Chapter 44
G arrik decided on blades instead of words for the next hour.
That line between his brows deepened the more he grunted between sharp thrusts and swings. It was evident how much he regretted throwing himself off the ledge. Not for himself. That was clear the more she caught him glancing at her, scanning her body, worrying every time she winced when her starfire flared and she dropped to her feet from hovering.
What she wouldn’t do for one of Thalon’s ice baths …
At first, it had distracted her, the anger and fear of the fall overriding everything. But if she didn’t say something soon, Garrik would continue torturing his body until he collapsed.
Alora stuffed items in her pack as she chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking of what to say. A few throwing daggers that didn’t fit in her thigh sheaths, a blanket, rope, wrapped jerky, and bread with a jar of honey.
Storm and Ghost grazed behind her near the tree line. Alora tightened the strings on the bag and rubbed Storm’s nose when she approached. Taking a moment to stroke Ghost’s neck, noticing a quick shimmer on her forehead before she fastened the pack to Storm’s saddle.
Then a voice like the drizzling honey in her pack whispered, “Are you alright?” Cloaked with worry, Garrik’s hands lightly brushed her sides as if they scanned for injuries, then squeezed her waist when she didn’t so much as flinch.
Alora leaned into his touch and settled herself against the pleasant chill of his chest, answering, “Yes.” Meaning it. Knowing he was likely more sore than she was. “Are you?”
Cold breath fanned against her neck. “Still mad at me?”
She frowned at his deflection but greedily tilted her head, offering more flesh, and said, “Yes.” No .
His answering hum suggested he wasn’t convinced. “Allow me to apologize?” came that breathy question. Those lips trailed along her jaw, but his hands … they needed to move anywhere— everywhere .
Stuttering, Alora toyed, “You … you think you deserve that?”
“You say I deserve many things. Is this where the line is drawn?”
Alora pressed harder into his solid muscles, blowing out a breath to steady her heartbeat as she traced her fingers along his arm. Tracking corded veins like rivers until she circled his shackle-scarred wrist with a whisper-like touch. “I’ll consider it.” His unnecessary apology. “If?—”
Bliss groaned from her the moment he kissed her neck. Words were near-impossible.
“If?” he repeated against her skin.
“If you fight me.” Her words didn’t come out as confident as she’d hoped.
Garrik stiffened, pulling away slightly. “No,” he said, rough and with lingering primal desire. “I have done one foolishly reckless thing today. I refuse to do another.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“I will hurt you.” There was finality in his warning, but Alora smiled and leaned her head against his chest, rolling her eyes to meet his.
“Let me in.” The words stunned him, so, she said it again, “Let me in, mighty prince.” If her starfire chased away serpent darkness at night, then why wouldn’t it now? If Alora suppressed that venom so he could sleep, then why not so he could fight?
Before long, Garrik opened his mind, and Alora had climbed the stairs of his deafening pit, leaving behind silence and the white-hot glow of starfire in the heat of the day.
Garrik blinked out of the daze. Eyes narrowing and focusing as his grip on her loosened.
His frigid chill moved away, further and further until her entire body ached without his touch.
Far away—too far—Garrik collected his sword. He didn’t move then. Just waited. Waited for her. For darkness. For his senses to return. “I will never get used to this,” he said, blinking. Something vital crossed his face. “If this does not work?—”
“It will.” It wasn’t like trying to fly on starfire wings. This would work. And she didn’t give him a moment to argue.
Blade drawn, Alora lunged.
Three centuries’ worth of battle mastery and impeccable control met her at the edge of sharpened steel. Garrik gnashed his teeth and leaned into their crossed swords.
She waited for it. For oblivion to rush his enchanting eyes. For that abyss to swallow her whole. But there was no darkness. No whorls. No blackened veins.
Only flawless silver.
Alora couldn’t breathe, not as he waited for the darkness. For his world to entirely fade of color.
Then Garrik laughed.
And laughed again. Louder this time. Full of life and every perfect thing.
A sound she etched into her memory.
She laughed too. The sound escaping her memory, like she’d never heard something like it.
Garrik’s smile brightened the entire clearing as he stumbled back and studied his hand, his sword. Those enchanting silvers turned skyward, unblinking, as if he was seeing it for the first time. Deepening a breath as if that too was new. Then Garrik turned to her with something vital in his eyes. Something like centuries of hurt and pain and control melted off him as he lifted his sword, unafraid and unashamed.
