Page 159 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

A brief moment of confusion rippled across his features, but he nodded.

She barely heard him move. The exquisite mattress never made a sound, but she knew the moment he sunk into the pillow from his sigh. And stars, did she love that sound. Him safe in her bed. Waiting for her on his back as she went into the bathroom, found what she needed, and returned to his side.

Alora knelt beside him and poured a vial of oil into her hand. The glassy thump of it drew his attention when she settled itbeside the lit candle on her bedside table. Where not long before terror filled his eyes when a hand came too close, only content anticipation waited.

“Why do you want me to hurt you?” Alora ignored the ache in her chest and massaged her oiled, warm hands on his shoulders.

Garrik’s gaze flickered away. He spoke to the stars glistening through the rain. “Pain is all I know.” His eyes fell on her. Tormented, raw. “But when you touch me… I feel a little less … broken. Even when it hurts.”

Tightening her quivering lips together, she swirled her thumbs and pressed with her fingers into the considerable muscles of his shoulders. Alora willed embers to warm her palms. Pulsing heat into his skin.

She couldn’t help but smile when he groaned and relaxed.

Unimaginable pain and torture,force, may have been what he knew, but she would show him something different.

Slowly, Alora massaged her hands over every inch of bare skin. Pouring oil into her palms when she needed more before her fingers soothingly traveled across the endless planes of muscles. Across the raised patterns of brutal scars.

He didn’t stiffen. Didn’t tighten his abdomen or pull away. Yielding solely to her. To whatever she wished to do.

And she couldn’t stop the thought.

Perfect.Tracing marks like taloned fingernails.How could every inch of him be so perfect?

After a while of giving his front attention, Alora made a spinning motion with her finger and said, “Turn over.” But Garrik’s face fell bleak. A muscle flexed in his cheek when a swirl of ink clouded his eyes.

She hadn’t realized what was wrong until Smokeshadows covered his trembling hands, which rested over his abdomen, and the reminder struck her like a damning blow; when Garrik slept beside her, not once had he laid on his stomach.

Aware of her smallest movement, Garrik studied her as she leaned down and molded her palms to his cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but something like a startled whimper left him when she placed a warm kiss into his hair and whispered, “You’re safe with me, mighty prince.”

Garrik shuddered. More than shuddered. He practically convulsed and loosened a breath. “I know.”

Such calm toweled around them, enhanced by the white glow of starfire.

Filling with color, Garrik twisted in the sheets—so, so slowly. The very motion, foreign and terrifying, seemed to cause him a great deal of pain, and he hovered there, kneeling, staring at the pillow as if preparing for war.

Then Garrik did one of the bravest things she had witnessed him ever doing.

Pressing into the bed, into the pillow, Garrik offered his back.

Shortly after Garrikbegan falling asleep, Alora descended into the depths of his consciousness and released a magic so bold, it covered every memory, every screaming door, step, and the stronghold keeping his mind secure.

When shadows carried her back into her bedchamber, Garrik looked like nothing more than a sack of grain pooled on the sheets. Entirely lifeless and relaxed.

His incredible back muscles gleamed with oil, his neck, mountainous arms, and death mark did too. She had half the mind to ask him if he wanted to remove his pants—to massagehis legs. But he looked too peaceful with his cheek pressed into her pillow to ask him to move.

Alora studied the rigid scars on his back. Scanned each layer etched over years and years of brutality. The thickened bumpy flesh in some areas, the tight and discolored places of others where fire had scorched him.

“Do they hurt?” she whispered when a muscle trembled under her touch of one particular long scar. Refusing to imagine any horrible weapon to have caused it.

A sleep-heavy voice breathed across the pillow, wrist scars on full display after she had massaged them too. “All the time.” Slurring the words a bit. “Showers help. Warmth. This.” Garrik hummed when she placed her palms at the center of his neck and kneaded.

He groaned.

It was one of the most beautiful sounds she’d ever heard. And it was never enough. Touching him, soothing the lingering pain, and offering the warmth of a gentle touch. She had emptied three vials, vowing to comfort his body until he fell asleep, and long after.

Alora massaged down to the tally marks along the expanse of his shoulders and below his neck. There were … so many. Too many to count. A considerable amount of them were buried under layers and layers after decades in those dungeons.

That possessive, murderous inclination she had in the High City surged through her veins until she leaned over his back and pressed her lips to one between his shoulder blades. Her lips quivered,feelingthe overwhelming evil caged there. Like her lips could be salvation, over and over, she pressed kisses along the slashes, noticing warm liquid spread until she realized it wasn’t oil.

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