Chapter 63
T he rage in Garrik’s black eyes could obliterate ten thousand realms. A vengeance only a mated male could deliver and every soul—in Elysian and elsewhere—would feel.
Kadamar would cease to exist today.
By her mate’s hellish stare, there would be nothing left.
Like something not of this realm, Garrik drifted uncharacteristically slowly on calculated steps as he neared the side of the bed. As if moving too fast would send him on a rampage, slaughtering everything in that room no matter who they were.
“Garrik,” she sobbed, releasing the reins on everything she had contained. The fear. The hope. The fury and despair and panic all boiling to the surface because he was there.
He was alive. Safe.
He was there. There there there ? —
“ Garrik .”
His tunic slipped from his shoulders and arms, draping over her before those hands—the incredible hands—found her cheeks. In his silence, as if he still couldn’t speak, perhaps they had taken his voice, his eyes spoke everything. And for the first time since Ladomyr had been ripped from the bed, darkness softened, revealing specks of silver like raindrops in a lake.
Her mate’s eyes glistened and blinked, but Garrik didn’t fight it. Tears slipped to his cheeks. “Hello, clever girl.” That voice broke. Garrik’s forehead dropped to hers as he trembled.
Someone snapped the wood around her ankles, then her wrists and neck, and Garrik banded his arms around her, cradling her to his chest—in his metal and leather scent.
Didn’t have to be strong anymore. Garrik was there.
And Thalon. And Aiden—holding Jade.
And … Ezander .
Propped against the wall, unconscious, while Ladomyr’s wife and her mate held bloody cloths to his side.
They were all there.
Ladomyr’s bed creaked as Garrik effortlessly lifted her. One arm was under her knees, the other around her back as she clung to him, vowing to never let him go. Calluses scratched along her legs and pulled the hem of his bunched-up tunic down, covering her. The deep reverberation of his voice vibrated against her cheek as he turned toward the shadows near the door and said, “Thalon, take her.”
Alora must’ve whimpered because Garrik pressed a kiss to her hair. Her face was smashed so tightly against his chest that patterns danced behind her eyelids. And when another pair of warm hands soothed up her spine, relentless tears squeezed between them, and Alora clenched Garrik’s neck hard enough he grunted.
Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t ? —
As if he heard her, as if his magic had returned, Garrik whispered, “I am not going anywhere, my darling.” And kissed her hair. Then his voice, deep, like cold death, rumbled, “But Ladomyr still lives. And I made him a promise.”
She hadn’t noticed till that very moment the pleas. The pathetic whimpers and sobbing somewhere in that bedchamber.
Garrik yielded her to Thalon, and Alora choked back a sob, understanding what needed to be done, accepting her Guardian’s warm embrace.
“Thalon. Guardian born from House of the Seventh N.” Garrik spoke, and Thalon stiffened—the room stiffened. His throat worked against her forehead. “I relinquish your duty to me. On your Earned, Her Highness is yours to serve and protect above all else, including me.”
Alora pivoted against Thalon’s racing heartbeat as his back flexed, shoulders taut, but said nothing.
Garrik’s eyes darkened. “Swear it.”
“ Unleash Michael ,” he swore under his breath; only she heard it. Thalon’s chin lifted, a muscle feathered in his cheek. “On my Earned, Your Highness.” If Thalon was using formalities, then the oath he swore was more than a bond between brothers.
Garrik nodded, then gazed at Alora, eyes softening. Tucking a hair behind her ear, he leaned down and tenderly kissed her. And she thought she might die the moment he slowly—painfully—pulled away.
A hunger of starving beasts waved over him, and her savage transformed. Serpent darkness marbled every vein. Branching from his eyes and lips, out from his fingers, over his shackle scars, up his arms. From his mate mark, like lightning strikes, wove across his neck and chest, down his abdomen until they seeped beneath his blood-soaked pants.
Razor-tipped teeth flashed as he turned away. And before Thalon backed to the door, to Aiden and Jade and Ezander, Garrik ripped a dagger from his belt, twirling it between his fingers, and said to the king, “I warned you not to fucking touch her.”
Ladomyr was sobbing, crawling across the floor with those blades stuck through his shoulders and out the elbows so he could not bend them.
Garrik stalked behind him, a predator measuring its prey. Stepping in his blood trail while he made a pitiful attempt at escape. His cruel smile widened, canines flashing as he took a step, reveling in the panic trembling through the king at the sound of Death calling. “Right now…”
Step.
