Page 14 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

Instead, those eyes full of fire morphed.

It was only because he was so close that he could see it.

How they scanned his face. How they stared deeper into him, as if attempting to penetrate some part of him that did not exist anymore.

The one of mercy, perhaps? Or … something more terrifying.

The part of him he would never show to anyone.

The fractured and damaged remains he kept veiled…

Her eyes glimmered. It felt like she saw him. Not who he was now, but who he used to be.

And he wondered if she could see it in his eyes. If she had seen it while he trained, fought his demons. The cold, dead, and empty abyss that had seen too much. Experienced too much. Felt … nothing … deserved nothing …

Memories threatened to slither in, but he shoved them away when Alora’s breath hitched, drawing him to the way her eyes trailed down his body. Over the scars marring his abdomen, then raking up to meet his narrowing gaze.

Until that moment, he had forgotten the evidence of his suffering was fully displayed, having been a little distracted.

He moved to pluck the tunic fabric from his abdomen but stilled, remembering he had discarded it by the tree.

With nothing to soothe the feeling of pain prickling his scars, he focused on the way flames danced in the reflection of his blade.

Thankfully, she did not notice. Instead, Alora’s eyes browsed his scars—and she did not flinch away. No. There was something else causing that subtle parting of her lips. Something thieving the disdain and contempt from her eyes…

Garrik’s brows pinched.

He did not make it a habit of stealing into the minds of his Shadow Order, but the way she looked at him … even with his blade against her neck …

Why does he have to look so starsdamned beautiful?

It was as if a firestorm raged through the annulus and stole the very air from his lungs.

That fast, black veins threatened to branch from his fingers like he was under attack.

Beautiful. The word twisted like a dagger lodged in his chest. Made him want to laugh—to scream at the lie it was .

He was anything but. His scars—his title — as proof.

The gray-haired demon of Elysian. A Made monster of merciless bloodshed sculpted in a flawless, cruel reflection of the High King.

A pitiless murderer. Had she so easily forgotten that he was the one who caged her in?

Who did not give her a choice in her fate?

Malicious. Infernal. Damned and ruined and?—

Disgusting.

Not Alora’s voice this time, but a venomous reminder defiled the air around them like a sharpened nail tearing through his flesh until his blood spilled on bone-white sheets.

That saccharine voice, dripping with poison, mocked again, No one will ever want you like this.

Repulsing. You’re lucky I can stomach you.

That he believed. The truth had been whipped and beaten and fucked into him for decades.

Garrik almost released Alora from his blade, afraid of the wrath clawing out of his chest, when Alora’s attention shifted.

Just one simple flicker that gripped his soul entirely.

As if some spell was cast upon him, some tether and force only the stars had control over, he remained unmoving.

Caught in the enchanting snare that were her eyes.

Her gaze softened, as if she were the one who possessed power over minds.

She gazed at him, not as the demon who prowled Elysian.

Not as something so fractured and ruined.

Not as if one mere thought from him could have her heart stopping in an instant.

Not that his hands could so easily curl around her neck and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze the life from her veins as he imagined doing to her countless times.

No. Alora gazed at him with something he had glimpsed in his own reflection.

Often seen on those horrid nights that he chose pleasure over pain and looked out her balcony windows wishing for something he could never have.

Not only fear and uncertainty, but in that tender gaze he saw something … something like …

Longing.

Had anyone ever looked at him that way?

He was an object Made to be used in any way his masters deemed fit.

No one was ever supposed to look at him like that.

Through the leather of his blade, he felt her heart beat a little faster. If his could, it would too.

Did she not realize the hand desperate to cradle her face, to tilt her neck in order to worship her with his lips, over and over and over, was soaked with limitless amounts of death?

Those years spent suffering in a cell. Surviving night-dark flames burning him alive.

The crack of spiked whips against his back meant nothing compared to the horrors he had executed for thirteen slaughterous years.

Nothing to what he had become after painting his hands in so much blood that they would never be clean again.

