Page 195 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Tell him. Just say it,her heart pleaded, but her mind argued,You loved another once. Trusted him until it almost killed you.

The tears… The fear and warnings and every life-threatening thing poured from her making it hard to breathe. Giving her heart to another. Trusting someone to treat it tenderly and not leave it bloodstained again was the hardest thing she’d ever considered doing. Harder than holding a sword to the Savage Prince’s neck. Harder than ripping the air from lungs with starfire or dragging a Raven through a forest while wounded.

This.Thisfelt like dying.

Smokeshadows gathered around her. So close—too close—Garrik stood, knowing he was there to catch her if she fell. A shadow-covered hand brushed the underside of her wrist as she clasped the door handle, pushed her forehead against the wood, and closed her eyes at his touch.

Turn around. Turn around,her heart screamed.

Garrik slowly turned the handle, offering an escape when she blurted, “Lie to me.”Please, lie to me,she sent to his mind because if she spoke another word, fear would sob from her lips.

A ringed palm delicately clasped her waist as the other moved to stroke her cheek and tilted her face to his.

“I hate you,” he lied. It wasn’t more than a painful whisper. He leaned in, lips brushing her shoulder. “I hate you,” herepeated, like trying to convince himself. Icy lips traveled to her neck and kissed again. “I hate you.”

Her traitorous legs quivered, closing her eyes.

Garrik rasped, “I have hated you far longer than you can imagine and will hate you until my dying breath. And then, forever after.”His lips brushed behind her ear. “I hate you with such an intensity it out-burns starfire. I hate that you are the light my darkness has longed for, for so long. You have stolen my nightmares and replaced them with dreams, and I hate you for it.

“I hate that, with you, I desire to not solely survive until this war is over and I can finally end my haunted soul, but totruly livebecause the thought of dying without getting to call you mine might kill me. And I hate, because of you, I do not desire death but wish for a future I do not deserve.”

The leash she kept containing her tears snapped. Her chest tightened to the point of pain.

Gently, he stroked a settling rhythm, wiping the tears that wouldn’t stop. Just as she’d done for him in the protection of his tent not long ago. On his darkest night, when he desperately wanted to die.

His head dipped, meeting her wet lips. Licking soothing sweeps, collecting every drop, one after another. Kissing her with promises he didn’t need to speak because the reminders were a ruthless flood. Of every careful touch. The way he’d wait and allow her to decide before he did anything. How all these months, he had been the one who waded through the ashes Kaine left her in. Sparked her dying embers to ignite.

“I hate you, Alora,” he repeated against her lips. His own trembled.

“I know,” she breathed with a quiver of hers before the handle turned and she pushed open the door, shutting it behindher. With barely an audible whisper, she lied, and murmured, “I hate you too.”

Alora rubbedher hands down her face when a shadow moved near her bathroom threshold.

A broken sob cracked from her mouth as Miwa stepped into the light. Those pearly-white wings tucked in tight, face critical, edging on something like sorrow, grief.

That cold shadow darkening her door had slipped away an hour ago like smoke in the wind.

Alora slid down the wood not long after. Now, her face twisted before she dove it into her palms and sobbed, “Why didn’t I say it? Why can’t I tell him?”

Miwa dropped to her knees and cupped Alora’s, but she didn’t get a chance to speak.

Alora cried, “I fell in love with a male who forced me to crawl through glass and then made me believe my blood staining the floor was my fault. That said he loved me, repeatedly, while he sunk a dagger deeper in my back and convinced me my prison kept me safe.” Blurry-eyed, she looked at Miwa. “But my High Prince… He broke the locks. Pulled the shattered pieces from my knees and carried me until I could stand. Crafted those pieces into a weapon so no male couldeverdo that to me again, all while teaching me to handle that dagger so I could stab it in Kaine’s memory.”

Then Miwa asked, “So, he finally admitted he loves you?”

She let out a sharp laugh, though it wasn’t humoring. “He told me he hated me.” And stars, she preferredthatover the fakewords of adoration and devotion from Kaine. “At least with the mighty prince, I know it’s a lie.”

A small, tragic smile before Miwa asked quietly, “Why don’t you say his name?”

Silence. Cold, damning silence.

Alora stared at the silver swirls of winter on her gown, not glistening half as polished and bright as her High Prince’s eyes. She picked at a loose thread, releasing a diamond onto the floor, but Miwa didn’t seem to mind much.

She’d asked herself that question for months. From the first time Garrik had toyed with her in their firesite, allowing—practically asking—her to say his name.

‘I should think that after the woods last night, you would call me Garrik.’

‘I think I’ll stick with mightybastardinstead.’

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