“You should be regretting everything you have done to her.”
Step.
“Every little thought.”
Step.
“Every glance her way.”
Step.
“What you did to me compares little. But you touched my mate .”
The footsteps stopped.
Shards of sunlight glared over the mountain peaks, glistening the crimson streams across the gold-grained hardwood, and casting a long, dark shadow over the king. On his stomach, Ladomyr’s nails stopped clawing at the floorboards and terror-filled eyes cowered over his shoulder to meet the Savage Prince’s malicious abyss.
He would not have much time before the bodies in the hallway were discovered. Before High Guardsmen came for their king. Would not have time to draw out the suffering.
The very air thickened.
A ruthless, lethal growl devastated the room. A sound like Darkness himself transcended. “May Firekeeper have mercy on you because I fucking won’t.”
Garrik ripped a sword from Ladomyr’s arm, eliciting a roar that echoed across the mountains. Gripping the back of the king’s neck, dagger in hand, Garrik lifted him from the floor and slammed his back high on the polished stones of the wall, hovering him feet from the floor before that blade thrust through one hand, then he repeated it with the other.
Stepping away, admiring his work while twirling his dagger in his fingers, a look as sinister as the male who raised him contorted Garrik’s face. Wicked satisfaction ravaged his veins, down to his core as the male barely contained his agony hanging by his hands. The cadence of his blood a melody, Garrik deepened a breath, smelling the essence as a stream of liquid ran down the king’s leg.
A dark laugh scoffed from Garrik’s lips.
Through the darkness claiming his eyes, Garrik watched the king close his in shame. But Garrik would not allow that. Saying the words repeatedly spoken to him, he stalked forward and gripped Ladomyr’s cheeks, crushing his jaw, “ Eyes on me , Ladomyr .”
Frantically, the king swept his eyes around the room, searching for anything—anyone—to be his salvation.
But he would not find it.
Garrik released his jaw, braced a hand on the wall beside his head, and angled the blade over Ladomyr’s fingers. “Do I have your attention now?” he asked, brandishing a wolfish smirk.
Ladomyr did not meet his eyes. Spurting blood from his arms and down the polished stones.
That wolfish grin fell.
Leaning his weight into it, Garrik pressed on the blade until wet stone ground against the blade. Through Ladomyr’s wailing, Garrik lifted a severed finger and used it to quiet the screaming by placing it to the king’s lips, and thundered, “ Silence . Or I take the whole hand.”
He would regardless—for touching his mate. Ladomyr would not enter Firekeeper’s realm with them.
Garrik thought for a moment. He wished for his magic returned if only to draw out Ladomyr’s pain. To steal into his pathetic mind and command his suffering to be illusioned as a thousand years of pain. Not to use his power for the torture. No. Garrik wanted to feel Ladomyr’s bones crushing. To feel the very last heartbeat in his hand as he ripped it out.
With bloodthirst in his eyes, Garrik trailed his dagger down the straight of Ladomyr’s torso, his screams much the same as those Garrik’s dungeons had heard. No stranger to the sound; this pain, this torture, did not sicken him. It only made him thirst for more as the fabric of Ladomyr’s tunic was shredded.
Angling the dagger low, below that plump gut, at the parts a male so dearly treasured, Garrik pressed the tip into the sensitive flesh Ladomyr used as a weapon and growled, “ Beg .”
Silence. The king only foolishly gritted his teeth.
Garrik smiled.
With no warning, he impaled Ladomyr’s cock, sinking deep into the stone wall. “ Beg .”
Ladomyr could not have heard him over his shrieking. So, Garrik stalked to the table and found a plate of golden skewers. One by one, he pushed seared meat from the rods. Watching Ladomyr squirm and flinch with each drop on the plate. Before long, Garrik had a twitching finger in hand, poising the rod directly beneath the king’s fingernail.
“ Beg. ”
Sweat poured from Ladomyr’s head and neck. “ Burn in hell !”
Garrik leaned close to his face and whispered, “You first. Then I will meet you there as promised,” and shoved the rod underneath his nail.
Ladomyr’s voice had given out.
Which was a damn shame because Garrik had meant to hear his pleas one last time.
On that balcony, motionless by the stake through his back, Garrik tilted the king’s head to his mate, who was cradled in his brother’s arms, and for the last time, said her name to chase him into the afterlife, “ Alora . Remember her name.”
With one final thrust, Garrik’s fist sunk into the heart of Kadamar and ripped it from his chest.
