A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire(13)

I folded my arms across my chest.

“Although, not nearly proper enough for your barely ex-Maiden eyes,” he continued. This time I spun toward the bathing chamber. All I could see was the back of his head and the breadth of his shoulders, which was more than enough. “But I imagine your issue has nothing to do with what is proper or expected of you, is it? You’ve never been one to follow the rules.”

I shook my head even though he couldn’t see as he reached for the soap, lathering the bar between his hands. He was right. I didn’t care about what was proper or expected, and that was long before he swept into my life like a fierce storm. But there was no way he was staying in this room with me. Tearing my gaze from him, I turned—

“Go for the knife.” Casteel’s voice stopped me.

My head snapped back in his direction as water splashed. How had he known?

“That’s what you want, right? If it makes you feel safer, I don’t have a problem with it.” He splashed his face. Water ran down his neck and over the delineated lines of his shoulders. “Take it, Poppy.”

My mouth dried. “You’re not afraid I’ll use it against you while you take your time bathing?”

“I’m counting on you to use it again. If you didn’t, I’d be shocked. That’s why I didn’t bring my swords into the room. Figured you’d probably grab one of them.”

I would if they were near. My hands opened and closed at my sides. He was offering me some level of protection, a sense of safety, and to some, that would be seen as a positive. Not to me. It was kind of offensive and pointless. He and I both knew the knife would only make him bleed temporarily.

I still hurried over to where the knife lay and picked it up, my rising irritation halting when I saw the blood on the blade. His blood. My stomach twisted as I rose.

“Do you want to know about the land of hot water that awaits with just the turn of a knob?” he asked amidst the trickling of water.

Yes, I did, even though I wasn’t sure I believed that such a thing existed. Yet I said nothing as I picked up the towel I’d used earlier. I wiped the knife clean.

“It’s broilers and pipes,” he went ahead and explained. “The piping runs from the broilers that are usually in a room off the kitchen. From there, they carry the hot water to wherever it’s needed.”

Reluctantly, my interest had been piqued and was now stroked. “What do you mean by broilers?”

“They’re like…large ovens where combustible material heats a storage tank of water.” He rose without warning, and all that water sluicing down the gleaming skin of his back, between—

Heart pounding, I whirled away from the bathing chamber. A handful of seconds passed, and I looked over my shoulder just as he walked out of the smaller room, a towel tucked around his waist. He was… I had no words to describe his level of indecency. Or maybe I had too many words in my head—

Casteel smiled at me as he strode across the room, opening a narrow cabinet in the wall that I hadn’t investigated. He pulled out what appeared to be black pants. “Electricity aids the broilers, and yes, in Atlantia, all homes and businesses, no matter who resides inside them, have power.”

Fixing my gaze on the fire, I thought about what he’d said. If only what he claimed was true. That would probably be the first of many things that set the kingdom apart from the one I’d grown up in. Only the extremely wealthy or the well-connected had access to electricity in Solis. “How is that possible?”

“It may be a finite source here, but it doesn’t need to be that way. The Ascended make it that way,” he said, and a quick glance told me that he’d ditched the towel in favor of the pants he’d retrieved. They were looser than breeches, hanging indecently low on his hips, held up by some sort of drawstring that seemed to defy gravity. He gathered up our clothing, placing it all in a laundry hamper that he then placed outside the door. Closing the door, he said, “A crucial part of their all-encompassing control is creating a rift between mortals who have and mortals who have not.”

He sat in the chair in the corner and leaned back, propping one ankle on top of his knee. In just those strange, loose pants, I’d never seen a more arrogantly at-ease male. His fingers slowly tapped the arm of the chair. “So, those who barely have enough to survive, turn their anger towards those who have more than they could ever need. And never towards the Ascended.”

I couldn’t exactly argue that point. The rift in Masadonia was clear and as wide as it was in the capital. While Radiant Row, where some Ascended and the wealthy lived, was only a few blocks long, it was an entire city within Carsodonia. And everything else was like the homes near the Rise in Masadonia, squat and stacked upon one another.

