Page 241 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

A watery gurgle squelched from Ladomyr’s throat as his arms—his body—convulsed.

Two blades stabbed straight down from his shoulders, through his arms, and out his elbows, before those blades jerked him from her.

Males screamed. Their bloody shrieks echoed around the room as that face … standing below the bed … cracked something in her.

Cracked her entirely.

She couldn’t do anything but whimper, and through the darkness claiming her, she saw her mate’s eyes, void of all light, and the face of her Savage Prince promising merciless death.

The rage in Garrik’s black eyes could obliterate ten thousand realms. A vengeance only a mated male could deliver and every soul—in Elysian and elsewhere—would feel.

Kadamar would cease to exist today.

By her mate’s hellish stare, there would be nothing left.

Like something not of this realm, Garrik drifted uncharacteristically slowly on calculated steps as he neared the side of the bed. As if moving too fast would send him on a rampage, slaughtering everything in that room no matter who they were.

“Garrik,” she sobbed, releasing the reins on everything she had contained. The fear. The hope. The fury and despair and panic all boiling to the surface because he was there.

He was alive.Safe.

He was there.There there there?—

“Garrik.”

His tunic slipped from his shoulders and arms, draping over her before those hands—the incredible hands—found her cheeks. In his silence, as if he still couldn’t speak, perhaps they had taken his voice, his eyes spoke everything. And for the first time since Ladomyr had been ripped from the bed, darkness softened, revealing specks of silver like raindrops in a lake.

Her mate’s eyes glistened and blinked, but Garrik didn’t fight it. Tears slipped to his cheeks. “Hello, clever girl.” That voice broke. Garrik’s forehead dropped to hers as he trembled.

Someone snapped the wood around her ankles, then her wrists and neck, and Garrik banded his arms around her, cradling her to his chest—in his metal and leather scent.

Didn’t have to be strong anymore. Garrik was there.

And Thalon. And Aiden—holding Jade.

And …Ezander.

Propped against the wall, unconscious, while Ladomyr’s wife and her mate held bloody cloths to his side.

They were all there.

Ladomyr’s bed creaked as Garrik effortlessly lifted her. One arm was under her knees, the other around her back as she clung to him, vowing to never let him go. Calluses scratched along her legs and pulled the hem of his bunched-up tunic down, coveringher. The deep reverberation of his voice vibrated against her cheek as he turned toward the shadows near the door and said, “Thalon, take her.”

Alora must’ve whimpered because Garrik pressed a kiss to her hair. Her face was smashed so tightly against his chest that patterns danced behind her eyelids. And when another pair of warm hands soothed up her spine, relentless tears squeezed between them, and Alora clenched Garrik’s neck hard enough he grunted.

Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t?—

As if he heard her, as if his magic had returned, Garrik whispered, “I am not going anywhere, my darling.” And kissed her hair. Then his voice, deep, like cold death, rumbled, “But Ladomyr still lives. And I made him a promise.”

She hadn’t noticed till that very moment the pleas. The pathetic whimpers and sobbing somewhere in that bedchamber.

Garrik yielded her to Thalon, and Alora choked back a sob, understanding what needed to be done, accepting her Guardian’s warm embrace.

“Thalon. Guardian born from House of the Seventh N.” Garrik spoke, and Thalon stiffened—the room stiffened. His throat worked against her forehead. “I relinquish your duty to me. On your Earned, Her Highness is yours to serve and protect aboveallelse, including me.”

Alora pivoted against Thalon’s racing heartbeat as his back flexed, shoulders taut, but said nothing.

Garrik’s eyes darkened. “Swear it.”

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