By the stars, his face was nothing short of a Stars Eternal dream as he half-whispered, “What are you doing to me, clever girl.” But it wasn’t a question. That was freedom. True, real, and perfect freedom covering every part of him.
Alora lifted her sword and positioned it, aiming it at his chest as an unbridled smile played on her lips. “The same thing you’ve done for me.” And before her roaring heartbeat convinced her to say more, she attacked him.
Garrik stalked across the space in excruciatingly slow steps.
Their swords were long gone—not that she’d complain. The reverberating metal had her palm and fingers numbed to the point she hardly gripped the leather hilt when Garrik had decided on hand-to-hand combat.
Somewhat bruised and battle leathers scuffed, they circled each other. Alora speared him with a look of fire that could scorch him to ash on her worst day.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Get angry with me.”
He’d only just knocked her on her ass twenty times.
Fire surged through her blood. She could burn the entire forest down and its heat would be nothing compared to the blaze igniting inside her body. Every blow he struck. Every time he softened her landing by catching her. Every glimpse into his heated eyes when they touched …
This overwhelming need to feel him. More of him. More of his touch and his ice and his breath. No matter if it was fighting with iron or fist. No matter if?—
Garrik stole the opportunity of her wandering mind to dawn across the space, capturing her in his arms against his chest. “Distractions get you killed, darling.” But that didn’t sound like a warning. Not when he nipped her earlobe. Not with the soft bites along her ear until he reached the tip, then traveled lower.
The mighty bastard blew a cold breath just underneath, pebbling her skin as his hand on her waist sought to distract her. On the snaps and ties of her pants.
“That’s—” A traitorous moan vibrated from her throat. Because Garrik’s lips … they were trailing down her neck. To that soft spot below. “Ch … cheating,” she stuttered, wanting more.
“Mmm.” The vibrations of his voice rumbled deep into her back.
That hand at her pants line traced lazily above her belt, touching his freezing thumb just under the hem of her fighting leathers. Slowly inching further and further and further?—
Alora’s hand snapped down, crushing his in her grip. She spun from his embrace and those intoxicating lips and poised in front of her with the dagger he’d attempted to unsheathe. A snarl echoed from her throat.
His eyes heated as if he’d heard an unspoken challenge.
“I thought you brought me here to train.”
Garrik’s attention remained fixed on her neck—on her quickened pulse like he was drawn to every beat. “If you recall, I mentioned a little something about anticipating and resisting your enemy.” He smirked and pulled a dagger from his belt, then made a pointed gesture at her neck with it. “It would seem you need more practice.”
Heat flushed her cheeks. Her blood, too. “An enemy wouldn’t do what you were doing.”
“No. Because if they did, I would cut out their fucking tongue before I shoved it down their throat. Voirduti nayr maiezine. ”
Alora willed her face into perfect calm as those words—the very same words he had spoken in her tent when he gave her the crimson cloak—rushed over her. The ones she thought she’d imagined but now perfectly understood.
She ignored them—she had to. And instead of dwelling on what they meant to Garrik, she lunged for his midsection, thrashing her hand toward the row of daggers on his belt.
But he was too fast.
Instead of grabbing a dagger, Alora whirled, slid her boots into the dirt, and reeled. In a swift thrust, her fist barreled toward his face.
Garrik grabbed her before it landed, carefully twisting her arm behind her with the other braced across her chest, trapping her against him.
“Nice try, clever girl,” he growled, but it seemed more of a challenge, more lust-blind when those lips opened and teeth grazed her jaw. Garrik flipped her around with expert skill, releasing her arm as she caught her footing and drew her last dagger.
Garrik’s grin was wholly sinister as he tilted his head.
Alora wiped sweat from her hairline and flipped her dagger, catching it by the blade. It launched through the air, aimed for his shoulder, nicking the fabric of his tunic.
He regarded the slice and whipped his head to her with a taunting smirk. “You missed.”
“Did I?” she sneered and lifted a brow, offering a grin as wolfish as his.
Hovering in a line, shoulder to shoulder, that dagger multiplied to nine. They were the perfect likenesses to the one she’d thrown. All floating in star-kissed flames, ready for her command to run him through.
Alora raised her palm, twisting her wrist until five daggers circled him as he pivoted his head, following them with lethal intent.
She menacingly began to close her fingers, advancing toward him.
Every step, he countered with the blades hovering closer to his chest, forcing him to retreat until his back flattened against a tree. Those daggers stabbed into the sleeves of his tunic, pinning him there.
Garrik’s eyes darkened—not from the control of serpent magic but something more.
