A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash 2)

“That’s my favorite kind.” He dragged his fingers down my throat and over the line of my collarbone. “I really do like these straps.”

“I really don’t care.”

His fingers slipped under it as his hand curved on my shoulder. “You lie so sweetly.”

I ignored that. “Casteel—”

“But not as sweetly as you say my name.”

I let out a little growl. “You are…”

“Marvelous? Charming? Undeniable?”

“Increasingly annoying.”

“But you still haven’t used that dagger at my neck.”

“I’m trying to think of the people who will have to clean up the mess.”

“How thoughtful of you.” He toyed with the strap. “Have I told you that you’re beautiful?”

“What?” The shift in conversation threw me.

“I might have, but I couldn’t remember if I did,” he went on, tugging gently on the strap. “Then I thought that it wasn’t something you could say too often. You’re beautiful, Poppy.”

My stupid, stupid heart skipped. “Is that why you decided to wake me up in the middle of the night?”

“You’re beautiful.” His head tilted, and I gasped at the feel of his lips on the longer scar of my cheek. He kissed that one and then the shorter one, above my eye. “Both halves, and you should never question why anyone would find you utterly, irrevocably, and distractingly beautiful.”

The skipping was back, but I ignored it. “That is a lot of adjectives.”

“I can come up with more.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I advised. “So, now that you’ve told me this, you can get off me.”

He smiled against my cheek. “But you’re comfortable, Princess, and you make me feel…well, you just make me feel.”

What did I make him feel? Lust? Amusement? Entertained? The urge to read him was hard to ignore. “That’s not a reason.”

“That’s the only reason.”

Irritation pricked at my skin even as his breath danced over my lips and his fingers skimmed the outer swell of my breast. “Well, good for you, but I don’t need you to be here.”

“See, that’s the problem.” His voice dropped to a whisper as his hand slid over the silk of the gown. The material was so thin, it served no barrier against the brand of his palm. “You don’t need me.”

“That doesn’t sound like a problem to me.”

“But…” Casteel’s lips glanced off mine, causing my breath to hitch as his hand slipped under the blanket and over my hip. His fingers reached bare skin, and a rush of damp heat pooled. “But you want me.”

Muscles coiled tight in my stomach and then lower as I pressed the sharp edge of the blade to his throat, nicking his skin. “Not now,” I told him.

Undaunted by the knife, he lowered his mouth. And when he spoke, his lips played over mine. “I can sense your arousal, Princess.”

There was no denying that. I could lie all I wanted, but it didn’t change that it took effort not to lift my hips against his, to not think of how he’d felt earlier, thick and hard inside me. But the wound in my chest from what I’d realized was still there, and the memory of how shockingly painful it was to think he’d already been engaged had been a warning I needed to heed before I lost sight of what was important.

“Just because my body wants you, doesn’t mean any other part of me does.”

“Then maybe we should pretend more?” he offered, his fingers drifting closer to where I ached. If he reached that area, I knew I would be lost.

It wasn’t that he had that kind of power. It was that my desire for him did.

“Or maybe we stop pretending,” he said. “I liked that better, to be honest.”

So did I, but what was real to us was different.

Heart thumping, I tilted my head back. My lips touched his as I said, “Since you’ll be home soon, I’m sure there are other beds you could visit that don’t require you to pretend. I’m sure they’re probably numerous. But you could always start with Gianna’s.”

Casteel went still, his hand halting its movements on my inner thigh, and then he lifted his head. “That cannot be a serious statement.”

“Did I sound like I was teasing?”

He rolled off me, and I caught myself before I did something irrational like stop him. I sat up, clutching the dagger as he left the bed so quickly, it was almost like he hadn’t even been there.

A bitter sensation hit my veins, and I closed my eyes. I’d gotten what I wanted—he was no longer in the bed. So why didn’t I feel relief?

“I can’t believe you really said that.”

My eyes flew open in disbelief. “You can’t?”

He was a shadow through the curtains. “Hell no, I can’t.”