“But Atlantia is ruled differently?” I challenged, holding the knife against my chest.

“It is.”

I thought of what Landell had said. “Sounded to me like there are problems in Atlantia.”

His fingers stilled. “There are problems everywhere, Poppy.”

“And what kind of problems is Atlantia having with limited space and useless land?”

His head tilted to the side. “Atlantia was once this entire landmass from the Stroud Sea to far beyond the Skotos Mountains. My people built cities and cultivated the lands that the Ascended now rule over. When my people retreated at the end of the War of Two Kings, they lost all of that land. We are simply running out of space now.”

“And what happens if you run out of space?”

“I won’t allow that to happen,” he replied, straightening his head. “I thought you’d be asleep when I came back. You’ve probably had a far more tiring day than most of us.”

“I was sleeping, but…” My gaze dropped to his chest, to the tightly coiled muscles of his stomach. The glow from the fireplace left very little to the imagination.

“I woke you? I’m sorry about that,” he said, and the apology sounded genuine enough. “There’s a lot we need to talk about, Poppy.”

“There is.” Namely, the whole marriage nonsense. “But talking doesn’t require you to be shirtless.”

“Talking doesn’t require any clothes at all.” That smoky grin of his returned. “I can promise you that some of the most interesting conversations take place with no clothes to speak of.”

Heat blasted my cheeks. “I’m sure you’ve had a ton of experience with those types of conversations.”

“Jealous?” Propping his elbow on the arm of the chair, he rested his chin in his palm.

“Hardly.”

The grin increased, and even though I couldn’t see the dimple beyond the fingers splayed across his jaw and cheek, I knew it had to be there. “Then…distracted?”

“No,” I lied, and then lied some more. “Not even remotely.”

“Ah, I understand. You’re dazzled.”

“Dazzled?” A surprised laugh almost broke free. And there it was again, the slight widening of his eyes, the parting of his lips, and the absence of arrogance. It was like watching him slip off a mask, but I had no idea if what was revealed was just another mask, especially when the look disappeared as his features became unreadable again.

I exhaled slowly. “We don’t need to talk about your over-inflated ego. That has been long since established. We need to talk about this whole marriage stuff. There is no way I’m—”

“We do need to talk about that, about our future. But not right now. It’s late. I’m tired. And if I’m tired, you have to be exhausted,” he said, and my eyes narrowed. “That’s the kind of conversation we both need to be fully energized for.”

“That conversation will take just enough time for me to say I’m not marrying you. Therefore, there is no future to speak of. Now the conversation is over and done with. See how simple that was?”

“But it’s not that simple,” he replied softly. “Why did you run tonight?”

Frustration began to burn a hole through me. “Could it possibly be because you’re trying to force me to marry you? Did that never cross your mind?”

“Possibly.” There was a stretch of silence as he stared at me. “Do you know why I chose the name Hawke?”

My heart kicked at my chest at the unexpected change of subject. “I figured it was a name that belonged to whatever poor soul you most likely killed.”

He laughed, but there was no humor. Suddenly, I realized that his laughs, like his expressions and even his smiles, were also like masks—each representing a different Casteel, a different truth or falsehood. “There was no poor soul who owned that name. Or at least not that I’m aware of. If there is or was, that would be a pure coincidence. But I chose Hawke for a reason.”

I wanted to tell him that I didn’t care, but I did. Oh gods, I wanted to know.

He lowered his hand. “In Atlantia, it is tradition to be given a second name, a middle one, so to speak. It's given in honor of a cherished family member or friend, usually picked by the mother, and it is a well-guarded secret only shared outside of the family with the closest of friends and with those who hold a special place in one’s life. My mother chose my middle name in honor of her brother. His name was Hawkethrone. My full name is Casteel Hawkethrone Da’Neer. When I was a small child, my mother took to calling me an abbreviated form of that name. And so did my brother. They, and only they had ever known me as Hawke,” he said. “Until you.”