Chapter 45
G arrik dropped his head against a tree and allowed his hands to relax in the grass, not caring that his open tunic fluttered in the wind. Unashamed of what Alora saw.
With a deep breath, he stole a moment and scanned her until he saw a rope dangling in her hand. “What is that for?”
The wary look in her eyes softened. Almost as if she treaded on a thin layer of ice, her posture cautiously shifted. Alora gripped the rope tighter and said nothing as she bit that starsdamned perfect lip.
When he lifted a brow, Alora finally said, “I … I thought maybe I could replace a bad memory with a good one.” Her eyes glazed as her fingers loosened. The rope uncoiled, swaying close to the ground. “But now I hate the idea. Hate myself for it.”
Garrik’s senses sharpened, narrowed on every twist and knot.
Fear and humiliation cloaked the shake in her voice when she stuttered, “I wanted to … give you something you can control. Knowing you can decide what happens. To help take some of the pain away.” The rope dropped to the ground before she nervously rubbed the leathers over her death mark, and her watery eyes found the sky, evading his stare.
His silence.
“I’m sorry,” Alora murmured. “It was a terrible idea.” A brutal tear slipped down her face as she met his stare.
Smokeshadows whorled around the rope pooled in the grass, dawning it away. And before she reacted, likenesses of his hands pulled her closer. So close his face was at her knees and calloused hands cupped her calves.
Garrik peered up at her, a smile twisted on his face as he released a breathy laugh. “How can I forgive something that does not require it?”
Alora swiped another tear. “But?—”
“What did you have in mind, darling?” But he knew. Starsdamn. He knew.
The rope dawned into his lap. He lifted it to her, offering a reassuring smile. Garrik nodded to it, and she enclosed her fingers around the coarse surface, anxiously sighing as his thumb brushed the back of her hand.
“I wanted to play a game.”
The understanding in his eyes sharpened, replaced with hungry desire. He desired to pull her lips to his and taste her. She had crafted this … whatever this was. And fuck if it didn’t have him bursting to show her how pleased he was with this little game she wanted to play.
Garrik offered her a purely primal male grin and speared her sapphires with glowing silver. “Is that so?” And darkly laughed, squeezing her calves tighter. “There are not many games I know that use bonds besides bloody ones. Tell me, is this from one of those smutty books I catch you reading when you are hallucinating it is about me?”
Scarlet rushed to her cheeks like she had been found out. And to his greatest pleasure, she transformed into that fierce female with her dagger at his neck. Powerful. Demanding. Controlled.
A Celestial demanding to be worshiped from willing knees.
Alora stepped out of his embrace and crossed her arms. “You mean your smutty books?” she asked with a flare of teasing.
Jagged rays of sunlight burst around her hair. Garrik gritted his teeth and bent a knee, failing to alleviate the pressure building against the snaps and ties of his pants.
Garrik raked his dilated eyes over her. She was a Celestial ready for war in those fighting leathers, with his symbol etched into the chest. And he knew if she allowed him, that would be the first place his hands roamed.
Alora brushed a hand down her neck—painstakingly slow as if to purposely cause him considerable pain—until she trailed along that dragon emblem where his eyes hovered. She squeezed her chest, and the leather groaned.
Starsdamn , he did too.
This was worse than any torture he had suffered. Going utterly mad watching her play.
Another smile and taunting squeeze of her breast had him coming undone. His cock painfully pressed against the seam of his pants.
One perfect finger. Then two. Three gripped onto one of the three metal snaps of her upper armor, popping the clasp, and releasing the strap. The scaled leather parted as one by one, she released them, exposing the swell of her breasts hidden underneath.
“Do not tease me,” Garrik growled, narrowing his predatorial eyes. The very thin tether on his control was snapping. If he did not do something about it in the next two seconds, Alora would be bare and on her back.
Ruthless memories schemed to seep into his eyes as he felt the scratch of ropes begin to coil around his wrists. But they were not iron—not shackles.
With a harsh tug of shadows, Garrik’s arms were outstretched to his sides, pulled taut and anchored to the tree, and he did not fight it. Surrendering to this haunting thing that was his to control. That he never realized, until Alora had opened his eyes, he needed to control.
Garrik scanned the rope around his wrists. Studied the five separate cords strong enough to maybe keep the Lord of Darkness from breaking free. By his strength, by how many there were, he would not be able to snap them. Not with how they were tied. Not with how many held him there.
“What are you doing?” Fear clouded Alora’s exquisite face as she surged forward to untie him.
