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“I just want you to know that I’m not even particularly upset about you questioning what I intend to do. How you’ve spoken to me doesn’t bother me. I’m not insecure enough to care about the opinions of little men.” Casteel’s face was inches from the wide-eyed wolven. “If that had been all, I would’ve overlooked it. If you had stopped after the first time you referenced her, I would’ve let you walk out of here with just your overinflated sense of self-worth. But then you insulted her. You made her flinch, and then you threatened her. I will not forget that.”
“Please don’t die,” Kieran commented from where he sat. “Casteel would be most displeased.”
I love kieran
“I’ve already told you why, once before.” He inclined his head when I glanced up at him. “He created the first vampry.” “King Malec? He was a deity?”
Casteel’s mother had been married to a deity? “Had he been alive since the beginning? Or was he a descendent of the line?” “He was the child of two ancient deities.”
“As if you have any idea what I would or would not allow.” His eyes were nearly luminous with his fury. “But you’re right. I wouldn’t allow that, because I refuse to carve your name into the wall down below.”
“They’re saying it’s an omen,” Casteel answered quietly. “Of what?” “That the gods are watching.” His grip tightened on my hand as I shivered. “That even though they still slumber, they are signaling that a great change is coming.”
“Retribution is yours, if you want it,” he said. “And if not, I will be your blade, the thing that ends his miserable existence. It’s your choice.”
“I tore out his tongue,” Kieran announced, and both Casteel and I looked at him. “What?” The wolven shrugged. “He annoyed me.”
“How did the bonds get started?” “The gods,” he answered. “When their children—the deities—were first born in this land, they summoned the once wild kiyou wolves and gave them mortal forms so they could serve as their protectors and guides in a world that was unknown to them. They were the first wolven. Eventually, as the elementals began to outnumber the deities, the bonds shifted to them.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Not all elementals are bonded. Delano isn’t bonded to an elemental.”
“Told him that if a woman fights with that kind of passion and makes you work that hard to earn even a smile, then that’s the kind of woman you want by your side in and out of the bedchamber.”
“I always keep what is mine safe,” Casteel murmured,
“By the way, I’m not yours,” I told him. “I don’t belong to anyone but myself. Nothing changes that.” “What if I just wanted a piece of you?” He shifted the reins to his other hand. “A tiny piece that belonged to me? I can think of a few I would love to have, Princess.”
“Tell me what piece of you I can have. It can be any piece of your choosing. Whatever it is, I’ll take it.” His chin grazed my cheek. “It will be my most prized possession.”
I didn’t offer Casteel a piece of me as we rode forward, joining the others. There was no reason to because what he didn’t know was that he already held too many of them.
The easier choice I made too often didn’t make me a part of the problem.” Casteel said nothing, but his fingers still moved idly. “It made me a part of the system that bound an entire kingdom in chains created of fear and false beliefs.”
“There’s the vicious little creature. I missed her.”
“That sounds like a very dysfunctional…engagement.” “You can’t spell dysfunctional without fun, now can you?” “That…I don’t even know what to say to that.”
but people who are in love enough to marry—the ones that people know are together before they even realize it—never consist of just one person, one personality, or one will. They fight. They argue. They disagree. They make up. They talk. They agree. The one thing they never are is perfect.”
“The thing is, you won’t mess up if you get mad. You won’t do the wrong thing. Each couple is different. Some spend their time whispering sweet words in each other’s ears. Some spend the time baiting one another. Both enjoying being the tiger in the cat and mouse chase. That is us,” he said. “Or who we appear to others. This won’t be hard. Not with the passion between us, and before you try to lie and say there is none, just know that it would provoke me into proving I’m right.”
“I don’t know why any of you think this is your lucky day,” he yelled back as he turned around. He shattered the arrow in his fist. “It’s really not. Not when my cloak has been ruined. And I really liked it. It was warm, and now it has godsdamn holes in it. How will that keep me warm?”
“Your concern warms the same heart you’ve so grievously wounded.”
“I heard one of them talk about how they wanted to make a cloak out of my fur,” Delano said from where he rode to our right. His brows were furrowed. “My fur should be reserved for something far more luxurious than a cloak. I bit him extra hard for that.”
“Stygian Bay is where Rhain sleeps, deep below. It borders Pompay, and its southern coast reaches Spessa’s End.”
