A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire(17)

My mouth dropped open.

“And my willingness to comply extends to my hands, my fingers, and my cock—”

“Oh, my gods,” I cut him off. “You don’t have to worry about that. I will never request your…your services.”

“Services?” He tipped his head toward me. “That sounds so dirty.”

I ignored that comment. “You and I are never going to do anything like what we did before.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Would you say it would be…impossible?”

“Yes. It’s definitely impossible.”

Hawke smiled then, and it was Hawke’s smile. Dimples appeared in both cheeks, and I hated the catch I felt in my chest upon seeing them. Loathed that it made me see him as Hawke. “But didn’t you just say nothing was impossible?” he all but purred.

I stared down at him, at an absolute loss for words. “I want to stab you in the heart right now.”

“I’m sure you do,” he replied, closing his eyes.

“Whatever,” I muttered, accepting that I would have to deal with him. At least for the night or until I figured out how to escape. I scooted back, shoving my legs under the blanket. I threw myself down with enough force that it shook the bed.

“You okay over there? Sounds like you could’ve hurt yourself.”

“Shut up.”

He laughed.

With my back to him, I stared at the knife. The blade was bent. I sighed. A moment later, there was a click, and the room darkened. He’d turned off the oil lamp by his side of the bed.

His side of the bed?

We didn’t have sides.

I tugged the blanket to my chin as I shifted my focus to the fireplace. My mind wandered back to something that shouldn’t matter but did.

“Why did you tell me?” I whispered, not even sure if he was still awake or why I was asking. He’d already answered. “Why did you have to tell me that Hawke was your middle name?”

The fire crackled, spitting sparks, and I closed my eyes.

Seconds, maybe minutes later, Casteel said, “Because you needed to know that not everything was a lie.”





Chapter 7





With all the stress and trauma of the last several days, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the past found me in my sleep. Still, it was a shock to the senses.

Blood was everywhere. Splattered against the walls, running down them in thin rivulets, and pooling along the dusty wooden floor—under the lumps on the floor, misshapen and not right. The air was thick with the scent of metal. A smear of blue in the lamplight caught my gaze. A shirt. Hadn’t the funny man who’d served our food that evening been wearing a blue shirt? Mr. La…Lacost? He told us stories about the family of mice that lived in the barn out back, who’d made friends with the kitties. I’d wanted to see them, but Papa had taken us back to our rooms. He hadn’t been smiling or laughing at dinner. He hadn’t since we left. He’d sat at the table, his gaze darting to the window in between every quick bite of food.

But Mr. Lacost’s chest and stomach looked strange to me as I stood there, trembling. No longer round, it was sunken, jagged—

“Don’t look, Poppy. Don’t look over there,” came Momma’s hushed voice as she pulled on my hand. “We must hide. Hurry.”

She pulled me down the narrow hallway, her hand wet against mine. “I want Papa—”

“Shh. We must be quiet.” Her voice shook, sounding too thin. The arms of her dress were torn, the pale pink streaked with crimson. Momma was hurt, and I didn’t know what to do. “We must be quiet so Papa can come and find us.”

I didn’t understand how being quiet would help Papa come to us. It was dark in the room we entered, and the sounds, the ragged breaths and moans, the continuous shouts and cries were loud. Papa had gone outside when they came, went out there with the strange man who’d seemed to know him. I wanted my papa. I wanted Ian, but he had left with the woman who smelled like sugar and vanilla—

A shrill sound pierced the darkness. Momma tugged hard on my hand, yanking me down to where she crouched. She opened a large cupboard behind me as someone screamed. Pots clattered off the floor as Momma tore them from inside the closet.

“Get in, Poppy. I need you to get in and be very quiet, okay? I need you to be as silent as a mouse, no matter what. Do you understand?”

Looking behind me at the small hole of darkness, I shook my head. Momma wouldn’t fit in there. “I wanna stay with you.”

