A flame leapt up from the joined sticks. Jin’s face glowed with pleasure and the flickeringlight.
“With you I would kindle my spark,” I said. “Will you joinme?”
“I will,” Jin said, a smile stretching across hisface.
I let the flame simmer down. Then I held my stick to Damon’s. He touched his to mine without any further prompting. I expelled another quaver of magic toward them. Another flame, dancing with passion, ignited betweenus.
“With you I would kindle my spark,” I said. “Will you joinme?”
Damon smirked at me, the light gleaming in his dark eyes. “Iwill.”
I lit the flame and made my request to Kyler and then Seth. The magic inside me was dwindling with the effort, but it was heating up at the same time. The shrinking spark seared against myheart.
Even as my spark contracted, magic sang through the stone blocks around us. The power was growing in the air, wrapping around us like an echo of the arch overhead. But I had to finish this ceremony before I lost enough power to complete ourbonds.
Holding on to that energy as tightly as I could, I lifted my hand with the charcoal into the air. The guys did the same. “We will honor the Spark with our bond,” I said, and nodded tothem.
“We will honor the Spark with our bond,” they repeated, their voices mingling together. I twisted my other hand in a spiral. All the sticks flared a second time, streaking light through the darkness. The vibration of energy in the air prickled over myskin.
The connection wasn’t finished. I’d honored it and I’d opened it and turned our devotion into light, but I hadn’t sealed it yet. I brought the charcoal to my other hand, snuffing it against my palm. The flames on the guys’ sticks blinked out in the samemoment.
I drew the glyph for joining across my palm. This part they couldn’t do themselves. I stepped to each of them in turn, cupping my hand over theirs, guiding their fingers through the looping shape. I stopped at Ky and caught hold of the loose end of myribbon.
“I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Kyler Lennox as my consort,” I said, placing the ribbon on his glyph-marked palm. His fingers closed around it. Magic rippled through my words and through that symbolic cord between us. My chest pinched. Did I have enough? “I will light my spark by him and never let it burnhim.”
My spark flickered out with that last press of power. It radiated into Ky. “Now you,” I saidquietly.
He glanced at the yellow ribbon he held and offered one end to me. I curled my fingers around the strip ofsilk.
The magic I’d given him quivered through Ky’s words. “I, Kyler Lennox, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I will light her spark with my heart and never do herharm.”
My throat tightened. He hadn’t needed to add that last part, but itfit.
The magic I’d sent to him tickled back over me with his words. It sank into my chest. And then my spark burst like afirework.
Light and heat exploded through my body. It blinded me from behind my eyes, stealing my breath, scorching my throat. Kyler inhaled sharply. A sob fell from my lips, but it was a sob of joy. The magic raced through every nerve, through every pore, as if my spark and my body wereone.
The woman from the Assembly had been right. Even after the intimacy I’d already shared with these guys, I couldn’t have imagined this exhilaration. The way every particle in my body rang out with the sweep ofpower.
I clutched Ky’s hand, yanked him to me, and planted a kiss on his mouth. A little of the magic rushing through me cascaded on into him. He gripped meharder.
I wanted. Oh, I wanted, with an ache already painful at my core. The ceremony’s potent energy urged me to fulfill that need. But I had three more consorts to complete my bondwith.
Tearing myself away from Kyler, I turned to Seth. He held his hands out to me, ready to accept my ribbon and to offer me his. My heart squeezed. It took barely a sliver of the magic coursing through me to imbue my words tohim.
“I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Seth Lennox as my consort. I will light my spark by him and never let it burnhim.”
He set his ribbon in my waiting hand, clasping his fingers over mine. Magic streamed back from him to me. “I, Seth Lennox, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort. I will light her spark with my heart and never do herharm.”
Another giddy wave coursed through me. I leaned in, and Seth was there to meet me. He kissed me so hard tiny echoes of my spark danced behind myeyelids.
When I swiveled to face Jin, his eyes were bright with unspoken words. I gave him the end of my ribbon. Emotion and energy quivered through my chest. “I, Rosalind Hallowell, take Jin Lyang as my consort. I will light my spark by him and never let it burnhim.”
My artist’s voice rang out rich and steady. “I, Jin Lyang, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort. I will light her spark with my heart and never do herharm.”
The third deluge of magic made my legs wobble. Jin caught me by the waist. I gripped his shoulders and kissed him until the ache of need becameunbearable.
One more. One more, and then I could satisfy thatdesire.