Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
But someone else had taken control of my body and thoughts, and—
I turned away from Casteel as I closed my eyes. The essence hummed through my veins, causing my fingers to tingle. I forced those thoughts to cease because I couldn’t let myself go there right now. If I did, I didn’t know what I would do.
Needing something to do with my hands, I gathered my hair and re-braided it as I faced him. “What did he make me do? When I summoned the eather.”
“When he summoned the eather,” he corrected, bending to pick up the robe. “Nothing.”
I stepped back. “Nothing?”
His stare was unwavering. “You stopped him from using it to truly hurt anyone.”
My gaze sharpened on him as I tugged the tie from my wrist and secured the end of the braid. “But I did, didn’t I?”
“He did,” Casteel corrected again and then cursed. “Honestly, I don’t know if those times were him, and you prevented him from doing real damage. Or if it was you, using it to keep us safe. But…” He ran his teeth over his lower lip. “You used the eather to push me away from you more than once.”
Okay. That wasn’t bad.
“And while you did use it to throw Reaver against a wall, it was because he and I were fighting,” he quickly added, laying the robe beside him. “Reaver sensed Kolis and tried”—his golden eyes hardened—“and failed to give aid.”
“I threw him against…?” I turned to look at the wall beside the bathing chamber. “That?” I pointed at the fractures. “Was him?”
His gaze flicked to the wall. “Possibly.”
Forcing myself to breathe again, I lowered my hand to my side. “What else?”
“You also tried to escape and managed to get out of the chamber,” he said, running his fingers over the golden chain around his neck. “You were trying to keep us safe, and you might have hit Reaver.”
“I hit Reaver?” I waited for him to elaborate, but all he did was nod, which told me it hadn’t been with my fists. My stomach twisted. “With eather?”
“He was fine.”
My fingers pressed into the soft material of the gown.
“He’s a draken.” Casteel dropped his hand to his leg. “It takes more than a random bolt of eather to hurt a draken.”
Did it? I wouldn’t know because I hadn’t seen a draken take a hit of eather. I’d seen them be struck by lightning—
But that hadn’t been normal lightning, had it? An odd sense of knowing told me that Vessa had managed to harness eather.
“Reaver is fine,” Casteel repeated, snapping me from my thoughts.
That might be true, but it didn’t undo the fact that I hurt him. “What happened after I tried to escape?”
Tension crept into his body, and he lowered his gaze. “We moved you to one of the cells beneath Wayfair,” he said as more of the muslin wrinkled in my grip. “I didn’t want to do it.” Thick lashes lifted, and his eyes locked with mine. When he spoke again, his voice had thinned and roughened. “I fucking hated putting you in a cell—”
“You had to,” I interrupted, knowing he was thinking of New Haven and what had happened there. “I’m glad you did.”
Casteel stared at me for a moment and then let out a hoarse laugh. “Kieran…” He shook his head. “He said you’d understand.”
“He was right.” I took a step toward him. “I don’t want you to feel guilty about something I don’t even remember.”
He leaned toward me, resting his arms on his legs. “But I remember.”
My heart squeezed. “You did what you had to—” A faint, fragmented image or memory formed. Me running. Being grabbed from behind and spun around to see vivid, wintery eyes. Was this when I had tried to escape? I thought so.
“Poppy?” Concern filled Casteel’s voice.
Swallowing, I glanced at the chamber door for the dozenth time. “Did I hurt Kieran?”
“You punched him when you were trying to keep us away from you. That is all.”
I cringed. That wasn’t as bad as hitting Reaver with the essence. “What…?” A tremor ran through me. “What about you?”
“I already told you. You pushed me away and made sure I didn’t get too close.”
I wanted to believe that. Gods, I needed to believe that I hadn’t hurt him. “How did he forge such a connection with me?”
Casteel sighed. “He marked you.”
I flashed cold, then hot. “What?”
“With the symbol of Death,” he said. “From what I understand, he was able to reach you while in stasis, and that was how it happened.”
I didn’t understand how that was possible. How he could forge some sort of demented bond and mark me without me even knowing—
The floor felt like it moved beneath me. “That voice.”
Every part of Casteel tensed. “What voice?”
“I…I heard a voice while I was in the nothingness.” I moved, unable to stand still. “It was like a whisper.”