The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash, #6)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“Then she knocked his ass out.” He laughed as my mouth dropped open. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I had the same reaction. She saved me. Saved Atlantia.” Wonder crept into his features as he shook his head. “Thus choosing the realm over her son.” And she had chosen the realm.

Even with what Seraphena had told us, I was shocked. And again, I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to stand against her son not once but twice. The kind of loyalty to duty that took was unthinkable. But if she hadn’t stopped Malec? Eloana would’ve likely met Malec’s wrath for trying to kill Isbeth. Neither Malik nor Casteel would’ve been born. Nor would I have. I didn’t think Seraphena knew what she was doing when she intervened or what that decision would instigate. It set in motion a chain of events that led to the one thing she’d attempted to prevent when she helped Eloana entomb Malec.

Seraphena had healed Jasper—maybe even saved him. And she could because she was the true Primal of Life. If she hadn’t, and she’d only saved Valyn, there was a chance Kieran wouldn’t be here. There would’ve been no Joining.

“The god that met us at the Rise. Varus? He said you need to return so you can serve at Kolis’s side.” He let out a ragged breath, and then his jaw tightened. I felt greasy, cloying disgust. “Or refuse and serve…beneath him.”

That hadn’t come until it was revealed that Ileana was Isbeth, and my parents had always known.

that Elian was my grandfather or that Attes wasn’t a distant ancestor with whom I only shared physical similarities.

“That she did all of that, yet when she intervened for whatever reason she had, she ensured I would become…this.” Poppy’s gaze lowered to the water. “If she hadn’t, Malec would’ve likely been reunited with Isbeth, and she never would’ve gone down the path she did.” “And you wouldn’t have been born.” “Neither would you or Kieran,” she said. “Seraphena ended up guaranteeing that I was born, and the Joining could happen.

“I was about to say I don’t think it was the actual Fates. It seemed like they wanted to prevent my birth.” Cold fury built in my chest. “All of them?” “Well, I can’t say for sure what Holland and Thorne wanted, but why would they risk it?”

Unless one or more disagreed with Lirian and decided the risk was worth it.

“I don’t just want you,” I told her, splaying my fingers across her warm cheek. “I need you, Poppy. I will always need you.” Pulling back, I met her slightly unfocused stare. “None of that shit matters, Poppy. And that’s the damn truth. Understand?”

The air between us thickened. I found myself anticipating whether she would continue to resist or give in. Either would delight me.

She didn’t look away. Not for a second. Her chin jutted up, and fuck, her stubbornness made me so hard it was nearly painful. “Casteel.” “You do not want me to ask you,” I said, my voice dropping, “a third time.”

I bent forward and wrapped my fingers around her chin again. This time, I felt her shiver and heard her breath catch as I brought my mouth close to hers. “Good girl.”

Letting go of her chin, I gripped her hips and lifted her onto her feet. Her startled gasp got lost in the throbbing in my veins as my gaze tracked the beads of water sluicing down her skin, over her puckered nipples, and along the curve of her stomach to the wispy hair between her thighs that was now right in front of my face. I pulled her between my thighs and slid my hand down to lift her leg until her foot rested on the ledge beside me. It bared her to my eyes. Fuck. Her pussy wasn’t pretty; it was perfect. And it was mine. I barely felt her hands land on my shoulders as I put my face right where I wanted to be, breathing in her scent until my chest vibrated with a growl.

I held her up as I tilted my head, running my tongue over her lower lips and then inside her. There was no slow seduction, no teasing licks. I fucked her with my tongue as her nails scored the flesh of my shoulders. I didn’t let up until she spasmed around my tongue, and I felt drunk on her release. Until I was mindless with the need to be deep inside her. Rising, I hooked her leg around my waist and lifted her. “Honeydew,” I murmured, my lips brushing hers before my mouth descended as I turned us. She moaned into the kiss that tasted of her, pressing her chest to mine. Water rolled against the sides of the tub and over the ledge as I lowered us, drawing her down on my cock until I was buried deep inside her.

A sudden flash of sharp pain hit the base of my cock. It was gone in the next breath as I felt myself…swelling. Not my entire dick but the base as that near primal urge to claim, dominate, and join us to prove she was mine surged once more. Poppy gasped, her body stiffening before she started to lean back. Fighting to rein in the essence, I took over. I folded my arms around her and pulled her flush to my chest, holding her still as I thrust into her. The air crackled around us as I clutched the back of her head, burying her face against my neck as I ground against her. “Feed,” I urged.

I saw the arm wrapped tightly around her and noticed the glint of silver bone in my forearm. For some fucked-up reason, Kieran’s words about running out of time pierced my haze of pleasure as I spilled into her. Suddenly, I knew what that something in his stare and voice that had the hair rising all over my body had been. I’d seen it in his eyes and heard it in his voice before. I’d seen and heard the same from his father. What I saw and heard wasn’t a warning or even a threat. It felt like a premonition.

“People will die, Cas. And I know people always die in battle, but there will be no second chances this time.” An image I couldn’t get out of my head flashed in my mind. Crimson-streaked, snow-white fur. I never wanted to see that again.

