Blood in the Shadows (Legacy, #1) by Allyson Lindt

Author:Allyson Lindt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Acelette Press
Published: 2019-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

STARKAD

Starkad was lost. He didn’t know how to help Kirby. She slept with her door locked now, and even when she did wake up screaming, she refused to let him in.

During the day, dark shadows hung under her eyes, and her skin was pale. That was if he saw her. For weeks after he discovered the marks on her skin, she went out of her way to avoid him.

He hated everything about this. What they’d done to her. Seeing her become a shell of his former student. Knowing this wasn’t the Valkyrie he’d fallen in love with, but adoring this new, younger woman even more. And having her be just out of reach.

He had a solution, but he didn’t dare suggest it. He’d done it a few times, before TOM, when Starkad was helping Gwydion deal with his demons. It was unconventional, and it was intense. But with her, it would hold a different meaning. He didn’t know if he could ignore the temptation that would come with redefining her relationship with pain.

It had been almost a month since he confronted her, and she’d all but stopped eating. She spent most of her time hiding in her room.

The screams were louder tonight than they’d been since he and she first got here. And they didn’t stop. Each time she cried out, it sliced straight to his heart.

Starkad couldn’t sit back and do nothing anymore. He couldn’t let her suffer alone. It only took a tight grip on the doorknob and a well-placed nudge with his shoulder, and he broke her lock. Charging into her room without permission was a forgivable sin, compared to finding a way to stop her pain.

Kirby stared at him, eyes wide, when he walked in. She was curled into a tiny ball. It took her a few seconds to focus on him.

He scooped her into his arms. Instead of fighting him, she gripped his shirt in her fists and leaned into him. He carried her back to his room, laid her on the bed, and wrapped himself around her.

She curled up against his chest with a whimper, her entire body shaking.

“I’m here. As much as you need.” He whispered the comforts as much for himself as for her. He held her until her breathing evened and she drifted off to sleep, and didn’t let go even then.

When she woke up several hours later, it was calmly, with the light flutter of eyelids and a few tiny, stunning sighs. She pressed into his chest, her skin scalding him through his shirt. “Why?” she asked softly.

“Because.” He couldn’t tell her more than that. Gods, he wanted to spill everything. Tell her the truth about where she’d come from. Stories of what they’d been together, once upon a time. This wasn’t the time for any of that.

She forced herself to sit. “Okay.”

“We have to deal with this somehow. This is destroying you.”

Her laugh was strained. “I’ve already been destroyed. And I’m not letting anyone else inside my head. TOM was there for too long.

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