Page 128 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

“Do you wish to dance with me?” Erissa interrupted, then looked down her straight nose at Alora with a hardened expression that didn’t flatter her beauty. A silent threat before she focused on Garrik. “I remember how you loved this song,” she said and swelled her cheeks with a smile that would have any male falling to his knees.

Not Garrik. “No,” he stated dryly, unaffected. Abyss for eyes still didn’t leave Alora.I still want that dance with you.

Maybe not tonight, seeing as I can barely keep from giggling like a fool.

Garrik hummed.Tomorrow then.His attention was unwavering, settled on Alora’s skin where he still brushed.

Possibly the first frown the princess had ever donned crossed her perfect face.

“I’ll dance with you, princess.” Aiden used a dagger to pick between his teeth and winked.

The princess’s scoff was floor rattling. She lifted her skirts and gracefully swept through the crowd, followed by maidservants. Knocking her shoulder into the spymaster on her way before he accompanied her out.

Aiden made a sound of disappointment and whined. “She doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

Thalon slapped him on the shoulder and squeezed as Jade drawled, “Can you blame her?”

Face neutral, Aiden grinned with absolute certainty. “No. Not at all.”

Alora couldn’t stop feelingGarrik’s touch.

Even long after his elbow returned to his armrest, fist hovering in front of his lips in contemplation, she imagined his tender stroking. Imagined the face of the princess and felt her jealousy burning with every inch Garrik’s finger crawled along her flesh.

Thalon appeared as bored as the rest of them, maybe slightly more. And Aiden’s fingers were currently exploring the bronze-skinned courtier’s jaw, who had sunk into the seat beside him not long after Erissa fled.

Jade was long gone. Garrik had permitted her leave to train with Deimon.

She had known Jade wouldn’t last long in that dress. After twenty minutes of shuffling in her seat, bouncing her leg, and tapping her fingers on the table, Garrik had leaned in andwhispered to her. Those green eyes had brightened more than the stars, and a grateful smile beamed on her face as she’d drawn a dagger. The last they saw of their red-headed killing machine, she had parted a sea of nobility as if she were flames and they hadn’t wished to be burned.

Aiden couldn’t sit still anymore. Fidgeting in his seat, he amused himself by launching pieces of bread at a lord’s head standing in front of the table and groaned from deep in his throat when the female beside him hooked her arm around his and giggled.

Thalon gripped both tattooed hands on the top of Garrik and Alora’s chairs and heavily sighed. “Remind me why I agree to attend these things when they’re always as boring as sentry duty?”

In a swift motion, Aiden ripped his boots from the table, leaving the female behind as he leaned forward on his forearms. “Don’t worry, I happen to know this shindig won’t be boring much longer.”

Garrik leveled Aiden a glare, stopping his glass of clear liquid halfway to his lips. “What did you do?”

“Surprisingly, not me this time, Your RoyalBeastie-ness.” Aiden pointed the knife he’d been using to clean between his teeth at the splintered throne room doors. “I sense a sea-worthy storm approaching.”

Kadamarian soldiers spilled through the door.

They lined the walls while a figure darkened the threshold and lingered there. And that figure didn’t move. It did nothing more. A statue carved from the stone of this mountain.

Something ancient and evil and all-ending thrummed through the room.

Garrik’s breath seemed to have stopped entirely as he stiffened. The face of the Savage Prince turned considerably more beast-like as the figure stepped into the light.

Golden waves side-swept over the left of a strikingly gorgeous male face, masking a russet eye. Spiked with golden metal tips, the right undercut hair framed his High Fae ear and drew attention to the glowing flaxen flecks in his irises. His wary expression carried as well as the autumn-colored armor he bore.

With every step closer, chin lifted and solid as iron in posture, his clean-shaven face blushed hot while his eyes stalked the Savage Prince.

Mouth twisted in a snarl, Garrik’s eyes, dark as night, meticulously tracked the male’s approach. Forearms appearing cleaved from stone, her High Prince’s fist strained from the force on the armrest. The bitter, seething words stabbed as sharp as the ice in his veins when the male approached and he said, “You must have a death wish, Zander.”

But the male simply towered, golden circlet on his head as his incredible muscles flexed. He sank training-weary hands into the cushioned armchair resting at the side opposite of the beast with pale skin, black veins, and oblivion for eyes.

No matter the distance, the two glowering—piercing—glares were thicker than the mountain.

“Garrik—”

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