Chapter 19
F or long moments, Alora stood there, digging her thumb into Soulstryker. Into Blood’s empty encasing as thousands of embers from camp floated into dusk’s sky behind her.
To this day, watching Garrik train with his sword mesmerized her. She stood on a hill overlooking him, concealed in the cover of a redwood tree.
They would dawn to Kadamar within the week.
That should have scared her. Instead, excited anticipation burned in her blood.
In preparation, she’d met with Jade to train in this very spot. To learn Kadamarian tactics and strategy because going into enemy territory being anything less than prepared would likely see them killed.
Jade didn’t seem to mind practicing throwing daggers outside the shield. The arena had been so full lately, and Jade was always ready to let loose a little pent-up aggression. This made the perfect spot.
Alora scratched a thick piece of bark off the tree she leaned on and noticed the way Garrik’s abdominal muscles rippled under his tunic as the bark fell from the dagger mark she’d left in the tree.
She barely registered that it had fallen onto the grass. Not when he spun around and sunk his blade into a shadowed figure. Then three more. Not when every muscle then rippled when he continued into a series of maneuvers that had him grunting with each perfectly placed thrust and glistening in sweat.
Clearly, she wasn’t only enjoying the northern breeze that disturbed her teal sweater.
Alora shook her head, drifted her careful evaluation to the endless forest surrounding them, and narrowed her mind in thought of when she had last touched him.
It didn’t seem real that only two dawns had passed. She’d fallen asleep in his arms the morning after his nightmares. But when she had woken, he had left, and she was inside her tent, still wearing his tunic. A pearlsea had rested on the pillow beside her, and she hadn’t possibly been able to do anything but smile at it.
Garrik’s peace. The flower had become hers too. Seeing it there. Knowing what they meant to him.
Perhaps it was better that way. She imagined if they had wandered from his tent together, questions would have arisen.
Garrik hadn’t spoken about that night or even the barn. Only side glances with that smile only Garrik could do. The only one that sent her heart aching to either punch him or turn away while ignoring the hole filling in her chest.
Alora crossed her arms and brushed a thumb over her chest to settle that quick ache.
The breeze whipped hair across her face, carrying his sweat-soaked leather and metal scent. She greedily breathed him in and closed her eyes to savor it before it blew away.
Unsure if she should stay, Alora shifted on her feet when Garrik’s gaze trailed up the hill and fell on her.
A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth—on his too—when she asked, Want some company?
Darkness tendriled around her. Whorling until the likeness of a hand brushed her cheek.
She leaned into it. Feeling the caressing touch as if it were his hand on her face.
And then, the shadows turned to an alluring mist of clouds, emptying her body of all feeling until she felt like nothingness. Smokeshadows merged with her and claimed her as their own, until she transformed from High Fae and was airless in the sky.
Like a bird soaring over the valley, Alora floated, glimpsing dusk falling darker over the horizon.
Though her eyes found a more enchanting sight.
That soft smile, even weightless, beamed on her face when her boots hovered mere feet above the grass before him. The shadows breezed around her and misted away, dancing in puffs of smoke and ash around her body that returned to her born form.
Then she was falling.
A shrill shriek tore from her throat in time for her High Prince’s arms to catch her. He dropped her feet to the grass before he moved.
Then Garrik twisted her around and dipped her low, like they were dancing. Hand on her waist and arm around her shoulders as her back arched. Sharing breath, a smirk, the one that irritated her wholly, rose up the side of his face, and she resisted the urge to slap it away.
The mighty bastard. Even with the half-hearted curse, still, a smile played on her face.
She didn’t miss the one on Garrik’s, too.
“Always falling for me, clever girl.”
Alora curled her lip, slapped his chest, and faked a snarl. “I hate you.”
Garrik darkly laughed and pulled her upright, cupping her lower back and shoulders a few moments longer. “I know,” he said. That smile turned irritatingly wolfish before he settled her on her feet. “Charming, as always.”
“I’d hate to disappoint.” Alora noticed the silver in Garrik’s eyes glistening. Where she’d expected muddy-gray orbs from a grueling sparring with smoke and shadows, instead they beamed with a shine like freshly polished steel.
