Page 57 of What Whispers in the Dark
He seemed to understand and shook his head. “Not a chance, clever girl. If you could barely walk without stumbling to your bed, you will not be walking inside my mind tonight.” Garrik pulled the blanket over her until it draped over her neck.
“But you need to sleep.”
“You need to sleep.”
She couldn’t argue. Not even as he brushed a hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, loving how that simple touch felt like everything she had ever hoped for. And before she could stop her loosened tongue, she decided that he needed to know.
Without a second drunken thought, her hand found his cheek. “You’re not at all who I thought you’d be.” She licked her lips, swallowed dryly, and slurred, “You b-brought me back to life.”
The world seemed to blur then.
Her eyelids bobbed, even though she commanded them to stay open. She had … so much more to say. To tell him. But a darkened silhouette slipped from the bed and glided from her fingertips, which dropped into the clouds of her bedsheets.
Icy lips pressed into her hair.
She wasn’t certain if she was already dreaming. But somewhere outside the borders of her mind, Garrik’s lovely facesmiled before he tenderly whispered, “You are bringing me back, too.”
Seeing Garrik succumb to serpent darkness was one of the most terrifying moments of Alora’s life—not because of the violence he had enacted, but because somewhere inside those dazed features, somewhere inside that expressionless, haunted gaze and clouded mind, her High Prince was trapped.
And after he blinked …
After he said her name …
Nothing could compare to the profound relief of having him returned to himself.
To her.
But what happened after,before the Shadow Order gathered in his rooms? Before they conjured a plan to locate Blood and leave that starsdamned kingdom. By fighting Ezander on that mountain, leaving him to succumb to serpent darkness, how long would that terror of what he had done in the High King’s mountain last? Enjoy this cozy deleted scene from Chapter Thirty-six, full of comfort and healing and rest.
Rain continued to fall, the air heavy with the scent of soaked earth.
For countless breaths, a steady cadence tapped against the crystal doors and windows of Alora’s rooms and flooded her glass skylight, casting the furniture, walls, thresholds, and rugs in waving ripples of light.
Alora descended the steps inside Garrik’s tormented mind as his body rested, eyes closed and head angled back against her anteroom’s wall, collecting his strength. The few times she’d attempted to light her starfire from the top, it never reached the door forged of twisted steel and barbed iron, where he needed her most.
So, she fought the slithering magic consuming him, and the poison needled through her veins and bit into her back in warning at every step … until it cowered away from her starflames.
He didn’t argue when she slid an arm around his waist. Didn’t argue when she gestured for him to stand. Steps heavy, off-balance, and stumbling; he didn’t utter a word as she guided him to the velvety couches across the room. As if it were all he could do, he allowed her to settle him, sprawled across an ice-blue couch and her lap.
And as his unsteady head sank into the pillow, Alora made quick work of removing his boots, thumping them on the white floorboards below.
“You do not need to tend to me.” She hated how hoarse, how hollow and empty he sounded. Like the serpent’s magic had drained all life, and only ribbons returned. “I am?—”
“Used to this,” she finished.I know.She hated that too. An ache ripped through her fingertips, her heart.
He nodded, and for a moment went entirely still, staring up at the ceiling. As if in a distant world, those tortured eyes full of pain and humiliation and wrath appeared caught in a daze before he spoke so quietly, she almost didn’t hear him. “Ruined.”
It was as if the entire realm fell silent. As if it too waited for his next breath.
Alora didn’t dare move. Didn’t so much as touch him beyond laying her hands on his pants covering his shackle-scarred ankles.
Silence hovered for long moments. Then, Garrik’s eyes slipped shut, tight enough she didn’t doubt they would permanently seal by the pressure. “They…” he started. His voice broke. Shattered and defeated. “She ruined me.”
Some vital piece inside her had her tenderly clasping his bruised hand that wasn’t splinted, which was fisted on his abdomen, and wishing she was closer to soothingly thread her fingers in his hair and drop her forehead to his brow. “She didn’t ruin you. She’s not that powerful,” she urged, watching his lips part, drawing in a ragged breath. Little belief veiled his face, so, she said, “A broken sword can be reforged and made new.”
Garrik shuddered.
“That’s what you taught me.” How her shattered pieces had been reformed into something deadly, strong. A courage she never thought she’d own. How she didn’t tremble at the mere memory of who she once was or the visions of the hands that once painted bruises on her flesh.