A disgrace to Elysian.

Her … whore.

Yet … Alora thought him as … as beautiful.

She could not truly see him as beautiful…

Could she?

Garrik released a wary breath. What would be … so wrong to pretend? For just a fleeting moment. Even if it was not real. Even if a disillusioned lie. To not feel serpent hands or hear her voice for once.

Cursing himself, his control—his voice of reason—slipped as he longed for it. Even if he did not believe it, the words loosened from his lips, somewhat painfully, as he rasped, “If you want me, darling…”

Stop. It does not matter what you want. What you feel— want to feel. You cannot compromise ? —

Garrik placed his hand beside Alora’s head, lifted her chin with the edge of his blade to meet the embers in her eyes, and offered, “All you need to do is ask.”

Alora quivered from his voice.

He suppressed his own shudder, somewhat terrified and hopeful. Refused the slight burn lining his eyes and the pressure forming behind them.

She tipped her head back slightly; the weight of his words caught her eyes in the moonlight.

The glow of the few remaining torches cast her gleaming hair in a halo, making her appear damn-near ethereal, as if the Stars Eternal floated down and blessed her with their magnificence.

He watched every delicate movement of her head, the way her skin glistened as she breathed.

The way her intoxicating sapphires glowed as she contemplated stabbing him with her dagger.

Do it, clever girl, he thought to himself. Stab some sense into him. Make him bleed for her. It would be better than this torment. This confusion. This … forbidden, hopeless, and impossible desire.

She whimpered so quietly he was not sure she realized it. A welcoming, distracting sound.

He wanted to hear more of it.

So terribly, it quickly became the only thing that mattered. Not who he was. Not what he thought of himself. Not what happened hours before or who he belonged to. Not Elysian. Not his plans or his name, or even if he deserved Alora’s attention.

Stars, do it again.

Despite his silent pleas, only her wrestling thoughts hung in the air between them. Do I want to indulge in the Lord of Darkness and pull him near?

The Lord of Darkness? he answered, voice breathy. Unable to stop himself—to remember who he was supposed to be. The Savage Prince. The monster. Dangerous. Yet she was the danger here, affecting him so thoroughly.

The air thickened with her consuming presence, which he seemed drawn into. Clouding his vision to where she was all he could see.

Until he blinked. Quickly severing a portion of that tether between them as the small, small voice of reason inside him stole control.

Be careful how you think , clever girl. You might lure a starving beast. Every female needs her own villain, and I promise you, you do not want me as yours.

The words tasted like ash in his mouth; he hated it.

You know this must be done. You cannot get close. She must remain safe.

This was better. For her to hate him and remain out of Magnelis’s jealous grasp. Better for her to stay away from him, at a distance. Safe from the horrors his hands could inflict.

If only pushing her away was the worst thing he could do?—

Stay out of my head, came her threat. Maybe she meant it, but the quiver in her voice proved otherwise. Alora bit her lip, and he tracked the movement with astute, predatory, lethal focus. Setting his nerves aflame despite the frigid cold.

And starsdamn him, some aching part of him pleasured in it. He grinned, flashing his canines while forced to flex his hand around his hilt to stop himself from dropping it and devouring her lips.

His blade may be at her throat, but little did she know that by simply existing, she held the power.

Garrik’s mouth hovered dangerously close, craving a taste. Just one more.

Then after…

He knew he could die from that thing—whatever it was—the star’s cruel joke or an infernal punishment—pulling him so tightly to Alora that going a day without stealing a glimpse of her would be the worst form of torture.

Far worse than anything he had ever endured.

But it had to be done. There was no alternative.

Afterward, they would return to camp and continue this ruse of hatred between them until he saw her safely past the Wall … somehow. Untouchable, unable to fall into the High King’s hands. Or die by Garrik’s bloodstained ones.

Her expectant eyes and the sudden sound from her lips were his undoing. The last of Garrik’s restraint shattered.

Alora wanted him— him.

And he yearned for her.