Page 226 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

The syringe slipped out again. Glass shattered as a tendril of sizzling smoke coiled into the air when the liquid singed the floor.

“Fuck,”Purple-cloakcursed. “The king said she had to drink the whole thing. Maybe she can lick it from the floor?”

Spitting blood, Alora snapped, “So Ladomyr is calling your collar?” She didn’t give them time to respond and snarled, “Whatever he promised you, the only thing waiting is death.”

Laughter undulated from the doorway. The females holding her to the ground snickered beforeGreen-skin’sfist cracked into her gut.

If Alora had eaten anything since Airatheldra, she would have vomited.

The pressure on her aching shoulders released. Someone fisted her hair and turned her onto her stomach, face pressed into the cold damp wood.

“Finish it,” a female snarled, but Alora was too nauseous to determine who.

Instead of licking it up, she countered, “Why null me at all? Why not end me here?”The fools.

Another snicker. A boot pressed into the back of her neck. “Because hunting you will be much sweeter, and the king wants to watch while you lose your wits. But that doesn’t mean we can’t play with our trinket before we break it.” In emphasis, another boot slammed into Alora’s wrist.

She cried out and wrenched her wrist into her neck, cradling it through the throbbing pain.

That was enough.She’d hadenough.

Despite the pain, Alora smiled. A cruel laugh bubbled from her throat. No matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t stop it. The simpering filth thought they could break her? She cut her teeth on faeries like them.

And you can’t collar a damned lioness with starfire in her veins.

She didn’t give them time to consider her next move.

Alora rolled, scrambling from underneath the female before the flat of her boot slammed into a chest.

Before they could grab her, she was moving, skidding across the glass and dirt before those in the doorway blinked.

If they wanted to make her bleed … then they would have to follow.

Because Alora didn’t turn back, didn’t balk, or hesitate.

She threw herself to the window and in one leap …

Fell over the ledge.

For a heartbeat, Alora allowed the darkness to cradle her. The ragged breaths sinking daggers into her side with every inhale anchored her to reality as her mind pleaded to slip away. That fall—as brutal as the one when Garrik had taught her how to fly.

Only this time, he didn’t catch her.

Someone was screaming. Waving their arms high above. Out the window, silhouetted by the morning sky over the glass dome.

Alora had mere seconds before the females would storm the winding staircase.

She had to move.Now.

Behind her, the wooden door shattered.

Ahead… The forest …

It was pushed back. Far back from where it had been the night before. She didn’t have to guess it. By Ladomyr’s manipulations, the landscape had shifted. The ground cleaved open to a steaming, scorching pit carved around the tower.

With no other way across but to leap.

Even with her wounds, Alora managed to clamber to her feet. Cursing every star as she limped to the edge and surveyed the molten core of Elysian raging like a swift river. The voices behind the tower grew louder, and Alora knew—starsdamnit—she knew what she had to do.

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