Page 203 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

And on the cliff after…

The shadows—thefigure—that stepped through her firestorm…

Alora’s throat constricted.

“Magnelis,” he continued, repentance in his eyes. “Mounted my limbs to a wall inside his breakfast chamber. He dinned while my blood dripped to the hardwood. Apparently, a Marked One was reported in Telldaira, and the High King was less than amused that hissonfailed to sense thetreasonous wretch. As he pulled the daggers from my flesh, the last remaining in my hand to restrain me hanging there, I was ordered to ride with Brennus andperform.”

Garrik deepened a breath. “Telldaira’s untouchables would be nothing but cinders by morning, but the fucking lord and his ilk would suffer for nothing. As was hisdeal.”

Alora’s body drained of blood. This world began to spin.

‘You won’t go anywhere until I return. No visitors. Stay inside the manor. Do not leave.’

Then her own voice spilled into her memories.‘Get to the western gates inside the city. We’ll be safe there.’

‘It is not safe there.’Her captor—her High Prince—had said.

“Kaine offered me to Magnelis,” she breathed out the revelation, trembling as she tightened her quivering fists. He turned her in for—forwhat? More riches? More power? A strangled noise escaped her before shadows curled around her shoulders, encasing her tight as Garrik moved forward but hesitated to touch.

He nodded. Hatred—so much hatred filled his face. “The moment I found you outside Telldaira’s western wall, I wanted to thieve you then. But I imagined stealing you from a meadow with nothing but a pack on your shoulder would leave you with nothing. Thinking it was better if you returned to the manor and perhaps collected what was most treasured, but instead, when we slipped inside, none of us found you there. Only a maidservant my powers convinced to inform me of where you were. Then I saw that pompous male’s hands on you, my … murderous tendencies snapped.”

‘Are you alright?’

‘I know how to take care of myself.’

‘Clearly.’

“Not exactly the way I wished to introduce myself, but alas.” He chuckled. “From then on, I decided it was better for you to hate me. I cloaked myself as the bastard you saw me to be. And by the stars, I almost caved that morning in my tent. You touched me, Alora.” Garrik’s eyes found the sky. A tear, brutal and swift, fell. “For the first time in decades, I did not feel her talons or body as you kissed me. For a moment, you were mine—notmine—but you concocted the ruse, and I selfishly desired to know what it felt like to pretend you were. So, I continued alongwith it. Though you longed to kill me, though I am a monster, I desired to show you what a gentle hand could do.

“Then you left. And I imagined this great and terrible thing the stars had granted me was nothing but for their cruel entertainment. My punishment for my brutalization of Elysian souls. Because I finally had you safe from that vicious life, only for you to nearly find yourself killed by a gamroara. It tore me apart. I almost revealed myself un-magic-washed in Brennus’s camp. Once you were away from harm and Aiden under Ozrin’s care, I vowed to see you safely to Dellisaerin. I did not want you in my legion. Did not want you risking your life after already fighting your own war.

“But no matter how I warred with myself, no matter the bastard I am, I could not stop desiring to be around you. To protect you, even if it meant killing my soldiers. To show you that peace and love, that gentleness you deserved. If not from me, then Eldacar and Thalon and Aiden, even Jade after it all. That you could find a home and faeries who cared about you. And I watched as you renewed your shattered pieces as mine…” A strangled breath ripped from him. “As mine began to mend too.”

Her vision blurred to the point every color feathered together. Alora’s eyes stung, knowing how red-rimmed they must’ve looked as she stepped forward and calmly demanded, “Tell me. How does it work?” She twisted the ring on her thumb.

That tether …

Deep sorrow. Pain. Unfathomable loss cracked across it.

Garrik’s face paled, and she wasn’t certain he would remain standing when he brokenly answered, “Will your mind to Kadamar, and after, if you wish to go straight to Dellisaerin?—”

She didn’t want that.

Cutting him off, Alora grabbed his hand, trembling so terribly that his shadows were unsettled, and spoke to the darkness gathering around the ring. “Take us to another world.”

Cold, strong fingers gripped her tight, thumb brushing over the ring as twilight whispered around them. Blanketing the sky in soothing hues of navy, a faint twinkling of stars prepared to ignite the night when the flaxen smears of sunlight slumbered behind mountainous, rolling green hills.

Leaves and stones crunched as they stopped near a stone bridge across a winding stream leading to …

Alora blinked.

A lawn.

Nestled on the banks of that winding stream. Its grassy blades like the soft furs of Garrik’s tent glowing in lantern light lined the wrap-around porch of a two-story house. Cozy and beautifully rustic, inviting, walls lined with earth-colored stones and held together by straight and angled dark wooden beams.

On the side, a balcony overlooked a crystal-blue lake. The opening in the wooden railing appeared as if someone with wings could land and walk through the open door.

A creaking wooden swing on the porch drew Garrik’s attention. The sound echoed between them, but the air … heavy and thick, was almost too much to bear.

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