I scrambled across the blanket, shoving the panel aside as I nearly toppled out of the bed. A thin line of blood trickled down his neck, even though the wound I’d inflicted had already healed.

Standing, I slammed the dagger onto the nightstand because there was a good chance I would use it. Especially when I turned to him and caught the slow perusal that moved from the tips of my toes all the way up the bare skin of my legs to the fluttery hem and the low neckline of the gown. Heated amber eyes met mine.

I gritted my teeth. “You were promised to another, Casteel.”

“Were you not listening when I made it very clear that it was a promise I never made?”

“I was listening very closely.”

“Apparently, not close enough.” Casteel’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at me. “You know, I’m glad you brought this up. I’d momentarily forgotten that this was something we needed to discuss. You really believed that I was already engaged to someone else, didn’t you?”

“Are you for real?” I choked, hands closing into fists. “Really?”

“Last time I checked, I was real.” He crossed his arms.

“Then why in the hell would you be surprised that I would think something like that? That you wouldn’t tell me? You and your wonderful history of lies and half-truths?”

The heat was gone from his gaze, replaced by a splash of surprise, and then his eyes narrowed again. “Here’s the whole truth, Poppy. Yes, I was expected to marry. I was expected by many, I’m sure. It was something my father had discussed for decades, but he never asked if it was what I wanted. Something you should be familiar with.”

I flinched. I was all too familiar with that. “I thought Atlantians rarely married if they weren’t in love.”

“They don’t. But as I’m sure you remember, my parents reign should’ve already come to an end. It should’ve happened decades ago. My father believed that perhaps if I married, I would stop searching for Malik and do what he thought was right. He knew that I cared for Gianna, that we were close, and thought she would be a good fit.”

Gianna. That name. It sounded rare and exquisite. If this was something discussed for actual decades, then there had to be a history between them, and the sudden hot burst in the back of my throat tasted like an emotion I had no right to claim. “Make a good Princess, you mean?”

“I imagine that she would, but to answer your question, I never really said anything about it because I didn’t want to hurt her or for her to feel as if I were rejecting her,” he said. “She doesn’t need that when it wasn’t like she pursued me on her own.”

But she had pursued him? I managed not to ask that question. “But you never said anything to me about her—about this expectation.”

“Honest to gods, Poppy, I’d forgotten about it until Alastir mentioned the obligations. Far more important things have occupied my mind. And I figured that my father would’ve surely let go of the idea,” he said. “At no point did I ever think that Alastir would bring it up like that. But he’s—” He shook his head. “You can decide not to believe me, but that’s the truth. And even if I had remembered, why would I mention a promise I never made to a woman, to another who I was trying to convince to marry me?”

“Maybe so I would’ve been prepared to hear that?” I nearly shouted. “So I didn’t sit there and think that you were engaged to someone else when you and I—” I cut myself off.

“While you and I did what, Poppy? Kissed. Gave each other pleasure? Had sex? Fucked? Made love?”

I sucked in a shrill breath. “Made love?” I whispered.

“I know that’s not what we were doing,” he said, his eyes flashing a frigid gold. “You wouldn’t think for one second that I was engaged to someone else if that was what we were doing.”

“I don’t understand how that has anything to do with this,” I admitted. “And I also don’t understand why you’re upset.”

“Because I cannot understand how you actually believed I could be engaged to someone else and do the things I’ve done with you.”

“You speak like I know everything about you!” I threw up my arms in frustration. “Just so you know, being able to sense emotions doesn’t tell me everything about a person. Yet you act like I know you. But I hardly do when you pick and choose what you will tell me and when. You only tell me what you want me to know, and I have to piece together what you have shared about yourself to form any opinions. And then I have to decide whether or not you’re lying!”

Casteel stepped forward. “Except for when I needed to feed, I have been nothing but honest with you since you learned who I really was.”

“Even if that is the case, I still don’t know you well enough to know what you would or would not do.”

“Have you even really tried?” he asked.

“I have!”

His brows flew up. “Really? Is that what you’re doing every time it looks like you want to ask something but force yourself to be quiet?”