by Alex Lidell
Blood pounds in my ears and clenching sex until I want nothing but to feel Coal inside me. Filling me. Pressure builds with each second that I’m denied his cock, fueling the raging storm inside me. And yet, yet, the male still hovers above me, his arms trembling beneath his wavering control.
“No.” He shakes his head as if fending off dizziness, his voice escaping a stranglehold. “I don’t bed cadets.”
Hooking my arm under Coal, I knock his body into the side wall with more strength than a human female should have. The male’s eyes widen as his back strikes stone, the fire in them flashing all the way down to my screaming sex. Arrows of gripping need shoot through the insides of my thighs, my legs, my damn toes.
I tear open Coal’s fly with the same ease with which he’s destroyed my shirt, my strength—and somehow, his strength—twining through my muscle fibers.
Coal’s cock is so hard as it springs free of its confines that it jabs my abdomen. The male’s control snaps with a grunt as he binds me with his powerful legs. This time when Coal throws me down, I’m on my belly, the scent of wet earth and Coal’s metallic tang filling my nose. A jerk at my hips bares me fully, my wet skin tightening as cool air brushes along it, the hot wetness coating my folds so at odds with the chill that I can feel the steam rising into the damp air.
I buck, seeking Coal’s cock in blind need.
The male grips my hips roughly, his knees pushing apart my thighs just before he thrusts in all the way to the hilt.
I gasp. My slick channel captures Coal greedily, only to clench in fury as he pulls back, the pulsing tip of his cock just filling my entrance.
Coal’s breath is ragged. He waits, torn between his need and his stars-damned principles.
I little care. Whipping my head around, I skim my teeth into Coal’s forearm, my canines breaking skin.
He roars. Jerking his arm away, he slams it down between my shoulder blades, flattening me against the ground so hard that my ribs compress all the air from my lungs. Forcing my thighs even farther apart, Coal thrusts into me again and again, and this time, this time it is the full great length of him over and over and over.
12
Coal
Lera’s blazing sex clenched around Coal’s throbbing shaft. His blood pounded. Simmered. The scent of Lera’s arousal was strong enough to make Coal’s head swim, her body radiating a glorious strength that called to something deep inside him.
The woman on the islands who’d pieced together his soul before shattering it all over again. Yes, that was what his damn body was rousing to. Lera looked too much like her—that was all. That was it. It had to be, because Leralynn was a student. A student he’d just met, splayed open beneath him, taking his cock like it was meant to be inside her. And Coal couldn’t make himself care. Couldn’t control himself, couldn’t do anything but throw all caution and every ounce of good sense to the storm.
Coal pulled back, thrusting again into her blazing wetness. Lera’s sex grabbed on to him greedily, merciless to the agonizing pulsing of his rock-hard cock. She moaned, making him bite back a roar as he slammed into her harder. Her bared backside was tight with muscle, the auburn locks of hair showing between her legs thick and wet. Coal craved to taste her. Bite her. Have her.
Despite Coal’s hold on her back, the woman’s taut curved bottom rose to meet his thrusts, until the smack of his hips against hers echoed wetly through the cave. Again. Again. Again. Each penetration driving deeper and raking like fire over Coal’s skin. Coal’s breaths came in ragged pants, the naked muscles of Lera’s back bunching in a beautiful response.
Leralynn’s moans turned to screams with each thrust, her mounting pleasure driving Coal on. Her voice was tantalizing as a siren’s call, cutting to his core.
Beyond the cave, the woods howled with the last vestiges of the storm, the branches cracking beneath the force of the wind as it conquered the forest. Yes, that was what Coal wanted. Needed. Craved with an urge so primal that his mind could not follow. Coal would conquer Lera’s body like that storm took the forest. He would make her scream with pleasure and need and desperation.
Three more thrusts, each hard enough to make Lera jerk, and Coal pulled back enough to lift his hips, flipping Lera over onto her back. The woman’s hair fell in pools of auburn, her blazing eyes such a rich chocolate that she seemed more than human. Her lush breasts trembled from the motion, the large nipples bunching as hard as Coal’s twitching cock, until he was suddenly unsure which of them would be doing the damn conquering.
