Wicked Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

maintain his cohesive shape. The heavenly magic he butted against contained aspects of home and infinitely more. Human perfection. Ancient Druid blood coursed through the body, possessing fire magic that excelled even his abilities in his prime. The unfamiliar body contained great strength, vast magic. It held a blood element absent in the other host bodies WindWraith had lured to his island prison. An almost perfect body tied to another unknown sorcerer of equal vigor, both created from the necessary elemental magic to return WindWraith to the living.
    Excitement shimmied over WindWraith and he lost his tenuous tie to the land of his birth. Gray, stormy clouds shaped like arms extended from his body, and he heaved the leg bone of a long dead fire sorcerer into the boiling river.
    “Useless!” The soundless scream tore a hole in his chest cavity.
    The bone of his last sacrificial host popped in the fiery liquid before the river consumed every trace. The Druid’s magic had empowered the man to travel between a future world and the island, but the weakling sorcerer wasn’t strong enough for WindWraith’s ancient spirit. The moment his soul invaded the fire sorcerer, he knew the sorcerer missed a necessary element of nature. The body had thrust WindWraith out faster than blood from a heart wound. It took a month for WindWraith to recover the energy he expended...even after absorbing the other magical elements from the weakling Druid. An hour to deplete the Druid’s power. Two hours of fire-eating pain before the Druid sorcerer passed out, never to awaken again.
    WindWraith had stored those memories into the small container he managed to bring to the surface and not lose to the entrails of time. He howled a blustery, screaming laughter that swept through the cavern, wafted up to the pinpoint of light in the high ceiling.
    Life would be different from this time forward. He may have found the perfect host body. Of a certainty, he had also discovered another method to absorb the power he needed from the crystals without the melting radiance.
    Strength had found him at last.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Morgan watched the nearly naked man scrutinize her from soaked boots to wet, stringy hair. His expression shifted from fear to concern then from lust to wariness. Her skin tingled where he touched her, and the intense need to lay her hands upon his broad chest overwhelmed her to distraction. Surreptitiously, she pinched her thigh, feeling the throb radiate down her leg, proof that she wasn’t dreaming...or dead. After all, she had foretold her death many moons ago. Surely, the Afterlife didn’t include near drowning, did it? Throwing her predicament into the refreshing sea winds, she boldly assessed the sorcerer who had haunted her awake twice that day.
    Silent, he traded stares with her, his square jaw tensing in an arrogant sun-bronzed face. Moisture clung to his forehead and cheeks, glistening in the sunlight beaming from a sky so clear and blue one would think she had indeed died and gone to the Afterlife. The man’s strong, golden body hovering over her heated up her water-chilled flesh. Magic radiated from his warm hands, almost becoming one with her, a spark frolicking with her fire element. She had no doubt—he was real and her dreams had sprouted to life. Was he the Druid assassin Gwilym had mentioned? Is that why she dreamed of him? Holy Mother of Satan.
    The magnitude of this new reality set her heart racing again. Her head fell upon the damp sand. Her life had ceased to exist on Avalon and begun anew on a nameless, deserted island. Deserted, except for an unknown sorcerer—possible assassin—who appeared ready to pick her up and toss her back into the sea. Deserted, except for the world’s oldest and nastiest Fomorian she had to hunt down and slay before it stole the powerful magic from her body and left her carcass for hungry island beasts.
    As the sorcerer leaned over her, his vivid blue gaze flitted from her