Chapter 14
Lyra
Roark’s expression was a tangle of bewilderment and lascivious heat. I bit down on my lip to keep from recanting my words. Unease splintered in my chest. This was too bold, too much.
Light from the flames darkened, like a shade had been drawn, shadowing the glow.
Roark, unmoving, was slowly draped in silky ribbons of shadows. Fire flickered behind his eyes until the gold faded to a shocking copper crimson. Along the thick scar on his throat, darkness dripped until a shape formed. Broad shoulders, ghostly skin, long fingers with dark fingernails.
Skul Drek stood between me and Roark, his head covered in the dark cowl, his lips pressed tightly.
I shuddered under his watch. This was…different. More vicious, more brutal, more possessive.
“Don’t move, Roark. You’ll watch your darkest pieces have me.”
I straightened my spine, holding the burning attention of the monstrous shadow. My fingers opened the front of my tunic so it slid down my arms. Skul Drek tracked the garment, his shoulders lifting with silent breaths.
Through the diaphanous skeins of night, I could make out where Roark remained. His grip on the arms of the chair had tightened, and his jaw clenched enough that every muscle in his face seemed to pulse.
I blinked back to Skul Drek. With slow motions I shouldered out of the tunic and let it pool at my feet, leaving me exposed and naked. Roark hissed through his teeth, but Skul Drek lunged.
I cried out when the force of his darkness pinned me against the wall, arms above my head, the solid thickness of his darkened thigh between my legs. We were not in the mirror realm, so like Roark, Skul Drek did not speak here. But his eyes made a thousand unspoken vows of what was to come.
A touch of fear tingled through me from such heat. Such desire. For a moment I considered that Roark’s darker half might devour me in the end.
Skul Drek pressed against me, moving his thigh against my bare center.
I gasped and let my head fall back the more friction built between my legs.
Heat was followed by a frigid breath. The phantom’s mouth moved along my throat, and sharp nicks from his teeth roved down my neck, until his icy breath blew against one breast.
“Gods.” I let out a rough pant when I felt him draw in my skin, sucking and nipping the pebbled point.
On the other side of the room, Roark shifted in his seat, a flush to his skin. His mouth was parted, and he panted, but his grip had yet to loosen on the chair.
“Can you…?” I let out a moan when Skul Drek’s leg pressed harder against my core. “Can you feel it?”
Roark’s eyes snapped up. He gave a jerky nod.
I grinned with a bit of my own wickedness. “Good. Don’t move.”
In the next moment, a ribbon of misty darkness covered my mouth, silencing me.
Skul Drek tugged on my chin, forcing me to meet his burning gaze. One shadowed finger covered his dark lips. He did not uncover my mouth before spinning me around and flattening my body against the wall.
His hands—or perhaps more of his shadows—reached between my thighs. Cold, sensual touches covered my entire body. My head fell back, throat bared; both peaks of my breasts were pinched and tugged by those chilled fingers.
But as if he had a dozen hands, inky shadows coiled around my waist and slid down my lower belly until they brushed against my drenched core. I shuddered, my knees threatening to give out, but the phantom only caged me against the wall again.
His lips, his tongue, all of it tasted the crook of my neck.
Coils of darkness pinned my palms to the wall. Skul Drek used one hand to tug at my hips, silently urging me to bend forward.
I trembled when I hinged at my waist, palms on the wall, legs spread.
From behind, the drip of darkness slid between the globes of my ass.
A cry slipped over my lips when he used my own wetness to ease the shadows into me there.
The burn of something new, something viciously full, blurred my thoughts until all I could do was feel Skul Drek to my bones.
My body thrashed against the intrusion from all sides, and a muffled scream split under his shadows.
Something crashed behind me.
Roark practically gasped, still seated. He’d kicked over a stool near the inglenook in frustration. His skin was red and flushed, and he looked at his own soul with poisonous venom.
I fell into the touch of Skul Drek, rocking my core against his shadows. I arched my back until both misty palms took each breast, squeezing and molding the shape of me.
The beginnings of release coiled low in my belly, pooling heavy in my core. More light faded, and the heavy mists of the mirror surrounded my ankles.
Good gods, he had pulled me away to the shadows of the realm of souls.
My body was tangled in such need I hardly cared.
Cold surrounded me, and Skul Drek only tightened his hold. When the threads of gold from the tether between us glowed in my sights, I widened my legs. “More!”
“Melder.” His rough, rocky rasp danced down my spine now that we were in the mirror.
“Show me what you want,” I said in a breathless gasp. “Take me.”
A low sort of growl rolled over his lips. Skul Drek dipped his face against my throat, kissing me there. “I will burrow inside you, Melder. Until you are never free of he and we.”