He pulled off his wet shirt in one rough motion, suddenly resentful of anything separating his skin from hers. Lera’s nails raked up his back in appreciation, leaving trails of heat along his tightly bunched muscles.
Whatever control he still possessed vanished. With a growl, Coal drove into her again, watching her face as her eyes widened and glazed, her lush lips parting in a moan. Coal’s mouth was closing over Lera’s before the sound was finished, claiming her as deeply above as he was below. Her mouth was sweet and hot, her tongue tangling with his, drawing him in deeper.
Thrust. Thrust. Thrust. Each plunge into Lera’s gripping sex only made Coal’s need for her stronger, the force with which he drove into her somehow flowing both ways. It was as if this woman was inside him just as much as he was inside her, her power pounding against the shields protecting Coal’s soul. Chipping at them bit by thrusting bit.
A shudder ran through Coal, only the press of Lera’s nails against his skin keeping him in the present.
Stars take him. Coal intended to consume Lera, and yet, as he reached for her breast, he feared it was she who was going to unravel him into ribbons.
13
Lera
Coal’s hand closes over my right breast, a moment of pain turning into molten heat that flows directly to my apex, intensifying each sensation. His kiss deepens to a demand. My legs wrap around his muscled hips, the large head of his cock scraping against every ridge inside me as he thrusts.
“Ahhhhhh!” The sound escapes me when Coal’s lips pull away. I feel an abyss closing around me, Coal’s cock taking me higher and higher until I know I will never survive the fall. His heaving chest and shoulders move over me, a breathtaking map of scars and twitching muscles and tight, glistening skin.
His teeth flash, his mouth closing over my nipple. His lips are hot around my skin, the bit of stubble grown after the morning shave scraping against sensitive flesh. Down below, my sex pulsates, each beat sending a wave of aching pleasure through my body. When Coal sucks on his captured nipple, the fresh wave of pleasure shakes my spine, and I clamp my teeth together to keep from begging for release.
I won’t plead. Not to Coal. Not ever.
I rake my nails over his back instead, his taut, naked backside, pulling him in deeper and marking him as mine. Coal’s head jerks up, his blazing blue eyes sparking with specks of purple. When my nails dig deeper, Coal drops his hand to stroke over my swollen apex in brutal reprisal.
My body explodes, the waves of convulsions hitting one after the other, each making the rising sensations that much more unbearable. I scream, arching to the cave’s ceiling, then scream again as Coal’s warmth spills into me, completing my utter defeat.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. His warm weight is so reassuring atop me that I never want the moment to end. When Coal finally pulls away, my world is still rippling from a climax so high that it has left me dizzy. Unable to think. To move.
I blink, uncertain where I am, my immortal body feeling each sensation—from the chill air to the rocks poking my back to my still-throbbing sex—with equal intensity. An overwhelming bouquet.
“Leralynn.” Coal’s voice is gut-wrenchingly raw. Low.
I turn my head to find the male on his knees beside me, his piercing blue eyes wide, his powerful chest rising and falling with desperate gasps. The purple specks in his eyes are gone, and the tightly bound blond hair now hangs in loose strands that brush his wet shoulders. Rubbing his fac
e, Coal moves as far from me as the cave allows, and the loss of his closeness drives a spike of ice into me.
“I-I was out of line,” he says. Still on his knees, Coal’s back is straight, his head bent in utter devastation. On his thighs, his hands dig into the leathers we never fully got rid of.
Right. In Coal’s world, he hasn’t coupled with his mate—he’s rutted with a student he was supposed to have been disciplining. Driving out of the Academy.
I swallow. A bitterness fills my mouth, sending a chill slithering across my skin. I knew the truth going in. Wanted him on a level too primal to resist. And now the bill is coming due.
Sitting up, I wrap the remains of my wet shirt around my shoulders. “Yes, you were. Not here, but back at that stream. I’d say you were so damn out of line, you crossed the bloody border to Lunos.”
