Page 55 of What Whispers in the Dark
“You think?”
Alora whipped her head back to Garrik, then stuck her tongue out.
Maybe that wasn’t the best idea considering that look of her favorite predator returned, hot and scathing, forming her own heat low in her belly as he said, “Mind that tongue, clever girl. Before I wonder what other things it can do.”
A flush bloomed on her cheeks, and she was hopeless to blame it on the liquid claiming her mind. She had imagined thoseother thingsmore than a few times in the last days. As he sat by her bedside debriefing and studying and analyzing parchments with stars-knows-what written all over them. Asthat considerable male body lounged in her reading chair, his steely legs widened so perfectly she could sink between them. How her hands could trail up, up, up, feeling every hardened muscle that kept him standing and fighting, the ones that could hold her weight while he carried her, and eventually, glide across his thighs to meet his cock?—
Garrik cleared his throat. Shifted his legs rather uncomfortably.
Alora smirked in his direction.
A lethal warning filled those silver eyes, but she dared to take it as a challenge and sent that same image along their tether. Only this time …
She licked her lips at the thought—at the feeling of her mouth watering—at the look she pictured Garrik’s face making and the sounds that would escape him as she’d run her tongue along his length, giving him a pleasure he had given her?—
Alora bit her bottom lip. Pictured him there as if he had dawned across her bathroom threshold, thrown her over his shoulder, and taken her to her bed.
Maybe she imagined it, but that was a breathy, stuttering exhale. A purely male groan of approval.
“Can I get you anything else before I tend to the bedchamber, my lady?” There were no more thoughts of taking Garrik into her mouth the moment Miwa spoke that awful title.
My lady, Alora soundlessly groaned.
Too tired—too drunk—to entirely care tonight, she decided to remind Miwa of her name later. Through slitted eyelids, Alora peeked at Miwa, who delicately draped a cherry-colored satin robe, embellished with roses, across the vanity chair before laying out oils and creams.
She didn’t have the heart to tell her she despised that color—that flower—either.
Miwa turned. Her bone-white wings flared in the movement as she leaned down and placed a pair of slippers beneath the chair.
She could have sworn she heard Garrik through the walls.Wicked thing.
Alora may have hummed her agreement, gathering a sated grin at the sight of the robe. At imagining how wonderful the satin would feel instead of fighting leathers. At how soft those slippers appeared and not the suffocating warmth of battle boots. “I should bring you back to camp. I’m going to miss this treatment.” Water waved over her shoulders as she sank lower again, wiggling her toes below the water.
Miwa closed the distance and perched on the pool’s edge, dropping an elbow on the ledge and reclining. “Not much pampering in the High Prince’s camp?”
“No,” she scoffed, though it sounded more like a whine.
Chuckling, Miwa folded a towel fit for a Celestial and placed it beside the bath. And Alora imagined hugging her in gratitude for the pearlsea oil she dropped in the water before she twisted away and walked toward the door. “I’ll set an elixir to prevent head pain on your bedside table before I leave.”
“Thank you.” Alora lifted her gaze a little too fast, only to see more than one faerie with long teal curls standing there.
A sly grin grew on Miwa’s face. “Careful. Royalty isn’t known to offer pleasantries to their servants here. You won’t fit in at all.”
“Good thing I’m not royalty.”
Miwa hummed, “Good thing,” and turned to the doorway. It wasn’t more than a few breaths before she halted at the threshold. Her body fell rigid. Those incredible wings, like daylight clouds, unfurled slightly.
“What’s wrong?” Alora sat up in the bath.
The maidservant peered over her shoulder. Amber eyes filled with hesitation, and she peered back into the darkened chamber.
“Miwa?” Her stomach threatened to empty.
Another moment passed. Miwa didn’t look at her as she answered, “Apologies, my lady. The … darkness.” She paused. At last, those incredible wings relaxed as Miwa half-turned, hands laced in front of her purple gown. That strong female that had dared to take issue with Thalon only hours before returned as sheglaredinside the bedroom.
Carrying no kindness in her eyes, as if in careful warning, as if entirely a threat, Miwa said to the darkness, “It… is unsettling.”
Alora could’ve sworn the darkness thickened at the words.
