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October 4 - October 7, 2025
I glanced at Emil standing behind Delano. The white wolven passed me, leaving a trail of blood. Ears twitching, he kept looking back at the door—the iron door—he’d managed to score. Three of his claws had broken off. They’d grow back, but my stomach still soured.
I had no idea what had gone down between them or why Malik refused to tell Millicent they were heartmates,
The realm was opening before us. I just hoped it was whoever Reaver had reached and not someone about to make an enemy of me. Either way, I had a feeling neither a sword nor a wolven could stand against whatever was about to appear. Not when only two beings had enough eather to open the realm. The Arae, also known as the Fates. And the oldest of the gods—the Primals.
My shoulders jerked as I saw the Primal god’s face. It wasn’t the shallow scar running from his hairline, over the bridge of his nose, and down his left cheek that had me standing there in stunned silence. It was because of the sandy-brown hair, the strong jawline, and the sculpted mouth. The straight nose and high, angular cheekbones. The arched brows and tall, broad-shouldered, lean-waisted build. Which, all together, was damn near the mirror image of the man standing beside me. My brother.
“Hello.” I blinked, then stiffened as I saw that Delano had crept forward, his head lowered, and tail tucked close to his body. Before I could say shit, the Primal god extended his hand toward the wolven. Delano cautiously lifted his head and sniffed the outstretched hand. A heartbeat passed, and then Delano pressed his muzzle against the Primal’s hand.
The Primal’s stare lifted, a slight frown pulling at his brows as he swept his gaze over the hall. He’d felt Kieran, even though no one else seemed to have even heard his approach yet—not even Delano. I filed that piece of information away as the others finally picked up on Kieran’s arrival.
The Primal’s gaze flicked to the door behind me and then swept over our group again. “You can stay,” he said to me, then looked Kieran over once more. “He can, too. The rest need to leave.” Malik stiffened. “I don’t know you. We don’t know you. So how about—?” “It’s okay,” I cut in. “Kieran and I can handle him.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Primal raise a brow. “He’s a god,” Malik argued. “Who just popped up out of nowhere.” “I asked Reaver to return to Iliseeum to see if anyone could help Poppy.” I confirmed what the Primal had said, not missing how his head jerked slightly when I
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“The one that looks like me. He’s your brother,” the Primal said after a moment. It wasn’t a question. “But he doesn’t feel like you.” He glanced back at Kieran. “And you don’t feel like a normal wolven.”
“She’s my everything.” “Which is the only reason I’m letting you speak to me like that.” Streaks of eather flashed across his irises. “But my tolerance has its limits. I hope that won’t become a problem.”
“Your name.” Eather flared in his eyes. “Attes.”
“Only Nektas and Kolis are older than me,” he stated, shocking the shit out of me. “That’s how old.” “Wouldn’t that make you…?” Kieran trailed off. My gaze sharpened on the Primal. “One of the original Primal gods.” “Not original,” Attes corrected. “I am of the gods born of the original Primal gods.”
“You feel like a Primal. As does the wolven.” Eather crackled behind his pupils as he stepped closer to me. “But that’s impossible. Just as you being able to kill a Revenant is. So, what are you?” “Extraordinarily impatient to help my wife,” I said since I couldn’t answer his question. I had no idea what the answer was. “That is what I am.”
“The true Primal of Death has unique abilities very similar to those of the oneirou,” he stated, causing both Kieran and me to stiffen. I remembered learning about the gods of dreams. “He can ferret out a person’s hidden fears and deepest shame, then exploit it.”
“When a Primal or god enters stasis for any reason, they are already vulnerable, both physically and mentally. What he told me sounds a lot like the binding that was once done between the draken and the Primals to strengthen both.” He described what sounded exactly like what was done between the Elemental Atlantians and the wolven. “No fusion of life forces, be it through blood or magic, is a one-way street. If one of you is wounded severely enough, she will weaken.”
“I only know of something like this happening once,” he ground out. “And severing that connection killed the possessed.” Severing the connection killed…
“Fates, you are—” “Charming and captivating?” I suggested, relieved to feel the pain lessening already. Attes’s steps faltered. “You’re so much like him,” he breathed, voice strained and cracking on the word him. My brows snapped together. “Like who?”
“No. The vial is made of basalt. The slag…the slaggiest of slag,” he said with a faint and quick grin. “It’s created where the highest intensity of dragon fire strikes a surface.” “Dragon?” Kieran repeated. “Yes. Dragon. As in the ancestors of the draken,” he said. I was sure Kieran realized that. “It’s the only thing that will hold their blood.” I crossed my arms. “Please tell me you’re not using draken blood on Poppy.” “I warned you it would hurt.”
