Page 154 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Those purple lips fell into a tight line. “Did Esmeray not come and attend to you?” A touch of panic stole her features, but Alora was swift to move forward, palms raised in reassurance.

“She did. I just … missed you.”

Miwa grinned, flipping teal curls over her shoulder, careful of the wings. “Esmeray needed another night off. I traded with her. The king’s wives rarely mind. I hope you’re not offended.”

“I’m not. That was nice of you. I used to do that with my friend Emeline when I worked at—” Alora cut herself off, feeling blood rush to her cheeks.

Pearly-white wings flared slightly. Miwa leaned close enough for no one but her to hear. “We all have pasts, Alora. Don’t be ashamed of yours. Your worth is in here”—she tapped at her chest—“not where you came from.”

Glass shattered up the street. Past Garrik and their Dragons.

Every head on the crowded street turned to a small female with wings like stained glass kneeling on whitestone. Thefemale’s knees bled through her dress. Not because of the street, but from the glass she was forced to kneel on.

A male’s hand raised. Swiftly, it slapped her cheek as a female in lavish skirts turned her head and laughed with two others who did the same.

Miwa took a determined step forward, fists clenched, wings tight.

The male shouted at High Guardsmen, but Alora’s ears were ringing too loud to hear. Because those guards moved forward and gripped the female by the hair before they clamped shackles around her wrists.

She didn’t realize she’d grabbed Miwa until the female cupped her hand. Their eyes met. Both in silent question when Ezander stepped in front of them with his fists balled, too.

Garrik… She couldn’t see his eyes, but the way his shoulders tensed and shadows whorled …

Ezander sighed as they watched the female be dragged away. A muscle feathered in his cheek when he turned to Alora, almost as if he didn’t know what to say but spoke anyway. “Another for my father’s Hunt.” And sighed, face bleak. “Only the monarch of Kadamar can remove those shackles. Come, my lady. There’s nothing we can do for her now.”

Garrik pluckedhis tunic from his abdomen and upper arms again.

Erissa never noticed, but when her flesh would touch the cold of his, her face twisted in repulsion.

Alora wanted to scorch the look off her face. Perhaps that’s why the princess was now five steps ahead of him. The last time she touched him, he had grabbed her wrist and refused her only for Erissa to snarl at him and storm away.

She hadn’t stopped watching the way his back muscles tightened or the way Smokeshadows coiled around his hands and shoulders. And soon found herself walking beside him.

Ezander walked shoulder to shoulder with his sister while boiling in Garrik’s death glare behind them.

Alora was so focused on Garrik’s tight shoulders that she hadn’t noticed the staircase.

Erissa and Ezander were halfway up, chatting about something Alora had no intention of caring about. Because that was a staircase. A staircase she had no idea what waited at the top. As towhowas up there and what danger it could bring.

She searched those steps. Expecting ebony hair and mahogany eyes.

But they weren’t there.

Not a snicker. No wicked taunting.

But Silver. Silver was there. Three steps up. Silver and gray.

“I do not suppose you would want a repeat of the last staircase we climbed?” Garrik’s voice. She could’ve cried—was certain she would’ve if he hadn’t extended his hand.

Alora released a breathless chuckle. Something like a thrumming spark of energy rippled through her. A sign of life rising from a cold pit that she had, for so long, been trapped in.

Alora took his waiting palm, soothing a crucial piece inside of her as she lifted her skirt and climbed to him. “In your dreams,” she whispered, feeling that tender and shattered part of her mend and strengthen.

And when he walked beside her the entire way. When he took the last three steps in one bound to reach it before her, Alora knew with absolute certainty there was no danger there.That there would never be any danger waiting for her so long as Garrik was the one waiting at the top.

Her breath was tight, aching.

To anyone watching, it would have looked like the High Prince of Elysian escorting and speaking to his elite as they ascended the stairs. But Garrik’s hand tightened, lingering a little too long to be anything but an escort.

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