By the gods.
A thread of shadows tightened around my throat, pressing enough that I drew in a sharp breath. It was not enough to cut off my air, and the tension sent a wave of pleasure down my spine. Skul Drek claimed me.
I dipped my chin and watched as another thread of darkness glided between my thighs and entered my slit from behind again. Gods, I would not survive. So full, so deep. It felt like a beautiful torture. Shadows touched and tormented every surface of me, inside and out, until I could not breathe.
Warmth returned. Little by little the trance of the mirror faded, by my desire or by Roark forcing his soul to release me, I didn’t know. Sensation only deepened the more heat filled the room.
I bit down on the ribbon of darkness over my mouth, whimpering as a fierce, quaking release rolled through me. From the crown of my skull to the soles of my feet, I was engulfed in flames.
Another kick. The same stool flung across the room, and Roark bolted off the chair.
I choked on a gasp when he reached through the darkness of Skul Drek, stepped through the phantom figure, and spun me into his arms.
My body shuddered when copper eyes clashed with gold. When for a moment, for a perfect moment, he became we. It wasn’t long until Skul Drek faded into Roark, leaving a faint shadow over his eyes.
My release still muddied my head, but I trapped Roark’s face between my palms. “I cannot make out a difference between you.” My voice croaked. “You are he and he is you. I see all of you, and I want every dark, cruel, wonderful piece.”
Roark crashed his mouth to mine.
He kissed me with such fury, I feared blood would be drawn. Roark gathered me in his arms and drew us down to the woven rug beside the inglenook.
I hooked my legs around his waist and kissed him as though ravenous, as though I would never get enough.
“You’re whole,” I blurted out between kisses. “You were always whole to me. Every part of you is mine.” I gently tapped his face once, twice, three times. “Mine.”
Roark’s brow furrowed, a glimpse of vulnerability. As though the words meant something deeper. He let out a rough grunt and furiously rid himself of his boots and trousers.
Wildness lived in his expression when he reared over me, gripping my chin to devour me. His tongue, his teeth, his kiss claimed all of me until I swallowed his every breath.
My fingers dug into the damp heat of his bare back, clawing at his flesh like I wanted to peel it off his bones.
Before I realized his movement, Roark pulled away, leaving me breathless. I cried out when he rolled me onto my belly.
Eyes wide, I looked over my shoulder.
His countenance was carved in beautiful darkness, a look of pure need and possessive desire, but beneath it all was the sweetest gleam of devotion.
He wasted no time before he urged me onto my knees and yanked my hips back.
“Roark…”
He gripped my thighs, spreading them. His palms claimed my hips with such force, I was certain marks would be left behind come nightfall.
A tangle of two forces who’d stolen my heart and soul. Skul Drek was there, part of him, burrowed in Roark’s blood. Not only had the silent Sentry claimed me, but so had the killer in the shadows.
Both.
One.
Him.
Roark was a man undone. He settled behind me and aligned his swollen cock with my entrance. In a rough thrust, he filled me. My spine bowed from the intrusion. I cried out his name.
He didn’t stop. A sort of madness overtook the prince of Dravenmoor. Roark curled his fingers in my hair, pulling my head back as he pounded into my core.
His gasps were rough, raw. Another cold rope of shadows slithered across my cheeks, between my breasts, and down my stomach.
All gods. The ribbon of darkness reached between us, circling the apex of my core while a second slid over my breasts once more, pinching and flicking.
All of him. He was giving me everything.
I would never tire of all that he was. Monster, hunter, protector, lover—I wanted it all.
Roark bit down on the curve of my neck when a second release spread through me like an inferno. I cared little who heard my screams in the royal house. A damn fara wolf could enter the room and it would not be enough to pull me away from this man.
Roark deepened his thrusts, wild, a little vicious, until the heat of his release burst through me with such force I could feel every pulse, every rush.
He collapsed over me, slowly easing out.
I fell to my belly, spent and sated. With care, Roark rolled me over, then tugged my damp body beneath his.
His fingertips brushed a lock of hair from my brow; he studied my features, traced the edges of my face, like he wanted to recall every flinch, every smirk.
Sweat from his brow dripped onto my chest. He leaned forward and licked it off, pressing two light kisses to the swell of each breast, then kissing my lips with a tender ferocity.
When he pulled back, the light of his golden eyes was returned, but the dark edges of his heart were now mine.
I held one side of his face, my thumb brushing over the ridge of his cheek. “Suffered enough?”
He grinned. I think, if you need, I could be tortured again.
I pressed a kiss to his fingertips. “I’ll do it.”
Roark’s face fell. Be certain.
“I am. I’ll be your wife.”