Page 60 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Their Guardian, drowned in his blood at the foot of an onyx-stoned fireplace. His dark locks and Earned were ripped from his scalp and hung from the mantel like a prized trophy. Those once glowing golden eyes were frozen open, lifeless.

Aiden was slumped over a blackwood cushioned chair beside the bed. His arms hung over the armrests, dripping blood from each finger.

Then she smelled it. Nothing in the realm carried quite a memorable stench.

A charred body with long, bright red hair, smoldered on the balcony.Jade.

Round-rimmed glasses were smashed beside her, and Alora knew without seeing his face it was Eldacar’s hand stretching through the open doorway.

“You failed them,pet,” the female taunted. “Failed them all.” Her sharp fingernail snaked down his chest.

Tears burning her eyes, Alora turned to the bed. Prepared to break through whatever Firekeeper-filled-hell this was and suck the pathetic life from the serpent. But echoes of her own past stopped her bones cold.

To the right. Cruel hands, ebony hair, and betrayal behind mahogany eyes—she saw him. Saw herself. A glimpse of who she once was. Sunken pale cheeks, dark circles under sapphire eyes, and a gaunt, weak body under a deceivingly beautiful emerald and gold gown.

Alora’s knees didn’t quake.

No. She stood fearlessly resolute, undaunted as Kaine restrained a dream-likeness of her against a long black table. He choked the air from her lungs, fist slamming into her bruising face. With one final, fatal gasp, Alora watched her lips turn an unnatural shade of blue. Watched as her hands violently scratched and mauled Kaine’s flesh.

The monster inside Garrik thrashed with a murderous outcry against the shackles, peeling his raw bleeding flesh even more. “Get your fucking hands off her!” That rasping voice raged in an intensity known to level cities.

Wrathful.

Then she heard the snap. Saw the unnatural bend of her neck, the way her head slumped.

And heard everything Garrik had left break.

“Alora!” Garrik released a desolate, ear-piercing scream, more devastating thananythingshe’d ever heard. “No!”

Instantly, the serpent’s grip crushed his airway as they watched Alora’s lifeless body plummet to the hardwood floor.

“You failed her.” Dagger-nailedhands squeezed Garrik’s throat as he fought to keep his eyes on Alora’s body.

Garrik twisted, hopelessly reaching as far as his bonds allowed. Reaching for her, dead on the floor, before his face relaxed. Face pale and lips blue, the life in his eyes dissolved, and his hair fell against the bloodstained pillow.

Darkness swallowed her. Swallowed everyone in that horrible room until she stood—shaking—barefoot on rain-drenched dirt. Her eyes rapidly blinked, focusing on the structure directly in front of her.

Garrik’s tent. She was at his canvas door, illuminated by irate strikes of lightning.

It was a dream.

No—dreams are peaceful. That was Firekeeper-filled-helldisguised as a nightmare.

Alora stormed inside only to meet a rampage of Smokeshadows, ripping the tent to shreds. Darkness bit her skin, making it seemingly impossible to walk through, but for Garrik, she’d try.

With each step, darkness raged with impossible strength. Wood clashed with bone and flesh, and she realized her knees had collided with the cot frame.

Garrik seized on top, lying on his back. Sweat-soaked clothing clung to him. His face violently shifted between the beast of the Savage Prince and his own, as if they were both required to set himself free. Garrik’s half-clawed hands tore shreds into his blankets, and he gasped for air, choking out one name.

“Alora.”

Before she could lay her hands on him, Garrik jolted off the cot. He flew over the edge, catapulting himself to the furs on shaking hands and knees. In retching heaves, his muscles spasmed, fighting to remain upright as he vomited and clenched his abdomen.

With a back-breaking bend upward, a savage airwave burst at the walls of his tent before he tore his throat apart in an agonizing scream.

The same realm-piercing wail as inside the nightmare.

Black veins bulged across every piece of exposed skin, and he painstakingly wailed over and over. Smokeshadows cut acrosshis body like daggers, ripping his clothing, almost punishment-like in its sheer brutality.

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