Page 167 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Alora’s hand snapped down, crushing his in her grip. She spun from his embrace and those intoxicating lips and poised in front of her with the dagger he’d attempted to unsheathe. A snarl echoed from her throat.

His eyes heated as if he’d heard an unspoken challenge.

“I thought you brought me here to train.”

Garrik’s attention remained fixed on her neck—on her quickened pulse like he was drawn to every beat. “If you recall, I mentioned a little something about anticipating and resisting your enemy.” He smirked and pulled a dagger from his belt, then made a pointed gesture at her neck with it. “It would seem you need more practice.”

Heat flushed her cheeks. Her blood, too. “An enemy wouldn’t do what you were doing.”

“No. Because if they did, I would cut out their fucking tongue before I shoved it down their throat.Voirduti nayr maiezine.”

Alora willed her face into perfect calm as those words—the very same words he had spoken in her tent when he gave her the crimson cloak—rushed over her. The ones she thought she’d imagined but now perfectly understood.

She ignored them—she had to. And instead of dwelling on what they meant to Garrik, she lunged for his midsection, thrashing her hand toward the row of daggers on his belt.

But he was too fast.

Instead of grabbing a dagger, Alora whirled, slid her boots into the dirt, and reeled. In a swift thrust, her fist barreled toward his face.

Garrik grabbed her before it landed, carefully twisting her arm behind her with the other braced across her chest, trapping her against him.

“Nice try, clever girl,” he growled, but it seemed more of a challenge, more lust-blind when those lips opened and teeth grazed her jaw. Garrik flipped her around with expert skill, releasing her arm as she caught her footing and drew her last dagger.

Garrik’s grin was wholly sinister as he tilted his head.

Alora wiped sweat from her hairline and flipped her dagger, catching it by the blade. It launched through the air, aimed for his shoulder, nicking the fabric of his tunic.

He regarded the slice and whipped his head to her with a taunting smirk. “You missed.”

“Did I?” she sneered and lifted a brow, offering a grin as wolfish as his.

Hovering in a line, shoulder to shoulder, that dagger multiplied to nine. They were the perfect likenesses to the one she’d thrown. All floating in star-kissed flames, ready for her command to run him through.

Alora raised her palm, twisting her wrist until five daggers circled him as he pivoted his head, following them with lethal intent.

She menacingly began to close her fingers, advancing toward him.

Every step, he countered with the blades hovering closer to his chest, forcing him to retreat until his back flattened against a tree. Those daggers stabbed into the sleeves of his tunic, pinning him there.

Garrik’s eyes darkened—not from the control of serpent magic but somethingmore.

Alora gripped the one still hovering in flames at the center of his neck and tipped his chin up with it, displaying the expanse of his neck and his brutal scar so perfectly she couldn’t stop herself from leaning in to kiss it. After his teasing, his touches, it was his turn to writhe.

Her High Prince groaned, the sound vibrating where her lips brushed. Pulling at his arms that were restrained. “That’s fucking cheating,” he hungrily growled in a voice unlike him. Teetering on the brink of something unrestrainable.

Her answering hum was sinister. As sinister as the dagger lightly trailing down his throat. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with doing it to me.” She smirked. “I’m simply implementing the lessonsmy tutorso gracefully imparted to me.”

Smokeshadows coiled around every dagger, ripping them from his tunic before they misted away. Like a beast in the darkness, his hand snapped to her face and pulled her lips in.

She didn’t stop him, only pulled another dagger and held it to his ribs, sinking it in enough she felt it threatening to break the skin.

Dawning a few feet, Garrik snuck up on her.

Alora twirled low, swung her boot, and collided with Garrik’s leg, knocking his feet from under him. His back planted to the ground with a plume of dust that hadn’t settled before her knee shoved into his chest and the kiss of iron met his neck.

His throat worked. The tip of her blade scraped cold flesh.

Garrik’s palms brushed up her thighs, her waist, gripping so gently as she leaned over him and breathed, “Seems I‘ve won, mighty prince.” Before leaning down to steal his lips.

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