Page 122 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

A grin twisted on his face before he brushed a strand of white hair over her shoulder and squeezed her waist. “Do what?” he taunted.

“Kneel to me. Especially here.” As if the stars were scheming, a servant rushed by, carrying a vase of white flowers, and disappeared up the staircase and to the hallways beyond. “What if someone sees?”

“What if they do?”

She raised her brow with a pointed glare.

Garrik sighed. “The moment anyone leaves this room, the memory will be forfeit.”

Realization crossed her face, Alora thought,The Lord of Minds. He must have secured a shield or something?—

Something,he agreed, and she frowned.

“Even so. The High Prince of Elysian doesn’t kneel to anyone.”

Garrik raked his eyes over her, circling his thumb on her hipbone. “The act of kneeling has never been more appealing than that of recently.” Ravenous eyes assessed the onyx fabric across her breasts again—and how it caressed her skin like dancing flames up the swells.

Alora shifted her weight, rubbing her thighs together before meeting his dark focus.

For a moment, they only stared.

The flecks of embers in her eyes resembled the stars her magic was born from. And when her smooth hands lifted, he did not stiffen. Did not flinch but found himself desiring to be touched. To feel onlyAlora’stouch.

Those hands sensuously curled around his lapels, straightening and smoothing them along his racing chest. “A High Prince needs to look fully presentable.”

He scoffed. “Quite so.” The words were laced with sarcasm. “Would not want the court gossiping about my disarrayed collar instead of this.” A flash of the beast inside him rippled across his face like rain on a lake, reminding all who could see of the sharpened cheekbones and razor-tipped teeth lurking beneath the surface.

She did not pull away.Her grip only tightened as a gleam settled in her eyes.

“First you kneel to me and now show me your pretty face?” She smirked, folded her arms across her chest, and cocked her hip slightly. “Mighty prince, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you weretryingto impress me.”

A rapacious grin twisted up his face. “Is it working?”

Alora simply hummed and strode around him, brushing her hip along his leg and tracing her finger across his chest in the effort.

Garrik watched her every step. Body aching at each inch that stretched between them. Smokeshadows swirled aroundhis hands, his shoulders, until he blinked, remembering where he was. With whom he was surrounded by—not only his Shadow Order but the entire treasonous court of Kadamar and Ladomyr’s out-of-kingdom guests.

He watched his Shadow Order’s faces beam. Listened to their laughs, their short, inviting embrace of Alora, safe to be themselves within his mind-bending shield.

Garrik pushed away the thought of rubbing his hand over the ache in his chest at the pure joy of it. At the magnificent thundering of Thalon’s deep laugh as he fastened his golden sword to his side. The wrinkles beside Aiden’s eyes in the midst of Jade’s enjoyment veiled by false irritation. Alora’s warm smile … the one she displayed when she felt purely elated and content—true happiness.

His palm flinched, begging him to brush across his chest and soothe the uncomfortable ache.

Then again, what would be so terrible for such a display? Allowing himself to truly feel it, all of it, the same delight and happiness they felt gathered together.

You do not deserve this happiness.The scars on his abdomen burned.

Thalon threw him a grin, unknowing of the voice in Garrik’s head, and subtly gestured, disturbing his Earned, with a quick flick of his head.

But Garrik stood there, observing. Ignoring that voice, ignoring the pain of his scars. Both of his brutalization and of his brutality to Elysian souls. Ignored the pain in his heart, that longing for?—

It did not matter.

That was not what he was here for. This joy. This happiness they felt.

Savage beasts do not deserve luxuries such as this contentment. This hope for a future when he held a duty to the realm.

‘And at the end of it all, a shallow grave.’His back stiffened to the point he could not possibly bring himself to smile as they did.

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