Page 26 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

A myriad of shame and guilt and every damning thing wound around him until it jerked taut and the chains stabbed into his lungs.

He wretchedly screamed from his mind’s dungeon, hopeless to ever escape.

Screamed as if the ripping and shredding of his throat’s roar would tear her memory away.

Pleading— pleading this was the last time.

Begging as he had done every night since he woke as himself again on the starsdamned ice mountain.

Over and over, the forest echoed with his screams. Over and over, his anguish spilled out as if reaching … as if reaching for something, anything that could save him?—

Tell me where you are!

The combustible agony inside his heart and soul detonated. Enough to demolish a starsdamned mountain, his shield weaponized.

It erupted in a city-leveling air wave, hoping to obliterate her as she fully manifested as a bloodlusted fae and straddled his thighs.

Garrik called to that stronghold of power deep in his mind again, searching for those plagued with magic. As if on the wings of a thousand winged creatures, he transcended and soared with that wave of destruction. Slamming into every bush, tree, and rock. Every glistening star and breath of wind.

Though he could not see them, he knew his eyes had succumbed to blackness as he watched—within his mind—trunks explode to dust and rocks shatter to fragments beneath him.

Garrik scanned until his shield invaded the bounds of his Dragon’s camp.

The glow manifested strong enough to illuminate the faces of his sentries trading shifts for the night.

And before his powers could demolish them, too…

He willed them back, leaving enough trees to illusion his desolation just beyond. Sweeping away on a careful breeze that disturbed their hair without the knowledge of his presence, his rage dissipated.

Yet his magic did not stop surging. He could not stop the search.

Garrik’s mind soared across the land, but his body was back at the tree. With her.

Magic pushed him onward. Weaving through the firesites of his soldiers singing and dancing. Their joy and fervor pulled his attention from the female’s body. From her bloody hands roving up his chest.

Searching for a melody or a voice— the voice—that he had clung to, he searched until sapphire eyes met him.

Laughing with that beautiful smile he could watch until the end of his time.

Unaware that he was there. That he wanted to stay and listen.

To stay and listen and, just for a moment, feel safe.

Alora , his soul cried out.

But she wasn’t looking at him.

Her smile faded as something drew her attention to his empty tent. To the doors fluttering open and someone storming outside.

Then those pleading golden eyes snapped in his direction and took a step. Took a step as if his Guardian could see him standing there.

A tattooed hand reached out—reached toward him. Garrik ? —

Pressure. Stars, there was pressure. A hand moving down … and her voice … I’m going to enjoy this …

“Thalon,” Garrik pleaded to those eyes full of brimstoned fury as the female’s hand brushed down the V of muscles that extended below his pants line. Popping his belt open, pulling it from the loops before she met the snaps and ties of his pants?—

Thalon… Thalon, please… Please.

Hold on, I’m coming! came his Guardian’s voice before swirling thunderclouds and branches of lightning burst into Garrik’s wavering vision. Seeing three—four—five silhouettes step from his Shadow Order’s firesite and through the swirling circle before it imploded behind them.

Then they were running.

Garrik choked out a breath as he felt her hand, what she was doing, how she began to stroke. They can’t see me like this . “Stop, K—” No. He refused to give her the pleasure of hearing him beg with her name. “S—stop.”

Steps scuffed the dirt. Over the rubble that he left the forest with.

Someone called out. Was calling him.

His name roared?—

Hmm, I do love when you beg me. Daggered hands squeezed his throat. Blackness, inky and frigid, took hold of him. You must be enjoying this. Her wicked gaze gestured to his lap. Look how you stand for me.

Whore . Malik’s voice now, along with his night-dark flames. Submitting to his command, they swelled and burned at his boots.

The smell … Garrik would never forget it. The smell of his burned flesh singeing his senses as he burned and burned and burned.

“ Stop touching me. ” Garrik’s body violently shivered. He whimpered, “Please.” Please.

The serpent’s head whipped over her shoulder.

Five figures merged into one.

Then warmth. So much warmth.

Thalon’s mouth was moving—speaking—but his words muddled together like a language Garrik had never learned. And he certainly could not invade minds at that moment to use the language of his own tongue.

But Thalon continued, his words hushed, unhurried. Tender as he slammed his knee into the dirt by his feet and faced his High Prince.

That fast, the female faded to vapor, dragging her nails across his upper thighs as she faded away.