“Normally, it would burn right through flesh and bone. Even a Primal’s,” Attes said, and my head tipped toward him. “Especially his blood.” “Nektas’s,” I guessed. Attes nodded, and my stomach twisted sharply. “But I know how to prevent that.” “How?” I demanded. “It’s not important,” he countered. I was this close to choking the fucker out. “Then what is?” “For Kolis to have forged a connection with her,” he said, his words slow and deliberate, as if he chose each one carefully, “she would bear his mark.” “Mark?” Kieran frowned. “What kind of mark?” “His.”
“With her,” Attes said quietly, his gaze on the door, “he wouldn’t need to physically touch her.” I stiffened as I hissed, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” “That doesn’t matter either.”
Kolis created the first Ascended,” Attes said, a crease forming between his brows as he shocked both of us into silence. “Like the Revenants, their very existence is thanks to him. Therefore, they are irrevocably tied to him.” I would have to table the what-the-fuckery in that piece of information. “Are you telling me he could’ve been jumping from Ascended to Revenant? That he still could?” “He is linked to all his creations if he chooses to be.”
“Just as the Queen can do with the wolven if she so decides.” Fucking gods. “But Poppy is neither a Revenant nor an Ascended,” Kieran pointed out. But her sister was.
“Her blood,” he stated. “He’s a Primal god. If he’s had her blood, even a drop…” His stare cut away from me. “And if she’s had his, there’d be a link between them.”
Maybe he’s always been in her or connected to her. Reaver’s words haunted me as I stood there, my lungs burning. It made sense as I thought about the Rev who’d attacked me. How he’d sung the verse Poppy had heard the night she was attacked in Lockswood and in her dreams. What a pretty poppy. She’d once thought it was the Dark One she’d heard, but later realized it was neither Malik nor me. What if it wasn’t something she’d heard that night as a child? What if it had been him, already connected to her, whispering while she slept? And he was finally able to forge a deeper connection.
She would’ve been vulnerable while in stasis, then weakened to save me. It opened her to what had always been there. I let him in.
“The Joining,” Kieran sighed, scrubbing his forehead. “It had some unexpected…effects.” “No shit,” the Primal muttered. “But I’d call that more than an effect.” Eather crackled through his eyes as his stare bore into me. “That display of essence? It was h—” “Hers,” I interrupted hoarsely. “It was her essence.” “It’s his,” he insisted. “But it’s also something…?” He shook his head, shifting his attention to Kieran. “And you?” “The opposite of his.” “I…” It looked like a puff of air could’ve knocked Attes over. “I actually don’t even know what to say.”
“Casteel,” Kieran whispered softly, his concern thick in my throat. “I’m going in with you.” It was a statement. And a warning. “Fine.” I cleared my throat as I stared straight ahead. The shit that had gone down between us had no place beyond this door. “I’m going to need your help in there.” “You have it,” he said, his voice low. “Always.”
“The Queen of the Gods,” Kieran surmised. Attes nodded. “She is her granddaughter,” he explained, watching the Primal closely. “Did you not know that?” “I did,” Attes said hoarsely.
And there it was. Air punched out of my lungs as I stared at the crimson mark. It stood out starkly against her flesh, a symbol I’d never seen on her skin before etched between her breasts—a dark, off-center red line, slicing diagonally through a circle. The symbol of Death.
“The blood will burn through my flesh first, dampening its potency enough to not go too deep into hers,” he said quickly and quietly. Kieran lurched on the other side of me. “You’re going to…?”
Attes unsheathed a dull-white blade. His eyes met mine. We both recognized it. It was the same kind the Revenant had used and what Callum had cursed Kieran with. “What kind of dagger is that?” Kieran asked. “Ancient bone,” Attes answered. “It’s the only thing that will pierce basalt. Not even shadowstone will do it.” “Ancient bone?” Kieran repeated. “It’s exactly what you think. Bones of the very first gods to walk this realm.” “The original Primals?” Kieran surmised. “No. These are the ones who created the first Primals and all you see.”
“Bad Poppy,” I muttered, getting my arm around her waist. “Let go.” “Yeah. Don’t think that’s working.” Attes grunted as I tugged on her. “I’m beginning to think you’re delaying this.” “I would never,” I said, pressing my fingers into the hollows of her cheeks, reluctantly acknowledging that the Primal was holding back. He held himself still. Didn’t even try to shake her off. He went from that fucker to the fuck in my book. Slight improvement.
“I know they weren’t of your blood.” Attes halted, blood coursing from the wound that was already healing. Her body shook with laughter. “I’ve always known they were his.” The Primal paled as he stared down at her, frozen. “Did you really think I didn’t know?” She tsked softly. “But don’t feel left out, old friend. I’m going to find every last one of yours.” She twisted her upper half to the side, straining toward him. “And I will kill them.”
