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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.