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March 24 - March 24, 2021
“There’s the vicious little creature. I missed her.”
“I just want to make sure you understand that, so when you’re free and if you decide to leave—” “If? You mean when I leave?” “Yes. My apologies,” he demurred. “When you leave and go out into the world and find yourself a mate who has never lied—” “Or kidnapped me?” “Or kidnapped you, there should be no stabbing or punching. Only kisses and promises upheld until dying breaths and beyond,” he said. “That is what you deserve from who you choose to love.”
A chill swept over my skin as I sat straight, my hands clutching the saddle. The idea of Casteel dying, of him no longer being there with those frustrating smirks and teasing glances, his quick-witted replies, and those damn, infuriating dimples? I couldn’t even consider it. He was too vivid, too bright to think of him no longer being there.
“But I make wearing arrows look good, don’t I?” Casteel twisted sharply, his hand snapping out. He caught the next arrow intended for him.
“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?”
That I’d started falling in love with him when we first met and hadn’t stopped.
“The night before I learned who he really was, I had already decided that I could no longer be the Maiden. It wasn’t just because of him. Maybe how I felt about him was the start of me realizing that I could never live in the skin of the Maiden, but I wanted to stay with him,” I admitted, my voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “Even though I thought he was a Royal Guard and would have to basically go into hiding with me, I wanted to be with him—to stay with him somehow. Because he made me feel…. He made me feel like I was alive.” I swallowed hard. “I did care for him. I cared for him a
...more
“He was Casteel then just like he’s Hawke now,” Kieran stated quietly, drawing my gaze to him. “And you know that. You just aren’t ready to accept it.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Kieran said. “But even so, sometimes, the heartbreak that comes with loving someone is worth it, even if loving that person means eventually saying goodbye to them.”
“They find the idea of feeding from someone else repellent. It’s too intimate for them to even consider. And if the partner is mortal? It usually takes the mortal proving to the other that it’s okay for them to feed, and in some cases, the Atlantian is lost to the darkness of hunger. That’s why he hasn’t fed.”
“But I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s something deeper than that. Something intangible, far rarer and stronger than bloodlines and even the gods. Something powerful enough that it has ushered in great change in the past.”
“I think you’re heartmates.”
Because while Casteel wasn’t a monster, he was capable of doing monstrous things to get what he wanted. But I was exempt. He wasn’t the good guy—the savior or the saint. He’d killed to free his brother. He’d used countless others—mortals and Atlantians alike—to free his sibling. And he still would. To him, the means justified the end. But Casteel had drawn a line that he wouldn’t cross.
And that line was me.
“There’s probably something wrong with me—actually, there’s definitely something wrong with me. Obviously. But if you—” I forced the words out before they choked me. “If you care about me at all, you won’t want to put me at risk. You’ll take what I’m offering with a thank you and stop acting like an idiot!”
“I’m so incredibly unworthy of you,” he whispered, and I shivered, remembering the only other time he’d said that to me. It was the night I’d shared my body, my heart, and my soul with him.
“Really.” His gaze searched mine. “I didn’t want—I mean, of course, I wanted that. I wanted more. I always want more when it comes to you.” The hue of his eyes brightened once more, and my toes curled. “But I wanted it to be about you.”
“Can I…can I just hold you?” he asked, and I’d never heard him sound so uncertain. “There are things I should be doing, and I know we’re not in public, and I know that what we shared doesn’t change anything, but…can I…can we just pretend?”
My heart thumped heavily again, and I didn’t know if it was the effect of the feeding or what we’d done afterward. Or if it was the softness of his request, the vulnerability in it, and the feeling that things had shifted even more between us. It could’ve been all of those things that led me to say, “You can.”
My reaction to Casteel was natural, and even if what came afterward when Casteel expressed his gratitude was foolishly reckless when it came to my heart, it had also felt right
Another skip of another beat. There was no denying that it would be incredibly ill-advised of me to pretend anymore. It blurred everything, and pretending…well, it didn’t feel like that to me. But there was also no denying that I wanted exactly what he offered. And since when did something being foolish ever stop me?
“Sorry,” he whispered against my lips. “I know I should’ve asked first, but your laugh… It undoes me, Poppy.”
“If you wish for future feedings—and I’m sure you realize there will be future ones—to be less intimate, you could offer him your wrist.”
