Page 244 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Aiden cradled Jade so tight that air could not flow between them. Their sea captain turned on his heel as blood dripped onto the hand holding her. And in ten determined steps, found themselves before Garrik.

Before Alora.

Warmth squeezed her tighter. Garrik held her a little higher against him as he met Jade’s stare.

As if by ceremony, all were reverent as Jade extended her bloody hand to Alora and opened her palm. And in those green eyes … a fierce hatred and overpowering protectiveness.

But Alora could not lift her arms to take the bone.

Jade must have sensed it because she pulled it to her gut, enclosed her finger around it, and declared, “This is yours when you’re ready for it.”

Tears clouded Alora’s eyes. The warmth of Garrik’s thumb brushed the few escaping.

Garrik pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and whispered, “Let’s get you home, clever girl.”

Aiden barricadedthem behind him against a dead-end.

His curved sword poised and dripping, ready to deliver a painful end to another guardsman the moment they slipped past Garrik and Thalon cutting through the horde.

Alora held Ezander’s head in her lap, barely holding on herself, but his injuries were far greater. His shallow breaths from the holes in his side, from the bruises around his neck… And Jade… She hadn’t opened her eyes since Ladomyr’s bedchamber.

They would make it out of this.They would.

Garrik slammed his bare shoulder into a neck. Thalon thrust a sword into another as they charged him. Her mate was a blur, a flash of metal and blood and flesh, laying waste to the endless sea of bodies.

The bloodshed forced back the unbreachable line. Overwhelmed by fear, the younger soldiers fled from the brutal carnage. But as those few ran, more came. More created that solid barrier of metal and blades. Of muscles and strength. And her hope began to falter.

A figure in the back parted the crowd like a furious wave.

Garrik splayed open a male as his sword thrust up through his chest and out his face.

“Enough,” that cold, bored voice called over the High Guardsmen next for execution.

The pin-straight hair and runes marking his flesh were the first things Alora saw.

Silas positioned himself between the guardsmen, flicked dirt from his jacket, and collected his palms behind his back. Glowing crimson, as bright as blood in sunlight, marked Garrik’s stiff movement—his body growing still.

Ezander shuddered on her lap, drew a strangled breath, and closed his eyes as if the act of breathing was too much for him.

And time… Time slowed.

Stopping entirely.

One blink.

Autumn armor crashed to the floor. A sound like a forge exploding.

And standing in the sea of death, stood Silas. Wiping his chin of the blood trailing from his lips.

Ezander slumped in her lap. His breaths shallower now.

Thalon positioned himself in front of them. Between Garrik, the fallen guardsmen, and Silas. Holding a silver sword at the spymaster.

Silas’s posture of perfection returned. He merely stared at their Guardian with a slight curl to his lip, displaying the longest canines she’d ever seen. The spymaster’s head cocked. A bloodlust stole his eyes.

But Thalon didn’t balk, didn’t move. Only his sword offered agony in the afterlife if Silas stepped forward.

The sounds of their heartbeats and ragged breaths filled the corridor. Silas’s burning stare melted, and he rolled his eyes with an irritated sigh. The male dared to step forward, touched his chest to Thalon’s borrowed sword, and continued to press.

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