy, urging Nelle with the sway so she shifted herself sideways so we stood side by side, a few quick steps forward and back, repeating the quick-quick-slow moves a few more times. She whirled around to face me, her hand hovering at my shoulder, as I arched my spine back and she canted her torso forward. She swayed, with gentle mental nudges down the cords of power.

Straightening, I upped the tempo, Nelle matching my fast footsteps as we glided about the room with Lorde's song rippling through the air. Caidan poured himself into the music, his fingers beating out a run of chords as the chorus kicked in with the electropop melody overlapping the bass notes.

I raised our hands so I spun deftly underneath, and then I twirled her around and around, moving her around my figure, so I was her center and she was a spinning star orbiting me.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I was forró dancing with Nelle. Even though the forró was a physically intimate dance, we didn't touch. Our hands hovered close, hips closer, but I kept her at a slight distance.

On balmy nights after a feast of vó Bel's feijoada, my family would gather on the roof of the Keep to dance. My paternal grandmother loved dancing, and my Dad grew up with dances like the samba, bachata, and forró. My siblings and I were brought into Avó Isobel's fold. As a kid, she'd take me by the hand and teach me a new dance as my father twirled my mother around on the rooftop, the sun lazily descending in the distance. The chime of Avó Bel's laughter as I fumbled and stepped on her toes was something I missed. I missed her.

I was fairly certain Nelle would never know these dance steps and yet we flowed together, forward and back, a quick crossing of footsteps as I whirled us both around in a tight circle, guiding her about the room with the sway. I flicked her out and back into me again, bending her to the honeyed sway of my hips, and we moved to the music in a whimsical way with random twirls, however, wherever the song took me.

We were in accord with one another, our movements harmonious. Nelle's hair swirled in a sweeping arc of ribbons as I spun her beneath my raised hand. Joy vibrated down the magical bindings, and when she smiled at me, her smile grew broader when I returned my own.

The song slowly faded, then died. Caidan didn't start a new piece. He'd either finished his session for the day or perhaps was still deciding what he wanted to play next.

Nelle and I came to a slow, swaying halt.

It was quiet in the tower with just the sound of our puffing breaths, my heartbeat thudding in my ears. My gaze flicked over Nelle's strange deathly stillness, her attention fixated on me.

My smile faltered.

How bad was this?

Did she have any will at all?

Could she stop herself if she didn't want to do something I asked of her?

A terrifying rush of fear shivered down my spine. What if she couldn't? What if I was forcing her to do something she didn't want to do?

A flash of memory settled my unease. I recollected what I'd told Penn in the library a few nights ago when she asked about the tamer's will and the sway. And what had I said back to her?

It's a wyrm, much like a wilful dog. It has a mind of its own and it'll do what it wants, sway or no sway.

I needed to test it. To ask Nelle to do something I knew she'd never do.

But what?

A low whine from Sage had my attention shifting to the wraith-wolf. He stood beside Nelle, looking up at her with curiosity gleaming in his silvery eyes, but there was worry too when he nudged her limp hand with his nose and she didn't respond. Her attention was entirely pinned on me.

Sage's bushy tail drooped and he loosened a whimper.

My shoulders stiffened. I had my answer right here.

"Okay, you're going to have to trust me on this," I whispered to Sage. His ears pricked forward as his gaze sliced from Nelle to me, his eyes narrowing as he considered me for a moment.

The wraith-wolf's throat arched back as he gave a sharp bark, bounding to my side. His raspy tongue tickled when he licked my fingertips—an encouragement, an urging. Approval, I thought.

Nelle's gaze stalked me like a sunflower following the sun when I moved toward the dining table with Sage at my heels. On the polished surface, I caught the reflection of my face with her gray eyes shining back at me. I turned around to rest my ass against the curved lip and crossed my arms over my chest, an ankle over the other, feigning casualness.

Sage sat on his haunches beside me.

"Kick your dog," I ordered Nelle.