Page 62 of Great Falls Rogue
With our mouths still locked, I sink my canines into Coal’s lip.
He sheathes his cock deep inside me with a groan, the single brutal stroke bringing me up onto my toes.
Pleasure surges along my spine, my muscles coiling as jolts of sensation explode through me. My toes curl. Gripping Coal’s hair, I pull back his head as he starts thrusting without mercy, the bed creaking behind us. He hooks my backside with his good arm and holds me still, thrusting deeper and faster until our mouths break apart with frantic breaths. I grip his shoulders and ride him, his cock finding every ridge inside my blazing channel and shoving us closer to the release that our fight started.
Towardmore.
Coal’s blue eyes fill with specks of purple, his memories flooding me, along with the strange magic connecting us. With nothing to hold on to, my mind is swept into the nightmare storm of Coal’s making until I’m looking through his eyes. Short, horrid images flash through me. Chains holding wrists. The tapping feet of tormentors approaching from behind. The stench of burned flesh and copper blood and the decaying scent of the qoru themselves—the Mors creatures that truly held Coal a slave for centuries.
My hands tighten on Coal’s hair, my gaze holding his. His thrusts never slow, his grip on my bottom so tight, I know it will leave a bruise.Stay with me, Coal.I open my mouth, groping for words to pull him back into the now, but someone beats me to it. A familiar female voice, echoing through the bridge between Coal and me. The magic inside me flashes and slips from my control, pulling me so deeply into Coal’s soul that I watch the nightmare through his eyes. Think his thoughts, hear his blood coursing through my veins, and feel his muscles trembling in my arms and legs.
“You are not alone,” says the phantom woman who held my soul together in that prison—until she disappeared, leaving me shattered. Pain explodes through me, though whether it comes from my broken bone or the woman’s inevitable fading, I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter, I cannot stop either one. I’ve seen this too many times.
But this time, it’s different. This time, I look right at her, spearing her chocolate eyes with my gaze. “You left. Why did you leave?”
Outside the nightmare, Lera’s hands tighten in my hair, forcing my head down to meet her eyes. Achingly familiar chocolate eyes. The same woman. I inhale a lung full of lilac. “I didn’t,” the woman says in Lera’s soul-gripping voice. “You wouldn’t see me.”
15
Lera
“You wouldn’t see me,” I shout along with Coal’s phantom, only realizing how much the words hurt after they leave my mouth. How deeply I blame Coal for failing to force his way past the illusion of me that the magic’s veil spun in his mind. And now, with him inside me, each thrust of his cock sending a zing of sensation right to my swelling apex, the truth of that admission pounds against my soul.
Pain bubbles inside me, along with images of Coal denying the bond between us. Coal on the training pitch, his dismissive gaze skittering over me as I step onto the sands. Coal telling me to quit. Coal ignoring me for a month. My eyes sting. “You were supposed to recognize me. You were supposed to fight harder.”
Coal grips my face, his cock stilling in my channel. Blue-purple eyes filled with devastation stare into mine, a mix of confusion and guilt lining his beautiful face. Inside me, the spidering silver cord of his magic pulses to the rhythm of our hearts.
“Tell me who you are,” Coal says.
The amulet around my neck goes so hot, I fear it will melt my flesh. “You have to work it out yourself,” I whisper.
“Tell me how,” he growls, his breath harsh in the silent bedchamber, his cock pumping into me again once, deep and hard.
“You know how,” I gasp. “It’s in your memories.”
Grabbing Coal’s wrist, I pin it to the post above my head. The wave of panic rushing through our bond makes me whimper. But Coal lets me do it. Lets me hold his wrist captive as his mind puts him back into shackles, fills his nose with the stench of blood and fear, his ears picking up the menacing footsteps approaching from behind. Tormentors that Coal thinks are just islanders holding him captive—but I know to be creatures far worse than any human.
For a heartbeat, I feel Coal balking from the unfolding darkness. Then he draws a shuddering breath, braces himself, and plunges into the torrent with predatory intent, my own mind descending with him. Coal’s hips undulate, his cock filling my channel again and again as the dark cell comes into focus around us.
This time, instead of looking through Coal’s eyes, I’m watching the scene from just in front of him—from the same place my real body occupies. Coal’s face and the thick dank stone walls around us are beaded with moisture, thedrip drip dripof something just out of sight both rhythmic and horrifying. Over Coal’s shoulder, I can see the gray qoru come closer to Coal’s back. Gray-skinned creatures of Mors, with lidless milky pink eyes and webbed hind legs. The first one stretches a round mouth of razor-sharp teeth into a horrid grin, ready to feed on Coal’s pain as it’s done for centuries.
Coal swallows, his muscles trembling. He can’t see the qoru, but he can feel them—even if the amulet’s magic keeps insisting that they areislanders.
I suddenly know the answer to Coal’s question. He has to turn. To look at the qoru. When I open my mouth to say as much, the tattoo marks on Coal’s skin, the footprint left when his body absorbed the amulet, glow a bloody red.
Coal’s body is rigid now, every fiber inside him doubtlessly screaming not to look back. Never look.
“Coal,” I call.
His glazed gaze shifts to me, his eyes filling with longing. Yet I know it’s not the real Lera he sees when he looks at me, but the woman from his magic-spun dreams.
I call his name again.
Behind Coal, the milky-eyed qoru jerks its attention away from Coal, its ire suddenly aimed at me. Terror pours into my blood, and I scream despite myself.
Coal roars, twisting against his own fear, as if his instinct to protect me over himself exists even in his nightmares. His breath stills the moment he sees the qoru, then returns with a vengeance.
“Don’t. Touch. My mate.” Coal tries to put himself between the qoru and me, yanking so hard on his chains that his arm breaks. He seems to care little about the arm, though. Care little about the pain or fear or anything—except me.
