Page 263 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

She looked down at him, at her husband and mate.We can do this together. You aren’t alone.Hoping to crack his resistancethe rest of the way. Hoping he would choose himself—choose her, Alora repeated,I need you. Come with us.

Garrik looked in her direction too. His neck strained against the position they held him in on the ground. With the distance and smoke in the air, she wasn’t sure he really saw her.

But she saw him. And the look on his face.

The doubt. Then …hope.

He closed his eyes, his body struggled but began to reform as shadow, to dawn to her—she felt it—knewthat is what he wanted.

But his eyes flew open, the shadow’s misted away as the serpent grabbed his face.

No! Keep looking at me. Garrik, look at me,she cried. He had seconds, maybe, before his powers were leeched from his body—Ican’tdo this without you. I love you?—

My love,Garrik’s tender whisper ruptured her soul.

And she knew. Without him speaking the next words. This felt like the end.

Wherever there are shadows, I will always be?—

No, Garrik.Please—please,don’t,she pleaded.

But he continued,Even in death, my soul will find you. To remind you that you are stronger than you know. Far braver than you think.Livefor me—not just survive—live.Muffled now, Garrik’s voice faded but held love and peace and home. Held every perfect memory they had shared, as he said,From now until the next life, and far after that. I love you, my clever g?—

Then. Silence.

“GARRIK!” The sound barrier split, cracking the shield. Rattling the Blackstone Mountains, the sky, the entire realm.

The female whipped her head up.

And smiled.

“Let me go,” Alora’s snarl turned animalistic, not High Fae, not anything resembling a breathing, living thing. “I can save him—I CAN SAVE HIM!”

But Thalon only pulled her into him tighter, and his incredible shadow brightened, roaring back, but she couldn’t hear him.

“Garrik—GARRIK!”

The female pulled Garrik up?—

“Ican’t,” Thalon cried—sobbed—tears spilling down his face. “By my Earned, he made me vow to protect you.” His jaw trembled as his heart shattered. “My powers … I can’t … I can only carry one.” Darkness clouded his eyes as he looked to their Dragons, then Garrik. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”

And from behind his back, that shadow fully brightened. Only it wasn’t a shadow…

Those were wings.

Pearly-white, feathered wings.

They unfurled, stretching wide, and the ground dropped from underneath them. And the sky, which they were flying toward, opened with crimson lightning, and dropped a portal to the mud, with turrets and castle spindles on the other side.

Malik and the female shoved Garrik inside before it imploded behind them.

And Garrik was gone.

Garrik knew nothing other than the darkness in his soul, the pain in his chest, and his hands—bloodied, not a tendril of shadow remaining—wrapped around Malik’s throat as they tumbled from Nevilier’s portal onto the stones of Castle Galdheir.

There. On that starsdamned landing platform, high, high, high atop the massifs and peaks his mother’s castle was hewn from …

He was going to kill Malik.

---