“Did the vadentia tell you that love was a weakness?” “No. But it did tell me there’s another way,” I reasoned. “And I think that is something Primals are supposed to learn instead of just knowing.”

“But it’s not the only way. A stronger Primal can kill him.” “You’re right. But—” He lowered our joined hands to the space between us. “How do we know we’re not stronger? That I or Kieran isn’t stronger?”

“We are Deminyen Primals, right? You descended from the true Primal of Life and a Primal of Death. I’m descended from a Primal of War, and both Kieran and I are Joined to you.” His hands slid to my elbows. “There is no telling what we’re capable of.”

“He used you to try to seduce me into taking you out of the cell,” he bit out. “A man in love wouldn’t think of that.” Staring at him, I tried to imagine what had been going through his head during that. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. “Kolis…he doesn’t seem like a normal man in love.” “Some things are universal.” His stare returned to mine. “What he sounded like to me was a man obsessed, and that is not the same thing as love.”

And, gods, as I clung to him, kissing him just as fiercely as he did me, I loved him for it. Loved him so much. But I also feared what I saw. Casteel hadn’t acquiesced, and if he tried to prevent me from getting to Kolis or attempted to do so himself, it would end in disaster. In death and destruction.

rhythm. I wanted to get as close to him as possible, snuggle up to his side, but I knew it would wake him if I did. He needed his sleep. The fact that my nightmare hadn’t woken him was proof of that. So, I resisted planting myself against him.

With no moonlight, I could only make out the shape of the cliffside. I couldn’t look away. The pull was too great. And no longer entirely inexplicable, was it? I was drawn to the Cliffs because I’d first died— Stop it. I was her but not.

The gilded cage and the chests. The bed and its chains—gods, there had been chains. And, somehow, I knew they hadn’t always been there. They had been added, though not after the first time. Or even the second. The— Stop.

Standing here, I felt like I was losing my mind. Because I knew—gods, I knew—that I’d been standing here for more than a few seconds. Something like this can’t be okay. I lifted a hand and pressed it against the cool glass. The fragments continued swirling in my thoughts, each coated in bitter fear, soaked in pity that turned to icy hate, and drenched with shame. They were trying to piece themselves together to tell a story I didn’t want to learn. Slender beams of silver moonlight broke free, creeping across the Cliffs’ pale, jagged rocks and climbing the rock face as the clouds passed overhead. Moonlight reached the— I went completely still as the pale light washed over the peak of the Cliffs, momentarily bathing the meadow in light. I saw it then—the still, shadowy form of someone standing. Watching. The moonlight faded, once more obscured by the clouds. My heart thundered against my ribs as I stared into the darkness, unable to see anything now but knowing what I’d seen in those brief seconds.

I didn’t feel Kolis. So much so that he refused to let her go. Kolis wasn’t here. Even in death. I hadn’t sensed him the other nights. Neither had Casteel. But he didn’t have to be here to watch, to see. He would only need an Ascended. Or a Revenant. My mind returned to the night I’d asked Casteel to take me while I stood in front of the glass wall. Had I known on some innate level that he was watching through another’s eyes? And had I…provoked him for some reason?

I forced a smile. “Or are you a coward?” The aura turned pure crimson, and the Revenant’s lips peeled back over bloodstained teeth. “There you are,” I said, stepping back. A low tsking sound came from him. “I’ve always been here, Sotoria.”

“That’s not my name.” He laughed, spitting blood. “Would you prefer I called you Poppy?” “I’d prefer that you crawl back into the hole you came out of and die, but I have a feeling you won’t do that for me.” “It is the same,” he said, ignoring my comment. “Sotoria. Poppy.”

“So…toria.” The way he said it. As if the name were two words… Because it was in the language of the gods—the Ancients. So’ meant my or mine. And toria meant garden. Flower. Or… I inhaled, but it didn’t feel like I took a breath. Toria meant pretty flower. Poppy. My pretty flower. My pretty poppy. I was hot and cold all at once, moving back another step without realizing it. That rhyme. It really had been him.

“Were you there that night? In Lockswood?” “I’ve always been there, Sotoria.” He almost sounded…disappointed. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“That’s not what I meant. Did you have something to do with that night?” “No,” he answered, just as I heard the faint crunch of a bone fusing itself back together. “I need and want you alive. Why would I have had anything to do with a situation that could have so easily gotten out of hand?”

“Because you’re insane?” The crimson burned in the Revenant’s pupils. “Careful, Sotoria.” “Go fuck yourself, Kolis,” I retorted, mimicking the exaggerated rise and fall of his pitch.

“Vicious,” he hissed, blood leaking from his mouth and running down his chin. “You used to be so sweet, like sugar dipped in honey.” Well, now I knew I wasn’t anything like Sotoria because no one would ever describe me like that. “Your blood tasted like it, too.” My stomach churned. “It changed a little each time. Less sweet. More sweet. This time…” The Revenant drew his lower lip between his teeth. “It tastes like…honeydew.” No. Bile clogged my throat.