Her eyes went a little heavy, scanning the specks of enchanting ash and clouds. Wondering what he was thinking as his hand on her back gripped her tighter, not allowing her to pull too far away. But she didn’t mind. It was the first time they had been this near since his tent. Since the nightmares.
Garrik tensed at her gaze like she’d taken Soulstryker from its sheath and shoved it directly into the star-shaped scar on his chest. Specks of darkness flashed in his eyes before they whirled away.
“What do you see?” he murmured, voice rough and cautious as if he stood in front of a battlefield at war and was preparing for a bloody end.
The icy hand on her lower back withdrew until it was nothing more than the light touch of a feather.
Alora registered his taut shoulders, how his face frowned, and the swift tick in his jaw. Unmistakable discomfort surged through his entire body at that one look from her. And she wondered how he could be so disarmed by her eyes? Was he remembering the other night, too? About to pull away in the first moment alone they’d had since?
Unable to let that happen, Alora’s face softened. Hoping he wouldn’t leave or ask her to. She brought a warm palm to rest over his unusual heartbeat, causing him to track the movement when his lips parted, and he drew an unsteady breath. The other drifted down his arm, kissed by a velvety Smokeshadow when she traced her finger along the smooth skin of his wrist.
Alora said, “I see the darkened night in battle-worn armor.”
Garrik forced a swallow and drew his brows together.
Considering his confusion, Alora delicately traced her thumb where his shackle scars were hidden and explained, “When everyone is looking for a gleaming knight in perfectly polished armor, they don’t realize it is only shimmering because he’s never been to war.”She tapped her finger on his wrist, a silent ask.
Lips thin in a line, Garrik’s chest puffed with a deep, shuddering inhale. Those magnificent silver irises reluctantly closed. For a moment, she believed he wouldn’t do it. Not allowing himself to reveal what he had hidden.
To her surprise, Garrik’s skin rippled like the surface of a lake from a drop of rain and exposed the painful reminders of his past on his skin.
She brought his wrist to her lips, tenderly laying a kiss on the scars. “You think you need to be perfect. Allowing no one to see. But my dear mighty prince, the torn and tattered armor gripping your body is beautiful. Proof of battle, of the warrior inside. And if I had to choose between perfectly polished armor and dented ones, I’d choose the dented every time. They know how to survive. How to fight.”
Garrik’s breathing fell uneven as she glided her hand down his chest. He watched the fabric of his tunic wrinkle under her touch and didn’t flinch, not once, as she traced her eyes to the scars hidden there.
Alora lifted her hand from his wrist to his face. So, so slowly placing the warmth of her palm on his cheek, thumb stroking beside his eye. His were eyes she didn’t ever want to stop seeing into.
She breathed, “I?—”
“ Don’t. ” Gritting his teeth. “Do not look at me like that. Do not say what you were going to say.” Garrik forced himself a step back, out of her touch, and turned his back to her. The muscles rippled beneath the fabric as he drew his shoulders tight and stroked his hands through his hair, down the back of his neck.
“But I?—”
His head snapped back at her. Voice low, edging on something final. “No, you don’t , Alora. Starsdamnit, you cannot .”
A bristling wind swept across the valley, tussling a piece of her hair into her face. It froze through her fabric, as cold as his eyes had fallen.
She blinked, ignoring her pounding heart. “Why are you trying to push me away?” she demanded as she stomped a foot toward him. “It won’t work.” Embers sparked in her eyes.
Shadows stormed in his. “I am not good for you, Alora. I am not good for anyone!” Garrik’s voice rose. “You need to realize the monster that I am. Stop looking at me like I am the white knight in fucking ruined armor and see Elysian’s demon lurking, bursting to be unleashed from it instead. These fucking black eyes should be warning enough. I cannot protect you when I cannot even fucking protect myself .
“And someday, I am going to watch everything I love be taken from me like that dream. And I will not have you there when it happens. Every starsdamned thing I fight to protect.” Those silver eyes turned glassy. “ Fuck ! The thought of you dead has my dying heart ready to stop beating in this valley…
“ No. I will not have you looking at me like that. I would rather have you not looking at me at all.”
