Page 11 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

No one would come looking.

Kerimkhar’s snicker echoed across the swamp, building with every drop of blood, like he was feeding on it.

Garrik stumbled backward. Something final gathered in his eyes.

Alora watched her High Prince collapse, sword toppling from his hand with a clang.

The blood.Oh stars.There was so much—too much—blood.

“Impeccable timing, clever girl.” With a strained rasp, Garrik’s eyes rolled back. His hair fluttered as his head dropped and landed with a thud, leaving nothing but the sound of his name amongst the devastation as he lost consciousness.

Garrik.

He will not die.She wouldn’t allow that to happen.

She’d stand before Darkness himself and beg for mercy if she had to.

As if the stars had sent her, Ghost showed up. Garrik would’ve laid dying in that devastated wasteland if she hadn’t.

Garrik’s horse dipped low enough that Alora dragged him onto her bare back. Then she settled behind him and pulled him to her chest.

Soon they weaved from the carnage and into full-standing trees. Led by moonlight, with each step, Garrik’s limp body tousled side to side, threatening to slip off and fall. In the silence, the haunting cadence of Garrik’s dripping blood made her shiver as it cast dark crimson streaks across Ghost’s pure white withers and shoulders.

To make matters worse … delirium settled in.

Alora struggled to keep him upright. But the pain in her spine was nothing compared to the ache in her heart every time Garrik violently jolted.

Ripped from restless unconsciousness, he half-awakened with slurred murmurs and painful whispers. And every time, he dug his nails into her arms, holding tight, clawing at the invisible shackles he whimpered about.

“Hold on, mighty prince,” Alora pleaded when in one breath, he called to Ozrin—their healer—and in another, he cried out for the torture to end. Her arms tensed around him from the strain, feeling the frigid rush of blood soak her leathers, listening to him in so much pain that his mind couldn’t make sense of where he was.

Garrik didn’t stop mumbling, didn’t stop calling out until he fell unconscious again and his head rolled limply against her.

It didn’t last long.

He viciously jolted awake again. This time, his weakened arm swung out, colliding with air before it fell against his thigh. The other stirred, but the first swing cost him the little strength he had, and instead, it dug into her leather-covered arm.

She grabbed his hand to keep him from clawing wounds into her skin.

“Don’t,” he begged, sounding terrified. “Stop …stop touching me.”

Alora cupped his winter-soaked forehead, stopping his thrashing. “Stop fighting me. You’re safe. It’s me, Alora,” she whispered in his ear while he quivered and surrendered like all hope was lost. It broke her.

“Please.” Alora glimpsed the stars and pleaded with them, too, as she did him. “Please, I need you to hold on.”

The meadow castshards of beaming light through the silhouettes of trees. And not soon after, she had slipped off Ghost’s back before the mare lowered herself.

Pulling Garrik to the lush grass and flowers below, Alora made quick work of assessing his wounds. Uttering curses under her breath with every scratch and bead of dried blood she found. She had half the mind to pull the battle leathers from his body, but remembering what Thalon had once said left her hesitant to do so.

Garrik never allowed them to see.

She found the saddle bag where she’d left it and knelt beside him, quickly dumping the contents into the grass. Spotting the cleaned cloths—what was left of them since he used an absurd amount for his neck earlier—she pressed a piece into the gushing wound, turning the entirety of his hair into a sickening shade of scarlet.

His abdomen and the five impressive claw marks slashed across it were next.

A low, painful groan vibrated from her High Prince’s throat.

Alora had hoped that he’d stay down until she fully tended to his wounds.

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