“Two,” Coal said, his body trembling. Keeping himself up on his forearms, he glared at the mortal trapped beneath him. The part of him that could still think begged her to run. The rest of him stared in breath-halting disbelief at the female he’d wanted since they first shared a saddle, now lying splayed open upon his bed.

Lera was on her back, the thin blue silk of her nightgown clinging to her round breasts, smooth abdomen, and tight, perfectly curved hips. Worse still, with Coal’s legs pinning hers in a grapevine vice, the fabric of Lera’s shift had ridden up her thighs. Up her hips. Wisps of the female’s hair—coiled tufts the same fiery brown color as their counterparts on her head—peeked from beneath the dislodged hem. Between the lantern, the stars, and his own immortal sight, Coal could see beads of moisture hanging on those tufts, like droplets on the side of a sweating glass of wine.

Stars.

Coal shuddered, the scent of Lera’s arousal waking his senses. A fanciful, misguided arousal that somehow failed to understand the monster only inches away from it. Coal’s pulse thumped against his ribs, an echo to the one stretching his balls.

Lera squirmed beneath him. Too small, too mortal, too damn breakable for what Coal’s cock screamed to do.

He needed for Lera to leave. No, not just leave. Run. To never, ever return to his bedchamber, especially not alone and clad in little more than feisty darkness. Coal smelled it on her, the spice of fight and grit that spiked her lilac scent and made his head swim with need. Made his cock harden so fiercely that pain shot from it through his thighs.

Lera’s liquid brown gaze darted toward the door as she finally, finally understood the need for escape. It’d certainly taken her long enough. Stars, one would think that after what he’d done to the female that morning, she’d be giving him a wide berth for a year.

Plainly, Lera was no normal being.

Coal nodded, the final count harsh on his lips. “Three.”

Lera shoved Coal away. His body screamed its protest as he yielded, his muscles hating to release their prey but—thank the stars—obeying. For a moment, all Coal could do was kneel on the bed and focus on his breath, on keeping himself from grabbing Lera’s hair and dragging her right back to him. He wanted to yell that she move faster, that his restraint was thinning to nothing, but even that would take too much concentration.

Breathe. He needed to breathe. He—

Lera pounced on him. Shoved Coal onto his back and straddled his chest with her wickedly moist thighs. She pinned his shoulders with her hands, her nails digging into his naked flesh, sending a bolt of pain and desire through him. Igniting his magic like a match thrown into a pile of dry hay.

Coal’s body quivered with panting breaths, his hands digging into the covers as Lera loomed over him, her auburn hair brushing his shoulders. Her eyes aflame.

“Is this the part where I was supposed to run?” she whispered into his ear. “Just so I know.”

Coal’s need exploded. Stars speckling his vision, he grabbed Lera’s hips and threw her off him so hard that the female was airborne for the instant it took him to recapture her body. To propel her off the bed and toward the wall.

Coal twisted to take the crash of impact himself as their bodies hit the hard stone, then twisted again to pin Lera’s back to the wall. The throb, throb, throb of his cock driving all thoughts into a dark abyss, Coal clamped his hand over Lera’s wrists and forced them up high above her head.

Lera opened her mouth. To moan or to scream, Coal didn’t know. Didn’t care. He’d wanted her from the moment her soft backside first pressed against his cock on Czar’s back, but he’d needed her from the moment she first sparred with him, taking his blows with defiance, meeting his darkness with brilliant fire. And by the stars, he’d have her now.

Capturing Lera’s open lips, Coal drove his mouth over hers, swallowing her gasp. His tongue pierced the opening between her teeth and stroked her mouth as hard as his cock throbbed. As hard as the burn of waking magic that scorched his nerves.

All the times Coal had dreamt of tasting the mortal—and there had been many—he’d imagined her to taste sweet, innocent. But he’d been wrong. Lera tasted of power. Power and violence and steel. Lera tasted of Coal’s own magic.

Impossible. Illogical. Undeniable.

Coal’s breath caught then painfully filled his lungs.

The female pulled against his grip, struggling to free herself from his living restraints. Not a mortal’s feeble jerk, but one filled with the same preternatural strength that they’d shared in the second trial. No. Not the same. Stronger. So, so much stronger. Power hummed under Lera’s skin, radiating from each of her muscles. And that was after just one kiss. Coal’s heart stuttered.

Which was all the leeway the girl needed.

Twisting her wrists against Coal’s thumbs, Lera broke free of his hold. Her mouth still locked with his, she jerked them around, slamming Coal’s back into the wall in her place. Driving into him hard enough that his bones rattled from the impact. Releasing Coal’s mouth, Lera glared up at him, her eyes . . . usually a stunning brown, but now filled with speckles of silver magic, sparkling like tiny stars over the irises.

Not a weak, fragile human, but an equal. A predator to be conquered.

Lera’s nails raked across Coal’s chest possessively, ripping skin. Marking him.

A roar formed inside his soul and spread through his body, the untamed beast inside him yanking against its tether. Coal knew that beast, made of power and magic. When the qoru had chained him, bled him, pinned him against the wall and used him for sport, the magic inside Coal had roared this way too, right before turning him into a beast capable of meeting his owners blow for blow.

The beast had let Coal survive Mors. And now it set its predatory sights on the female, drowning out the last of Coal’s better sense.

Coal yanked on Lera’s right wrist, bending it until her knees buckled. Pulling the wrist across her body, he twisted the female around and shoved her chest into the wall.

With Lera’s arm now pinned into the small of her back, Coal pressed himself against her, his hard, sensitive cock striking her backside. Coal’s nostrils flared, Lera’s scent, her arousal, heating his blood. Bringing up his knee, he forced it between her legs, wedging her thighs apart until she was splayed open before him.

Lera’s heart pounded—Coal could feel it through the press of their flesh. Dropping his free hand down, he gave no warning before plunging two fingers deep into her sex.

Wet, flaming slickness met him, Lera’s body begging for him even as she struggled to get free. A perfect, powerful body whose every contraction made stars dance before Coal’s eyes.

Coal slipped his hand out of her long enough to free himself, his cock hard and dripping. Screaming with need. With no breath left, he thrust forward, sheathing himself in Lera’s wicked tightness.