But Garrik stopped her with only a grin and answered, “Playing your game.”
He sensed the war inside her. The one that fought as hard as he had while beaten and bound in shackles, desperately attempting to understand his decision. While the other was plagued with selfish hope. She wanted this, wanted to play along, but she would not be the female he had come to lo—know if she did not think of him first.
Bordering on something vital, a shadow likeness of his hand caressed her chin. “I want this,” he softly confessed. Meaning it, making sure she heard it in his tone. “I need you to touch me … like this. Everywhere they touched me. Where she …” He glanced at the ropes and squeezed his eyes closed, shuddering. “As you said, to replace bad memories with good ones. I can control what happens to me. It is my choice when to end this… That only happens when I am with you, Alora.”
Alora studied his face with liquid lining her eyes.
He felt her sorrow and hope like it was his own. That powerful female inhaled a deep breath before the glow of her sapphires found his.
And she spoke with gentleness and sternness all the same. “You say no or stop and I will.”
If not for his Smokeshadows, Garrik’s heart would have stopped.
No. Stop.
How many times had he said those words only for them to be ignored? Like something meaningless. Thrown away. Surrounded by laughter while they forcibly explored his body. While he was beaten. Broken. Left for dead. How many times had his mind screamed them when his voice could not?
But with Alora, he could.
“Get down here, clever girl.” He was done waiting. Done letting fucking memories control him.
She grinned but remained unmoving. “Patience, High Prince.” In a steady movement, she continued her tease and removed her upper armor, revealing a black sleeveless undershirt, and his shadow hand misted away.
Hanging by an outstretched finger, Alora dropped the leathers by his feet.
Her teasing was torture for which he craved to carry out delicious retribution. Knowing he would, if free, consume the wicked grin and have it wide open and moaning from unleashing himself inside her. Garrik shifted his hips and cocked his head like an animal stalking its prey.
Starsdamn. He couldn’t stop looking at the white-hot embers in her eyes. Seeing her like this… Emanating sheer authority and control… She wasn’t a damsel needing to be rescued from a lion. She was a lion. And he would gladly let her devour him whole.
Alora hummed, stalked closer, and crouched over his thighs. “Tell me, mighty prince. If I let you go, what would you do?”
The words released that thin tether. Garrik growled, “ Don’t you dare untie me. ” He lunged forward, desperate to gain as little as an inch. The bonds snapped tight. “I will not be able to control myself.” He felt himself unraveling with every brush of her fingers that resumed drifting down the curves of her body.
Warmth pulsated into his chest as she laid her hand on it, rendering him breathless from its searing sting.
A memory flickered in his mind. A flash of a daggered hand. Garrik’s strangled breath groaned, “Wait?—”
Concerned, her face lowered. Alora withdrew her intense heat, then flashed apologetic eyes. She stopped . Waited.
He whipped his head to the bonds. Ropes. Not chains . And when he quickly tore his gaze away, it was white hair, blue eyes, and a warm touch waiting. It was his Alora.
And she had withdrawn the moment he had needed it. An act so unlike the cruel hands that plagued his every waking moment. An act that soothed him and pulled him back to the present. To her.
Still, her hand did not leave his flesh. “Is this okay? I didn’t mean to,” forcing a swallow, “torment you.”
“Alora. You could burn me alive and I would gladly hand you a torch to do it.”
Her lips parted, hitching a breath. Leathered thighs fully lowered to his, straddling him completely, but Garrik needed her closer. He slid his boots back, bending his knees with a jerk, causing her to fall forward and plant her hands on his solid chest.
His cock pressed against her core, and she stiffened.
In a gentle movement, Alora rolled her hips and ground against him. “Do you like this?”
Words were beyond him. He gripped the ropes around his wrists and unleashed a moan from the depths like a wild, deprived beast. He did not dare twitch. Did not dare move. He may have been bound to the tree, but one word—one mere thought—his Smokeshadows would release him. And he would lunge for her without abandon.
“Do you want me to stop?” Her nose teased his jawline as she braced her hands on either side of his face, rubbing her chest to his.
Never stop. His face dropped to her neck, blowing an icy chill against her skin that peaked her nipples through the thin fabric. Garrik pictured them in his mouth, but her position rendered that impossible. Settling for her neck, he nipped the soft spot of muscle.
Alora whimpered and rolled her hips.
Releasing a deep, pleasured growl against her lips when her hands pulled his face to hers, they collided together in breathless desire.
