Twin Passions: 3

by Lora Leigh

  Twin Passions

  Lora Leigh

  Book three in the Wizard Twins series.

  Astra Al’madere betrayed all. Those she loved. Those she swore to protect. And all for the Dark Wizards whose passion and heat she can’t live without. A Sorceress can sense her Twins, the men destined to join her in her power to strengthen the planet of Sentmar, and Astra has sensed for a while—the Delmari are hers. She can’t turn her back on them, deliver them to justice, even though they’d turned from her many years ago. A pain that still rips her heart in two.

  Torran and Rhydan knew the road to claiming their Consortress would not be an easy one. After all, a painful lie had driven her away, causing her to believe they didn’t burn for her. Weren’t consumed by her. But when she chooses to save them rather than honor her duty, the Wizards have the chance to show Astra she’s always been the only one they desire.

  Twin Passions

  Lora Leigh

  Glossary of Terms

  Cauldaran Kings: Lasan and Drago Veraga.

  Causeway: A swampy, darkened land that separates part of the magickal lands from the human lands of Yarba.

  Consort: A magickal male who has “Joined” with a magickal female.

  Consortess: A female of lesser power than a Sorceress who has Joined with a magickal male.

  Consortress: A title of distinction given only to Sorceresses who have “Joined” with Wizard Twins.

  Coven: A council of twelve who advise the Covenan Queen of royal decisions.

  Covenan: The Sorceress lands given to them by The Select when forced to run from the Wizards in fear of their magick and their freedoms.

  Covenan Mountain: The greatest center of power in Covenan.

  Covenan Sorceress Queen: Amoria Sellane, ruler of the house of Sellane, the ruling family of the Covenani, the sect of the most powerful Sorceresses who separated themselves a millennium before from the Wizard Twins they were aligned with.

  Covenan Warriors: Male Sorcerer Warriors who have not yet attained the power of Wizards. Warrior Sentinels. Even the weakest Wizard male is still stronger, much stronger than a sorcerer born of Sorceress and human blood.

  Covenani: The Sorceress magick sects.

  Covenant of Power: An unnatural joining of Wizards and Sorceress who were not destined to be natural consorts.

  Demons: Male humanoid forms of dark magic.

  Emerald Valley: Lies within the Royal Mountain Range. Surrounded by towering peaks and mountain walls nearly impossible to scale. A valley all but completely hidden for as long as Covenan has existed. Here, the Griffons are hidden by the Sorceresses.

  Garron: The great dragon who helped to raise the Covenani Sorceresses, trained them and now looks over them and their mother. He was assigned by the gods themselves to always protect the ruling Sorceresses of Covenani, especially from the deceptions of the Wizard Twins.

  Grandmother Sorceress: The Sorceress who records and holds the history of Sorceress magick.

  Griffons: Great flying lions who are so sensitive to dark magick that they know if it is even near, and will attempt to destroy it each time they sense it.

  Guardian Keeper of the Lands of the Covenani: Princess Marina, her power and her connection with the land allows her to speak to the others, to hear the lands whisper of evil, of deeds committed.

  Guardians of the Cauldaran Lands: Ruine and Raize Veressi.

  Guardians of the Power: They oversee and aid the Keepers of the Powers of the Lands (Provinces) and command all the lands.

  Guardians of the Power of Sentmar: They hold and protect all the secret pathways of magick, but must be aligned in power and emotion with their natural Consortors/Sentinels Sorceress to be able to use those pathways and to command them at will to protect the land and the people of Sentmar. Once joined with the Sentinel Sorceress, Serena, the Veressi will become the Guardians of Power of Sentmar.

  High Sentinel Sorceress Priestess: A Sorceress whose powers are second only to the gods and the Sentinel Sorceress herself. She acts as a bodyguard, companion and friend to the Sentinel Sorceress.

  High Sentinel Wizard Priests: One of the most powerful among a select few whose powers are second only to the gods and the Guardian of the Power of Sentmar. They are joined with the High Sentinel Sorceress and act as bodyguards, companions and friends of the Guardian of the Power of Sentmar.

