Page 186 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Alora stiffened against Garrik, who stood as a barrier of protection. Enveloping her, his back to danger, keeping her concealed and safe.

Silas looked like he would tear Erissa to shreds. The look in his eyes like a bloodlust spanning the course of a thousand years and his first meal in millennia stood feet away.

“Yes?” Silas asked when Erissa gripped the table, with nowhere else to run. Caged. Helpless.

As much as Alora despised the princess, she didn’t wish to witness her death. At least not by the spymaster’s hands. Her fear speared Garrik’s face. She opened her mouth to speak, but it was Erissa’s breathless consent answering over her roaring heartbeat.

“Do your worst, spymaster.”

Alora couldn’t even cry out.

Silas lunged at the princess so fast he almost seemed to fade from one place to the next before his hand snaked around Erissa’s throat.

The princess’s eyes fluttered backward as an unbridled moan escaped her lips. In a solid, demanding twist, Silas pushed the princess forward on the table, running his hand down her back to hold her there.

Moonlight cast a silvery glow against the markings on his hand, standing stark against the porcelain skin gripping the fabric of Erissa’s wine-colored nightdress. Silas shoved the fabric up, wrinkling it around her waist, baring her to him. Without a wasted breath, he unbuckled his belt, unsheathed himself, and slowly pressed into her until he was seated.

“Grab the table,” Silas growled in a voice that would convince faeries they were safe in Firekeeper’s realm, far from him. And by his demand, Erissa gouged her nails into the wood,curling around the dark boards before Silas began thrusting at a punishing pace.

Garrik flattened a hand beside Alora’s head and rubbed circles against his eyelids as if pain tormented him behind them. When they opened, he found the night sky on the ceiling and shook his head before murmuring, “Why?”

Alora pressed her brows together.

He quietly sighed. “I do not recall signing a contract to pit me as the unlucky bastard who witnesses these agreements.” He must mean Aiden, no doubt. “They better fucking finish soon.” And glared over his shoulder.

As if hearing Garrik, Silas groaned behind them, “Fuck, I’m close.” Bucking his hips as he squeezed Erissa’s throat, pulling her flush to his glistening chest. “Wear this for me tomorrow. At the masquerade. I want to remember this all evening when I see it. Want you to remember screaming my name.” Playing with the necklace around her neck, he thrust hard enough that the table scratched an inch over the marble. Then again. So savagely it made her do that very thing before his teeth claimed her pulse.

Wet iron cloaked the air as Erissa cried out.

Alora rubbed her thighs together at the sound. At the way she imagined Garrik doing that to her. Making her blissfully scream. Making her bodyhis, a slave to his will. Bewitched by his every thrust and touch and taste.

Her traitorous hips pressed into Garrik’s.

And his polished silver slowly raked down her face and burned into where she touched him.

A smirk twisted on his face before he taunted, “Your pulse is racing, clever girl.” Garrik’s hand clasped her hip that didn’t receive the missive to withdraw. Garrik leaned in, stabilizing himself by the hand flattened on the wall as the moans grew louder and her blood boiled molten at his stare. “Do you wish itwere you on that table?” His lips, they were back. Right against her pulse. Brushing so lightly they mirrored a feather.

Alora stilled. “Not with Silas,” she admitted, eyes half-lidded at the touch of his icy breath.

Garrik made a low humming sound against her skin, sending sharp pings of lightning through every vein. “With who, then?” Cold lips gently kissed below her ear. “Ezander?”

Alora shivered. A pulsing ache settled between her legs.

“Or perhaps … someone else?”

Her chest tightened. Or maybe it hollowed out entirely. She wasn’t certain of anything other than how his eyes heated. Pinning her to that wall.

“Who do you think of when your body aches at night? Whose hands do you imagine caressing you?” In emphasis, Garrik’s thumb stroked her waist, traveled to her lower back, and pulled her into his frigid body. And by the cruel stars, he leaned into her ear, brushed his chest against hers, and whispered, “Whose cock do you imagine inside you now?”

She couldn’t form the words because Garrik’s hips pressed forward, pushing that very thing he spoke of against her. Hard and needing, sending her thoughts to exactly what it would feel like if he lifted her to towel around him, pressed her to the wall before he fucked her against it.

Garrik’s teeth sunk into her neck, tongue swirling against the sting before he growled, “Tell me, clever girl. What’s his name?”

A whimper escaped her. “You,” she breathed. “It’s always you.”

His lips twitched upward like a cat that had caught vermin.

She vaguely registered Silas roaring and collapsing across Erissa.

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