CHAPTER 7
POPPY
I was in the nothing but felt it was different. Softer. Warmer.
And then I wasn’t in the darkness any longer at all.
I was…
I tiptoed down the narrow hall. Momma and Papa would be upset with me. I was supposed to be in bed, but Ian was sleeping, hogging the blanket, and I…I had the bad dream again. The one that scared Momma and upset Papa. Made his jaw do that funny ticking thing, and his eyes look like stars.
I wouldn’t tell them about the dream this time. I was supposed to be a big girl for this trip. That’s what my papa told me. So, I tried to stay in the room they’d put us in. But I didn’t like this place. Smoke stained the walls, and the floor was sticky.
And I didn’t feel like a big girl after I dreamed.
I wanted my papa.
I neared the end of the hall and peered into a room lit by a flickering gaslight.
Momma had called it a taproom, but I didn’t understand.
There was no tapping. I scanned the shadows.
The rough men drinking at the rickety tables and the women dressed as if ready for bed were gone.
Clutching the robe Momma had dressed me in, I quickly crossed the chamber.
The door was open, and I saw a man standing with his back to me, his hair redder than brown in the lamplight.
My steps slowed. I was as quiet as a mouse, but Papa still heard me. He always heard us, no matter how silent Ian and I were.
He turned, a faint smile playing on his lips. “Poppy-flower…”
I took off, running as fast as I could as he knelt. He caught me, the smell of citrus and lilac replacing the sour staleness of the inn as he wrapped his arms around me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” he asked.
“Ian took the blanket.” I clutched the front of his leather greatcoat. “And I was cold.”
Papa chuckled. “Is that truly the reason you’re not in your bed?”
I buried my heated face against his chest. “Uh-huh.”
“Poppy-flower.” He smoothed his hand down the back of my head. “Did you have a nightmare again?”
I shook my head.
“Are you telling me the truth?”
I didn’t like to lie to Papa, so I said nothing.
He sighed.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffled, my lips quivering.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Papa pulled back and clasped the sides of my face. “Don’t be sad.” He smiled at me. “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.
“That’s my girl.”
I felt his hands shake as he held my face. I didn’t like it. Was he sad? Scared? I never knew how he or Momma felt. They weren’t like the others in the taproom earlier.
The doors cracked open, letting in a gust of cold wind as a slender, hooded figure entered.
“Cora,” Papa called.
She stopped and turned to her right. I heard her sigh. “You should’ve known she would find a way down here.”
Uh-oh.
I wiggled myself deeper into Papa’s arms.
“Who? Where?” Papa said, and I grinned. “No one is here but a little flower.”
“Both of you are silly,” Momma said. I lifted my head and peeked over Papa’s arm. The cloak Momma wore fluttered around her as she approached us. Reaching down, she ran a hand over the top of my head. “Shouldn’t he be here?”
“He will be,” Papa assured her, straightening.
I didn’t know who they spoke of. Only that they were meeting a friend. That was why we’d stopped at the inn.
She leaned in and spoke in that way where I knew she didn’t want me to hear. “You trust him?”
“I do,” he said. “He’ll lead you to safety.”
Safety? You? Not us? My eyes widened as I glanced between them.
Momma nodded, falling quiet for several moments. She’d been really quiet since we left the castle and the city. “I don’t know—”
“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.”
“Please, don’t go back. If you do and are captured, she will never trust you again.” Momma’s voice hardened. “She’ll never let you have a second of freedom—”
“I have to,” Papa interrupted. “You know that.”
“Is it because of her?” Momma’s voice softened.
He said nothing.
“She will never leave,” Momma whispered.
“I have to try.” He clasped her cheek as I struggled to hear what he said next. “And it’s not just her I must go back for.”
Her eyes slammed shut. “I know.”
Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Only they matter. You must get them away from her. I—”
“Don’t say that you don’t matter.”
“I’ll be fine,” Papa assured her. My heart started to pound.
She shook her head and kept her voice quiet. “You know what she wants. And if she succeeds in using you, the very realm itself will be in jeopardy.”
I couldn’t hear what either said next, but she finally looked at me. She took a deep breath and smiled, but it looked all wrong to me. “I’m going to check again.”
Papa nodded.