“Want to know when I first tasted your blood?” “Couldn’t care less.” “I’m talking about in this lifetime,” he went on. “And I’m not talking about the very first time I tasted your blood. That was before you could even stand on your own.”

“I’m talking about the first time Teerman had his fangs in your skin,” he said, his voice dropping along with my stomach. “I have to wonder how you never knew.” “I don’t,” I lied. “Did you—?” “He wasn’t supposed to do that, but I spent so much time inside him.” He tipped the Revenant’s head back against the bark. “Your blood was to be drawn and vialed. You were not to be fed upon. But he inherited some of my…” His head lowered. “Desires.” I was going to vomit. In his face. “I didn’t expect that to happen,” he cut in. “He managed to control himself until you first bloomed.”

“Then he couldn’t control himself. Or was it I who couldn’t?” He lifted the Revenant’s shoulder in a painful-looking shrug. “Perhaps both of us. Though he handled…his lessons. That was all him.” My skin tightened. “Watching your sweet flesh bleed was quite…arousing, however.”

“He was smart enough to take from your vein where it wasn’t visible, and you wouldn’t look. After all, my pretty flower was so obedient then, submissive to the Priestesses. You would never…explore such forbidden, shameful areas.”

I did know. I knew exactly where. And I had been taught—groomed—not to even think of that area, let alone touch it outside of bathing. And I was always in so much agony after Teerman’s lessons that it felt like the pain was everywhere— Or was that also an illusion of denial? Had I known the two couldn’t be related and just hadn’t understood what was happening at the time?

“It’s such a decadent vein.” His voice rumbled and thickened while my skin felt like something was alive beneath it. “I drank from there before. The one near your prettiest flower. And you know what, so’lis? You liked it then just as much as you liked it before.”

“Just like old times,” he said, straddling my hips as he winked an eye through the blood. He grabbed my hair, yanked my head up, and then slammed it down.

A blur of leather-encased legs passed my head a second later, and then a rather large hand gripped the Revenant’s throat. In the next heartbeat, he flew backward and crashed into the same tree I’d thrown and pinned him to earlier. “Poor tree,” I murmured. A tall and broad form in all black stepped into my line of sight. Dimly, I knew he was a god—a Primal god—as I dragged my dazed gaze up. A sheathed sword was strapped to his back, and a dagger to each hip. Gods, he was tall. Maybe an inch or two taller than Casteel.

I knew him. Recognized him. Not because he so clearly resembled Casteel—he looked more like Malik and was nearly the spitting image of their father. But because I’d seen him before while in stasis, slipping…falling through countless images of places and people. And he…he had been one of those people. “Attes,” I whispered hoarsely. The Primal flinched.

“You still in there, Kolis?” I knelt so I was at eye level with the Revenant, searching for the crimson glow and finding it. “Good.” The Revenant’s lips spread into a grotesque smile as blood poured from his mouth. Those lips moved. “What? I can’t hear you?” I smiled tightly and held his gaze. “Oh, you can’t get the words out around the dagger in your throat? That’s why it’s there.”

Essence erupted from my hand, a pulse of gold streaked with silver and shadows threaded with faint tendrils of crimson. Attes’s sharp curse got lost in the crackle of eather as it seeped into the Revenant’s flesh, lighting up the veins under eyes that still glowed with Kolis’s essence. I smiled, even as the scent of burning flesh began to rise. I didn’t move. I didn’t look away as the eather rippled through the body, burning through organs and bones. Eather swept up the Revenant’s legs, obliterating them, his torso, and then his chest and shoulders. The pupils turned pitch-black just as the essence climbed up his throat. Within a second, only the bone dagger remained, still buried in the tree. So, apparently, I could kill a Revenant.

Flipping the dagger, I held it by the blade and offered it to him. He didn’t move. “This is yours, right?” I wiggled it. Thick lashes swept down and then up as his eyes widened. He reached for the dagger. “Fucking Fates, woman, you’re burning your…” He frowned, eyeing my steady hand. “It’s not burning you.” I guessed Seraphena hadn’t told him. “It tingles but doesn’t burn. It does burn Casteel,” I said as he took the blade by the hilt. “Not sure about Kieran.”

“Look, I already have a husband—” I stopped myself before saying and a… I frowned, unsure what to call Kieran. I shook my head. It didn’t matter at the moment.

“But why don’t you tell me?” His head cocked. “Great-grandfather.” My eyes widened. Attes’s inhale was swift. “Well, I see that horse has fled the stable.”

“That’s not going to happen,” came Reaver’s gravelly voice. I dared a quick peek at him, and yep…naked. “Both like to talk. A lot.” “You wound me, Reaver,” Attes replied. The draken snorted. “I’m sure I did.” A muscle ticked in Casteel’s jaw. “He’s naked, isn’t he?” “Of course,” I muttered, crossing my arms. Attes frowned and finally, finally broke eye contact with Casteel to glance at Reaver. “The people of this age are quite prudish,” Reaver stated. “Not wanting your dick out near my wife doesn’t make me prudish,” Casteel shot back. Attes’s silver gaze slid back to him, and his jaw loosened. “I think I actually agree with that.” Reaver sighed.