Page 19 of What Whispers in the Dark
Let me help you, pet. Come to me, I will take your pain away.
A quiet, fractured sound escaped him. His breath turned ragged. Chest constricting.
What was mere seconds since he tilted his head to the sky seemed like an eternity as Garrik’s eyes fluttered open against his will. His vision blurred as those towering pines morphed into the stone walls of her bedchamber.
That vile creature contorted, beckoning him to fall to his knees and submit until all he could see were those black, ravenous eyes, and all he could hear was the echo of twisted laughter as the weight of invisible chains settled on his wrists.
You are not back there. You are not back there. You are not?—
The air thickened until his lungs could no longer expand. Phantom hands crept down his bare skin, pulling at his belt until he no longer believed he was in an annulus. It swallowed him whole. Suffocated him with poisonous air. Dragged him backward?—
Fight this. She is not here!
—inside that bedchamber, making his legs falter when they met the cold bed frame.
No—NO. Please?—
A breath whispered across the annulus.
One simple breath that cut through the air like a falling star, obliterating that bedchamber. Carrying the unseen, wicked hands along with it.
Then he felt it—a subtle shift in the air, the faintest murmur of … a presence.
He would know the sound of that breath even if he were deaf and dying. Because as he lay in damp and moldering dungeons, clinging to his pathetic life as his own breaths became few. While his blood painted the walls and stone floors and clothing of his torturers beneath the foundation of Galdheir … it was her breath and voice alone that kept him from entirely breaking.
Alora.
Listening, Garrik suffered an inhale of his own. Strangled. Warring for control and mirroring hers as if she taught him how to breathe without knowledge of it.
One. Two. Then three.He counted until it was only her breaths filling his mind, allowing it to center him. To remind him he was not at the castle underher, alone.
And slowly, his breathing steadied, and he opened his eyes; the silhouettes of the trees feathered into focus.
One.The tremble in his abdomen lessened.
Two.The pain in his chest eased.
Burning stars.His pitiful state hit him like a fatal blow. The colossal lack of judgment in being unaware of his surroundings. Inchoosingto not be aware. Him—the fuckingHigh Prince—gray-haired demon of Elysian—had allowed himself to be spied on. Too fucked up to follow his own rules of knowing every minuscule movement and twitch and empty space around him.
So much for hisimpeccableattention.
He never permitted his control, his awareness, to slip so easily. By the fucking skies, she could have been a Raven—or worse, the male who raised him. How could he be so irrevocably careless? So reckless?
But even as anger and shame threatened to consume him, he could not bring himself to let it fester and grow.
If she had not been there … what would have become of him? Though he hated to admit it, that simple breath was his salvation. And he was not ready to throw himself back into the damning pits of his soundless tent just yet.
And suddenly, he felt himself drawn to remaining in that annulus—unable to stop himself from seeking her out. Needing to be closer—muchcloser—no matter how much his mind reprimanded him for doing so. No matter how much Thalon’s voice raged, warning him to stay away. No matter the reminder of Aiden, Jade, and Eldacar pinning him down until serpent darkness stopped consuming him and he could listen to reason.
But Thalon was not here. None of them were.
And Alora was not aLady of Telldairalocked in her betrothed’s mansion. Nothing was endangering her now.
Nothing but him…
The weight of her glowing sapphires pressed on him like a castle crumbling down.
Garrik acted before he could convince himself otherwise. With a thought, Smokeshadows snuffed out torches, leaving a few casting the annulus in low light. With his shoulder to Alora, the grass beneath his boots shifted as he stalked to the tree line and slipped inside.
