Page 206 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

She’d witnessedevery version of Garrik. But this…

Calling back to the primal beasts that first roamed the lands of Elysian. When there was nothing but that instinct, that deep-seated longing. A bloodlust, an unbreakable craving, that first existed when the realm was new and hungry …

Garrik caged her in with that same glazed lethal focus.

She wanted to be devoured by him. That beast teetering on the edge. Wanted him unbridled as her own need became utterly painful.

His teeth grazed her neck, and she moaned, pressing her hips to his, urging him to do so much more. More. She neededmore.

With whatever curse the stars donned on him, Garrik’s restraint could’ve killed her.

He didn’t move. That voice, like the Celestial sovereign ruler of night himself, rumbled, “Let me make one thing perfectly clear.” Dangerous to all else but her, his voice infiltrated her core, threatening to drop her to her knees. “If I take you any further than this threshold,nothingbutyouwill stop me from doing the things I have longed to do.”

Even now, even with the ring on her finger and everything it meant, he still offered her an escape.

But he never needed to again.

Alora fisted his tunic and pulled him until they were across the threshold, deliberately backing inside. “Yours, Garrik.” Aloraspoke with enough control that his cracked a little more. “I amyours.”

Her words were his undoing.

Garrik lunged for her.

The kiss was as desperate as his hands. Roaming down her side, over the aquamarine and diamonds stitched there. The other cradled the back of her head while Alora fumbled on the buttons of his tunic. Feeling his muscles flexing underneath as he scooped her legs around him.

There might have been furniture in the room. Might have been a lack of walls, one room spilling into the other as windows extended high between the stones and wooden beams. May have been a kitchen and an island, picture frames and rugs and everything else that made a home.

But Alora couldn’t be certain of anything more than the way his lips molded to hers or the reckoning of his hips. Her back pressed against the smooth stones before she inhaled his scent. Taking in the smell of burned wood along with it to realize he had dawned them near a fireplace.

The last of Garrik’s buttons slipped loose, and she eased it off to pool on the hardwood. Her hands brushed his shackle-scarred wrists, up his biceps, down the swells and dips of his muscled chest. Over the scars of his abdomen, which didn’t tremble. And when the warmth of her fingers met his belt buckle, he released a growl of approval. A bottomless rumble thrumming from her mouth deep into her chest.

His sinful lips were a drug of enchanted bliss and intoxication that no matter where he put them, she desired more, more,more.And he gave it. Garrik pulled away and found the soft flesh between her neck and shoulder. Those sharp canines lightly bit, tongue swirling, soothing the pleasing sting.

Garrik licked and sucked up her neck, kissing the sensitive spot below her ear, and said with a possessiveness only reservedfor her, “Say it again.” Then ground his hardened length against her.

It threatened to unravel her. Alora cried out, “Garrik.” And did it again. And again with every claim of his lips, she clung to his shoulders.

Love—this was what it was supposed to be. Not tears lining her eyes or her screams filled with pain, or her body used for sadistic pleasure.This—Garrik.This claiming. This desperation. This unbearable ache to have him so close that evenfeelinghis heartbeat against hers was still too far away.

And he may have been feeling it too. What his memories stirred inside him. Because Garrik’s lips slowed against her neck, and he pulled back to survey her.

They tenderly smiled at each other as she clasped his cheek. As knowing and purpose and healing glistened in his eyes. In hers too.

“Never again, mighty prince,” she whispered. Never again would either of them hurt by the hands and force of another. And never by each other.

Garrik tilted his head in her palm, kissed the pulse on her wrist, and repeated, “Never again.”

Never again. He kissed down her arm.

Never again.Across her shoulder to the swell of her breast.

Never again.Smokeshadows coiled around her wrists and guided them to the wall as Garrik knelt and looked up at her.

She didn’t need to give him permission this time. Garrik removed her gemstoned heels before he guided her gown up, up, up. Leaving a trail of kisses. Then he offered another to her inner thigh, then the other.

Alora writhed as hands made entirely of shadow dusted over and caressed the expanse of her body stretched for him. Phantom touches grazed exposed flesh with wisps of darkness, sinking inside her gown to taunt her there too.

One brushed the underside of her aching and heavy breast. Another flicked her nipple.

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