Page 68 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

As a small reward, she had allowed him to fade outside tonight. He had provided exactly what she demanded; fucking her against a wall with Malik as an audience and restrained by Snakemares close to his heart.

If he screamed now from shame, would the stars see it as weakness? Would they take pity on him? Or condemn him?

As he looked up, pleading to forget, remembering who he once was … even the moon abandoned him behind darkened clouds. He used to love the night sky. It knew him well. Knew him before pieces of himself were ripped away and he became … something worthless.

And looking skyward tonight, looking at what she had reduced him to, at what he willingly did to her to save himself from pain …

He wanted to throw himself over the edge. Someday would.

As the emotional and physical pain seared through his body, Garrik’s green eyes drifted away into the comforting darkness.

But the darkness was odd tonight.

Usually so far away, dancing around the stars, tonight it cascaded from a whorling smoke-like cloud until it weaved to the balcony.

Garrik’s mind was hallucinating, surely. Because that cloud of darkness feathered across his body and dissolved into his flesh. Turning him ice cold.

“Wake up!” Bracing herself on Garrik’s shoulder, Alora rose on her knees as starfire ripped through the air. Blazing a furious inferno around her fist, she slammed it once, twice, three times—hardinto Garrik’s chest.

The nightmare—memory—he had sucked her into had gone dark.

It had spiraled her out moments ago, only to find his lips blue and skin corpse-like, heart as dangerously slow as before.

Managing to lay him on the floor, his head on a pillow, she did the only thing she could do.

Alora lifted her fist and pounded into the hard planes of his chest. “Wake up, please! I don’t know what to do!” she cried out, hoping the warmth of her fire would sparksomething.

Butnothing.Not one breath.

A vicious bellow ripped from her throat. Alora’s skin ignited as she slammed her palms into him, digging her fingertips into the flesh over his heart where black veins branched out so terribly that she thought his entire body would turn black.

Burning tears poured from her eyes, she desperately wailed, “Ga?—”

Garrik’s lungs stretched, and he choked in an excruciating breath. Convulsing in waves of agony, his eyes clamped down. His teeth gritted in a force that could shatter them.

“Oh stars,” she sobbed. “Can you hear me?” Alora cradled his head and threaded her hands through his sweat-soaked hair.

Silver peeked through the slits of his eyelids, fighting to fully open.

Alora brushed hair from his forehead and sighed with profound relief. “There you are.”

But Garrik’s eyes widened in horror—with terror. His lips quivered, and he pleaded, “Don’t, please don’t.”

Her heart felt like a horse had kicked it. He didn’t recognize her. Perhaps from delirium or falling from the nightmare-induced adrenaline still inside his system.

Alora brushed her hand to his cheek and said, “You’re safe. It’s me, Alora.” Rubbing warmth into his chilled skin. “You’re safe.”

That seemed to settle him. At last, his attention shifted. Garrik’s body relaxed and nestled against her palm as his eyes fluttered closed and sunk into the pillow.

Darkness swirled in those enchanting eyes when they opened. His gaze was tormented—hollow—slow-moving as if it took all his strength for that simple stare at the ceiling.

He loosened a breath. “I never wanted anyone to see what I did.” Garrik’s eyes slid to her. “Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she said softly.

Somehow, Alora felt the pain behind his words. Sinking deep into her soul as she studied the torment in his eyes. And she realized the cruel truth. How the night sky cracked open with storms of great power. How the moonlight basked in amethyst every time she woke up with the dream. The same as tonight. The same that woke her. As if the sky wept in pain, too.

Alora shuddered, and wondered, “This is what happens every time you sleep?”

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