Page 69 of What Whispers in the Dark
Dread sliced through her veins. The very blood in her body emptied. Alora shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.” It didn’t matter if the High King flayed every inch of flesh from her body; he would not face themalone.
A smear of black danced behind Garrik’s gray hair, inching closer—closeras the crowd stood and a rumble of whispers resumed.
“Go.Please.” Desperation, anger, and something unending lay there.
But she would do no such thing.
More black, nearer and nearer, until Alora could see his face over the black flames on Garrik’s shoulder?—
Before Garrik could stop her, she side-stepped his body and tightened her fist. Shoving forward, Alora snarled, dead and cold and poisonous, “How dare you!” If not for needing to remain hidden, her eyes would have guttered with white flames. Would have exploded with them.
Garrik whirled, drawing the blade at his side as the faelights glinted off his obsidian crown and golden embellishments of his dragon-embellished jacket. Prepared to run through the male who raised him and the serpent of his nightmares beside him, dressed in a black revealing gown, flowing black hair down her shoulders, and ombré-coated daggered fingernails.
“Silas,” he growled, as if in reprimand, and shifted his attention to the female when the male didn’t so much as flinch. “Erissa.” Voice clipped, cold.
The princess—starsdamnher to Firekeeper—exchanged a sinister grin with the spymaster, whose eyes glowed a bright shade of … chestnut—those werechestnuteyes instead of his blood-red crimson glowing under the amethyst and ruby crown settled in his long black hair.
“What would our High King think should he see you dressed as pretenders?” Alora yielded to her Shadow Order mask expertly, allowing Garrik time to settle himself without laying ruination to the room.
Through their tether, Alora imagined—feltthe brush of shadow along her lower back and around her side. As if Garrikhad swiped his palm there and pulled her close. Cold, secure, despite the subtle tremble that dissipated the longer he held. And she half wondered if that touch was more to tame the beast roaring to unleash than steady his panicked nerves.
She imagined her hand cupping his on her side. Unashamed to admit that his touch calmed her, too.
His mind answered with a steadying hum. But on the outside … in the flesh …
Silas dismissively flicked a fleck of dirt off his jacket, giving full attention to his hand and drawing Alora’s to the skin-colored paint completely covering the ruins there. It was then she noticed his facial markings had been altered with it, too. A true tribute to the High King. But she couldn’t decide which was worse in that moment: the bloodthirsty predator before her who could convince faeries they were safe in Firekeeper’s realm, far away from him, or the one reigning in Galdheir.
Erissa ignored Alora’s question as if her neck meant nothing to her, and mused, “Lover,” loud enough for the court to hear, and brushed her fingers along the onyx sleeve of Garrik’s arm, bumping her manicured fingers over the golden leg of the dragon embroidered there.
Alora snarled her vicious warning, but it wasn’t her malice that struck next.
Instantly, Erissa’s wrist was crushed by three decades of vengeful pain. Garrik leaned close to the flowing black wig, voice as sharp as a blade through the skull. “Do not fucking touch me.” Before the princess could cry out, he released her with a quick flick of his wrist. His glare promised infernal damnation toward Silas, and the maleactuallyaverted his eyes before Garrik stormed away, heading toward the remodeled open wall and balcony.
The crowd had not been murmuring falsities earlier when they spoke of Erissa’s arrivals. This was truly one to remember, indeed.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
This honeymoon chapter is so incredibly dear to my heart. The amount of healing that our beloveds went through to get to this moment makes mesobwith elation. Though past trauma still lingers, because progress is not linear, Alora and Garrik are very truly happy andsafeto allow each other to drop their guard entirely, heal, andlivein their bubble of protection in Airatheldra—Garrik’s mother’s world that she had created to make a haven and home for all of them.
Enjoy this heartwarming and sexy chapter that will have you needing a bucket of ice water. I didn’t think Garrik could get any sexier … I was clearly wrong.My stars, his words … his possessiveness … hisgrowl.
These two are like horny teenagers—and so incredibly in love that you can’t help but swoon into a puddle with me. Their love and care for each other is so intensely precious, and I’m overjoyed that my readers get to share this special, peaceful, and HOT, knee-clenching chapter with our main characters.
So,without further ado …
Garrik trained on the lawn again, ten paces from the lake and its pulsing shores. Smokeshadows flickered around him, coiled from his shoulders, and bled down his arms in ribbons that brushed along his face and hands. They moved as if testing the boundary between magic and flesh. A servant to his will.
He made no indication he knew Alora watched him as she deeply inhaled and curled her fingers around their bedchamber balcony railing. Her wedding ring brimming with Garrik’s shadows, glinting in the morning light. Cautiously admiring his skill and strength while he thrust a sword into a shadow-made figure much smaller than him.
Dawn had barely risen as she’d woken in their bed to the ebbing sounds of night bugs chirping under the morning sky. The glow of the rising sun just on the horizon, shining through their windows. But when she rolled to her side expecting to see his beautiful face … where he should have been was empty. Disturbingly cold.
By the looks of him, he must have been out there all night… Filthy, his tunic and pants wrinkled. Skin gleaming with dirt and sweat. And with midnight annuluses as proof, she assumed why.
Alora closed her eyes at the realization striking her like a damning blow: he’d had a nightmare. There was little doubt. Not when they had spent the last few nights falling asleep together.
The next half hour, he trained himself into a stumbling mess of exhaustion, and even then, didn’t quit. She waited until a deathly swing of his sword and Garrik’s soul-suffering growl echoed along the trees, house, and hills to messily dawn from their balcony onto the lawn. Practically face-planting, half-catching herself by her knee and a palm flattened in the grass before she straightened.
It would have been better to have jumped, having only spent a few hours training on how to dawn. Not nearly as successful as she had hoped to be by now, she was surprised she’d made it that far instead of falling from mid-air like the last time.
