Page 52 of What Whispers in the Dark
Thalon roared and shoved his elbow into Aiden’s ribs, hard, and twisted in his arms the moment they loosened.
With no technique whatsoever, Thalon unleashed a storm of kicks, knees, and slaps in the most undignified fight in Elysian history. Rendering Aiden utterly helpless and displayingnothingakin to the lethal, highly trained,fully grownwarrior his Keep raised him to be, as Aiden shrieked and shrieked andshrieked.
“Stop smacking me!”
“Oh,I’m sorry.” Void of any remorse, Thalon swung an open palm again, not bothering with actual combat tactics. “I meant to hit your face.”
“Thatis my face,” Aiden screeched and swung his palm, landing it for the first time on the back of Thalon’s head, clacking his Earned together. His eyes widened. “No! I didn’t mean to—I DIDN’T MEAN?—”
A high-pitched scream stabbed the air around them as Aiden cried out, flailing his limbs in a pathetic attempt to defend himself as Thalon locked his thumbs and forefingers on Aiden’s nipples, latching onto the piercings he felt underneath his white shirt andtwisted.
Thalon was happy to hold him there under his torture until the back of his leathers were ripped at his neck, choking him and dragging him backward, grappling for a handhold on the dirt floor.
“I don’t care what idiotic male bonding ritual you morons are doing,” Jade snapped her arm, releasing Thalon on his hip, “but knock it the fuck off before you open your damned wound andI have to explain to Garrik why hisgeneralsuffered more of a brain injury than the one he was born with.”
Bracing himself on his elbow, Thalon furrowed his brows enough that he noticed a velvety material on his forehead still pounding like the forges in Tarrent-Garren. His fingers scraped over it—a bandage of some sorts—and ignoring Jade’s insult, argued up at her, “We’re notbond?—”
“Shut up,” she snapped, pointing at his lips with a dagger now poised in her hand. Then waved it like the threat it was as she said, “I’ve reached my limit on babysitting overgrown faelings and want to go home. To my tent. In mywarmbed. Where I’m not forced to sleep in the fucking cold all night.”
Aiden, having fallen onto his back, heaving breaths while he rubbed his abused chest, managed a pained grin and drawled, “If I remember correctly, I do believe I mentioned a little something about sharing warmth.” And gestured between the three of them, waggling his brows before Thalon launched a dirt clod at him like the veryovergrown faelingsJade coined them as.
She rolled her eyes—for Aiden’s sake or his, he wasn’t so sure. “Not even in your damned dreams,” she growled, mumbling something aboutdisgusting male bodiesand that she’d rather freeze to death, before she flattened her back to the stone wall, glaring.
A warm wind blew through the windows, casting flickering patterns of sunlight along the walls as Thalon sat up carefully. Every movement sent pain lancing through his bones and drew his attention to every abused inch of flesh that had suffered on his fall down the mountain and muscles that over-exerted themselves in his embarrassing display of warfare.
His back muscles protested as he flexed them, still too stiff to deny any sharp winces before he complained, “So you left me as a victim to his horrifying whims?”
A sound of annoyance, then, “Youwere freezing”—Jade pointed to him, then swiped her finger toward Aiden—“hegenerates heat like dragon’s breath. It was eitherthator let you meet Maker of the Skies with fucking frostbite.”
Aiden exaggerated a groan and rubbed his shoulder as he rose to his feet. Shamelessly unrepentant as he stretched in front of a window with trees displaying the first signs of spring. “Bloody hells. Save your life, and this is how you offer your thanks?”
Thalon merely blinked, flatly stating, “Youspoonedme.”
Aiden grinned. “You act as if it weren’tthoroughlyeffective.” That grin widened. “So, shush that delightful mouth and let me love you.”
Thalon sent him a glare that could kill, cold as the crow-picked corpses lining battlefields he had been unleashed upon. He couldn’t deny it, though. Without Aiden’s warmth, he could’ve succumbed to the Fourtress’s wintry conditions, marking him yet another poor soul felled by that cursed mountain.
But he wouldn’t tell them that.
Instead, he crossed his arms and grumbled, “We areneverspeaking of this again.”
A wicked touch of mischief cloaked Aiden’s features. “You’re welcome for not letting you turn into a bloody icicle.”
Jade sighed loudly, as if their entire existence was nothing more than an irritation. “Will you fools shut up? Everything’s melting.” Gesturing with her head out the door. “We need to find Garrik and Alora. Let’s go.”
Ignoring the way his body protested and pushing through a wave of pain spinning his vision, Thalon forced himself to his feet, but not before flashing Aiden one last fiery glare. And as he fastened his golden sword to his back and secured the bandage on his forehead, he wordlessly hoped Garrik and Alorahad a better night than he did, wishing to forget this humiliation forever.
This was not right.
Alora was not supposed to be the one bedbound under his healer’s care. Not the one bleeding and clinging to life while those vile pieces of Raven filth still breathed.
If it had not been for their eyes, they all would have been dead. He preferred it that way. But even he knew their actions were not their own. Not when they were magic-washed.
Not when their very souls were bound in magic too vicious and twisted to break.
And now, staring at Alora’s chest barely rising and falling while Ozrin worked, he wanted nothing more than to storm into the prison world and seek retribution for every starsdamned injury to her body.
The only issue was—hecouldn’tleave her side again. It would be unforgivable.