  House of Sellane: The ruling family of the Covenani.

  Joining: The sexual completion of Wizard Twins and Sorceress mating.

  Justice Sorceress: A title bestowed to a Sorceress whose powers can divine or “seer” the truth as well as the level of guilt.

  Justice Wizard: A title bestowed to Wizards whose powers can divine the truth as well as the level of guilt.

  Keepers of the Lands: Each province has a separate Keeper of the Land. When brought together with the Guardian, they are a powerful fighting and magickal force.

  Matriarch Priestess: The highest voice of the coven.

  Mystic Forests: One of the four greatest centers of Covenan magick. The forests and mountains hide many beings of great magick.

  Natural Consort: The Wizard Twins and Sorceress created to belong to each other. One whose magick and arousal when in the presence of one another rises and amplifies. Wizard Twins accelerate and help balance a Sorceress’ power.

  Nirvana: The home of the gods.

  Pinnacle of Magick: The peak a magickal female experiences once being in contact with her natural Consort. Once brought to life, will not sleep until the peak of alignment has passed, it will then wither and is believed it will not return if a Joining does not occur within the right time frame.

  Pixies: Small, delicate females and brawny males. They possess some small magick that’s tied directly to the forests they inhabit. They often trade with the magickal beings of Covenan, and only rarely with those of Cauldaran.

  Scrye: To be able to see, without the person being present, the answers a magickal being seeks.

  Seculars: A human sect determined to destroy the magick of Cauldaran and Covenan and overtake the lands, which are rich in gold, jewels and power, for themselves.

  Seer: The ability to see into a being and see the truth or deceit they hold.

  Sentinel Select: The gods of Sentmar.

  Shadow Hell: Sentmar’s underworld.

  Shadow Planes: A magickal, often brutal dimension where all forms of magick meet and intertwine. Trials, battles, monstrous forms and dark beings exist there to escape Shadow Hell. Warriors who can “shadow walk” travel through the dark pathways as a shortcut from one part of Sentmar to another. Or they enter there to battle with the dark magick that seeks to step into Cauldaran and Covenan to destroy the beings of magick that live there.

  Shadow Walk: The ability to enter the Shadow Planes at will.

  Sidhe: They can only be found on a hidden path in the Shadow Planes in the only area known to experience the golden rays of Musera’s sun. They are ethereally beautiful, immortal and responsible for bringing humans to Sentmar. They are resented by all of Sentmar’s maji for the act and are often called out for it, even now, whenever they are seen. Highly advanced warriors and warrioresses. Whenever traveling outside their own realm they hide within a veil of illusion to ensure they are not identified because they are forbidden to make the first strike when insulted over the act of bringing humans to Sentmar.

  Snow Owls: Huge white owls that carry Wizard and Warrior Twins into battle.

  Sorcerer: Of human and Sorceress or Wizard’s blood. In essence, a magickal Halfling of much lesser or no magickal abilities at all (not of Wizard and Sorceress birth).

  Sorceress: The highest feminine powers. They were meant to battle next to their Twins, and to provide a base of power for their Twins to tap
into.

  Sorceress Brigade: A unit of two dozen Sorceress “Keeper” initiates (daughters of Keepers of the Lands) also known as the Sorceresses in waiting to the Queen or the Princesses.

  Sorceress Justice: A group of sorceresses charged with deciding the guilt and innocence of those suspected of criminal acts.

  Sorceress Keepers of the Land: Twelve Keepers of the Power of the lands (provinces) of Covenan.

  Sorceress Priest: The second most powerful female on the planet.

  Sorceress Sentinel of Power: The highest reigning female of magick who legend says will appear during times of war or danger to Covenani or the ruling house of Sellane.

  The One: The highest of all Sentmar power worshipped by the magickal beings as the Sorcerer Select and by the humans.

  The Reigning Age: The age when Keeper heirs normally return to their lands to take their throne and begin ruling the power of their province.