Easing against his cock in a slow rhythm, her warm hand threaded through his hair, pulling his lips impossibly closer.
Garrik could not stop himself from groaning, working his lips desperately against hers. Savoring the way she tasted. The way she felt so perfectly warm against him.
Longing was too simple a word for how desperate he felt. Like her absence would rip his useless heart into its final beat. Nothing in Elysian had ever made him drop all sense of himself as she did. Nothing. Nothing had every piece of him burning through a dying heart and bloodstained soul.
Silver widened when Alora kissed the hard lump at the center of his throat. Her warm tongue traced idle circles on it, and he hummed, reverberating his growl into her mouth. Every muscle in his arms went taut, pulling his bonds, veins bulging as he rolled his hips with her.
Garrik’s cock ached for her, and he met her stroke for stroke with a slow rhythm. Alora moaned in a way that reminded him of her warmth tightening against his fingers, and how her slickness tasted after.
She licked him long and slow, down until she played at the dip of his neck.
“ Fuck, ” he cursed, tensing his cock and pressing his head into the tree.
Stars burn him. He had to release an extensive breath, unable to speak the words that he had never been treated so gently before. Not by anyone his entire life. Not like this. “I love … this. I love,” fumbling over the foreign words as he closed his eyes and moaned, “yo—your warmth.”
That heat pulsed into his hair, across his chest, down his neck. Not serpent skin. Blazing heat . When he had been cold for so long, she was the warmth he dreamed of.
Liquid lined his eyes. His hands tried to reach her, to pull her close because the agony of not feeling her heartbeat with his could end him.
Alora’s gaze fell to his reddening wrist. Leather groaned as she pulled Soulstryker from the sheath.
Something relaxed against his scarred wrist, his arm jolted forward an inch.
He snapped his head and found one of the ropes cut. Silver darkened as he snarled, “Don’t. ”
Another fell to his right.
“I am warning you. Do not cut me loose.”
“What will you do, mighty prince?” A wicked taunt. Alora’s hand brushed down his scars to his belt and rested on the metal, gently gliding her fingertips along the cold of it. Waiting.
Garrik met her piercing stare and could not bear it any longer. “Take off my belt, Alora.” Saying her name to make clear who was allowed to touch. Who would only ever touch him again.
Her other hand, warm and pulsing with embered heat, carefully fell lower, lower, and lower. Fingertips bumping over the intoxicating swells and dips of his abdomen, that perfect V, over his scars as she explored.
When his abdomen retracted, she kissed his neck.
He did not tremble at this touch. Not when her hand steadied there for a moment atop the raised ridges before resuming her downward exploration.
Her hand rested on the cold buckle. Metal clinked when the prong popped from the punch hole. Leather slipped through loops until freed. And she finally tossed his belt to the grass.
“Can I touch you?” Alora questioned with an air of delicate caution.
“ Starsdamn ,” Garrik groaned. “I might seek out death if you don’t.”
And then she was touching him. Garrik’s cock met her hand, painfully hard and needing. Twitching at the first brush against the leather restraining him.
Her breath was short of a gasp as she stroked him—at the sheer size. At how he filled her palm enough through the leather to know exactly how much he would fill her inside. Fully—if not painfully more.
The whites of her eyes widened with every stroke, moving her fingers to greedily fill her hand with as much as the leather allowed.
An edge set in Alora’s eyes before her fingers glided to the first snap. Waiting until Garrik nodded before popping it from its tie and separating the fabric with the broad tip of him. That hungry edge glistened, and she released another and another until all were loose and his cock was fully bared.
Garrik breathed a desperate curse as her warm palms wrapped around him. Her thumb pressed into the head and slit, swirling it in the bead of liquid there, her fingertips barely able to touch as she stroked. He buried his face in her neck, trembling.
My choice. The words echoed in his head. This was his choice … for the first time in decades …
His body was his . Not commanded and stolen and forced.
It was his.
His.
As if she knew his racing thoughts, knew the darkness of his past was surging, carrying him to that dark place he lived in. Her hand threaded into his hair, and he felt every bit of comfort and gentleness and love she offered.
Slowing the stroking, Alora spoke softly, “I’ll untie you.”
“No.” His voice more raw than he meant it to be. “Leave me like this. I want to finish this way.”
With her name on his lips, Garrik tensed when she squeezed. Inside her hand, the rougher strokes turned his body to fire. A surge of release gathered in his spine and forced him against the tree.
His hips thrust up, seeking more friction with her hand.