Ezander gasped on the floor, awakening, and curled forward against the widow and her mate.
Garrik stabbed the heart to the threshold and did not turn back to the dismembered piece of Elysian shit bound, broken, and breathless, residing one last time over his kingdom for the morning to see.
His mate waited, sleeping in his brother’s arms.
And as he walked to her, he remembered opening those doors. Remembered the smell of blood and burned flesh, both hers and Jade’s. His senses filled with the smell of Ladomyr’s arousal and of the few males sitting around watching. The memory of the king crawling onto the sheets and Alora being bound by wooden chains made him tighten his fists.
He had to question if there was any goodness remaining in his soul. That rage ignited anew inside him, leaving no space for goodness or mercy or a tender heart.
Garrik decided one last thing must be done.
Thalon gave him a knowing nod of acceptance. Forgiveness.
Taking a sword, Garrik gifted Ladomyr’s head to the balcony stones. A flaming torch was in his hand before he registered the wooden touch. Garrik carelessly flickered his wrist, lighting Ladomyr’s head aflame because he did not deserve to have his face looked upon again.
He knew the moment Alora woke, she would see the blood on him, smell it. But Garrik’s dying heart could not be separated from her a moment longer.
Thalon needed not one word and gently laid Alora in his arms. The gold of his eyes appeared darker, looking into silver in silent question.
Garrik nodded, knowing his brother’s concern. They would have time to dwell on feelings later. He motioned to Aiden, gesturing Thalon’s attention to Ezander, and moved for the door?—
“Wait,” the strained voice of Jade growled, mustering the strength to clench Aiden’s neck as he attempted to walk through the threshold. Her green eyes searched his, a longing he recognized gleamed within.
“Aye, love.” Aiden pressed a tender kiss in her hair and carried her across the room, out on that balcony.
With Aiden as her anchor, a reptilian grin flared across her face. A ravenous beast ready to slaughter.In a brutal thrust, blood spurted from Ladomyr’s severed throat. Jade ripped her fist out, and along with it, a blood-covered piece of spine.
Just like Jade’s necklace. The one with her master’s spine.
Alora’s eyes fluttered open.
Aiden cradled Jade so tight that air could not flow between them. Their sea captain turned on his heel as blood dripped onto the hand holding her. And in ten determined steps, found themselves before Garrik.
Before Alora.
Warmth squeezed her tighter. Garrik held her a little higher against him as he met Jade’s stare.
As if by ceremony, all were reverent as Jade extended her bloody hand to Alora and opened her palm. And in those green eyes … a fierce hatred and overpowering protectiveness.
But Alora could not lift her arms to take the bone.
Jade must have sensed it because she pulled it to her gut, enclosed her finger around it, and declared, “This is yours when you’re ready for it.”
Tears clouded Alora’s eyes. The warmth of Garrik’s thumb brushed the few escaping.
Garrik pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and whispered, “Let’s get you home, clever girl.”
Aiden barricaded them behind him against a dead-end.
His curved sword poised and dripping, ready to deliver a painful end to another guardsman the moment they slipped past Garrik and Thalon cutting through the horde.
Alora held Ezander’s head in her lap, barely holding on herself, but his injuries were far greater. His shallow breaths from the holes in his side, from the bruises around his neck… And Jade… She hadn’t opened her eyes since Ladomyr’s bedchamber.
They would make it out of this. They would.
Garrik slammed his bare shoulder into a neck. Thalon thrust a sword into another as they charged him. Her mate was a blur, a flash of metal and blood and flesh, laying waste to the endless sea of bodies.
The bloodshed forced back the unbreachable line. Overwhelmed by fear, the younger soldiers fled from the brutal carnage. But as those few ran, more came. More created that solid barrier of metal and blades. Of muscles and strength. And her hope began to falter.
A figure in the back parted the crowd like a furious wave.
Garrik splayed open a male as his sword thrust up through his chest and out his face.
“Enough,” that cold, bored voice called over the High Guardsmen next for execution.
The pin-straight hair and runes marking his flesh were the first things Alora saw.
Silas positioned himself between the guardsmen, flicked dirt from his jacket, and collected his palms behind his back. Glowing crimson, as bright as blood in sunlight, marked Garrik’s stiff movement—his body growing still.
Ezander shuddered on her lap, drew a strangled breath, and closed his eyes as if the act of breathing was too much for him.
And time… Time slowed.
Stopping entirely.
One blink.
Autumn armor crashed to the floor. A sound like a forge exploding.