  The Vale of Sorcery: Exists within the Shadow Planes. The place where dark magick rules and Wizard Twins battle against the creatures dark magick attempts to send through the pathways to the magickal lands.

  Unicorns: Pure white horses with golden horns that are tied exclusively to the Sorceresses of Covenan. They will rarely allow males of any sect to ride them. Some unicorns bond with their riders to such an extent that they can communicate with them psychically.

  Unit Select: One Sorceress is created to complete each set of Wizard Twins. To bind the Sorceress and the Twins in a ring of magickal pleasure and power.

  Witches and Warlocks: Having more power than a magickal human, but less than a Sorcerer or Sorceress. Witches and Warlocks are mostly working class.

  Veressi line: Guardians of the Land of Cauldaran for as long as there have been record of such things. Just as the house of Sellane had birthed the Guardian of Covenan since they had claimed Covenan as their own. Their rage and petty deceptions had been the cause of countless Sorceress deaths in those first years after the separation between the two magicks.

  Winter Mountains: So bitterly cold only magickal beings can survive there, though none are known to exist there.

  Wizard: The third most powerful males on the planet.

  Wizard Priests: The second most powerful males on the planet.

  Wizard Sentinel: The most powerful and revered of the ancient Wizards.

  Wizard Twins: Twins born with such an elemental bond that it is more comfortable and their power more powerful when they Join with the same Sorceress. They always complement each other. One may be impatient, the other patient. One determined, the other easygoing. One Wizard always counters or balances each other. Wizards do not make deals or pacts without their Twins’ knowledge of it.

  Wizard Moons: The two “male” moons of Sentmar. Once three thick rings of magick surrounded them as they moved across the sky, said to always be searching for their one true Sorceress, the sun. For a millennium they’ve been growing transparent and wispy as the power of the land seems to be growing weaker.

  Yarba: The human province that borders the Causeway.

  Sentarian Magick

  Once, Sentmar had no humans.

  It was a place of beauty, of magick, of innocence.

  Power whispered and lingered like wisps of morning moisture upon the air. It glistened and sparkled like fortune’s gems and trilled its sweet magick like the song of the tweeterlings.

  Then, the Sidhe brought to Sentmar humans from a realm where violence and fear subverted magick.

  These humans, they swore, understood all magicks. They swore they were creatures of peace who only sought to escape the death that followed them for their loyalty to the Sidhe.

  Our councils protested this addition. Our Seers saw a darkness on the horizon arriving with these creatures. Our rulers listened to the sad tale of these humans with trepidation. And we denied the Sidhe their request. We wanted not the humans they sought refuge for, though we knew great sympathy for their plight.

  The Sidhe, being the Sidhe, listened to naught but their own wants. They brought these humans and placed them in the one place they knew we would not sense the darkness in their souls.

  At least, not for a while.

  By the time we found these creatures they had multiplied. Like nothing we had known on Sentmar, they rooted themselves to the land the Sidhe had placed them on and called it their own. A land that had once thrived with the fragile buds of magick spreading into it. A land whose magick became hidden, frightened and cowering in the shadows like the children those humans would strike at their whims.

  The Sidhe refused to remove them. They refused to aid us in transferring them back to their own realm. We, the magickal beings, the children of Sentmar, were in danger of extinction.

  We were the many, they were the few.

  We were the strong, they were the weak.

  Yet we could not will them to leave, and our laws forbade drenching the land in their blood.

  And what we feared came to pass.

  The humans soon began spreading even into lands that magick had held from the beginning of our creation. Each step they took upon Sentmar, soon, magick would ease away. It would hide. It would watch in fear, uncertain and frightened as the dark hearts of these beings began to look toward even the lands of the greatest power.

  Lands fed by the Raging Seas of Magick, a monstrous body of water that fills half this wondrous land. The waters of mystery, strength and power where creatures of wonder, of brilliance and power lurk within its liquid magick and watch as they feed into the streams, the channels and the lakes that build and run beneath the very lands themselves.