“The most beautiful things in all the kingdom often have jagged and uneven lines, scars which intensify the beauty in intricate ways our eyes nor our minds can detect or even begin to understand
“Without them, they would just be common and ordinary, like all the other smoothly cut diamonds you can find anywhere you look. Beauty, my sweet child, is often broken and barbed, and always unexpected
“The way Casteel is with you—the teasing and trying to get a rise out of you—isn’t how he is with most.” “So, it’s an act?” “No, Casteel is just more…alive when he’s with you,”
sometimes, the heartbreak that comes with loving someone is worth it, even if loving that person means eventually saying goodbye to them.”
“When it comes to bacon, the answer is always yes.”
“The Joining would not only ensure that the wolven would be duty-bound to protect your life, but the bond would tie your life to the elemental and the wolven. You would live as long as the wolven did, however long that may be.”
But to answer your question, the less people think of you as the Maiden, the more they will think of you as the half-Atlantian who’s captured my heart.”
“Dear gods, you have her on her own horse? Soon, she’ll be running one of us over instead of stabbing us.”
“Only on one condition,” I said. “You have a condition now?” I nodded, my heart thundering. “I don’t want to pretend,” I whispered. “I’m Poppy and you’re Casteel, and this is real.”
“I need to hear you say it, Princess.” Of course, he did. “Yes,” I nearly cursed. “I want you.” “Good.” He slipped his hand from between my legs. “Because this is real.”
“Princess?” “Your Highness?” Those eyes of his turned to molten amber. “I’m going to need you to hold onto me and not let go, because I’m about to fuck you like I promised.”
Okay Cas im herefor it
He will act upon any perceived insult to your honor. There is power there, Penellaphe. You are the neck that turns the head of the kingdom.”
“I told you, Casteel. I said that you would encounter pushback if you proceeded with this.” So did Landell. “And what did I tell you when you said that before?” Casteel asked. “That this is what you want. That she is what you want,” Alastir said,
“I took her, and I kept her, but not to use her. Somewhere along the way, I no longer saw her as a bargaining chip or a tool for revenge. I saw her for who she was. Who she is—this beautiful, strong, intelligent, endlessly curious and kind woman who was as much a victim of the Ascended as any Atlantians. I fell in love with her, probably long before I even realized I had.” He laughed, the sound rough. And gods, it sounded so real that my throat knotted. “My plans changed. What I believed about Malik changed. And this was before I learned what she was. That she is part Atlantian. She is the
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“You stabbed Casteel?” Jasper repeated. “In the heart? With bloodstone. And you thought it would kill him?” “In my defense, I felt bad afterward.” “She did cry,” Casteel remarked.
I didn’t get to choose what I ate, when I left my chambers, or who was allowed to even touch me. But he was the first thing I’d ever truly chosen for myself.”
“I chose him when I knew him as Hawke,”
But he…he was the catalyst in a way. And I chose him. I chose him because he made me feel like I was something other than the Maiden, and he saw me when no one else ever really did. He made me feel alive. He valued me for who I am and didn’t try to control me. And then it all seemed like a lie once I realized the truth of who he was and why he was a part of my life.”
“So, yes, I was very angry, but what I felt for him before remained,
was in love with him, even though that love had been built on a foundation of lies. I loved him even though there was so much I didn’t know about him. I loved him even though I knew I was a willing pawn to him.
“That was the plan. And fuck if it didn’t go off the rails the moment you walked into the godsdamn Red Pearl.” His eyes closed. “And each time—every damn time—I spoke to you, each time I saw your smile or heard you laugh, and the more I got to know you, the less those plans made sense. And trust me, Poppy, those plans made way more fucking sense than this—than all of his.”
have no idea how you can even bear my touch. I wanted to tell him right then that I could bear his touch because I loved him.
And you’re the first person to ever impress her. I’m jealous.”
He turned to me, his head cocked. “I’m looking at you now.” “But are you listening?” “Oh, man,” Delano murmured under his breath as the rest of the room went dead silent. “Someone is getting stabbed again.” Someone, I think it was Jasper, snorted. “Oh, I’m listening,” Casteel replied. “Maybe you should try that. Along with this thing called common sense.” “Definitely getting stabbed,” Kieran confirmed.
“For a couple of minutes. But you were right.” His brows lifted. “Blessed be the gods, someone mark the date and time. She just admitted I was right.”
“Your heart, Poppy? It is a gift I do not deserve.” He placed his hands on my knees as he lifted his gaze to mine. “But it is one I will protect until my dying breath.
“Always,” he whispered in the breath we shared. “Your heart was always safe with me. It always will be. There is nothing I will protect more fiercely or with more devotion, Poppy. Trust in that—in what you feel from me. In me.”
