CHAPTER 12 #2
“I…I would prefer that, too,” I whispered.
Not even I sounded like that when I tapped into the more destructive side of my powers.
And apparently, I didn’t possess that much common sense.
Not only was I not stepping back, but I was actually feeling something wholly inappropriate in response to that voice, the way he looked, and the power radiating off him. And that reaction was not forced .
There was something very, very wrong with me.
Casteel lifted his hands to cradle my face. His touch was cold, but it elicited a hot, needy rush of desire in me. “Kolis is no longer with you.”
“Okay,” I breathed.
“We severed the connection.” His head lowered. When he spoke again, his lips brushed mine. “I can smell your desire. Sweet and smoky. I can taste it.”
I couldn’t even try to deny that I was turned on. The ache between my thighs wouldn’t allow it.
“I am curious as to how this conversation is arousing you.”
“It’s not the conversation,” I told him, ignoring the desire to lean into him. “It’s you.”
His nose glided across mine as his fingers trailed down the sides of my neck. “Of course, it’s me.”
I started to frown.
“But that doesn’t answer my question.”
What was his question? Oh. Right. Why was I aroused right now? “I can see the essence in you and hear it in your voice.”
His hands halted at the base of my throat. “And that has made you wet?”
My eyes widened, heat flaring in my cheeks.
Cas chuckled, and…my gods, even that sounded dark and smoky. “Naughty,” he murmured, the skin of his hands warming. “We need to finish this conversation.” He caught my lower lip between his, and the ache pulsed. “So, behave yourself.”
I blinked.
Cas lifted his head. A smirk played across his lips as the shadows faded from his face. “Are you able to behave yourself?”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure I’ll knock you through a wall if you tell me to behave myself one more time.”
His laugh was lighter and warmer, sounding more like the Cas I knew.
Smoothing my hands over my stomach, I refocused on the extremely important topic. “How was the connection severed?”
“I asked Reaver to return to Iliseeum to see if anyone knew of a way.” He went to the table and turned over two slender glasses. “Luckily, he found someone.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach. “The gods are awake.”
Picking up the decanter, he looked over his shoulder at me. An eyebrow rose.
“I didn’t forget that,” I explained. “Okay. I temporarily forgot it.”
“Understandable.” He turned his attention back to the table.
“Which god helped?”
“It wasn’t a god.” Cas poured some deep-red liquid into the glasses. “It was a Primal.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. “Really?”
“Really. And if you thought that was surprising, just wait.” Placing the decanter down, he turned with the glasses in hand and offered me one. “This Primal god is clearly an ancestor of mine.”
I tensed. “Come again?”
“Yep.” He raised the glass. “Wine?”
I took it from him. “You’re descended from a Primal god?”
“You only have to take one look at him to know.” He lifted his glass to his lips. “Looks so much like Malik and our father that it was eerie as fuck.”
“Wow.” I didn’t know why that shocked me—or why it seemed…important.
“Apparently, you’re not the only one with an interesting bloodline,” he remarked.
“No doubt.” I took a sip of what turned out to be some sort of mulled wine. I shook off the weird feeling. “What’s his name?”
“Attes.”
“Attes?” I repeated, my stomach dipping weirdly. “I…I don’t know of a Primal god with that name.”
“Neither did Kieran or I. But he knows Kolis. Not a fan.” He watched me over the rim of his glass. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, unsure why I felt so odd.
As Cas explained how the mark had been removed, I was actually grateful that I had no memory of the event. However, I was stunned that the Primal would put himself through something like that. “He used his own hand to weaken the power of Nektas’s blood?”
Cas nodded.
“Why? Why would he do that for someone he doesn’t know?” I asked, but the words I spoke didn’t sit right with me.
“I don’t know.” Cas dropped into the wingback chair. “But I imagine he knows your grandparents.”
I jerked, nearly spilling the wine. “Grandparents,” I whispered. “It’s so weird to think of the true Primal of Life and a Primal of Death as my grandparents.” I took a rather large, unladylike gulp of the wine. “How badly was he hurt?”
“You really do not want a description of that.” He leaned back, resting the hand holding his glass on the arm of the chair. “But don’t worry. He said he would heal.”
A tiny, sick part of me wanted the description, but I managed to ignore it. Instead, I moved on to something equally disturbing. “Where was I marked?”
His hand tightened around his glass. His anger rose sharply, lashing like frozen rain against my skin. “Come sit with me.”
Alarm bells rang. “I don’t know if I should.” I held his stare. “Tell me.”
