Page 70 of What Whispers in the Dark
If all else, maybe her dreadful landing would cause Garrik to smile. But when she adjusted her ashen-gray sweater, which fell over her left shoulder to expose the curve and her death mark there, and batted the little dust from her knee, Garrik stillhadn’t turned. She couldn’t help but imagine those eyes as inky black. Swirling with shadows as he stood cold as death, facing Airatheldra’s welcoming horizon.
A caged beast—her beast. Alone and trapped with no way out but through his silent screams.
If nightmares and darkness consumed him, then she would be his guiding light.
Pale, Garrik turned at the sound of her steps, and his abyss for eyes watched her approach. As if the sight of her was a vision of salvation, his swords clanged to the grass like every last ounce of strength forsook his hands.
Aware of his every labored breath, every tortured movement, Alora didn’t say a word as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulsing warmth against his icy skin.
In an instant, his palms roved over the dark leggings covering her hips, up her back. Wrinkling the thin summer-sweater fabric from her trunk of belongings he’d dawned from her tent as he sought contact with her skin.
One palm cradled the back of her head, fingers lacing into her hair before her face buried into his chest. Above the burn mark that belonged to her. The one over his dying heart.
She placed a kiss there. Tender and warm and lingering.
Felt him shudder from it.
For a few long moments, they stood there. Holding each other, breathing each other in. The strength she had watched as he swung his swords melted off his broad shoulders the second she brushed her hand around the side of his neck and flattened it on his slow-beating chest.
Garrik made a small sound of relief, contentment even. A sound equal to a wound healing, enough to pull her cheek from his chest and find his haunted, shadow-misted hollow eyes.
He looked exhausted.
Alora cupped his cheek, studied her husband’s face, and offered, “Do you want to tell me about it?” Whatever nightmare plagued him this time. What kept him from their bed and her safe, loving arms.
Rather than answering, Garrik’s skin blanched to bone-white. His eyes went distant.
She knew that look.
And somewhere down their tether, Alora felt the words he didn’t speak. Heard his screams and a voice now so familiar. She vowed the moment she saw that wretched serpent-bitch’s face to unleash a storm of starfire so bold the entire castle would explode along with her.
Alora frowned. “I did this. This was my fault.” The thought tumbled through her head; she’d let this happen. Knew it was her doing.
Because the pain in his eyes now was the same pain she’d seen the night before. When his body had seized up after he lay on his back and guided her on top of him in their bedchamber … After he sank two fingers deep inside her while she rode his hand, watching his face for any signs of torment … After he had encouraged her pleasured release and asked her to take him, slowly, lovingly. To claim him differently than those who declared themselves his masters had.
They’d barely started when his body—his soul and mind—wracked him in terror.
And she had fallen asleep sometime well after—starsdamn her.Fallen asleep before she could walk inside his mind and prevent the nightmares that would follow.
And now, that pain still lingered.
“No, my love. It was not you.” She didn’t believe him—couldn’t show anything but guilt. Maybe that’s why Garrik took her chin between his fingers and firmly promised, “It was not you.”
With her thumb, she tenderly stroked his cheek and nodded. “Are you okay?”
Garrik leaned into her touch, closed his eyes, and hummed.
When they opened, she could have sworn stars flashed in those silvery pools absent of darkness. Where moments before he seemed so lost, so desolate and haunted, now color returned to his face. The tension in his shoulders had eased. Garrik’s hand slipped around her waist and cupped the curve of her lower back as he answered, “Much better now.” His icy lips pressed against her wrist.
“Why didn’t you come get me?” She felt a flutter of warmth, a peace that wasn’t her own. A hint of restoration and calm rippled down their silver tether before a gentle kiss, a mental finger, caressed her mind.
His eyes softened. “I did not wish to wake you.”
“But I could have helped. You do not need to sacrifice for me.” He shouldn’t have to sacrifice for anyoneeveragain. “I could have?—”
“You have released me from decades of fearing the night. It is not a sacrifice to allow you to sleep. My darling, it is a gift.” His eyes twinkled with morning light, and then he kissed her hair. “This will not be a circumstance of guilt. There will be many times we cannot share our bed. You need not feel guilty that you could not walk inside my mind for a night. I am?—”
“Used to this?” Alora’s eyes lined with liquid. She hated that phrase. Never wanted him to beusedto it ever again.