The shaking in Thalon’s voice mirrored his warm touch as he carefully guided Garrik’s head to rest against the tree. Warmth enveloped his ice-fevered cheeks, and those words he could not decipher now became clear.

“You’re alright, brother. She wasn’t here,” Thalon cut through Garrik’s haze, and frantically, his tattooed hand flattened against Garrik’s heartbeat.

Profound relief breathed from his quivering lips before he repeated, “She wasn’t here,” and again, “she wasn’t here.

” Removing his hand from Garrik’s chest, Thalon brushed his drenched forehead, disturbing the gray hair soaked there.

Garrik stiffened. Heart thundered. His eyes widened in horror, conveying a simple, unspoken message. A message Thalon understood clearly by the instant retreat of his hand.

“Please,” Garrik begged, voice shaking. “Please, stop touching me.” Liquid lined his eyes, making it impossible to see even the golden beads in his Guardian’s braided locks. Realizing his tunic remained open, he clutched his scars. Still open and exposed. An easy target for wandering, greedy hands.

The face of his Guardian softened. Thalon laid his hands against his own thighs and murmured as if the sound of his voice would cause a great deal of pain, “Garrik, listen to me. It’s Thalon.

You’re safe.” When Garrik made a small, pathetic sound, Thalon added, “I'm going to take you home now. You hear me? I’m taking you home.”

No . Everyone would see. They could not see ? —

“Leave me.” The words less commanding than he meant them to be.

His silver eyes strained to focus on anything; Thalon’s face, that golden glow around him marking him as a Mystic, the stars fluttering above.

But his treasonous attention forsook him as he desperately struggled to cover himself.

To cover what she left him as. Wholly exposed, or so he thought, his belt and pants open, scars an angry shade of wet crimson as if they were wounds born anew by her touch. “Leave me.”

“Over my dead body,” Thalon softly snarled, shifted forward, and reached for Garrik’s arms?—

Garrik flinched back; terror filled his eyes.

Thalon retreated, hands so close he could feel the heat from his palms. Not touching, not forcing, not leaving . Just … there. There waiting for the moment Garrik calmed. The moment his vision—his heart—steadied.

“Please, Garrik. I will not hurt you.” A careful, firm declaration. There was truth there. Something honest, akin to brotherly love and protection. “Please, let me touch you,” Thalon whispered. Pained golden eyes pleaded. “I need to get you home.”

Garrik’s coherent thoughts were gone. Only a drunken and panicked jumbled mess of disorganized and irrational instinct remained.

Silver eyes dulled, void of any life. The fallen High Prince, reduced to a common broken plaything, hoarsely rasped, “She ruined me.” Garrik shook, fumbling to button his tunic with trembling fingers, desperately attempting to cover himself …

but failed. “She fucked me. I—I did not want her to.” He forced himself not to meet Thalon’s gaze.

To not offer him the indescribable shame and humiliation that filled his every fractured word.

A fucking coward.

But a choppy breath, a sudden wet sniffle had him finding those golden irises.

Thalon’s eyes had welled with tears; his throat worked as he whispered, “I know.” He leaned forward and so carefully, so so carefully, looped the buttons through Garrik’s tunic over his retracting abs.

“Stop, please.” Garrik’s breath punched hard and fast. Usually twisting from the source of the touch—the pain—but as the bourbon worked harder on his mind and body, he couldn’t.

The terror of it had nausea settling in.

His veins nearly emptied as if they could not be bothered to pump blood, prickling his limbs with burning shards of ice.

“I’m sorry, I know this hurts. You’re safe—you’re safe with me, Garrik.” Thalon fastened the buttons as quickly as he could manage while Garrik angled his cheek against the bark, resigned to the torture he had no hope of fleeing.

A silent apology filled those honey eyes, knowing what the touch was doing. How even the air dancing around them was unbearable to Garrik’s skin.

With every button secured, Thalon pulled his hands away, giving Garrik a moment to breathe.

And as he watched his High Prince shake, watched him completely break, he shattered too.

“I should have been there. Should have disobeyed you.I should have protected you.” A muscle in Thalon’s cheek ticked as tears trailed down his face.

Protected him? No one could protect him . Not even himself. He could not stop them—stop anyone. Not with his powers, not even with his voice. No meant nothing. His life was in the hands of another. A pet controlled by his master until they deemed him truly worthless and ended his misery …

Ended his misery.