Page 257 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

No titles. No pasts. Just them. Nothing but their names.

He pulled out and thrust back in, hips becoming quicker, more urgent.

The sound of his groan ignited her starflames, roaring around the room as he unleashed his shadows. Ignited the sparks that rippled down her spine with every stroke, with every piece of her that she let go, that she had held in for those days without him—watching him dying—in Kadamar.

“Come with me,” he rasped, the sound unlike him. A mated male enraptured, captivated, and so deeply in love he could barely speak.

And together, they resealed their tether, as they had so many times before. Garrik shuddered as he roared her name, and she cried his so the stars knew he was hers, that she would never let him go.

Aiden stoodon the other side of the door when Garrik stopped his incessant knocking.

The gray of his eyes appeared blue in the icy-crystal light, making him look unlike himself as he twisted that scaled ring on his finger. Aiden shifted uneasily, leaning his shoulder into the threshold, and said in way of greeting, “Slight problem.”

Alora frustratingly groaned and threw the blankets over her head.Just one day. One starsdamned day.

“Did you cause it?” Garrik asked, his sex-roughened voice muffled because of the blankets. Alora brandished a smile at the sound. Wanting to know just how hoarse she could make him.

She could hear Aiden’s smile. Could picture the way his palm flattened on his chest in a display of dramatics. “What,me?” he elongated the vowel in a singsong tone. When silence hovered, Aiden cleared his throat and explained, “Not all Dragons were in camp last night. Out scouting. Some hunting.” Alora caught Aiden’s shrug when her head emerged from the blankets.

Garrik’s critical expression lightened. He nodded, then turned to a neatly folded pile of clothing on a dresser, gathered a tunic and slipped it on. “When is Thalon returning to camp?”

Aiden crossed his arms, displaying his impressive mermaid tattoo on his forearm. “He isn’t. That’s the problem.” And scratched the back of his neck. Then added, “He used too much power last night to hold the bloody door open. Thought he might pass out before they all could pass through.”

Parchment rumpled when he sank into his pants pocket, and Aiden produced a missive sealed in red wax and a Dragonemblem. “Names of those missing,” he advised and dropped it in Garrik’s hand.

Nodding, Garrik narrowed his eyes, falling distant as if he searched a thousand minds only to find the one. When he blinked back into their room, Garrik said, “I will meet with Thalon momentarily.” Then turned to Alora and added with a lazy grin, “The king wishes to speak with you before we leave.”

Thekingwaitedfor her inside Nadeliene’s receiving room.

Though, receiving roomwasn’t quite what she’d describe it as. Alora, adorned in night-dark leathers, stepped inside an overhanging room that was more like a wintry garden. A river lazed around cushioned lounges brimming with lush furs and a tranquility pool expanding beyond the open walls postured with pillars. It ran all the way to a whitestoned terrace, which was filled with snowy evergreens.

His golden hair had been washed of blood and the Dragon’s leathers he borrowed were exchanged for court attire. Leaning his elbows on the railing of a bridge over the river, the king’s russet irises watched billowing smoke in the distance, over the Wall. Watching the crimson swirls drifting up to the clouds.

“They lit Father’s pyre. Didn’t take Erissa long.”

Alora rubbed her hand along the dark railing, boots creaking the wooden boards as she stopped beside him. Indeed, Kadamar mourned over the Wall, no doubt pleading to the stars that Ladomyr’s spirit would be carried by smoke and welcomed to the Stars Eternal. However, Alora didn’t harbor such hope. He didn’t deserve the pyre.

Despite it, she carefully asked, “You okay, Your Majesty?” Uncertain of his answer. Noticing his hollow eyes, the way his mouth frowned.

The eldest male heir—theking—of Kadamar mournfully turned to her. A small smile captured Ezander’s face. “How could I not be when you live?” That smile faded to distress. “Alora, I am … deeply sorry for what my father did. That I couldn’t stop him.”

“You tried. Almost got yourself killed for it,twice.” Alora smiled, then knocked her shoulder against his, and scolded, “Self-sacrificingfools, all of you.”

Ezander scoffed a laugh, nudging her shoulder back. “You’re one to speak,my lady.”

Alora rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you heard?” And scrambled away from the railing, bowing at the waist as expressive as Aiden as she said, “It’sHer Highnessnow.”

“Yes, I did hear about that,” Ezander mused, then twisted on the railing, leaned against it, and regarded the glow of her face, that stupid smirk. “It seems Garrik has given us both new titles. How kind of him.” That wasn’t disdain, that … that was gratitude.

A cold wind through the pillars disturbed his half-cut hair, and she tucked behind her ear the strand tickling her face before settling against the opposite railing, facing him. “How do you know the kingdom accepted you as king?” Not only the faeries, but the land, too. After all, when Airathel died, Garrik never received Zyllyryon’s powers.

Some emotion stole his eyes. A hint of shame. Wonder. “I felt it the moment Garrik killed him. And then at the Wall. Something inside me … when I saw those lions. I just…” Ezander shook his head, lost for words. “I remembered the Hunt. How I tried to protect you as the wolf Father Made me. And then … there I was. The wolf again.”

It was Alora’s turn for wonder. “I never saw Ladomyr shift. I didn’t know he could.”

“He couldn’t.” Pure male arrogance beamed in that one quick wink. Ezander lifted his hand in front of him, and before her eyes, claws extended. “Not every monarch receives the same gifts. My great-grandsire was the last who could become a beast. Father only manipulated land and faerie’s forms, not his own. Stars, to see his face when he finds out…” His throat worked as anguish surfaced.

Alora didn’t care a grains-worth of sand for Ladomyr, but Ezander …

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