Shadows drifted down his arms to his bonds.
Alora’s lips crashed against him, warm and wild, keeping him from torturous memories.
Then Garrik came with a ground-rattling roar, splitting a deep crack up the tree and rupturing the top in an explosion of splinters. Her mouth weathered the brunt of it, yet she did not remove her lips as he thrust with uncontrollable waves of pleasure, leaving his darkened world irrevocably shattered.
He panted, heaving breaths as she cleaned him. But his eyes remained closed, unable to think of a single thing beyond breathing. Beyond the feeling of what he had let his body do after so long of belonging to another.
Worried sapphires searched his face. Alora placed a hand on his cheek, circling her thumb, and asked, “Are you okay?”
“No,” he rasped.
Concern—shame—rippled across her enchanting face. Alora stiffened, pulling away.
But before she could run, Garrik continued, “Because I have had a lot of time to think about what I would do should you ever take me. Starting with tearing your clothing off piece by piece.”
She hitched a breath. Her thumb stopped, hand falling to his shoulder.
“I would claim you … slowly . Allow my shadows to worship you while I watch you writhe and moan my name until you shatter.”
Her breathing quickened. “Is that it?”
“ Is that it ?” Garrik darkly laughed. “I have a starsdamned book. Hell, a library . And none of them involve me tied to a tree unable to touch you.” His gaze fell primal. A shadow escaped his tense shoulders and brushed across the fabric of hers. Another brushed the leather covering her thigh, and her eyes shifted, watching it climb.
“You asked if I like to watch.” A likeness of his hand whirled to her chin, made of swirling ash and shadow, and pulled her to look into his ravenous eyes. “Yes, Alora. I want to watch my shadows fuck you.”
Her body instantly cracked against itself as he commanded a tendril to seep into her leathers and thrust inside her. Alora fell against his chest. A deep-throated moan echoed in the forest behind.
“I have barely started . ” Garrik controlled another to flicker on her bundle of nerves. Trailing his eyes down her. Mouth dry, he groaned, “I need to taste you.”
Alora buckled at the next stroke, clasping her hands around his shoulders.
Garrik pulled at his bonds, the coarse ropes burning raw skin. “But I will settle for watching you come for me like this.”
Her eyes rolled as he lifted his knees to catch her from falling. Writhing uncontrollably. Alora released another moan and bucked against his cock, which hardened again.
A growl reverberated from his chest. “That’s my clever girl. Come for me.”
Every stroke of his shadows had her falling apart. And Garrik witnessed her undoing, her glorious body yielding to his shadows. They quickened their pace, pounding into her, dancing in silken tendrils around her bundle of nerves until her body tensed.
“I’m—” she gasped, digging her fingers into him with a pleasured moan.
The sight of her, the sound, had him pulling her to his chest by shadows. It wasn’t enough just to see it. He wanted to feel it, the release against him. Feel her as she shattered into the stars.
Alora fisted her hands into his hair, and her lips sealed against his as she cried out. Erupting. Detonating. Exploding into oblivion as her climax rattled through every part of her.
Garrik did not stop kissing her. Lips claiming her, he did not stop even when she collapsed against him. Then his shadows tenderly pulled her body, panting with bobbing eyelids, to rest on his muscled chest.
Silence fell.
He didn’t know when the ropes had shadowed away or when he stretched out beside her on a bed of blankets under a shade tree. But as sleep overcame Alora, his arms wound around her, tucking her into his chest. Feeling more like home and life and every redeeming thing than anything before, Garrik’s eyes closed, and he slept too.
Her entire being narrowed to the spots where Garrik’s body touched.
Facing each other, his eyes were closed, but his warm finger danced along her thigh wrapped in his legs. She watched it trace bruised skin under the leathers. Watched him create a pattern that swirled and formed perfect points and curves until she easily imagined the shape.
A sleep-heavy smile ghosted her face. A pearlsea .
Alora nestled into Garrik’s embrace and brushed her cheek along the warmth of his biceps, inhaling his incredible leather and metal scent.
With his thumb tracing idly on her upper back, she narrowed on the foreign touch as he disturbed her hair. Garrik placed a tender kiss to her forehead as he’d done countless times while her mind stirred awake.
The castle wasn’t more than a speck from the cliff. They’d rode far enough away and extended a shield that she didn’t feel the need to move from his arms.
For a few incredible moments, she listened to his heartbeat—ticking as normal as hers. She traced the star-shaped scar when his incredible lips pressed another kiss onto her hair.
