Page 246 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Darkness was a perfect companion. A second to the arms holding her, moving along dreary, damp walls, and echoing stones beneath their feet.

Alora didn’t know how long they were in those tunnels. Her eyes had lost the war to stay awake shortly after leaving Silas behind. But by the flickering lantern light at the end, she was certain she’d missed most of the route.

Warm liquid seeped into her back, soaking through Garrik’s tunic wrapped around her. “You’re bleeding,” she breathed, fighting the heaviness in her eyes. It wouldn’t be long now. Exhaustion would overcome her again.

Silver glistened in the lantern light. Garrik squeezed her tight to his body. “So, that is what that viscid red stuff is,” he teased. A soft smile crossed his face.

Alora huffed a laugh through her nose. It was all she could muster. “I’m so tired, Garrik.”

That real, true smile lifted. “I cannot imagine why. You practically lazed for two days,” he taunted.

She was grateful for it. “How terrible of me.”

“Truly.”

Stars, she missed him. Missed feeling him this close.

Tears burned her eyes. But they burned less than the festering, bubbled flesh on her chest. Alora cried, “My mate mark… It’s gone.”

Garrik pressed his lips to her hair. “It will return,” he promised.

“But your death mark?—”

“They never allowed me to heal by my blood. Yours will return.”

Open mountain air bristled through the threshold ahead, disturbing the lantern on the metal hook. Its near-silent screech was as quiet as the leaves stirring in the oaks and evergreens beyond. Alora turned her head against Garrik’s mate mark and glimpsed a stone wall, hip-height, like a path guiding them home when a shadow pushed from it.

Cloaked in darkness, that shadow guided horses forward, one for each of them. But Alora knew she wouldn’t be able to ride Storm like this.

Garrik tensed the closer Silas’s surveillant walked.

Some far-off echo whispered in the night, ‘Darkness and shadows are guardians. You should not be afraid.’And Alora wondered if thisshadowwould be a guardian too as it stepped into the lantern light and lifted the cloak from their face.

Brimstoned fury shuddered the stone wall, the trees, and the night as Thalon roared a threat in one damning word, “You.”

Garrik beheld the faerie riding ahead of them as he did the last few hours, knowing two things.

The first, this faerie was more than she illusioned herself to be. The lack of wings. The Dragon-like demeanor of Jade. Strength like his mate. A damning eye like Thalon. She had not balked or cowered from the fiery wrath in his voice, nor that darkness in Garrik’s gaze.

That was … unlike most faeries.

The second, if this female was leading them into a trap, she would be the first to meet Thalon’s wrath. Garrik would not thieve him of the pleasure of that.

They would arrive at the territory of Tarrent-Garren Keep within a few hours. Dellisaerin’s ice wall towered high into the clouds, mere minutes away.

Garrik’s bloodstained arms toweled around Alora’s waist, gripping the reins. He adjusted the dark cloak over her battle leathers, warming her in her sleep, and pulled her into the heat he gladly, for now, could offer. If Ladomyr’s drugs were as potentas Galdheir, then their magic would not return until morning, at least.

Beside him, Jade shivered against Aiden, both in leathers, freezing against the wind. He did the same, cradling her within his cloak, pressing her cheek to his chest.

They needed rest. The dark circles under their eyes proved so. The way his eyes fluttered …

Garrik noted the horse in front of him, a twin of Ghost’s likeness. Led by Thalon, its shimmering white hair was drenched in the slow stream of blood dripping from Ezander hunched over it. With the injuries, what his father did, and the dungeon, he was not healing fast enough. Barely holding on as his body ruthlessly worked to keep him alive.

If they did not get him to a healer soon …

“We should make camp. There are caves?—”

“We continue to the Keep,” Thalon growled at the female.

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