But the mark between her breasts…it moved. Shuddered. Wiggled and writhed like serpents—no, not like serpents. It was serpents. Two of them. Thank the gods Poppy was unconscious for this. Kieran shot forward, reaching for them, but I was faster. Lifting my arm from her waist, I grabbed them. They felt nothing like a serpent should. Their wiggling bodies were clammy, too pliant and unnatural. They felt like death. Two diamond-shaped heads lifted, their mouths gaping open. They let out piercing shrieks like countless tortured souls crying out at once.
“Serpents? That’s what his aru’lis looks like?” “No, that was his vellá—how his will reveals itself,” Attes muttered as I carefully laid Poppy onto her back. “That wasn’t his aru’lis. It was his essence, the eather that is an extension of his will.”
“I was awake during and after the fall of the deities. That was when I met…an ancestor of yours.” “Elian?” I frowned. Attes grimaced. “He was young then—younger even than you have to be.” “I was told it was Lailah and Theon who joined Nyktos when Elian met with him.” “They were there. I was more so in…the background while they discussed the bonding,” he said. “So was the Queen.” “Of course. After all, it wasn’t Nyktos who bonded the first Elemental and wolven.” I thought about how angry Poppy had been to learn that Nyktos was recognized for it. The grin on my lips was brief. “So, what are you?
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“You’re of my bloodline. A strong one that is traced back to the beginning,” he replied. “Twins are not the only thing that runs in our family.” Twins?
“So do our temperaments,” he continued, drawing my gaze back to him. “We’re also known to be impulsive, which, when combined with our fiery temperaments and often-wrathful natures, can create a volatile mix.” A muscle spasmed at his temple. “Especially those more closely related—those who carry more of the essence in them.”
“Kolis never went to rest. Never sought to clear and reset his mind. He was unpredictable before, and he will be even more so now.” He shifted against the wall. “He must be dealt with permanently.” “You got any tips on how to carry that out?” Tension bracketed his mouth. “She’s in this room.” Attes’s eyes narrowed on me as anger surged. “She has the power within her.” His expression smoothed out. “But I…” He dragged his good hand over his jaw. “You should really find out what you and the wolven have become. But especially you.”
“You and her?” His head tilted toward Poppy, his features softening. And I swore to the gods… “You’re mates of the heart, aren’t you?” The question caught me off guard. “Heartmates?” Attes nodded. I slid an arm under her. “What gave it away?” A rough laugh parted his lips. “A lot.” His gaze returned to mine. “The power in you mixed with that temper is a dangerous combination.”
My chin lifted. “Thank you for what you did.” “I’m sorry,” he breathed, his brow furrowing. “I think you were right, and my hearing has failed me in my old age.” His eyes opened to thin slits. “Because I didn’t quite hear you clearly.” My eyes narrowed. “You heard me just fine.” “Yeah.” A small grin stretched across his lips, causing the hint of a dimple to appear. “I did.”
“Casteel?” he called. When I faced him, he stared back with eyes churning with eather. “Be good to her.” I frowned. What a strange fucking thing to say. But I was too weary to point that out. “Always.” The smile returned. “And forever.”
“What a pretty little flower you are. What a pretty poppy. Are pretty poppies ever sad?” “No.” I giggled. His green eyes twinkled like the stars as his smile widened. He leaned in and kissed the crown of my head. “I love you more than all the stars in the sky.” “I love you more than all the fish in the sea,” I whispered back.
“He will do as he promised.” Papa brushed his fingers across her cheek. “Tell him the truth. He is bound to the gods, even as they sleep, to ensure your safety.”
“You know what she wants. And if she succeeds in using you, the very realm itself will be in jeopardy.”
“Penellaphe is a…good friend of my mother’s.” I frowned. “Penellaphe is a goddess.” “Yes.” He tucked an unruly wave behind my ear. “She is.”
He focused on me. “I want you to remember this. She didn’t choose your name.” His lips thinned, and I thought I saw a flicker of the pretty silver light behind his pupils. “You were not named by the Queen. You were named in honor of the Queen.”
I held his gaze. “I applaud you on your maturity.” I paused. “Reaver-butt.” A low rumble radiated from Reaver’s chest. “And here I thought the wolf was the most annoying creature I’ve had to deal with. I was wrong.”
“And that personal reason has a name. Jadis.” Those slitted pupils thinned. “I’m not the only one who needs her freed, Casteel. Or have you forgotten that she has a father, who also happens to be the first draken ever created? One who gave his blood to help break Kolis’s hold on Poppy. One who will not hesitate to adjust your attitude.”
Knowing the Blood Queen the way I did, he would be one hundred percent right on that assumption. In fact, Reaver likely couldn’t even imagine what had been done to the female draken, and I wasn’t that much of a dick to tell him that. Then again, I probably didn’t need to say anything.
“What I want is for you to wake your wife up,” he hissed. “I did my part. I got Attes. He did his part. He broke the connection between her and Kolis. Now, it’s your turn.”
