Page 99 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Everything turned black the moment he left Alora’s tent. The moment she fell limp from his arms, soaking her emerald sheets to crimson. He had barely restrained himself from detonating when Ozrin’s hands touched her before Jade grabbed his shoulders and pushed him outside.

His presence was a hindrance.

Of course he knew that—he could not think past the dead sheen of Alora’s skin and the dullness of her eyes. Or the thoughts that she was not long for this world.

Every pass and discovery of undeserved injury would sabotage the tether of control he had on himself, coiled so tight it would snap. He knew he was needed elsewhere. The threat in the forest needed to be immobilized. But the world broke and shattered into ice storms and unfurling darkness. He had not made it a full stumbling step outside when his wrath boiled over the edge and threatened to turn Elysian into an oblivion of endless agonizing death.

Voices filled the wind, but Garrik could not discern what they were saying. A high-pitched ringing overtook all reason. In his eyes, the swirling ink had taken control.

Hermagic had taken control.

Not here.It was all he could repeat to himself. Screaming from the depths of his mind’s prison. Standing at the sealedvault as slithering darkness choked him on the inside, reminding him of who he was Made to be.Not in camp. Do not do this here.

It hardly worked.

Again, those voices were shouting. He felt his shadows vicious and cruel and malevolent despite his screaming benevolence. They were reacting to the quick wrath inside of his heart and the damnation waiting to be unleashed.

Wasbeing unleashed.

“Don’t touch him!”someone screamed, but it sounded like a whisper.

By some mercy from the stars, Garrik willed every part of him to calm. And when his eyes opened and a tint of color returned to his eyesight, he stared into a camp that had been brutally ransacked like a deathly storm of funnel clouds had rolled through.

His Dragons stood amongst the rubble, staring at receding shadows and not one of them appeared to be injured. Only camp was a mess of broken wood, burning embers scattered across firesites, and ripped canvas.

Effortlessly, Garrik’s thoughts ordered the command. Smokeshadows tendriled and clouded across the encampment, weaving and dancing around the carnage.

When at last he deepened a breath and opened his eyes, everything was restored to normal and not one soldier could see past the new wall of tents separating them.

Garrik surveyed his balled fists, shaking violently instead of finding a Raven’s flesh to abuse. The black veins that overtook him were solid. Starting from his fingertips, they marbled his skin until vanishing under his tunic sleeves rolled at his elbows. Like he had dipped his hand in a barrel of dark mud, the blackness covered him.

Chest heaving, Garrik fixed his eyes on Aiden and the few Dragons who remained in the Shadow Order’s firesite.

None of them said a word.

Nobody was foolish enough to dare.

It was rare. Their High Prince usually reserved his outbursts in the privacy of his tent or darkened forests. None of them knew how to respond to it. The only one who was brave enough to approach Garrik in this state was Thalon, and he was seeing to the discovery of the Raven’s camp.

“Don’t touch him,” Aiden ordered again.

His Dragons stepped back.

Garrik collected himself and registered their petrified hesitation when he stepped forward, and stopped. Drawing back the burning desire to relieve someone of their head, he squared his shoulders, chin high like the High Prince they expected.

“Aiden,” fighting back a shiver of rage, “is there something you wish to tell me?”

Aiden’s eyes slowly widened as confusion swept his face. Pivoting his head to the other Dragons, he twirled the scaled ring on his finger. “Sire?”

“The prisoner,” Garrik growled. Hovering on a thin line of keeping his anger contained.

Aiden loosened a breath as his shoulders dropped their tension. “Secured and subdued. Awaiting your interrogation.”

Garrik took a heavy step toward the sound of crashing waves behind canvas when the shadows of glorious wings blocked out the morning sun. Soaring over the trampled grass of the firesite until shards of sunlight bit down upon them.

A few breaths later, two figures parted the tents, and Thalon and Deimon stepped out from beside Garrik’s tent.

Thalon’s face was drawn tight. Flexing his shoulders to relieve something like stiff back muscles as he strode forward. His boots stopped inches from Garrik’s as he asked,I saw camp moments ago. Are you alright?

---