“Or is it because you don’t want to know that it’s taking everything in me not to ruin yet another pair of your pants by ripping them off and fucking you so hard that days from now, you’ll still be able to feel the extent of my gratitude.”
I couldn’t think of what to say, even though there was a lot I should. We stood there for several moments, and at any time, if either of us turned our heads just the slightest, our lips would have met. And I…
“But as soon as they get to know her, none of that will matter. They will come to love her as fiercely as I do.”
The curve of his lips was cruelly sensual. “You can pretend that this—” He eased a finger inside me, just the tip, but I rose up on my toes. His eyes turned luminous as his gaze drifted over my face and then lower to where my breasts had risen up above the churning water. He lifted his gaze to mine as he pressed his finger in further, and I could feel my inner muscles clenching around him. “That this has nothing to do with you wanting me.”
His touch stilled as he searched my face for an answer. And in that moment, I realized that this was my life. What existed between Casteel and I was neither right nor wrong. It was messy and complicated, and maybe I’d regret this later as I gave him more and more pieces of me, but I wanted him.
I nodded, my heart thundering. “I don’t want to pretend,” I whispered. “I’m Poppy and you’re Casteel, and this is real.”
He moved his hands back to my hips as he looked down to where my breasts were pillowed against his chest. “I would love to take my time because there are so many different ways I’d love to be real with you. Lay you out on the rocks and lick every inch of your body. Make you come that way. And then I’d want you on your knees and your mouth around my cock.”
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.”
“That’s it.” His words were barely a whisper. “Gods, you feel…” The hand guiding me spasmed and then loosened as I lifted myself on his length. “You feel like all I could ever want.”
Casteel fucked
After being forbidden human touch for so long, his nakedness was like being offered a platter of the most decadent chocolates and sweets.
What I felt only grew when I realized that he would, in fact, kill whoever insulted me, no matter how wrong that was.
And the catch in my breath, the shiver and the ache whenever he looked at me, when his eyes were like twin golden flames, whenever he touched me, it went beyond lust. I didn’t need experience to recognize the difference. He didn’t have pieces of me. He had my whole heart, and he had from the moment he allowed me to protect myself, from the moment he stood beside me instead of in front of me.
My heart started thumping hard because I knew. I knew in my bones why Casteel was sending Kieran away.
Casteel inclined his head. “If I’m not willing to risk my life for Spessa’s End, how dare I ask the people here to do so? That is not what a Prince does—at least not a good one.”
“I should be here with you.” Kieran stepped closer to Casteel. “My duty is to defend your life with mine. That is what I’m bonded to do, the oath I took. How can I do that running away from the battle?” His voice lowered. “Don’t do this, Cas.”
I shot to my feet. “Let me make one thing clear. I don’t know if you realize this or not, Casteel, but I’m not duty-bound to obey a single thing you say.” Casteel stiffened.
“Oh, man,” Delano murmured under his breath as the rest of the room went dead silent. “Someone is getting stabbed again.”
“Definitely getting stabbed,” Kieran confirmed.
“Are you armed?” Casteel asked with a smirk. “You are, aren’t you?”
His brows lifted. “Blessed be the gods, someone mark the date and time. She just admitted I was right.”
“And as far as being a distraction to Casteel, that’s his weakness. Not mine.”
“Do me a favor,” Kieran said, looking down at me. “Protect your Prince, Poppy
“I don’t know.” His brows knitted. “No. That’s a lie. I didn’t take you then because I knew the moment I did, you would stop looking at me like…like I was just Hawke. You would stop opening up to me. Talking to me. Seeing me. You’d hate me. I wasn’t ready for that.”
“When I touched you in the Blood Forest, I knew I shouldn’t have, but I…I wanted to be your first. I needed to be your first everything. Kiss. Touch. Pleasure.”
“And I couldn’t understand how I kept falling for you. I was so angry with you—with myself for not seeing the truth. And it felt like a betrayal to Vikter and Rylan, the others. And myself.”
“Some things can’t be forgotten or forgiven,” I said, rubbing my damp hands over my knees. “But I think I realized, or have come to accept, that even then, some things can’t be changed or stopped. That they still matter but don’t. That those emotions are powerful, but not as strong as others. That what I felt for you had nothing to do with what you did or didn’t do. It had nothing to do with Vikter or anyone else. And acknowledging that felt like permission to…to feel. And that scared me.”