She was seething, embers lighting in her palms and threatening to ignite to flames. “I’ll look at you however I damn well please. You think it’ll be easier if you’re alone? Well, guess what? None of us are leaving. Not when you were taken to those horrible dungeons, not when you were forced to do what they forced you to do, and certainly not now. We’re not leaving— I’m not leaving. I don’t care if you try to command me. I won’t listen.”
Garrik stepped forward, his body wound tight. Tendrils of Smokeshadows whirled around his feet, his hands, neck. Pulling in a frenzy. Clouding his eyes.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she wasn’t finished. He would understand—she would make him understand. Even if it broke him.
“Go ahead. Yell and scream and turn into the High Prince to order me around. Punish me. But I’m not afraid. There is nothing you can do to change the way I see you.” Teeth bared in a snarl, she sternly stepped again. Digging her boot into the dirt in a firm foothold. “Do your worst … I dare you .”
Garrik’s eyes darkened entirely.
Alora’s burst with flames.
“Be careful what you ask, Alora. You will not like what you receive.” Fuming through clenched teeth, as vicious as the blood boiling in her veins.
She dared to lean closer and growled through hers, “I know what I’m asking. You think you’re a monster? Prove it. Show me the monster you claim to be. Not who they Made you to be. Show me you, mighty prince. Show me that monster.”
The silence that followed was unnerving.
He didn’t move.
Nothing but his panting chest and the flutter of his breath mixing with hers.
They stood, ready for war in that valley.
Stood there until the swirls of ink in his eyes recoiled and his jaw unclenched. Garrik dropped his shoulders with a deep exhale, and she knew she’d won without throwing a single blow.
“That’s what I thought,” Alora snapped. He could think himself a monster all he wanted, but they both knew who he truly was. What he wouldn’t do. There wasn’t a bone in his body that desired to hurt anyone—not anyone that didn’t deserve his wrath.
Scoffing, Alora twisted on her heel and threw her hand in the air like a queen dismissing her court, dryly calling back to him, “When you want to talk, come find me.” Sapphires didn’t so much as glimpse over her shoulder as she took a step toward the hill to camp?—
Something captured the hand at her side. It whipped her around until her palms flattened against his racing chest.
And she saw the look in his eyes. Saw the way his jaw tightened. How his chest rose.
Garrik stormed, “How is it that every time I am with you, I can hardly think straight? You drive me to madness. I allow no one to speak to me this way. But you— ” he cut himself off. The grip on her tightened as Garrik cursed under his breath. “ You… ”
His lips crashed against hers. Melting her body into his.
The anger and unease and urge to unleash her starfire on his ass flooded away with a claiming sweep of his tongue. His kiss was demanding. Like the burst of a dam—a crashing wave—utterly reckless and consuming.
Alora couldn’t contain the whimper when his hand dove into her hair. Claiming her in a vital way. Her palms and burning fingers gripped into his collar.
Garrik’s hand roamed down her, the teal sweater wrinkling under demanding exploration. Every firm claim of his fingers had her legs weakening, so she enclosed her arms around his neck and swore she’d never let go.
She felt light. Like a swift breeze had swept her away.
Because she had been.
Carved muscles rippled beneath his tunic. Smokeshadows stormed around them in a new darkness. A darkness that only the forest lining the valley offered. It was then she realized he’d dawned them from sight, away from the hill. Away from camp.
Garrik’s palms rubbed down her waist to her hips, where he offered a quick squeeze. Sinking his fingers into her upper thighs, he effortlessly lifted her and pulled her legs around his waist. The bark of a tree scratched against her sweater when he pressed his hips against her.
A guttural moan from deep in his chest vibrated against her lips the moment hardened steel pressed against her core.
That sound . Nothing in Elysian compared to it. Nothing.
He pulled away as panic narrowed on her body, her hair, the sapphire glow. Then a familiar fierceness stole his gaze and replaced panic with burning desire. Every muscle in his body trembled as he released a hand on her thigh and plunged his fingers into her hair again.
Garrik roughly pressed his lips to hers.
She hadn’t mistaken that panic in his eyes or his body’s short reaction to it. Knowing exactly what it meant. Who he must have thought, for only a moment, he was with.
“We don’t have to do this,” she mewled between breaths. Between the force and his lips.
