Page 5 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

It would take one touch to turn into one of them. One.

“There is only one pathway out, Savage Beast, and I’m not finished with you yet. You see, Made for Magnelis, it is because of him that I am trapped here. And it is you who will set me free.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” Silver narrowed on the souls floating down inch by inch.

An icy chill that could freeze over Firekeeper’s realm sent shards of frozen glass through his veins as Kerimkhar’s ten thousand voices whispered one damning name.

“Alora.”

Shadows slammed into the being’s throat.

Garrik’s powers turned their bodies into the darkness he commanded, into ash and smoke. He ripped them from reality, inside the darkness of the Dawnspace, until a distinctive crack resounded against the farthest stone wall of Kerimkhar’s tomb.

Kerimkhar’s weathered body hurdled out of the shadows, hundreds of feet across the crypt floor, with Garrik made entirely of shadows, locking his fist around the being’s throat.

The dragon shrieked in its corner of the crypt, bound by an invisible wall, Garrik’s shield. Thrashing and clawing and frantic. Like a lover fighting to protect its master, it released a fiery inferno that scorched every stone—a lethal promise of what it would do should it have Garrik under its teeth.

Ever-so-sweet and satisfying grunts choked from Kerimkhar’s throat.

Garrik’s grip tightened. Half shadows, half High Fae, as he squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

But the voices choked out, “Kill me and you’ll never save her from Destiny.”

The dragon’s shriek rattled the crypt.

Skin pulling tight, sharpening the bones of his cheeks, and cutting his teeth to lethal tips, the Savage Prince razed, “Speak.”

Kerimkhar grinned.

Garrik’s fingers sank into the decaying robe, thirsting to pierce the skin over the being’s heart, threatening to mist into shadow and rip the life out.

“I do not ask twice.” He pressed, and the tips sank into fabric and flesh before Kerimkhar’s voices gurgled.

“Take me to a memory, Savage Bastard. You know the one I seek. For Daughter of the Evening Star … her life … depends on it.”

“Take your damn misery and tell me what you know.” Garrik’s voice shook the stones of the mountain inside hismemory that he drew them into, standing on darkened graystones of a balcony he had spent countless nights bleeding on.

Twenty years.Twentypainful yearshad passed, and his feet had never once stepped again on these stones overlooking the haunting sea. His blood permanently stained each crack, not even rain could wash it away.

Garrik’s eyes pierced the darkness of a bedchamber filled with the heaviness of death and despair. He stepped back, knuckles whitening around the hilt of his sword as if preparing to sink into freezing flesh or obsidian eyes. Either would do.

The sea below the castle raged with the intensity of a tropical storm. The briny cold of his mother’s oceans carried to him but brought no sense of comfort as the darkened night in his eyes locked onto the blackwood door inside.

Something unsettling tickled his ear as if someone had breathed on it. The sickly sensation curled around the outer shell. An invasive phantom seeking access.

That touch.Garrik fought a shudder.

Then the thousands snickered, “You came into my home. So, I will escape into yours.”

“This is not my home.” Garrik’s growl exuded catastrophic wrath.

He spun on his heel and met Kerimkhar face-to-face. The view of the endless sea over the bloodstained balustrade and claw marks from the female of his nightmares were still etched within a blurry haze behind him.

Garrik snarled, “You are hostage to Alynthia’s mountain by your own foolishness. Do not steal into my memories to find an escape. You will not receive comfort here. Now, tell me what you know about Alora.”

“Mmm, you’re m …mysteriouswhite-haired. Daughter Born of Starfire. Tell me, how did you ensnare such purity when this very bedchamber was your greatest shame?”

Metal hinges creaked as the blackwood door inside the bedchamber inched open. Garrik watched as a shadowed silhouette stood inside. Her serpentine voice sent his body rippling in an ache as blackened veins expanded across his skin.

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