A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
Page 38
“And here we are,” I murmured.
“Here we are,” he confirmed.
Drawing in a deep breath, I said what needed to be said. “I know you need to feed. I know you’re close to the edge, and you haven’t fed from anyone else.”
“Someone has been talking,” he replied flatly. “And I doubt it was Alastir.”
“Someone needed to. What happens if you don’t feed, other than the black eyes? If you do tip over the edge?” I asked. “You never really explained beyond it being a very bad thing.”
He looked away, dragging his lip between his teeth. “It’s like being…dead inside, worse than an Ascended. We fall into bloodlust, but it’s a violent madness, like that of a Craven. But we don’t decay or rot.” He shook his head. “Once we tip over the edge, we grow stronger with each feeding, but it’s like a disease of the mind because we become nothing more than rabid animals. Very few come back from that.”
I remembered what he said the Ascended did to him—withheld blood until he was ravenous. “Did the Ascended withhold blood from you often?”
“There’d be years when they kept me well fed.” The twist of his lips was a mockery of a smile. “Then they’d give me enough so I didn’t die, and sometimes, that wasn’t enough.”
Years.
Sorrow gripped my heart—for him, for his brother, and any other who was going through that. But mostly for Casteel because he knew exactly what his brother was facing. “But you came back.”
“There were times when I didn’t think I would, Poppy.” He stared into the flames, his voice barely audible. “When I forgot how much time had passed. When I forgot who I was and what mattered to me. It was like parts of my brain had turned dark.” He dragged a hand through his hair and then dropped it to his knee. “But I came back. Not the same. Never the same. But I found parts of who I used to be.”
I swallowed against the knot in my throat. “I’m—”
“Don’t say you’re sorry.” He cut me a sharp look that would’ve stung my feelings before, but I understood it—understood him. Sympathy wasn’t always wanted. “You did nothing you should apologize for.”
“You’re right. I was going to say I’m glad you found yourself.”
A harsh laugh burst from him. “Truly, Poppy? Are you really?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “You may have come back as an asshole, but that’s better than being lost in your own mind. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
The laugh that left him was softer, and it tugged at my lips. “True.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Anyway, I know what it’s like to be close to the edge. I’ve been past it. I’m fine.”
“But you’re not, Casteel.”
His eyes widened slightly as he looked at me.
“What?”
“It’s just that you hardly say my name.”
“Should I call you Your Highness?”
“Gods,” he choked out. “No.”
I did grin a little at that, and he saw it and stared as if I’d just pulled off an amazing feat. I had no idea why a grin from me would do that.
I refocused on the task at hand. “I felt it. I felt your hunger this morning,” I told him. “I know you’re starving, and I know how that feels, at least to some extent. The Duke would forbid me food sometimes when he was angry. You need to feed.”
“First off, knowing that the Duke did that, I want to kill him all over again. But secondly, blood wasn’t the only thing I was starved for this morning.” His eyes were heated honey. “And I think you know that.”
My pulse skittered, and my voice sounded raspier than normal when I said, “If you won’t do that—if you can’t—then you need to take my blood.”
Casteel jerked back as if I’d smacked him. He rose to his feet in the next instant. “Poppy—”
“You can’t continue on this way.” I stood, not nearly as gracefully as he had. “What if you get injured again?”
“I’ll be fine.” He took a step back from me. “I told you. I won’t lose control again.”
“I don’t think you have a choice in that, do you? It’s just a part of who you are. You need Atlantian blood. You haven’t fed from anyone else, so maybe you’ll do it from me. It’s not like you haven’t bitten me before.”
The angles of his face stood out in stark relief. “I haven’t forgotten that.”
“Then this shouldn’t be a big deal. You need blood. I have the blood. Let’s get it over with.”
He laughed, but it was without humor. “Get it over with? As if this will just be another business arrangement?”
I lifted my chin. “If that’s what it needs to be, then it will.”
“So, you’re okay with being that? Being the source of my strength, considering everything that I’ve done to you? Adding this to a long list of things you don’t want to do but feel you need to?”
“Well, when you put it that way…” I threw up my hands in frustration. “Maybe I’d rather be the source of your sanity so I don’t have to worry about you tearing into my neck between now and whenever this is over.”
His chest rose with a deep, shuddering breath as his shoulders bunched with tension.
“Can you really say that it won’t happen again? Look me straight in the face and tell me you truly believe that you’ll be able to stop next time,” I demanded. When his nostrils flared and he said nothing, I knew the truth. And I knew I had to admit another truth, one that I wouldn’t be able to take back. “I felt your hunger, Casteel, and I don’t need to do this. I stopped doing things I didn’t want to do the moment I took off the damn veil. I want to help you. Because as stupid as this may make me, and only the gods know why, I care about you! So, yeah, I don’t want to have my throat ripped open, and I also don’t want to know that you’re suffering for no reason.”
