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Lunara blinked and the collar of her robe was spread wide, the edges flapping open. “Please, don’t look,” she begged. “I’m not ready for you to…see…”

Another blink, more sluggish. His fist tightened around her nape. A match for the grip behind her knee. For the bites at her shoulder, her breast.

Too tight. Bruising. Vicious.

No matter how passionate they got, how wild and heated, her Brand would fucking never.

Damn it. No. Not yet.

Lunara wanted to scream out her denial but she stayed soft, pliant, sensing the flow of energy as it was pulled away from her limbs. She cracked her lids just as the endless obsidian flooded Brand’s eyes, black veins devouring his face.

The beast—Night—was here.

It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s time, that’s all. And now you remember what you’re fighting for.

She didn’t have a second to waste.

Lunara clapped both hands to the side of his head, released Illamiata, and misted them to the sparring fields.

He loosed an animalistic roar when they landed and closed one hand around her throat, his other trying to get to her chest—to the Tear Stone.

Chaos broke loose around them. Thundering steps and bellows alike, the others closing in. She willed them to stick to the plan and not interfere. To only sweep in as a last resort if she failed and the unthinkable needed to happen.

Until then, it was her and the beast.

The tiny hairs on her body stood on end as he leaned in and licked her cheek, Lunara’s particles pleading with her to cower.

“If only you understood what it is you have, little one,” he spat, voice like needles. “The gift you will be giving me.”

Each word pierced through her. Picked her apart fleck by fleck.

And sweet Sisters’ tits, it hurt. If the shadows in the chasm were a snake, Night was a dragon. A monolith of hatred and hunger that refused to be tamed without a fight.

Then wage a fucking war. For Brand and your damned self.

Lunara bared her fangs, dug her clawed fingers into his skull, and squeezed. Blood spilled down his forehead and dripped from his chin as the beast thrashed, but it was futile.

Got him.

Light exploded from the center of Lunara as her power merged with Illamiata’s and burrowed in. Rainbow shards scattered and snapped back, first encasing the parts of him in contact with her, then racing along his arms, up his legs, over his head and horns.

The air went from iridescent to molten, flowing, searing its way through his pores. It glowed hotter and hotter, laying waste. Roars turned to screams that pierced her eardrums—a cry echoed in every one of her crumbling bones and disintegrating ligaments. In the veins that melted beneath her peeling skin.

Nothing in all her life was more excruciating. Not even the destruction of their mate bond.

Pressure built, staggering in its force, the whistling pitch so high that it was almost silent again. Crushing. Until she was sure they would both implode, disintegrated into millions of invisible pieces. Reduced to naught.

And then…

For a single, blessed second, time stood still. Waves didn’t crash. Birds didn’t sing. The wind didn’t blow. No one moved.

They were suspended, the only two souls in the world.

That was when Lunara realized her mistake. That, in her bid to give Brand the gift of his beloved Solyrian, she forgot to account for her need of the moons after she healed him.

Never once had the well been so dry, Illamiata so taxed. Lunara felt the life, the power, draining from her flesh and she knew—even if she eradicated the darkness, even if she saved him, she wasn’t making it through to find out either way.

Brand—no, Night—grinned at her like he knew it. Like he was fine with burning away to nothing as long as it meant that she did too.