A muscle thrummed along his jaw. “Your chest.”
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“It was here.” He placed his hand in the center of his chest.
Blood pounded in my ears as I stood there. I’d been doing so well with everything I was being told. I had listened. I was processing, remaining levelheaded, even as I realized Kolis had stripped me of my free will.
But I wasn’t calm. I wasn’t really processing anything.
I was just numb . And it took hearing that he’d touched me there for me to realize that.
Disgust coated my skin, and I wanted nothing more than to take a wire brush to it.
It didn’t matter that it had happened on some sort of metaphysical level.
He’d touched me. He’d used me. A knot lodged in the back of my throat and my eyes stung. My skin prickled.
I wouldn’t cry, godsdamn it.
It didn’t matter if they were tears of anger. I would not shed a fucking tear. It had nothing to do with it being a vulnerability or a weakness. Crying felt like…acknowledgment. Like I was giving shape and form to what Kolis had done, making it real. And I couldn’t allow it to feel real.
Casteel leaned forward, his eyes never leaving me as he placed his glass on the floor by the chair.
A faint tremor coursed through me—through the chamber.
“Shit,” he growled, coming to his feet. “This is why I wanted you to sit with me.”
“I’m fine,” I heard myself say.
“I don’t think you are.”
“I am.” The center of my chest throbbed. “Because I’m going to kill him.”
A surge of energy coursed down my arm, followed by a sharp crack. The delicate glass in my hand and the wine inside shattered into dust. The distinct smell of burnt ozone filled the air as I stared at my empty hand. The eather ramped up—
“Sweetheart.”
The sound of Cas’s voice immediately quelled the wave of volatile rage, easing the knot that had fisted the center of my chest. The hum of eather dissipated as my gaze lifted to him.
“That was impressive,” he remarked.
I turned my hand over, not even a single drop of wine or shard of glass to be seen. It was as if neither had existed. “More like a little scary.”
“Impressive,” he repeated, taking the hand that had just obliterated some very real objects from existence without a hint of trepidation.
Without saying a word, he returned to the chair and sat, pulling me onto his lap. Folding an arm around me, he tucked my head under his chin.
“Why?” I whispered. I hated how small my voice sounded. Loathed it. “Why did he try to take control of me?”
“I don’t know. All he said was that he wanted what was his and seems to believe you are a part of achieving that.” His chest rose with a deep breath.
“You know,” he said softly after several moments, drawing his hand up my back and under the braid, “it’s okay to not be fine.”
I squeezed my eyes shut against the sting that had now become a burn.
“I don’t think many people would be okay in your situation,” he continued, kissing the crown of my head. “I wouldn’t be.”
My lips quivered as I pressed them together.
“I wasn’t after I escaped captivity.” His fingers brushed the base of my neck. “I know what it’s like to have no autonomy.”
“This whole thing with Kolis is nothing compared to what you went through,” I told him. “I’m just being…I don’t know. Overly emotional.”
“You’re not being overly emotional, Poppy, and we’re not going to play the whose-trauma-is-more-significant game.
” He gently squeezed the back of my neck.
“But you’ve spent your entire life fighting against those who sought to control you in one way or another.
What Kolis did?” His fingers slipped back down my spine.
“Yeah, it was extreme, but it’s not the first time you’ve had to fight against someone exerting their influence over you. ”
Gods, he was right.
The Priestesses. The Teermans. Duke Teerman. Alastir. Commander Jansen. My mother. Even Casteel, in the beginning.
“You can talk to me.” Cas curled his fingers around my braid. “If you need to, whenever you want.”
I pressed a kiss to his chest. “I know.”
“Do you?”
My heart stuttered at the strain in his voice—at what I thought I heard in those two words. I lifted my head to look at him. My senses stretched out, but it felt like I was brushing against the stone wall of the Rise. He was shielding his emotions, but I heard it in his voice.
Doubt, sharp and cutting.
My stomach twisted with unease. “I do know that.” I touched his cheek. “Do you think I don’t?”
His jaw muscles flexed against my palm, and my stomach twisted even further as the seconds ticked by.
“Cas,” I whispered, running my fingers over his stubble. “Do you—?” A sudden and intense, red-hot echo of pain flared deep within my chest—pain that wasn’t mine.
Casteel immediately moved, grasping my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” The ache thumped right beside my heart, stirring the essence. “I can feel—” I tore myself away from Casteel, stumbling to my feet as pain jabbed at my skin like a thousand burning needles.