Page 208 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

Alora watched as that hand dug its nails around Garrik’s shoulder, and he slowly glanced down at it. Garrik spoke, but not in the common tongue. His voice was cold, uncaring, rapturous in its intent. Then, his hand wrapped around the female’s throat, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing as he continued to speak that melodic language she desperately wanted to learn. With a swift recoil of his arm, his hand shoved deep into her chest before it mercilessly ripped out her heart.

The female grabbed her chest before stumbling forward.

Garrik stepped aside, allowing her to fall face down on the stones. With one last squeeze, the heart spilled its blood onto her, and he tossed it beside her body without remorse.

The male who turned around to look at her was not the face she’d arrived with.

Garrik’s face had paled drastically until little color was left and blackened veins branched from his eyes, neck, and any piece of exposed skin outside his armor. His shoulders rose high when those endless orbs of night slammed shut.

Ten heart beats later, silver orbs reclaimed his eyes again.

Her High Prince stepped inches from her, blocking her view of the three dead bodies when he spoke. “From this moment on, remember that he is a memory. Nothing more.”

When Garrik stepped aside …

No.

Garrik intertwined their fingers. Anchoring her. His deep, warm voice waved over every frozen bone in her body, shaking her alive again as she stared into the face of her walking nightmares.

Into the eyes of Kaine.

“Tell him everything. Every single thing you have ever wanted to say. Twist the knife, make it hurt as he hurt you.”

But Alora stiffened. Her sapphires flickered to Garrik.

“You think I will judge you?”

She squeezed her fists, fighting the trembling there. Saying nothing.

In raging Smokeshadows, beside Kaine, the female returned. Garrik stalked up to her and found his hand once again around her throat. “I have dreamed of the day that I take your chains and fasten poison-covered, sharpened hooks to them, hanging you by your skin while I cut shards of glass to every inch of your body. Your blood slowly dripping to the stones until there is no inch of your skin left split open and flayed from your body.Just as you did to me.”

The female’s neck snapped at an odd angle before he threw her off her feet into the stone wall.

She reappeared, standing, breathing before him once more. Garrik slammed his boots one by one into her knees, bending them backward with distinctive snaps so she fell to the stones. His hands fisted into her hair, wrenching her head backward to stare up into his blackened eyes.

“I have ripped your fucking hair out section by section. Your bones bared before taking those spikes and driving them slowly into your skull. Your teeth I have shattered while still inside your gums so I can pull the bleeding shards out piece by piece.Just as you did to me.”

Garrik grabbed her by her teeth, pulling until her head split in two.

She reappeared.

He slammed her into the wall with a spine-splitting crack. Smokeshadows tendriled in his hands, revealing daggers. Each blade slowly tore into her abdomen with each word.

“I have sliced you open, making you feel every starsdamned cut. Every fucking touch. Killed you ten thousand times just to bring you back to life and start all over again.Just as you did to me.” He steadily drove a dagger into her heart. “And I have looked into your starsdamned devilish eyes—as you did every time youfuckedme—while I drive my blade through your worthless heart. Over and over until I have shredded your body to pieces and no trace of who you once were remained.”

Garrik’s roar ripped through the room as his dagger shoved through her, cracking the stones of the wall behind. His body viciously trembled with a shuddering breath as he whispered, “Just as you did to me.”

He didn’t look at Alora when he spoke again. “Nothing you can say will be worse than what I have done and will do.” He turned, meeting her watery eyes. “And if you cannot kill the memory, then you tell that fucking worthless piece of Elysian shit what you need to, and I will be your death-sword. Over and over, until you can take the blade and do it yourself.” Turning to Kaine, Garrik towered over him, his voice a thing of death. “Get on your fucking knees before your queen.”

“I’m not?—”

Garrik whipped his head to her. And by that very look, she spoke no further. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of the very wrath he was trying to contain.

Before her eyes, Kaine’s body bent, slamming his knees into the bloody pools, staining his image of perfection.

In all the years she suffered, not once had he bent a knee to her, not even when he asked her to spend her life with him—and forsook lavishing her with a ring. Not once had she seen his clothing out of place or even a speck of dirt on his pants.

The poster of perfection and status now soaked in blood and stench and dirt like he forced upon her.

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