Coal’s brow rises, right along with perfect stubborn chin. “Did you imagine you’d enjoy your punishment?”
My body, which I thought unable to do much of anything just now, rouses. “That wasn’t punishment, you bastard. That was—”
“Yes?” Coal leans forward, his powerful forearms braced on his thighs. No apology, no regret in his now-hard face. “Tell me what you thought that was.”
I open my mouth and close it without speaking. Coal did try quite a few options to inspire misery first and, in the end, did no damage. Left no scars like the ones Zake’s belt would have. Zake had taken pleasure from hearing of my nightmares, seeing me tremble at the sight of his leather. Coal held me down with his words, not his hands. Had watched. Had pulled me out of the water when my own stubborn mind refused. But it was still horrible. Worse than horrible. “It doesn’t matter. You wanted me to quit, and you have your wish. So you need not feel ‘out of line’ for anything.” Turning away, I go about gathering what remains of my clothes for inspection. “I’m not an Academy cadet, and you aren’t my instructor. Nothing of consequence happened here today.”
Coal’s eyes bore into my back. I know he knows my words for a lie. Coal felt something—and not just in his cock.
My chest tightens, and I turn away, forcing my attention to working out the logistics of covering myself with the remains of my pants and shirt while I return to the Academy to take the rest of my things. Because I know now—I will be leaving.
At the stream, I’d thrown the words at Coal to get him to back away, believing the point would turn moot once the rune restored the males’ memories. But without the tablet, I’ve exhausted my options here and will have to search elsewhere. The realization sends dread spiraling through me, and grief at the thought of leaving my males. But I’m the last remaining member of the quint who knows the quint even exists—this is what any one of them would do in my place.
Behind me, Coal’s efficient rustling motions are too loud for the dark void in my mind.
“Who hurt you?”
“What?” I refuse to turn toward him, lest his familiar lithe body pulls my heart back toward it. “What are you talking about?”
A calloused finger traces my back, refusing to stop when I tense beneath his touch along my scars. Ah. That. I open my mouth to respond and feel the amulet around my neck warm in reminder. Leralynn of Osprey was raised in a mansion, not a stable. “The lord who took me in as his ward required strict discipline.”
A low quiet growl that a human may not have heard escapes Coal’s throat.
I pull away, his touch on my skin feeling too good. “Where did you get yours?”
Silence. I turn, holding my torn shirt to cover my breasts, and find Coal’s hard face, defined cheekbones, and jaw sculpted into unyielding stone. The same face he doubtlessly uses to keep anyone stupid enough to ask that question from ever asking again.
I lift a brow. You started it.
A muscle tics in Coal’s jaw, his silence simmering. I sigh, shrugging a now too-cold shoulder. I know more about Coal’s slavery in the dark realm than he does just now, our odd magical connection having shoved his memories and nightmares into my consciousness more than once. I wonder what his new fogged mind makes of those dreams. If he still has them at all. Perhaps it’s better that he not tell me, for the way things are between us now, I’ve no way of salving the wounds the words would open.
I turn away again, wrapping the remains of my shirt around me like a wet towel. At least the pants are more or less salvageable.
“I was captured by the islanders while fighting on the coast. They kept me prisoner for some time. Most of the scars I imagine you refer to are from my time there.” Coal’s low voice moves around me until the male crouches inches from my face. His gaze surveys my body with a soldier’s experienced evaluation, lingering on pale, goose-bumped skin and shaking muscles. Whatever the afternoon’s sparring and stream and storm hadn’t already taken from me, our little bout of physicality did, the small burst of Coal’s shared strength now fading.
Taking off his shirt, Coal pulls it over my head in lieu of my rag.
“I don’t need your help,” I say, going to pull it back.
Coal’s hard grip captures my elbow. “I didn’t ask. I brought you out of the Academy walls this afternoon, and it is my responsibility to take you back. What you do afterward is your own business. Can you walk?”
“I will walk.”
“That’s not what I asked,” says Coal.