  Or they once did.

  We begged the Sidhe to remove their wards.

  They refused.

  We pleaded with them.

  They turned a deaf ear.

  And the humans moved over Sentmar like a plague as magick slid slowly to the shadows, even within Cauldaran.

  Our Seers became weak.

  Wizards were being birthed as one rather than as twins. Sorceresses were being condemned for their power, and in terror we watched as our magick began to hide even within us.

  The feel of magick strangling within the lands awakened our creator, the father of all magick. The One.

  Traveling across Sentmar he saw the invasion, the fear, the cruelties of humans and the dimming of the glory of the sun that warmed the skies and heated the magick that ran in vast pools and molten streams beneath the lands.

  It was being destroyed by creatures whose darkness could not be denied. Even they, try as they might, and try often, could not deny it themselves.

  On the throne of Cauldaran at this time sat a princess, ruling alone. One whose magick was great and as pure as her flesh who had never known a lover’s touch. Serving as her most trusted guards were one of the few sets of Wizard Twins who still yet existed. Wizards whose power was as pure as their princess’s innocence and fed by the Raging Seas themselves.

  To these Wizards and to this princess Sorceress he came in a dream. He showed them magick like none had ever known. He showed them the hidden moon within the skies behind its brother. He showed them the power of the twin moons as both became revealed. The thick, luminous rings that would surround them, that would wrap around the sun as well and add to the power of the magick of the land. And they would be the first to know this wondrous gift.

  On the night the twin moon forced itself from hiding and the rings of magick began to surround both, the Wizard Twin protectors and Sorceress princess would Join and their magick would build. They would Join, and they would pull Wizard Twins from hiding and magickal Sorceresses from the shadows.

  In their Joining, magick would build once again. That magick would give his children the power to push back the darkness that had come to Sentmar with the arrival of the humans.

  As the One promised, the day came that the twin moon moved out of hiding and its thick, pillowy clouds surrounded both moons and the sun as well. That day, Wizard Twin Consortors took as thei
r Consortress the princess Sorceress.

  The Raging Seas began to whip as though in fury. Great waves pounded at the shores, flooded the human towns that had grown upon them and forced the pestilence back to the lands from whence the Sidhe had bid them stay.

  Magick invaded the streams, the lakes. It boiled and burned and spewed from volcanoes in far-off lands. Spores of magick began to fill the air, infused the soil, the lakes and streams, the creatures of four legs and the creatures of two and all the creatures the One had meant for it to fill.

  Humans were the invaders. They were alien to the land and to the magick, and they were driven back. Magick seared their senses, caused great boils of darkness to rise beneath their flesh and turned their eyes a bloody hue, marking them as a creature unwanted by the magick lands.

  The rules the One had given all of magick, he was forced to abide as well. He could not shed the blood of the humans and wipe them from the planet. He could not take from the lands he had created what the Sidhe had brought to it. He could banish the darkness-diseased forms instead.

  He could push them back to the lands they were given by creatures who had no rights to bequeath it. Between that land and the rest of Sentmar, great mountains rose. A dark, putrid channel formed at the base of the great mountains, so wide, so deep, that even to magick it appeared daunting and fearsome.

  Creatures of vengeful magick were placed there. Creatures whose hatred of humans consumed them, rose from the muck, the mire and the pools of bubbling magick. The air in this place of disease and death was commanded to burn and to sear those who lacked magick.

  The creatures the darkness of that place gave birth to were filled with but one purpose. To hold back the dark death called “human”. These creatures alone were given leave to spill the blood on the interlopers, whether crime was committed or not. Whether first blood was drawn or not.

  No matter the reason, the why or the excuse. Should humans attempt to cross the causeway the One had created, then their lives would be forfeit.

  Turned he then to the Wizards and Sorceresses he had gifted. He bade them, hear him well. As long as Wizards and Sorceress came together by natural magickal selection, so then would they always grow in power.