Page 242 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

“Unleash Michael,” he swore under his breath; only she heard it. Thalon’s chin lifted, a muscle feathered in his cheek. “On my Earned, Your Highness.” If Thalon was using formalities, then the oath he swore was more than a bond between brothers.

Garrik nodded, then gazed at Alora, eyes softening. Tucking a hair behind her ear, he leaned down and tenderly kissed her. And she thought she might die the moment he slowly—painfully—pulled away.

A hunger of starving beasts waved over him, and her savage transformed. Serpent darkness marbled every vein. Branching from his eyes and lips, out from his fingers, over his shackle scars, up his arms. From his mate mark, like lightning strikes, wove across his neck and chest, down his abdomen until they seeped beneath his blood-soaked pants.

Razor-tipped teeth flashed as he turned away. And before Thalon backed to the door, to Aiden and Jade and Ezander, Garrik ripped a dagger from his belt, twirling it between his fingers, and said to the king, “I warned you not to fucking touch her.”

Ladomyr was sobbing, crawling across the floor with those blades stuck through his shoulders and out the elbows so he could not bend them.

Garrik stalked behind him, a predator measuring its prey. Stepping in his blood trail while he made a pitiful attempt at escape. His cruel smile widened, canines flashing as he took a step, reveling in the panic trembling through the king at the sound of Death calling. “Right now…”

Step.

“You should be regretting everything you have done to her.”

Step.

“Every little thought.”

Step.

“Every glance her way.”

Step.

“What you did to me compares little. But you touchedmy mate.”

The footsteps stopped.

Shards of sunlight glared over the mountain peaks, glistening the crimson streams across the gold-grained hardwood, and casting a long, dark shadow over the king. On his stomach, Ladomyr’s nails stopped clawing at the floorboards and terror-filled eyes cowered over his shoulder to meet the Savage Prince’s malicious abyss.

He would not have much time before the bodies in the hallway were discovered. Before High Guardsmen came for their king. Would not have time to draw out the suffering.

The very air thickened.

A ruthless, lethal growl devastated the room. A sound like Darkness himself transcended. “May Firekeeper have mercy on you because I fucking won’t.”

Garrik ripped a sword from Ladomyr’s arm, eliciting a roar that echoed across the mountains. Gripping the back of the king’s neck, dagger in hand, Garrik lifted him from the floor and slammed his back high on the polished stones of the wall, hovering him feet from the floor before that blade thrust through one hand, then he repeated it with the other.

Stepping away, admiring his work while twirling his dagger in his fingers, a look as sinister as the male who raised him contorted Garrik’s face. Wicked satisfaction ravaged his veins, down to his core as the male barely contained his agony hanging by his hands. The cadence of his blood a melody, Garrikdeepened a breath, smelling the essence as a stream of liquid ran down the king’s leg.

A dark laugh scoffed from Garrik’s lips.

Through the darkness claiming his eyes, Garrik watched the king close his in shame. But Garrik would not allow that. Saying the words repeatedly spoken to him, he stalked forward and gripped Ladomyr’s cheeks, crushing his jaw, “Eyes on me,Ladomyr.”

Frantically, the king swept his eyes around the room, searching for anything—anyone—to be his salvation.

But he would not find it.

Garrik released his jaw, braced a hand on the wall beside his head, and angled the blade over Ladomyr’s fingers. “Do I have your attention now?” he asked, brandishing a wolfish smirk.

Ladomyr did not meet his eyes. Spurting blood from his arms and down the polished stones.

That wolfish grin fell.

Leaning his weight into it, Garrik pressed on the blade until wet stone ground against the blade. Through Ladomyr’s wailing, Garrik lifted a severed finger and used it to quiet the screaming by placing it to the king’s lips, and thundered, “Silence. Or I take the whole hand.”

He would regardless—for touching his mate. Ladomyr would not enter Firekeeper’s realm with them.

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