I sigh and rub my face, the fatigue washing over me so sudden and strong that I realize I’m swaying only when the male’s strong arms steady me. I swallow, too exhausted to fight. “What if I told you there was a fae-made artifact that I passed on the way to the Academy?” I say, studying my hands as I speak. “And that I wanted to retrace my trail to find it before the rain washed away the path.”
Coal curses. Colorfully. Despite my sagging muscles, he grabs my shoulders and shakes me hard, forcing me to look into his face. “If you told me something that stupid, I’d tell you that Grayson—the nearest town to Great Falls—just executed two of its people on charges of fae craft. And then I would shove you right back into the stream until you set your head on straight. So it is fortunate that you intend to say nothing of that sort.”
“I was jesting,” I whisper quickly, and Coal lets me go as if he held heated stone. He makes quick work of pulling his blond hair back into a low bun and somehow, within five seconds, even shirtless, he looks as confident and put-together as he did this afternoon. Rubbing my arms, I push myself up to my feet. Once standing, I pause with my hand on the rock, my one last final card to play. Not because it’s smart, but because I have to know and may get no chance after this. “Can you do one thing for me?” I ask, my shoulders tensing as he grunts in tentative consideration. “Touch your ear.”
“My own ear?”
“Yes,” I snap, watching his face, my chest still, my pulse pounding. “Your own ear. Touch it.”
Giving me a worried look, Coal reaches for his right ear, his fingers skimming the bottom.
“The top of your ear.”
“That was the top,” says Coal.
Damn it. “Here—” Scooting forward, I take Coal’s rough hand and set it to the tip of the pointed ear I know is there, though my eyes slide off it each time I try to look. Beneath my touch, I feel Coal’s finger slide along the elongated slope until—
Coal screams, the pain in his voice ripping my chest. When I pull away, the male is rocking with his head between his hands, his body shaking as I’ve never seen. His glazed blue eyes see nothing.
“Coal!” I take the male’s bare shoulder, now blazing hot as if with fever. “Coal. What’s wrong?”
The warrior blinks, his eyes returning to focus. To confusion. The rocking stops, and he frowns at my touch. “What did you want me to do?”
My mouth is dry as I pull back, shaking my head. “N-Nothing. I changed my mind.” The words come in a horrified whisper. The veil magic isn’t just convincing my males of the illusion, it is fighting to keep that reality. Like the pressure I felt when I forced myself to see the sclice last nig
ht—except, by the sound of Coal’s scream, many times worse. I recall Autumn’s warning about the importance of removing the amulets at least once a day. With the magic absorbed, the males cannot do that. And their bodies are adjusting the best they can.
Whatever solid ground I still felt beneath me falls away.
14
Lera
Coal and I don’t speak as we make our way back to the Academy, the earlier storm having calmed to a chill wet evening wind. Coal walks a step behind me, as if afraid I might fall or bolt or else melt to the ground in a pile of injured regret. The male’s misplaced guilt over what we did grows more palpable with each step closer to the school’s high stone wall, just as the wet, slippery earth confirms what I already knew about the state of Sprite’s and my tracks.
My cold, numb body is a match to my equally numb mind. The litany of hard facts marches through my thoughts, interspersed with the memory of Coal’s scream when he touched his ear, making me flinch each time. I can’t stay at the Academy, where I am creating more problems than I’m solving—wreaking havoc with the males instead of helping them, threatening their disguises, confusing their senses. My tracks have washed away, and even if they hadn’t—even if I could find my way back to that clearing in the woods and that shattered tablet—the clay was already well on its way to disintegrating even before the rain. The veil’s hold is overwhelmingly complete.
I kick a stone, watching it plop along the mud. Not even a satisfying thud at the end.
We came here to discover the nature of magic leaking into the mortal world and instead became victims of it. Centuries of vital information and reports are now locked deep in River’s mind, which means I’m no closer to saving the mortal realm here than I would be anywhere else. Without River’s direction and knowledge, I’ve no notion of how to even start looking for the rip, and I certainly can’t do it while working against my males.