Page 185 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Her High Prince pushed from the darkwood, the shadows around his shoulders misted away with each step.

Soulstryker fell on the table with a metallic clunk the moment his lips touched hers. His hands—his incredible hands—cupped her cheeks and tangled in her hair, offering her a promise so abiding it permanently refined her soul.

The world, Garrik repeated in her mind, against her lips. She didn’t imagine it. He didn’t stutter. It wasn’t a lie or an empty promise.The world, Alora.

Each kiss echoed it.The world. The world. The world.

And she couldn’t imagine anything other than that world. What it would look like with him. What Elysian would be because of him. What she would be …

Who she was, Blood, Elysian—it all ceased to exist when Garrik’s kisses became desperate. That easily, nothing else seemed to matter that much. She hardly recognized the dark marble slipping from beneath her boots or his hands lifting her thighs. Barely realized her legs locking around his waist when a pillowy cloud of navy met her back.

Garrik climbed over her on Erissa’s bed and lowered his hips to hers. Those desperate kisses became bruising, claiming, wild and ruinous, yet surrendering and certain and free. A hand slipped up her thigh, her hip. She gasped, writhing at the possessive squeeze before his fingers splayed across the scale-covered armor on her lower stomach.

He pulled away from her lips, and she thought she might die from the very small distance. Like the world would end if he moved another heartbeat away. But those lips fell to her neck, which she stretched for him, offering anything he wanted. Offering everything she hoped he would give.

“My stars, Alora.” Garrik panted against her skin, never allowing his lips to part from her more than a breath. “I can’t … I need …Alora.” Desperate groans escaped him. By the cruel stars, he trembled with unfathomable restraint, and she longed for him to unravel.

“I know,” she answered his pleas. She knew.She knew. Because she felt it too. Heard what neither of them could speak aloud but screamed in their silence. In the longing looks across rooms until they would at last find each other. In the gentle scrapes of their fingers as they stood side by side.

Stars. She knew.

“Maiezine, Alora. Maiezine,” he growled it, and she prayed the stars heard. “Voirduti. Nayr. Maiezine.”

Mine, Garrik. Mine… You. Are. Mine.

So tenderly brushing his hands along her sides, scraping down the silken blanket on Erissa’s bed, Garrik traced the waistline of her pants until he found the snaps and ties. She undulated her hips, urging him to not stop.

Possessive male hunger darkened his eyes the moment the first tie released. Darkened more with the next. He lifted his hips when her hand drifted between them, allowing her to palm his hardened length before finding his belt. And with Garrik’s nod of warrant, Alora unfastened him too.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t quiver, or balk when she laid her hand across his heart. Over the battle leathers, the scar she regretted burning into him underneath.

For a moment, they only breathed. Unevenly panting, staring into the depths of each other. Hearing every single unspoken promise and hope as if they screamed across that tether as he lowered to her lips?—

Garrik whipped his head toward the door.

They stared at each other.Their chests rapidly rose and fell as their heartbeats merged into one.

In a veil of Smokeshadows and his shield, Garrik pressed her against the wall as a bloodthirsty voice faded through the doorway.

“Erissa.” His voice like cold unquenchable thirst. Death inside a demand. “Get back here.”

Silas.

Garrik gritted his teeth so hard she was certain his jaw would seal into place.

“Who are you to order me around?” Erissa sneered as her bedchamber door slammed against the wall, cracking the frame.

The spymaster stopped inside the doorway, heaving breaths. His pin-straight dark hair disheveled, tunic opened halfway down his rune-tattooed chest.

For a moment, Alora thought his blood-gaze landed on them across the room. In the darkness clouding them like it did everything else so naturally that no one could possibly think something lay within. Then Silas’s attention snapped back to the princess, unmoving as if unsure of stepping inside.

Garrik’s eyes went distant. Towering over her and staring above her when his head tilted. Perhaps he was creating illusions. Securing an escape into the last room they hadn’t searched yet.

But Silas cleared his throat, knocking Garrik’s focus back into the room, and snarled, “As much as I am enjoying this attitude of yours, you need reminding of your place,princess.” The title wasn’t endearing. That was a threat.

“We should leave,” Alora whispered.

Garrik shook his head. “Not yet.” And lifted Soulstryker between them. When Alora regarded it, the gemstone dull and lifeless, he sheathed it at her side. He must’ve dawned it from thetable, she realized. The table Erissa was slowly backing into as Kadamar’s darkest predator prowled closer.

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