Page 36 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Alora offered a feline grin and sat on the bed. Admittedly, it was quite enjoyable watching him. If she would’ve attempted these games with Kaine …

Straightening her spine, Alora sat on the silken sheets and reclined back, crossed a leg over her knee. Playfully humming, she teased, “It’s quite comfy. Too bad you can’t enjoy it with me.”

“You are playing adangerousgame, clever girl. Do not tease me.” Garrik’s arms lifted to the top of the door frame, pulling his leathers tight and outlining his incredible chest and V shape of his body.

Dangerous indeed,she thought. To be toying with the Savage Prince. To be toying with pure male instinct and desire. Toying with her friend.

Standing from the sheets, Alora smirked, and with a final assessing look, decided to search the piles of opened and unopened gifts.

But she paused before the door. Her eyes devouring a form holding a floor-length wedding dress in the opposite corner.

And for a moment, the picture was so clear in her mind.

Keeping a few paces away, she imagined herself wearing it.

Not so long ago, servants had accompanied her to the finest Telldairan shops, most gowns commissioned from Rowlen’s father. She found the perfect—ridiculous—ballgown that Kaine would be agreeable to, even though her taste was much simpler. They had visited cathedrals and grand halls known for rich gatherings to decide on where they would hold the ceremony. Many nights she’d lay under his emerald sheets as Kaine’s warm body pinned her to the mattress while he slept and she daydreamed.

A shudder slithered down Alora’s spine, raking over the gown. Imagining herself in it again:

Telldaira’s grandest hall would overlook a pastel sunset casting its glow off the distant river, awaiting the incoming night sky. She would step beyond a grand archway smelling of pearlsea flowers as every royal, dignitary, and revered lord of Zyllyryon and surrounding kingdoms stood. All waiting for Lord Kaine’s betrothed to float down the long emerald rug to Kaine waiting in his finery.

Only, when she would turn and look through the archways of ivy and the most beautiful white flowers like the sea, it wasn’t Kaine she saw. It was?—

Garrik cleared his throat and shifted in the doorway.

Shuffling nervously on her feet, Alora turned and took another step toward the dress. A glint from her starfire reflected off a necklace hanging on the neck.

It couldn’t be …

There, enclosed in white-gold and swirls of silver, a tear-shaped ruby the size of her rounded thumbnail rested on a diamond-laced chain.

Alora couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think beyond lifting Soulstryker from her thigh to behold it and the necklace.

It was the perfect size, the perfect shape. She pictured the likeness of it, found inside that book on Aiden’s ship. Straight down to the unique cut and smooth faces of it. Its color, deep and dark as the very blood running in her veins.

Because itwasBlood.

“I found it,” she breathed in disbelief, reaching for the form. Her fingers touched the white-gold and traced the mastery of its shape and artistry. When her fingers closed around the necklace and lifted, the ruby swayed and caught her fire’s glinting light.

Alora turned to Garrik, who still stood with a vexed expression. He went rigid and withdrew from the threshold as he, too, beheld the jewel in her hand.

Alora took a step toward him.

And the entire mountain erupted.

“Give me your hand!”Roaring through the chaos, Garrik stood half on the staircase and half on the floor. The muscles in his forearm burst as he outstretched his hand, reaching for her.

Terrified, Alora stared at the spiraling stones of the staircase as she stumbled to him through the threshold.

There were too many.

They would have to run—fast.But her legs, still haunted by her past, couldn’t move.

Garrik was screaming, but the roaring and shaking of the mountain was so loud—so starsdamned loud—she barely heard him.

He didn’t allow her a moment to think before those considerable arms lifted her from the floor, and then they were gliding up, up, up.

“Hold on,” he said, and she felt some sort of dark calm settle over her.

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