Trembling and stomach twisting, I felt like I’d just stripped myself bare. “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!”
Casteel stared at me, his brows raised, and then, after what felt like an eternity, his shoulders lowered. “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. He lifted his head and seemed to take another breath. “Okay.”
I exhaled slowly. “Okay.”
“On one condition,” he said. “I won’t do this alone. Not after…not after not feeding for so long. I won’t risk that. I…I could take too much. Do you agree?”
At first, the idea of someone else being present made me uncomfortable, but then I remembered how his bite had felt before. Maybe having someone present would curtail that.
So, I nodded. “I agree.”
Chapter 26
My bare feet curled against the wood floor as Kieran looked between Casteel and me, and I really wished I hadn’t learned of the Joining and how it could sometimes become…intimate.
Kieran being here while Casteel fed felt extremely intimate.
Casteel hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes, and I stood in the same spot as when he’d left, as if I’d been glued to the floor. It wasn’t that I had doubts. I just couldn’t believe I’d offered to do this—that not only did I want to do this but that I had also admitted that I cared for him. It felt like my life had once again changed irrevocably in a span of minutes.
“I don’t need to take a lot,” Casteel said to Kieran, who looked like he was about to go to war. Actually, they’d been battling with each other for the last ten minutes or so. Casteel was hesitating, and Kieran was about to throw him at me.
The wolven stood there, arms crossed, and eyes glittering. “You need to take more than a sip or two. You need to feed
like you normally would.”
A muscle throbbed in Casteel’s jaw as he looked over to where I stood. I felt like I needed to say something, to offer reassurance because Casteel actually looked like he was a second from bolting. “Take what you need,” I told him, willing my voice steady.
Casteel stared at me, and for a moment, I saw a glint of incredulity in his gaze, and then his lashes lowered.
My heart thumped painfully against my chest as Casteel opened his eyes.
He took one step and then stopped. His chest rose and fell sharply. “This is your last chance to change your mind. Are you sure about this?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Yes.”
His eyes closed once more, and when they reopened this time, only the thinnest strip of amber was visible. He dipped his chin, and the sharpness of hunger etched deeply into his features. “You know what to do.” His voice was rougher, barely recognizable as he spoke to where Kieran loomed. “If I don’t stop.”
But would Kieran intervene? My heart skipped a beat. A tendril of fear curled itself around the forbidden, wicked swell of anticipation within me.
Kieran moved behind me, and then I felt his fingers along the right side of my neck. I jumped a little, telling myself not to think about the Joining. To not even go there. Because if I did, I would be the one bolting from the room. “I’m just going to monitor your pulse,” he said quietly. “Just to be sure.”
My gaze fixed on Casteel. He reminded me of a caged animal whose cell was about to be unlocked. “Do you normally have to do that when…when he feeds?”
“No.” His fingers were cool against my neck. “But he’s too close to the edge right now.”
Too close to the edge…
Then it was too late for doubts.
Casteel was suddenly before me, the scent of lush spice and pine almost overwhelming. His fingers threaded through my hair, but he didn’t yank, even though I could feel his body vibrating with need.
I didn’t know if I consciously chose to connect with him at the moment or if my gift took control. His hunger immediately reached me, settling in my chest and stomach in a gnawing ache that seemed bottomless. And underneath that, the heaviness of concern.
His cheek grazed mine as he eased my head back and to the side. “There will only be a heartbeat of pain.” His breath was warm on my throat, his voice ragged. “I swear.”
Then he struck.
Fiery pain stole my breath, and my body jerked, interrupting the connection I’d forged with him. Instinct drove me to take a step back, but I bumped into Kieran. His hand landed on my shoulder, holding me there, and then Casteel’s arm swept around my waist. The pain flared brighter, stunning me, and then…
The heartbeat came and went.
Casteel’s mouth tugged at my skin, and I felt that staggering pull in every part of my body. The pain flashed out as quickly as it had overtaken me. All that was left, all that existed in the world was the feel of his mouth at my throat, the deep, long draws of my blood leaving me and filling him. My eyes had been open, fixed on the dull white plaster of the ceiling, but now they drifted shut as my lips parted. He drank from me, the fingers in my hair curling. His mouth lifted—
“That’s not enough,” Kieran said. “That’s nowhere near enough, Cas.”
Casteel’s forehead pressed to my shoulder as the hand against my back fisted the material of my robe.
The connection thrummed intensely, and I could still feel his hunger. It had eased a bit, but it was still acute. Kieran was right. He hadn’t taken enough.
Tentatively, I lifted my hands and touched his arms. Not his bare skin. I didn’t know if easing his pain would cause him to stop or not. “I’m okay.” My voice sounded breathless as if I had run circles around the fortress. “You need more. Take it.”
