Page 174 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

There werefreezinghands grabbing her, cupping her tear-soaked cheeks. Garrik called her name but sounded kingdoms away.

The first impact of her fists pounding into something solid felt like a wall of ice falling around her. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop punching Garrik’s chest—that star-shaped scar that belonged to her. Burning her panic into the very thing that needed to continue beating. Ithadto continue beating.

Over and over and over, her fist slammed. Another. Another and another and?—

A blinding light erupted. Casting everything in a fiery inferno.

Only, when the embers in her eyes turned to cinders, it wasn’t the clearing they were standing in.

But forest. Nothing but forest for miles.

Icy arms caged around her, fanning out starflames with his Smokeshadows. She heard a pained grunt and something sizzling between broken words and the brutal ringing in her ears. Tried to focus on the vibration against her face, smashed where she guessed was Garrik’s shoulder, as his cold hand splayed into her hair.

A tendril of darkness brushed her cheek.

They’re back, her heart reasoned. She could breathe.

Alora lifted her hand to steady herself … but her hand…

It … It wasn’t …

“What…” she choked out, staring in utter disbelief. “What happened?”

Garrik beheld her there. Beheld starflames replacing her flesh as he barely breathed, “Dawned, Alora. You dawned.”

She said as much to Garrik on their ride to the castle as she had on their escape from Telldaira. And when he had brought her into his mind to show her what had happened in that clearing, she hadn’t been sure if she should be fascinated, terrified, or pissed at him for his foolishness regarding his heart.

Dawned. Not hovered. Not flew. Not burst into flames. Shedawned.

A sick, twisted feeling devoured her insides. It hadn’t left, not even when Garrik promised to help her train this horrifying and exciting and unimaginable thing. She couldn’t fly—butthis? When not so long ago, she had barely lifted pebbles off a table, but now could reform as flame and walk the earth like the stars ruled the night sky.

She lounged in a chair near Garrik’s fireplace, staring at her hands while the others talked. Surveying her fingers as if she could simply will them to manifest into that inferno lurking beneath her bones.

But a freezing calm enveloped them, tired and aching, and Alora blinked out of her state to find Garrik’s concern staring back.

‘Do not fear your power, darling. This is an incredible gift,’he’d said in the forest. His face was now a picture of the very same.

So, she smiled at him through a nervous tremble, squeezed back, and turned to survey their Shadow Order. To listen as Thalon and Aiden decided to search Erissa’s chambers for Blood during the Red Ball that evening and Jade grumbled about wearing yet another atrocious gown.

A crimson hazefilled the throne room.

Faelight chandeliers dripped with rubies, which resembled droplets of blood. Petals of red roses and smooth silk runners flooded every table, while glassware of scarlet candles reflected beams of light into the white-washed ceiling swirling with red gemstones. Sheer red curtains were draped and gathered besidethe windows, offering views of the blood-red dusk falling as if the stars had planned the skies for the celebration too.

Not one body was dressed in anything other than crimson. Lavished in jewels that could feed an entire kingdom around their wrists, necks, ears, lapels, and fingers while the servants donned garments of less expense but in keeping with the evening’s color.

To an outsider, it boasted importance and wealth.

To Alora—warning. Danger. Death.

But not as dangerous as the two males standing before her, trailing their eyes down the strapless red ballgown Ezander had bought for her. Raking their gaze from the excessive magnitude of crystals that mimicked sun rays spurting up the bodice and down the skirt. The twin to the princeling’s attire.

Wicked thrill danced down her spine.Garrik will hate it. So why was she counting the minutes until he saw her? He and Thalon hadn’t arrived yet, but she imagined finding amusement in his reaction to another male’s taste in dressing her. She grinned at the thought.

“What has you so cheerful?” Jade huffed. “Certainly not these gaudy prisons.” And brushed a hand down her gown.

She chuckled. The vicious female hated these events and used any excuse to escape them. Alora remembered who she’d been spending so much time with and couldn’t resist asking, “You’ve become close with Deimon of late. Like a male with wings, do you?” She playfully quirked a brow.

Jade rolled her eyes and bumped Alora’s shoulder, nodding her chin across the room near the windows. “Ladomyr hasn’t stopped watching us since we walked in,” she growled, stiffening her shoulders covered by a long-sleeved gown so dark red that it was almost black.

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