Page 215 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Gold-crested heels clacked across the floor, stopping inches from Garrik’s breath, which fogged the polished wood. White fabric rustled as the toe of a jeweled slipper pushed Garrik’s shoulder, flattening him on his back to look into the vengeful eyes of Kadamar’s beloved princess.

“I thought my future betrothed wouldn’t be so stupid,” Erissa crooned. “To harbor a Marked One, keeping her from our High King. Why would the Savage Prince do such a thing against our sovereign’s command unless he was no longer loyal?”

Alora.Garrik choked on blood spilling down his throat, struggling against the poison he had no hope to overcome as Erissa sunk the sharp rod of her heel through his forearm, anchoring him to the floor. Garrik grunted a sound of pain as she leaned her weight into it.

“But then, I followed her to the garden.” Erissa smirked and crouched, adjusting her skirt to prevent Garrik’s blood from staining it. The sickening warmth of her hand clasped his chin, digging crescents. “How did you say it?It was a year before my magic-washing was nulled.” Erissa hummed so maliciously that he hallucinated her as a viper. “I wasn’t quite certain what that meant until I asked my father. And you know what else I heard?”

Garrik released an agonized grunt, unable to move—to fight—when she jerked his head forward.

“The male who is fighting to bring Magnelis to his end.” She huffed a dark laugh. “How noble.”

“Foolish,” Ladomyr corrected. “To have underestimated us inmykingdom. You may be the young Lord of Minds, but you haven’t lived nearly as long as I have, boy. You thought I was some simpering half-wit?” Ladomyr chuckled and towered over Garrik, casting a long shadow from the sunlight through the windows. “I am Magnelis’s closest ally. Did you not think I remembered how to manipulate and subdue you?”

He could not breathe, could barely think beyond the roaring in his ears. The sound of his blood rushing through his veins, the simplest breath from across the castle, or every flying creature in the sky.

“That little look of confusion in your eyes … you appear decades younger, and I love it just as much as then. You see,boy. It was the guard’s touch that seeped the drug into your blood.” Ladomyr grinned, then lowered himself to brush a sensual thumb over Garrik’s forearm, then lips. “Paired withmychalice to steal your every movement and something new,your voice.How predictable of you. I’m surprised you didn’t foresee it.” He snickered.

Garrik blinked, narrowing and refocusing his eyes, but the effort proved futile.

Ladomyr straightened and clapped his hands together with mirth, and shouted, “Kyrell!”

The dining room doors burst open, and utterly helpless, Garrik felt every last part of his world crash down as the female he calledwifeand his brother were forced to their knees.

Garrik!Alora screamed down their tether, empty and void.

Thalon’s growl was muffled, but she sensed the brimstoned fury erupting behind the gag as a High Guardsman sheathed his golden sword to his side. Unintelligible threats and curses seeped through the cloth as she writhed in shackles around her wrists, and he was forced to his chest by the knees of three High Guardsmen.

She called to her starfire. Nothing answered.

Because all the heat had rushed from her body the moment they’d stabbed her with a needle. After Garrik had returned, after he told her about Blood and returning to camp. After he and Thalon left, by her own carelessness, she’d crossed the shield. Deceived by a maidservant who had collected her in a fit of worry over her distressed faeling.

Ladomyr prowled forward with feral excitement glazing his eyes. Alora tried to shuffle away, but he fisted her hair, wrenching her head back so violently she thought her neckwould snap. Those hazel eyes whipped to Garrik, speaking to him. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

Garrik didn’t move, he only blinked, lips quivering like he was trying to speak.

What have they done to him?He looked like he was dying—because he was.

Without his Smokeshadows … his heart …

Garrik!

Thalon roared behind his gag, but the king ignored him and drawled, “Such a shame she won’t be after the Hunt.”

Alora thrashed, forcing Ladomyr to clamp his palm around her neck and squeeze.

She wouldn’t let him have her—havethem.

With a swift motion, Alora kicked Ladomyr’s shin, causing him to release his hold on her.

On swift steps, Erissa closed the distance. “Fire-wieldingbitch,” she snapped, and raised her palm, slapping it so violently across Alora’s cheek that the gag unraveled.

Alora hissed, tightening her jaw when a glare as scorching as starflames leveled at the princess. Flashing her canines, Alora snarled, “That’sHighFire-wielding Bitch,” and wiped the trickling blood from the corner of her mouth onto her silk robe. Then a voice like a lioness, as deadly and damning as her High Prince’s, promised, “And I swear by every Celestial and the Almighty Maker of the Skies, I willslaughteryou for this.”

From the floor, Garrik choked on a smile. Those dazed eyes rolled back.

The princess’s answering kick to Alora’s gut had her coughing. Disturbing her robe when she fell to her side. Disturbing the fabric covering her chest?—

Alora’s eyes widened. Garrik and Thalon’s too.

---