“She speaks the truth.” Kieran placed his hand above mine, squeezing Casteel’s arm. “Feed.”
Casteel shuddered, and then he lifted his head slightly. His lips grazed my jaw, and then the line of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine as I bit down on the inside of my cheek. His lips pressed to the skin above the bite, a whisper of a kiss that startled me, and then his mouth closed over the tingling skin once more.
Every part of my body seemed to focus on where his mouth was fastened to my throat. Thoughts scattered as an ache blossomed to life low in my stomach and between my thighs. I tried to remember that Kieran was there, monitoring my pulse, and what we were doing was almost like…like a life-saving procedure, but I couldn’t hold onto any of those thoughts. With each pull against my skin, each tug that seemed to reach all the way to my toes, that throb pulsed, and the ache grew and grew, heating my blood and my skin.
I needed to think about anything but what it felt to have Casteel at my neck, his lips moving, the muscles of his arms bunching under my palms. But it was no use, and—oh, gods—the connection to him, it was still open. There was hunger, yes, but there was also more. A spicy, smoky flavor filled the back of my throat. The taste, the feeling, was heady and overwhelmed my senses. My body jerked with a pounding flood of desire that weakened my legs. I didn’t know how I was still standing or if Casteel or Kieran held me up. Each breath I took seemed too shallow as the ache moved to my breasts. Tension coiled tightly inside me, to the point of near anguish—a razor-sharp type of pleasure that left its own version of scars.
A sound came from Casteel, a throaty rumble. And then he moved suddenly, tugging deeply at my throat as he pressed into me—pressed me back against Kieran with unexpected strength. The wolven hit the wall behind us with a grunt as Casteel trapped us both. His mouth moved against my neck as his hips jerked against my belly—
Oh, gods.
I could feel him against me. I could feel him inside me—his desire and mine, churning and twisted together. A dull roaring sound filled my ears, and I was suddenly drowning in a torrent of sensations that came at me in endless waves. Trepidation and concern over what was happening while we weren’t alone, with Kieran there, lodged behind us, fully aware of what was occurring. Shame over the rush of slick dampness Casteel answered with a grind of his hips as his hands dropped to my waist. Desire that somehow merged with something deeper, something irrevocable, and disbelief as I curled my arm around his neck, as I held him, wanting to drown in this fire. Until I realized I already was.
I didn’t know at what point things had spun so out of control. When the way he held me, the way he pressed against me was no longer about quenching his thirst and more about assuaging a different hunger. I didn’t know exactly when I lost the fight against my body. I didn’t know when I’d stopped thinking about the fact that it wasn’t just Casteel’s body that touched mine, it wasn’t his chest that my head fell back against.
Was it the bite? Was it the need and the want that had been stroked to life the night at the Red Pearl that had never gone away, becoming the fire in my blood that simmered any time I was close to Casteel? Was it something reckless and wicked inside me, in the core of who I was, that allowed me to let go and to forget…everything? Or was it all of those things combined? I didn’t know—I didn’t know anything when Casteel’s hands trembled as they slid down my thigh, over the robe. He lifted me onto the tips of my toes, and then higher, drawing one leg around his waist. The lower half of the robe parted and the upper part slipped off my left shoulder. When his hardness pressed against the softest part of me, all I knew was that I had become the flames in my blood, something utterly unfamiliar to me, something daring and shameless. I was the fire, and Casteel was the air that fed it.
Casteel’s hips sank into mine, and my body answered without conscious thought, churning against him as he fed and fed. The tension coiled tighter. In the back of my mind, I didn’t know if it was the bite or the feel of him between my thighs that was quickly driving me precariously close to the edge.
“That’s enough,” Kieran said. His voice should’ve been a shock, but it was only a source of frustration. “That’s enough, Casteel.”
“Thank you,” he said roughly.
“You’re okay?” Kieran asked, and I felt Casteel nod. “Penellaphe?”
My tongue felt heavy, but I managed to work out a muffled, “Yes.”
“Good.” The air stirred around us as Kieran brushed past. The door creaked open, and cool wind teased the bare parts of my skin, but it did nothing to stifle the heat.
“Thank you,” Casteel said again to Kieran, and then the door closed. His head turned to mine. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I said nothing as I held him, caught in a storm of…desire. Casteel moved, bending and lowering me to the bed. The back of my head rested on the pillow as his hands slid out from underneath me. I felt the bed dip with his weight as he sat beside me, and I opened my eyes.
Casteel was close, his hands on either side of my head as he hovered over me. I could see that the robe had slipped even farther, revealing the upper swell of my breast. The tips of my breasts tented the thin material of the soft robe. And lower, one entire leg was visible, all the way to the crease of my thigh and hip. I should fix the robe, cover myself. I should be embarrassed, but I didn’t move my hands. It wasn’t that I couldn’t. I simply didn’t as I shifted my gaze to his.