“I’ll be right here.” Her hands touched my cheek. Her skin was damp as she turned my head towards her. “I need you to be a big girl and listen to me. You have to hide—”

The high-pitched howl came again, and I clamored for her, clutching at her sides. My fingers dug into the sticky waist of her dress. “You have to let go, baby. You need to hide, Poppy.”

I held tighter, feeling wet warmth coursing down the sides of my face.

Momma jerked at the sound of something—a voice. Someone spoke, but my heart pounded too loudly in my ears for me to hear. It sounded like a rushing fall of water, and the nightmare sounds were louder, closer. Then, there was a voice again. And Momma, her hands were wetter, stickier…

Someone knocked a lamp over somewhere. Glass shattered. Momma yelled as her arms folded around me, the words mushed together, making little sense except for one—

Screams. Someone was shrieking. Momma? She was torn from me, her hands sliding down my arms, her fingers catching mine and then slipping. A body crashed into us—me—and I tottered to the side, losing my hold of Momma. Fiery pain sliced across my face, stunning me. I fell back. Hands grabbed at me. Hands that were too heavy. Hands that hurt. I screamed—

There was a voice again, somewhere in the darkness, living under the screams.

What a pretty little flower.

What a pretty poppy.

Pick it and watch it bleed.

Not so pretty any longer…

Poppy.





I jerked awake, a scream ringing in my ears, burning my throat as I gasped for air, struggling to move but unable. My arms were trapped against my sides, my legs tangled in thick warmth. My eyes peeled open, and it took a moment for my surroundings to make sense. I focused on the steady thumping under my cheek as I slowly dug out the thorns of panic and fear.

Faint gray light seeped in through the narrow window across from the bed. I wasn’t at the inn, being ripped and torn into. I was in the keep, in bed, with a warm, hard chest against my cheek, a hand that continuously smoothed over my hair, a voice that whispered my name over and over, telling me it was okay, promising me that it was safe. I was nestled in his lap, held tightly to his chest as if he tried to keep the tremors at bay with his hold alone.

Casteel.

Reality came back to me in pieces as the disorientation from the nightmare eased, and I began to realize that he was slowly rocking us.

I knew I needed to pull away, should put some distance between us, but something about his embrace was grounding. Something that felt inexplicably right in the aftermath of the blood and terror. Maybe it was because I often woke alone after the nightmares, shaken and terrified, especially after Ian left for the capital. And even with my screams often waking Tawny, I never allowed such…comfort. I’d always been too embarrassed to seek it from my lady’s maid. But there wasn’t another option now, and it was the first time I’d ever been relieved to have the choice taken from me. I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of Casteel’s body soak into mine.

A hint of shame sifted through me even though he’d known about the nightmares. Vikter had warned him about them, and I knew that Vikter had done so not for Casteel’s benefit but mine. Sorrow tightened my chest. I missed Vikter, missed him so badly, and waking from these blood-soaked nightmares, the loss was raw.

But embarrassment also warmed my skin. How incredibly silly Casteel must think me to be suffering nightmares so many years later. I started to pull away. “I’m sorry,” I said, wincing at the hoarseness of my voice. Only the gods know what kind of sounds I must’ve made to scratch my throat so raw. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“When I was younger and I left Atlantia for the first time, I saw a Craven outside a small village. I’d never seen anything scarier in my entire life. I didn’t think there could be anything worse out there.” Casteel’s arms tightened around me. “Having been in its state for quite some time, it looked like a walking corpse. It was far more terrifying than anything my imagination could’ve created when I was a child. And hearing the way it wailed? I swore it would haunt my sleep, and it did. For weeks, even far away from any Craven, I woke in the middle of the night, swearing I heard it screaming.”

The tremors were subsiding as he curved his hand around the back of my head. “But then I was captured. And the worst part? It was my fault. I was still young and foolish. I thought I could solve everything by taking out King Jalara and Queen Ileana myself. I truly believed I could do it. I got close—near enough to make my move. Obviously, I failed. And then I learned what true terror was. You asked me earlier what they did to me. They refused me blood, kept me on the edge, giving me just enough to survive—sometimes barely, but the constant low supply affected my ability to heal.”