“You sent your shadows away,” she noted with a hint of unease, questioning if what they did caused their absence. Garrik only sent them away for punishments and when he thought the situation required it.
Again, he kissed her hair. “You were shivering.”
Alora half-snorted. That’s why? “You could’ve dawned me a blanket.”
“Mmm,” he hummed sleepily and cradled her closer. “I like holding you like this. Being what you need.”
Alora wiggled her shoulders and snuggled closer. “Savage Prince. More like Soft Prince.”
Garrik chuckled and began a series of nips along her neck and shoulder. “You are well aware of how not soft I am.” In emphasis, Garrik flexed his hips, and she may have felt him hardening again.
Alora tensed her thighs at the movement. And maybe she imagined it, but Garrik’s heart jerked along with a sharp wince on his face.
“Your heartbeat,” she said. “Why have I only felt it beat like mine when you’re warm?”
Garrik made a sound of discomfort. His jaw tightened.
She frowned, wanting to push but something in his expression told her she wouldn’t have to.
Instead of deflecting her question, Garrik sighed in surrender. The stroke of his hand on her back slowed until, at last, he answered, “It would seem being killed as many times as I have weakened my heart.” A muscle ticked in his cheek as his gaze flickered distantly over her shoulder. Speaking to the wind as if he couldn’t bring himself to confess directly to her. “My shadows encase it like a fist. Delaying its decay by slowing, sometimes freezing the heartbeats. Without them, every beat summons death.”
Everything froze.
Alora stared, unblinking. Mulling over every word for fear she heard him correctly. But the echoes continued in his silence. Replaying every tick of his tongue and inflection of the language she fully understood until she was certain of the words he spoke.
She blinked, clearing her burning eyes. “Bring them back.” Not recognizing her breathless voice.
“Alora—”
“ Bring them back. ” No longer begging, this time, she snarled it and ripped from his arms to stand.
He just laid there … laid there like it meant nothing.
“A few moments will not kill me?—”
“Every. Beat,” she silenced him with a tongue as sharp as broken glass. Everything caved in, came crashing down as her arms began to tremble. Something like venom burned in her veins as she balled her fists and dug her foot into the ground. Stepping forward, snarling, “ Every damn beat, you bastard. Every starsdamned beat!” Tears flooded over her eyes, a dam bursting, offering up every rush of panic cresting within her.
Garrik was on his feet within a breath. Holding up his hands, yielding to her pleas with concern pulled taut across his face. “Alora?—”
But she couldn’t hear him speaking anymore. Wouldn’t. She refused to listen. Nothing would matter until his shadows returned. Until they stopped the one thing she couldn’t admit she dreaded happening the most. And for such a simple, meaningless thing as her shivering? How could the wisest being, the Lord of Minds, be so incredibly foolish ?
“Please,” Alora cried. “Bring them back.” Sobs wracked her chest. Air became difficult to take in. Flames flickered across her shoulders and down her arms. Burning embers ignited in hands she flung to her face to cover her embered eyes.
She may have been shivering before, but now … Now she couldn’t stop the unbearable heat.
It was too hot.
Her flames wouldn’t stop roaring.
She couldn’t breathe… Couldn’t breathe… Couldn’t?—
There were freezing hands grabbing her, cupping her tear-soaked cheeks. Garrik called her name but sounded kingdoms away.
The first impact of her fists pounding into something solid felt like a wall of ice falling around her. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop punching Garrik’s chest—that star-shaped scar that belonged to her. Burning her panic into the very thing that needed to continue beating. It had to continue beating.
Over and over and over, her fist slammed. Another. Another and another and?—
A blinding light erupted. Casting everything in a fiery inferno.
Only, when the embers in her eyes turned to cinders, it wasn’t the clearing they were standing in.
But forest. Nothing but forest for miles.
Icy arms caged around her, fanning out starflames with his Smokeshadows. She heard a pained grunt and something sizzling between broken words and the brutal ringing in her ears. Tried to focus on the vibration against her face, smashed where she guessed was Garrik’s shoulder, as his cold hand splayed into her hair.
A tendril of darkness brushed her cheek.
They’re back , her heart reasoned. She could breathe.
Alora lifted her hand to steady herself … but her hand…
It … It wasn’t …
“What…” she choked out, staring in utter disbelief. “What happened?”
Garrik beheld her there. Beheld starflames replacing her flesh as he barely breathed, “Dawned, Alora. You dawned.”