“I am fine.” His voice rough.
She knew better. “The other night?—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he rasped, one hand gripped her thigh, pressing his straining cock against her pulsing core.
Alora moaned at the contact, throwing her hands into his hair. Reveling in the sharp hiss from between his teeth when she gripped tight. “It could make you feel worse.”
His lips didn’t stop, finding her neck and nibbling short, small bites against it that set her boiling body to the intensity of the sun.
“I know, and I do not care. Just … just let me touch you. I need … you , Alora. Only you.” His voice was enough of a desperate plea that she fully understood the unspoken.
Her neck extended in surrender to him.
He, in turn, explored across her jaw, down to the soft spot between her neck and shoulder. That icy breath alone sent shivers ruthlessly pebbling every bit of her skin.
He bit down with a primal growl.
Stars , did his lips ever know what they were doing? Ever intoxicating. Stealing her breath and her mind until she forgot the world around them.
And maybe that was why, when his hands explored every inch they could, why when his mouth was on her, thieving her breath and her mind wholly until nothing but his touch and his moans and his body existed…
That he seemed to be just as lost as she was. As if nothing else mattered to him.
Alora rocked in another shudder when his breath fanned into her sweater. Driving her to the brink of insanity as his face buried in the fabric and the ice of his hand firmly squeezed her thigh.
Pulling her into him, his hardness pressed against her, and she pulsed warmth with aching desire.
Calluses and the cold of his rings scraped across her neck until it pulled the collar down. Exposing her skin until those incredible lips kissed the swell of her breast and she shuddered.
“My breath alone can make you quiver.” He darkly chuckled. “Allow me to remind you what my tongue can do.”
Hand gripping her thigh, she found the other tearing from her shirt before it, too, gripped the other. Garrik bucked his hips forward, strangling a gasp from her before he did it again. Alora couldn’t help herself, rolling her hips to feel his cock pressing against her. Moaning with every glorious thrust of his body; mixing her voice with the pleasured groans of his.
There was too much clothing between them. She wanted to feel him deep inside her. Traitorous hands dug into his shoulders, not daring to move an inch. Knowing he wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not until?—
He bit into her neck.
Alora cried out, echoing against the trees.
His hand carefully draped over her mouth. A rough laugh vibrated from his chest. “Fuck, I love to hear your moans, but they are mine. I do not intend to share.” Gray hair danced in the breeze as he sent a withering glance over his shoulder to where camp sat. “Try not to scream…” he paused, and a wicked smirk climbed his face, “at least not here.”
Garrik dropped to his knees before she could respond. Hooking his fingers in her leggings and underthings, those ravenous eyes whipped upward, and she knew what he waited on.
It only took one whimpered yes for him to slowly pull them down, hungrily kissing and dragging his incredible tongue over every inch of her thigh as he exposed the pebbling skin.
His muscles rippled as he gripped her legs and threw them over his shoulders.
Shadows held her there, causing her burning hands to dig into his enchanting hair.
Then he kissed there too—the juncture of her thighs—that soft sensitive skin quivering under his lips.
Spreading her, baring her fully to him with a grin, he rasped, “I am going to make you see the stars, darling.”
Alora forgot how to breathe, watching her High Prince kneeling on the forest floor. The northern breeze thrummed through his stunning hair, glistening under dusk’s falling light as he drifted his head between her legs.
Garrik buried his face in her. Licking up the pulsating desire pooling there. Every stroke of his tongue convinced her the stars themselves blessed not only his carved body with unbelievable strength and the envy of all magic but his mouth too. Because everything he did … was nothing short of perfect enchantment.
His tongue flicked over her swollen bundle of nerves, falling drunk at the taste of her if his moans gave any indication.
Alora’s head pressed into the tree, and she felt just as intoxicated, finding her hands exploring his scalp and ripping into his hair until he pulled back.
“Don’t stop,” he drunkenly groaned. Gorgeous glowing silver stared up at her and she tightened her grip on his hair with a wicked grin.
His eyes rolled back, lids quivering as if he was wholly lost in her touch before he greedily dipped back and tortured her with another lick.
