Page 21 of What Whispers in the Dark
Garrik’s brows pinched.
He did not make it a habit of stealing into the minds of his Shadow Order, but the way she looked at him … even with his blade against her neck …
Why does he have to look so starsdamned beautiful?
It was as if a firestorm raged through the annulus and stole the very air from his lungs.
That fast, black veins threatened to branch from his fingers like he was under attack.
Beautiful.The word twisted like a dagger lodged in his chest. Made him want to laugh—to scream at thelieit was.He wasanythingbut. His scars—his title—as proof. The gray-haired demon of Elysian. A Made monster of merciless bloodshed sculpted in a flawless, cruel reflection of the High King. A pitiless murderer. Had she so easily forgotten that he was the one who caged her in? Who did not give her a choice in her fate? Malicious. Infernal. Damned and ruined and?—
Disgusting.
Not Alora’s voice this time, but a venomous reminder defiled the air around them like a sharpened nail tearing through his flesh until his blood spilled on bone-white sheets. That saccharine voice, dripping with poison, mocked again,No one will ever want you like this. Repulsing. You’re lucky I can stomach you.
Thathe believed. The truth had been whipped and beaten and fucked into him for decades.
Garrik almost released Alora from his blade, afraid of the wrath clawing out of his chest, when Alora’s attention shifted. Just one simple flicker that gripped his soul entirely. As if some spell was cast upon him, some tether and force only the stars had control over, he remained unmoving. Caught in the enchanting snare that were her eyes.
Her gaze softened, as if she were the one who possessed power over minds. She gazed at him, not as the demon whoprowled Elysian. Not as something so fractured and ruined. Not as if one mere thought from him could have her heart stopping in an instant. Not that his hands could so easily curl around her neck and squeeze, squeeze,squeezethe life from her veins as he imagined doing tohercountless times.
No. Alora gazed at him with something he had glimpsed in his own reflection. Often seen on those horrid nights that he chose pleasure over pain and looked outherbalcony windows wishing for something he could never have. Not only fear and uncertainty, but in that tender gaze he saw something … something like …
Longing.
Had anyone ever looked at him that way?
He was an object Made to be used in any way his masters deemed fit.
No one was ever supposed to look at him like that.
Through the leather of his blade, he felt her heart beat a little faster. If his could, it would too.
Did she not realize the hand desperate to cradle her face, to tilt her neck in order to worship her with his lips, over and over and over, was soaked with limitless amounts of death? Those years spent suffering in a cell. Surviving night-dark flames burning him alive. The crack of spiked whips against his back meantnothingcompared to the horrors he had executed for thirteen slaughterous years.Nothingto what he had become after painting his hands in so much blood that they would never be clean again.
A disgrace to Elysian.
Her…whore.
Yet … Alora thought him as … as beautiful.
She could not truly seehimasbeautiful…
Could she?
Garrik released a wary breath.What would be … so wrong to pretend? For just a fleeting moment. Even if it was not real. Even if a disillusioned lie. To not feel serpent hands or hearhervoice for once.
Cursing himself, his control—his voice of reason—slipped as he longed for it. Even if he did not believe it, the words loosened from his lips, somewhat painfully, as he rasped, “If you want me, darling…”
Stop. It does not matter what you want. What you feel—wantto feel. You cannot compromise?—
Garrik placed his hand beside Alora’s head, lifted her chin with the edge of his blade to meet the embers in her eyes, and offered, “All you need to do is ask.”
Alora quivered from his voice.
He suppressed his own shudder, somewhat terrified and hopeful. Refused the slight burn lining his eyes and the pressure forming behind them.
She tipped her head back slightly; the weight of his words caught her eyes in the moonlight. The glow of the few remaining torches cast her gleaming hair in a halo, making her appear damn-near ethereal, as if the Stars Eternal floated down and blessed her with their magnificence. He watched every delicate movement of her head, the way her skin glistened as she breathed. The way her intoxicating sapphires glowed as she contemplated stabbing him with her dagger.
