Page 72 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

It terrified her.

Soothingly, Alora placed her warm fingertips on his icy forehead, freezing even under the hot water. She rested his head between her neck and shoulder, allowing the water to fall and drench the front of him.

Still, his expression hadn’t changed.

Through shaking fingers, Alora pulled a vial from a shelf of stone and poured citrus-scented shampoo into her hand.

Tenderly, she washed his hair. Stroking his silken locks, massaging carefully into his scalp. Alora lathered the shampoo through soft massages, smiling—hoping—pleading he’d find comfort in this touch.

And as the water washed the suds from his strands, by some miracle from Maker of the Skies,finallyhis breathing deepened where before she’d barely felt it.

Garrik’s head fell limp into the crook of her neck with a slow pivot. His nose brushed against her skin.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “Breathe, my … prince. You’re safe now.”

Garrik trembled.

A washcloth and bar of cream-colored soap sat on the ledge beside them. The scent and aromas wafting from the heat of the shower were mostly meant for exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. Lemon, hints of rose, lavender, and a pinch of peppermint. Likely a concoction from Calla.

Alora recognized the scents. Recognized the first time she had smelled them.

The first annulus.

The night she saw his silhouette toweling off before she followed him into the forest. How these same smells carried in the breeze, along with the warm bite of vanilla and oak. He’d been drinking—taken a shower. Then he went to the forest to spar with shadowed faeries.

A female shadow.

Vomit burned her throat at the realization.

The same thing that had happened to him tonight had happened then.

In the dungeon cell, the day before his birthday … Garrik had been raped—was still being raped, all these months when he traveled alone.

And he never whispered a word of it.

Starfire threatened to explode as she leaned forward, careful to keep him upright, and lathered the washcloth. Alora delicately pressed the cloth to his neck and glided it in slow strokes across his bleak skin. It’s all she could think to do.

With every stroke, Garrik relaxed, and his face fell more into her neck.

Crawling the cloth across his shoulders, white mounds of bursting bubbles trailed behind until she brushed over the mountains of his biceps and his mutilated death mark.

Had anyone ever touched him this way? So carefully. So gentle. Where he had suffered by the world’s cruelest hands his entire life, hers werewarm.Tender and comforting and kind.

Alora wiped the swell and dips of his chest and ribcage. Across the raised ridged scars of his abdomen and sides. Carefully gliding over bruises.

It was extremely unlike him. Where he’d normally retract away, not one twitch.

The cloth traveled to his thighs. Sapphires glanced down his scarred legs and rested on his ankles mangled with shackle scars. Again, her stomach twisted when she surveyed his feet.

Burn scars.

How could anyone do these horrifyinglyevilacts to such abreathtakingsoul?

She gripped him tighter, veins bursting—screaming—to protect him.

Below his abdomen, she hadn’t considered what to do. The female, what she’d done to him… That feeling and her essence still remained, haunting his memory. But to cleanse him where he was used for another’s sadistic pleasure… She couldn’t know if it would cause him more pain.

So, she squeezed the cloth, ringing out the soap to pool in his lap, hoping it would be enough.

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