Page 49 of What Whispers in the Dark
Kaine.She had seen that worthless piece of shit in the tavern and thought it was him.
He wanted to obliterate something—again. Thalon had brought him back to camp too soon. If only he had walked a few miles longer down those decrepit streets, taking the time to calm the storm boiling inside.
Killing Ravens in the mountain earlier did nothing to elevate it.
Hearing Alora’s thoughts when he was miles away. Hearing the males and patrons and every vile thing they were thinking as the bar exploded in an uprising. When he dawned inside and saw his reflection in the polished glass of her eyes … that savage beast …
Never touch me again … You. Savage fucking High Prince, the thing of Elysian nightmares. You’re a killer.Alora’s voice echoed in his mind as it had done repeatedly since he left the tavern.Just like your father.
Just like Magnelis.
Just like Magnelis.
Just like Magnelis.
Garrik’s head felt as if it were sand slipping through fingers. His body being crushed by a mountain. He could barely focus on his own breathing, mindlessly walking through the tents of his legion with Alora as his shadow. Pleading to the stars that he would reach the inside of his tent before collapsing.
Please, please look at me.Her voice. Her incredible, lovely, haunting voice.
If he did look at her, what would she see? Everything the stories told? The irredeemable gray-haired demon of Elysian? The beast with thousands upon thousands of layers of blood soaked into his hands—blood that he could never wash clean.
Alora was inches from her tent when he finally managed a glance at the fire. The roasted meat and herbed potatoes twisted his stomach sour, but not as badly as when he raked his eyes to Alora after hearing her plead again.
I need you to look at me. I need to know if … if I’ve lost you completely.
With a quick tug at his tunic, he studied the sparks and embers in her eyes that had died out. The glowing sapphires he had seen earlier were as dull as his now.
He was not worthy of looking into them.
Alora was right about him. They wereallright about him.
Savage fucking High Prince. The thing of Elysian nightmares… Heart? Do you even have one?
No, he answered his own mind.Perhaps not. Not anymore.
Silver eyes surveyed her enchanting face. Surveyed where the male in the tavern had laid his fist on her. Bruised and painful, Alora’s cheek had swelled to sickening shades of dark navy, rich amethyst, and onyx—as dark as the matte swirls on the obsidian dagger at her side.
Without thinking, Garrik extended his hand to Alora’s cheek, foolishly forgetting who he was, hopelessly thinking he could soothe it.
But how could a monster’s hand comfort something battered and marred? His talons would only tear shreds into the lingering damage already inflicted there. And if his dungeon had taught him anything, it was that a demon’s touch was nothing but torment and torture.
To her, his would be the same.
As if the stars agreed, Alora’s breath hitched as she flinched back.
Garrik froze. As slowly as his hand had dared to reach out to her, he drew it away.
If anyone else, it would not have affected him. Let them believe his touch was agonizing and barbaric and cruel. But her … it cut like a knife—the short burst of fear cloaking her eyes.
Muscles shifting in his forearm, Garrik rotated his hand in front of him, calling to his Smokeshadows to gather and dawn healing balm for her face.And as expected, nothing but a flicker of shadow tendriled across his palm and blinked away. Like the gamroara attack, his torture the last few days at the castle, in his dungeon, and in Magnelis’s throne room. Like his battle with Thalon and the drunken night away. It had all left him spent. Everything he commanded at the wall, the mountain, in the tavern, the hovel. Every kernel of his powers had diminished, and nothing remained.
“Go inside,” Garrik rasped, body numb. His voice as close to the death he wished for.
Willing a face of indifference, he walked away, eyes settled on the escape of his tent, where he called behind him, “Expect Calla with healing balm tonight.”
“Please,” her voice cracked in a whisper that nearly delivered him to Firekeeper. She should not be begging. He never wanted to hear her beg. But her next words … they shattered him entirely. “Don’t make me wait until tomorrow. Punish me … get it over with.”
The world felt as if it had been ripped from underneath him. Garrik caught his stumbling feet and did not turn for fear she would see the devastation in his eyes.