And standing in the sea of death, stood Silas. Wiping his chin of the blood trailing from his lips.
Ezander slumped in her lap. His breaths shallower now.
Thalon positioned himself in front of them. Between Garrik, the fallen guardsmen, and Silas. Holding a silver sword at the spymaster.
Silas’s posture of perfection returned. He merely stared at their Guardian with a slight curl to his lip, displaying the longest canines she’d ever seen. The spymaster’s head cocked. A bloodlust stole his eyes.
But Thalon didn’t balk, didn’t move. Only his sword offered agony in the afterlife if Silas stepped forward.
The sounds of their heartbeats and ragged breaths filled the corridor. Silas’s burning stare melted, and he rolled his eyes with an irritated sigh. The male dared to step forward, touched his chest to Thalon’s borrowed sword, and continued to press.
She expected blood. Pained grunts and wails. But nothing came. Because as Silas pressed forward, his body faded through the blade like Alora’s spear in the arena. Through Thalon’s body entirely until they stood back to back.
Silas disturbed the ends of his jacket and slipped his hand inside, but it was Aiden who stepped forward and offered the sharp edge of his sword. Again, the spymaster tilted his head and rolled his eyes to the blood-splattered ceiling.
Something glistened in his palm as he pulled his hand out. Not a dagger. Not a sword. No weapon of any kind …
No. No that … that was a weapon. A very, very dangerous one.
“Your Highness,” Silas drawled as he outstretched his hand, slapping Aiden’s sword from his face like a nightbug. “My sincerest apologies for the delay.”
Alora watched as the spymaster bent at his waist and bowed, extending that crimson gemstone to her mate’s hand.
Blood.
The thing they had come to find. Blood was there.
Being offered by the hand of their enemy.
Thalon circled the spymaster, flanking Aiden. “You’re helping us?” he snarled.
Silas smirked. “Not just a brute, I see. There truly are brains in there.” Then turned to Garrik and said, “You must take the pass. I have sent the High Guard away.” His attention slipped to Kadamar’s eldest male heir, barely breathing. “Ezander cannot stay. Ladomyr sent word to Galdheir nights ago. He was to be stripped of his power and magic-washed. His fate is sealed if he remains.”
But Erissa… What if Kadamar’s magic chooses Ezander? Alora thought to herself.
Garrik answered what they were all perhaps thinking. “Magnelis will slaughter him even if he is crowned king.”
“Yes,” Silas agreed, face grim. “Sire. My spies are working to intercept word of our treason to Galdheir. But I’m afraid…” And shook his head.
Garrik nodded, a look of devastated knowing in his eyes. “Thank you, my spymaster.”
Shouts and heavy bootfalls echoed up the corridor.
Ezander’s arm was around Thalon’s shoulder a heartbeat later, while Aiden shifted to a window, scanning outside with Jade in his arms. Garrik lifted Alora to his chest, sword in his other hand.
“Your Highness, you must go.” Silas backed to a wall, splaying his palm on the blood and wood and paint. Like steam manipulating the air on a summer’s day, the wall wavered, producing a portal-like distortion of a door. “Take the tunnels to the lower towns. Your horses are waiting with my surveillant to guide you through the pass.”
Thalon towered over Silas. “We’ll go to Tarrent-Garren Keep, and once our magic is returned, collect camp and seek out Lir?—”
Garrik shot him a glare, silencing him.
The shouting worsened, drawing closer.
Garrik surged forward. “We need to move.”
“Wait,” Silas blurted and slipped a black ring from his finger before tossing it to Garrik, who expertly caught it and slipped it home. “My deepest regrets, Your Highness, for causing you pain at the Cullings. I had little choice.”
But Garrik shook his head. “You secured the shield over the legion and all else, spymaster. Remorse is unnecessary.”
Silas dipped his head, then spoke to Alora, “And to you, Your Highness. If there was any other way, no harm would have come to you. Though my eyes are always watching, Ladomyr’s ears trail me. It was never safe.”
“Another time, Silas.” Garrik motioned for Aiden to slip through Silas’s fade . Then said to the spymaster, his voice a quality of teasing, “Do not allow Kadamar’s spymaster to find you out.”
A dark laugh. Like something of a joke between them.
With new amusement in his golden eyes, Thalon glided through the fade and turned back. “Spymaster.”
Silas smiled, cynical and bloodthirsty. “Barbarian.”
“Until we meet again,” Garrik said and crossed the fade.