She spun, disappearing back through the doors. My grip tightened on his arm. “Is Momma mad?”
“No, my Poppy-flower.”
I nibbled on my lip, gaze darting back and forth between the shadows. “Are we…not safe?”
“Don’t be scared, baby girl,” he said, drawing my attention back to him. He lifted me into his arms. As tall as he was, I thought I could touch the exposed beams of the ceiling. “I will never let anything happen to you or your brother.”
I knew he wouldn’t. He never would.
Papa carried me over to a wooden bench and sat, placing me on his lap so my feet dangled high above his. “Did I ever tell you how you were named?”
I shook my head.
A faint smile crossed his lips. “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.”
I stared up at him, confused. The Queen had named me.
“And your nickname? Poppy? That’s because of your grandmother, too.
” He laughed then, the sound rough under his breath.
“Well, it’s more so due to my father. I overheard him once comparing my mother’s…
temperament to that of a poppy.” A drier laugh left him then.
“Unsurprisingly, it became her favorite flower.”
“I don’t understand, Papa. How could her temperament be that of a flower?”
“Well, you see, this kind of poppy is not like the ones that grow here,” he shared. “They’re found in the far east.”
“How far in the east?”
“Far, far east, Poppy-flower.”
“Oh.” I played with the strap on his shoulder. “I thought the Queen named me.”
He shifted, and a heavy breath left him as he glanced at the heavy, wooden doors. He grew quiet. A current seemed to run through him, a charge of static like Ian and I got sometimes after rubbing our hands on a carpet to shock each other. It had happened before, often after speaking with the Queen.
“Papa?”
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 wanted to ask why she would lie. I didn’t think she would. But I didn’t ask. Papa didn’t seem to like the Queen anymore.
But he started speaking again, telling me a story about how he and his brother used to play with giant, winged beasts. As he spoke of watching them fly high above, my eyes grew heavy, and I snuggled into Papa.
“He’s here. And he’s not the only one,” I heard Momma say. The sound of her voice roused me, the tone tight and strained. I pried an eye open to see her bending to whisper in Papa’s ear. All I heard was, “…she must’ve sent him.”
Papa muttered a bad word and then let out a long breath. He gently lifted me from his chest. “Stay with your momma, baby.” Papa touched my cheeks. “Stay with her and find your brother. I’ll be back for you soon.”
Momma took my hand and helped me hop down from Papa’s lap. I watched him stand and turn, then followed his gaze. A man stood by the door, staring out from the crack between the two panels.
Papa cradled the back of my head. “Do…you see him?”
The man, whose hair reminded me of the beaches of the Stroud Sea, nodded. “He knows you’re here.”
“He knows she’s here,” Papa said.
“Either way, he’s leading them here,” the man said. “If they get in here…”
“We won’t let that happen,” Papa said, reaching for the hilt of his sword. “They can’t have her. We can’t let that happen.”
“No,” the man agreed softly, looking over his shoulder at me with strange blue eyes. He then tugged the hood of his cloak up. “I won’t.”
“Come, Poppy.” Momma pulled on my hand—
Everything fragmented around me as I cried out, falling into darkness filled with cold, aching whispers.
CASTEEL
“She needs to wake.”
Blocking the doorway to the chamber, I forced myself to remain calm and collected before I did something some would consider most unfortunate.
Like starting a war with the draken.
Because I was this close to ripping Reaver’s fucking throat out.
The only thing stopping me was knowing it would upset Poppy, because, again, for some godsforsaken reason, she was fond of the draken. It sure as fuck couldn’t be because of his personality. Because that was about as sparkling as a piece of half-burnt coal smeared in shit.
Reaver stared at me, the vertical pupils of his eyes contracting and expanding. “And, yeah,” he continued, “I know you don’t like hearing that. Neither does that wolf of yours.”
That wolf? One side of my lips curved. It wasn’t a smile. More like a low snarl. “And yet, you stand here, saying what you know I don’t want to hear. That either makes you an idiot or a fucking idiot.”
The ridges of his scales became more prominent across his bare shoulders. Good. I was pissing him off.
“I’m going to be the mature one in this situation and ignore what you just said.”
I held his gaze. “I applaud you on your maturity.” I paused. “ Reaver-butt. ”