I gasp as Coal thrusts into me, the great length of him filling my body as his equally great power fills my essence. Magic explodes inside me, my sex tightening around Coal. My shoulder burns where he has my arm twisted behind me, but even the pain is a rumble that wakes my senses, somehow making the roaring pleasure in my sex even more vivid.

The power of Coal’s thrusts brings me to my toes, his hot breath scorching the back of my neck. My heart pounds, the energy exploding between us ready to rip the room into shreds.

I feel . . . strong. Stronger than I did in the ring this morning. Stronger than I’ve ever felt in my life. As if a fog has lifted from the bridge linking Coal and me, revealing Coal’s power in all its intoxicating, undiluted glory.

Shoving away from the wall, I knock us both backward, caring nothing for what might be in the way. We crash onto the hard floor, my body screaming its fury over the sudden, unintended loss of Coal’s cock. I scramble to pull him back into me, my flailing limbs connecting with something that sends a rain of weapons and armor clattering down to the stone floor.

Coal grips my hair as he climbs to his knees. His blue eyes flash with specks of black and purple, and as our gazes meet, images of gray-skinned qoru flash in the aching depths of my mind.

Our other connection surfacing to play, the fog fighting to reclaim its throne.

Panic flashes in Coal’s gaze, the images coming faster now. Shackles. Pain. The dampened sounds of those bent-the-wrong-way legs approaching in the Gloom. Fear and fight.

This close, I feel Coal’s desperate, bloodcurdling struggle to stay in the present. A fight that the black specks in his eyes say he is losing. My heart breaks.

“Leave,” Coal pants, his jaw clenched, his muscles quivering, his hair gleaming silver in the moonlight. “Break for the door and run.”

Run before I see more, before what remains of Coal’s control fails. This is what the male’s every moment is like, I realize with sudden shock. A struggle to keep his past shoved down to a dark corner of his mind. To protect the world—and me—from himself.

“There are two of us to fight the qoru now,” I shout into Coal’s face. “Try to hoard them all for yourself and I will tear open your throat.” I mean it too, drunk as I am on our shared power. Shared darkness. I want Coal. With all his jagged edges, his raw, brutal strength that makes me unable to stay still for my throbbing need.

Purple flashes in Coal’s eyes. With a growl, he yanks me up and throws me away from him. A dull pain I don’t truly feel tells me I’ve struck something—likely the dresser, given its subsequent crash, drawers slipping free.

I recover into a crouch. Bending my knees, I lower my head and step around Coal, aiming my shoulder for the bend of his hips. Coal’s flesh, fully naked, glistens with sweat. Muscles I’ve never seen before flicker and bulge under his tawny skin as he crouches across from me. For an instant, my gaze catches on the taut, wet length of him, noting that it belongs inside me. By the time the thought penetrates, I’m already moving.

My shoulder strikes Coal with more speed and force than I thought possible, the impact echoing gloriously through me.

Coal absorbs the blow, his lithe body spinning with the force of my strike, turning the momentum to his own purposes. His heavy hand shoves between my shoulder blades, propelling me toward his bed.

I slam into the foot of the bed, gasping as the male bends me over it. With a rough pull, Coal rips the silk nightshift off my back, cold air brushing my exposed shoulder blades and my raised, bared backside.

One hand sliding to the nape of my neck, Coal rakes the other possessively over my skin, reaching down to grip my breast with his calloused palm.

I whimper.

“Quiet,” Coal commands, as if I can control the sounds his body is calling forth from mine. The hand on my breast squeezes punishingly, and I gasp from the sudden pain that zings from my nipple straight to my apex, waking me with brutal efficiency.

Grabbing my shoulder, Coal flips me over to face him. Shackling both my wrists with one hand, he looms over me, his free palm engulfing my breast again, his hard cock pressing against my mound.

Gray skin flashes in my mind, sending a streak of terror through my core.

Coal grips my face at once, forcing my eyes to meet his. The male’s blue-purple gaze opens my soul. Bares his to me in return. Coal saw the qoru too. But now—now we see each other.

My eyes widen with understanding. Whether stretching through the nightmares’ fog or passion’s light, it is this raw, vulnerable intensity that forges the link between us. That, for good or ill, makes Coal’s magic sing loudly enough for me to echo.

Coal’s mouth descends upon mine, hard and desperate, his masculine musk flooding my senses. He’s sharing his strength with me, his magic, giving me all of himself to arm me against darkness. Accepting my strength in return. And I love him for it.

When our air is gone and my lungs scream for breath, Coal pulls away from the kiss.

At once, my mouth misses the invasion of his, empty without his warmth filling it. I flex my head up and sink my teeth into Coal’s neck. “Get back where you belong,” I rasp, the emptiness inside me roaring.

A snort, then Coal flips me right back over the foot of the bed. Parting my thighs with his knees, the male buries himself inside me with a hard, well-aimed stroke. I moan as my body stretches to accommodate his length, but Coal gives no quarter. Hands braced on the crests of my hips, he starts pumping, hitting my insides so deep that I feel his reverberations through my core. My moans and pants fill the room, each one fueling Coal’s cock, making his strokes wilder, harder.

My sex tenses around him, each slap, slap, slap of Coal’s pelvis against my backside bringing me one step closer to the edge. The sheer size of him, the powerful thrusts, the rub of his throbbing cock along my channel’s ridges . . . Stars. Waves of desire pound my body, a storm of growing, unbearable need. My fingers grip the sheets, my voice filling the air. “More.”

One of Coal’s hands rips free of my hip and tangles itself in my hair. He yanks my head up, the pain in my scalp as excruciating as the need of my swollen sex, my body instinctively slamming back into his just as—

All of my muscles seem to tense at once, my body arching from the pressure. The magic pulsing through my veins rattles every frayed nerve. Around my apex, a swirling, excruciating tornado twists tighter and deeper. Harder. Clenching around Coal’s fullness, my sex finally explodes into rippling, painful pleasure, and I scream.

My breathing—once I find it again—comes in sharp, quick pants.

Behind me, Coal groans with his own release, his warmth filling my body. And for one glorious second, he holds me there against his hard chest, my head resting on his shoulder, our warmth and sweat mingling.

Then he lowers me back to the bed and withdraws in a cold instant, chilly air swirling against my back.

I draw a shuddering breath and crawl onto the bed, my body still trembling from drunken fatigue. By the time I’ve collected myself, Coal is in the middle of the chamber, his feet set apart on the floor as he stares at me with wide eyes, glistening chest heaving.

I blink at his smooth body then survey the room. The dresser is toppled, the weapons and leather strewn across the ground. My nightshirt is destroyed, little more than a rag. Swallowing, I pull Coal’s sheet over me.

His dazed blue eyes rake over me, searching for something. “I’ll . . . I’ll get Tye,” he says gruffly.