Stars —did he ever know what he was doing. And she was competently destroyed in it all. Unable to stop herself from rolling her hips against his every stroke. Urging him faster and to do?—
She cried out— That. Oh Stars. Keep doing that. Almost screaming it.
Garrik made some sort of deep moan at the sound of her—so unlike himself—as her body fucked him back.
The hand possessively gripping her thigh moved. Two fingers sunk deep inside her, stroking as he sucked and flicked his tongue. Those fingers curled, finding the spot that threatened to rearrange her entire world.
And he didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. Sliding in and out, drawing strangled whimpers and sounds she couldn’t determine were words or curses or even his name.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing but Garrik.
Panting, unable to remember what realm she was in, let alone her name, darkness spotted in her vision as she clenched around him.
Then burning trails of lightning rippled up her spine, and she wasn’t certain she hadn’t burst into flames and set the entire forest to blaze. Those flames ignited, tearing through her with the intensity of an exploding star.
Garrik shot from his knees, fingers still stroking her through the release as a hand caught her from collapsing. He captured her mouth with his and claimed every moan and scream and sound he caused her to make. The world couldn’t have them. They were his to take.
His mouth swallowed her scream, taking the brunt of her shattering and weathering her through his lips, which were just as wild and vicious, as her body carried her mind away.
Back at that edge, she fell over and erupted until she met oblivion.
Everything was dark.
Was she even in Elysian? Had he actually sent her to the stars?
Blinking back to her realm, Garrik’s warm voice soothed close to her ear, “Breathe, darling. You are alright.” His gentle smile filled his voice, coaxing her back to reality as she did exactly that. “That’s my clever girl.”
When her vision narrowed and sensation returned to her body, she noticed he held her on the ground. In his arms, clothed, and seated on his lap. Garrik’s arms cradled her close. A thumb lazily circled her shoulder, and his other hand cupped her cheek.
“You are so damn perfect,” he breathed.
Her cheek pressed into the tunic over his chest, eyes fighting to remain open and living in the bliss of his perfect, unusual heartbeat. Her mind raced in the aftermath of the pleasure. Her chest heaved. Garrik had brought her release—again. Something that, before him, she’d never known.
Alora’s eyes half-lidded, capturing the glow of his. Before her mind could protest, she questioned, “How?”
He only smiled, and those silver eyes blinked with pleasure and … sadness. “I said I had never taken anyone to my bed. Not that I have not experienced and know how to pleasure you.” And Alora’s heart threatened to split, but Garrik continued to smile with such longing, such softness. “Everything… It was all worth this … looking up at you. Watching you. Tasting you again.”
An icy thumb traced her bottom lip before they parted, and then his mouth brushed hers once more. Slowly, her lips fell behind, no matter the protest of her mind to focus on him. Her mind narrowed as she felt herself drifting away.
Garrik contently sighed, stroking a hair from her face and pulling away. “You are exhausted, darling.”
After training with Jade and now … this, she couldn’t deny it.
“I must remain a little longer. But my shadows will carry you home. Rest before dinner.” Smokeshadows danced around her in his arms, and Garrik placed a tender kiss on her forehead as her eyes bobbed.
She pleaded for them to stay focused on his eyes. “Wait. Please,” she breathed, finding her hand desperately clutching his tunic.
The shadows slowed but remained swirling around them.
Worry filled her pleading eyes. “Are you okay?” She didn’t want to leave him alone. Not after this. Not after he had used his body to bring her pleasure when he had been assaulted only two days before.
And he must have seen it in her eyes because Garrik simply smiled, pulled her tight against his chest, and promised, “In this moment, I am perfect, darling.” Placing a soft kiss on her lips. “Rest. I wish to see you later tonight.”
She wanted to protest—to stay—to make certain he was okay after what he’d done. But his darkness carried her from his arms, no matter how hard her mind resisted. Offering up the soft cloud that was her bed in a matter of seconds. Leaving only his leather and metal scent drifting away in a shadow-covered wind.
Heavily closing, her eyes didn’t care to scan her tent.
He wasn’t there. There was nothing else she wanted to see.
An ache spiked in her heart at his sudden absence. Missing him even when she’d only been in his arms mere moments before. And that feeling didn’t leave her. Not even when her eyes had fully closed and drifted her into sleep.