Alora gripped the one still hovering in flames at the center of his neck and tipped his chin up with it, displaying the expanse of his neck and his brutal scar so perfectly she couldn’t stop herself from leaning in to kiss it. After his teasing, his touches, it was his turn to writhe.
Her High Prince groaned, the sound vibrating where her lips brushed. Pulling at his arms that were restrained. “That’s fucking cheating,” he hungrily growled in a voice unlike him. Teetering on the brink of something unrestrainable.
Her answering hum was sinister. As sinister as the dagger lightly trailing down his throat. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with doing it to me.” She smirked. “I’m simply implementing the lessons my tutor so gracefully imparted to me.”
Smokeshadows coiled around every dagger, ripping them from his tunic before they misted away. Like a beast in the darkness, his hand snapped to her face and pulled her lips in.
She didn’t stop him, only pulled another dagger and held it to his ribs, sinking it in enough she felt it threatening to break the skin.
Dawning a few feet, Garrik snuck up on her.
Alora twirled low, swung her boot, and collided with Garrik’s leg, knocking his feet from under him. His back planted to the ground with a plume of dust that hadn’t settled before her knee shoved into his chest and the kiss of iron met his neck.
His throat worked. The tip of her blade scraped cold flesh.
Garrik’s palms brushed up her thighs, her waist, gripping so gently as she leaned over him and breathed, “Seems I‘ve won, mighty prince.” Before leaning down to steal his lips.
He sighed into it. Molding to her like they were crafted for one another. Unrushed. Unhurried. Like he wanted to commit every second to memory as he parted and allowed her in.
Smiling against her, Garrik murmured, “I assure you. It is I who is winning.” And deepened the kiss. Garrik’s fingers fell to her waistband, trailing across the top until she groaned at his contact with the snaps and ties there.
“Cheating?” she breathed, unable to control her whimpering.
“Fucking cheating,” he agreed, panting. Letting his tongue explain how badly he craved her as it danced with hers. “Starsdamn. Alora .” Her name echoed like a desperate prayer.
Alora’s hands splayed into his hair, to the scar on his neck, refusing to release his lips the more his hands pulled her closer. Until she couldn’t determine where his stopped and hers began. A mix of fire and ice, burning and melting in a clash of lips and possessive hands.
Her hips were moving then. Against his hard length pressing into her, eliciting a traitorous groan from her mouth. The fabric between them—there was too much of it—and he didn’t stop her when her fingers found his tunic button and released it.
“Do you want me to stop?” she murmured, waiting at the next one.
Garrik flexed his hips and groaned, “No.”
So, she popped that button, then another. All of them until his tunic was opened and scars fully bared. Alora couldn’t imagine not running her lips across them. To let him feel a loving touch. Scar by scar, Alora kissed them, traveling down, down, down his body.
But she didn’t notice how his hands had fallen. How his fists clenched the grass so tightly his knuckles blanched, threatening to split.
And when she turned her eyes up the swells and dips of his muscles, his were sealed like an impenetrable fortress.
Garrik’s face had fallen pale—so so pale.
She reeled back as Smokeshadows gathered around him. As his hands and arms began to feather into darkness, threatening to dawn him away.
“Open your eyes, my prince.” Her voice frantic, imagining his face, his body on that bloodstained bed in his nightmares. “You’re not back there. You’re with me, Alora.” Carefully, as if something had stolen her hand and drawn her to him, she placed her palm on his star-shaped scar, pulsing warmth there so he couldn’t doubt who touched him.
His entire body convulsed. By some miracle of Maker of the Skies, silver opened. For a moment, he stared. As if he didn’t recognize her.
Garrik swallowed and dropped his head to the grass. His quivering hands found her thighs as he opened his mouth to speak.
He released a frustrated sigh. “I do not know if I will ever be able to…” He shook his head. “At least not flat on my back.” For a few moments, Garrik nestled into the hand she cupped his cheek with. “I cannot endure being touched by anyone.”
Alora began to slip from his body, but Garrik tightened his grip on her thighs, holding her there. She whispered, “I don’t want to cause you pain.”
But Garrik smiled. “How can the one that has stolen my every thought do that? I crave your touch, Alora.” She knew the feeling. “The things I do with you, I have been unable to withstand since the day they threw me in those dungeons. But with you… I need your touch like I need air.”
Another hand drifted through his hair, brushing some from his forehead when her eyes shifted to the forest, then their horses. To the pack tied to Storm’s saddle.
A tender grin twisted on her face as she peered down at him and asked, “Do you trust me?”