Page 240 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Alora vomited the moment the torch withdrew.

Jade’s curses echoed off the walls and curtains—off most of the males who stood—as she was dragged through the doorway and down the king’s wing.

Alora didn’t waituntil Kyrell hovered over her on the bed to slam her fist into his groin.

She had seconds …secondsuntil guardsmen would rush her and pin her to the bed. Thalon had taught her well enoughto know a body’s weakness. And as Kyrell hunched over and grabbed his balls, Alora slid a dagger from his belt and sheathed that blade through his fourth and fifth ribs, yanking it up, up, up until his bloodcurdling cries ceased.

Something sinister burned in her eyes, as if they contained embers. It should have. Alora imagined her fire there as she side-stepped the bed, carefully backing toward the balcony. She noted each face, every bit of autumn armor, and Ladomyr’s reddening cheeks.

“He fought too.” Ladomyr snickered. “Backed away just as you are.” The king’s fingers twitched at his side. From the bedframe, branches sprouted, coiling along the floor, inching toward her feet.

Alora tracked the movement of those wooden chains, focusing on their slow pursuit as the guards inched closer.

“In the end, the whore submitted to me.”

“Choose your next words carefully.” Alora flashed her teeth and gripped that dagger tighter.

Ladomyr’s grin twisted, much like a cat playing with vermin. “I still remember the way his lips?—”

The monster inside her went silent.

Alora cocked her head, unfeeling of any Fae emotions. That dagger in her hands, the leather handle, how the blade glistened in the glare of the ice wall shining over the mountains. She didn’t feel High Fae at all. Hardly registered the movement of her hand so perfectly angled. Did not feel the leather hilt or the burning flesh on her chest.

That animal inside her only thirsted for blood.

Roots flew through the air at the same time she did.

They coiled around her arms and neck, but not before that blade sunk into the king’s collarbone. Ladomyr’s roar rattled the cutlery, shivering over the platters on the table and the frames on the wall.

Alora growled through her teeth as those branches kept coiling, snaking her onto her back on the bed. Arms forced to her side, Alora curled her fingers in the bedspread and threw every ounce of strength into her limbs to try to break free.

Ladomyr’s face was in hers a breath later, flashing the dagger along her cheek, stilling her. “Thank you for returning Kyrell’s knife to me. I’ll make better use of it than you.”

Her wooden bonds pulled tighter. Cracking like snapped necks the harder they pulled. Her bones would soon join the sounds if he continued to pull.

Then his lips. They were on hers. Forcing her mouth open as the cold sting of metal grazed her chest.

Alora tried to kick him off—to knee him—but the king’s magical bonds held her legs too as that knife sliced down her gown. Lower and lower, exposing her skin to the coarse fabric of his jacket and pants.

Ladomyr pulled away when she sank her teeth into his lip, biting hard enough to feel her teeth grinding through his flesh. “Youbitch.” He backhanded her. Darkness bordered her vision.

Alora didn’t tremble as the king slipped from the bed. Didn’t quake when he handed his jacket to a guard, leaving his loose white tunic to cover his plump belly and dangle down his thighs. Not as the belt pulled from the loops or when he dropped his pants, stepping out of them and his boots.

No. Alora only smiled as that mutilated mark on her chestburned.

Reminding her of Garrik. Of everything she had conquered and escaped. Knowing this wouldn’t break her, just as it hadn’t broken her mate.

“Jade was right,” she darkly laughed, sneering at the tunic covering his cock. “It is smaller than her heels.” Striking that male nerve.

Ladomyr circled the bed and curled his palm around her throat.

Alora gagged, struggling to breathe as the stench of his breath misted her face.

“I still remember the sounds he makes,” the king whispered in her ear, licking it.

Darkness gathered. Seeping to the core of her vision the longer he gripped her throat.

The king crawled onto the bed. “I wonder what sounds you’ll?—”

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