A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire(64)

Unable to look away, I was snared by how peaceful Casteel appeared while asleep, how young and vulnerable. Seeing him like this, I never would’ve guessed that he was over two hundred years old or that he was capable of such feral, deadly action.

My gaze drifted over his features, settling on his full mouth. I should’ve known the first time I saw him that he wasn’t mortal. No one looked like him. At least no one from the Kingdom of Solis, including even the most beautiful Ascended. Why had he wanted me? Why did he still want me? But the night he’d help replace the panic and fear from the nightmare with something good, something wanted, he hadn’t sought any pleasure for himself. Did that mean he didn’t want that…from me any longer?

Those questions didn’t come from the niggle of insecurity that I did everything to keep hidden, but simply from pure logic. I knew what half of me looked like. I knew how people saw the other half. Many wouldn’t consider me undeniably attractive even though I had heard people claim that attraction didn’t always stem from the physical. But I wasn’t sure if that was true. It wasn’t like I had a lot of experience with such things. Queen Ileana had once told me that beauty was more than straight, smooth lines as she showed me the Star, a diamond highly coveted throughout the Kingdom for its rarity and luminous, silver appearance.

“The most beautiful things in all the kingdom often have jagged and uneven lines, scars which intensify the beauty in intricate ways our eyes nor our minds can detect or even begin to understand,” the Queen had said as she turned the diamond in her hand, light catching on its irregular dips and peaks. “Without them, they would just be common and ordinary, like all the other smoothly cut diamonds you can find anywhere you look. Beauty, my sweet child, is often broken and barbed, and always unexpected."

I wasn’t sure if what she said held true for people. It didn’t seem that way, because Casteel was all smooth, straight lines, and he was magnificent.

Why he wanted me or how he could when there were others with equally smooth, straight lines didn’t matter. What did was the fact that I was staring at him while he slept, and that was borderline creepy.

Tugging my gaze away, I bit down on my lip as I decided that this would very much be like ripping a bandage from a wound. I would need to just move. Do it fast and well, and hope that he didn’t wake until I fixed the stupid robe or before he realized I was sleeping on him. I started to pull away—

Without any warning, Casteel moved. There was no time to even respond. He was shockingly fast as he rolled me under him, a hand curled around my throat. I gasped in shock.

Casteel’s eyes were so dilated that only a thin strip of amber shone as his lips peeled back, revealing sharp, slightly elongated fangs. A low, feral growl of warning rumbled out of him and vibrated through me.

“Casteel!” I forced out around the hold on my throat. “What is wrong with you?”

The grip on my neck tightened, forcing a harsh breath out of me. Instinct took over, breaking through the coating of surprise as I swung at him with my fist, fully planning to bring it down on his arm, breaking his hold on me. It never happened.

He caught my hand, thrusting it down to the bed. I strained against him, but his hand was like a band of steel. Lifting my left hand, I sank my fingers into his hair and pulled hard, jerking his head back. “Let go of me!”

The sound that came from him sent goosebumps rushing across my skin as he easily resisted, leveling his head once more.

There was no visible amber to his eyes now, and the way he looked at me was like…like he had no idea who I was. As if he didn’t see me.

My heart stopped. Something…something wasn’t right. “Casteel?”

The only answer was a snarl that reminded me of a very large, cornered wild animal as those nearly black eyes moved down the length of me. He didn’t seem to recognize his name or me.

At once, I remembered what he’d told me. He had nightmares, and sometimes when he woke, he didn’t know where he was. That had to be what was happening here.

I willed my heart to steady. “Casteel, it’s me—”

The rumbling warning came once more. His nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply. Modesty be damned. I didn’t care that everything from the waist down was clearly visible because of a nightmare or something else, whatever was going on, it had a grip on him. I had a horrible suspicion that I was seconds away from turning into breakfast.

Remembering the dagger I’d placed under the pillow, I reached behind me, grasping the handle as Casteel shifted above me, his hand leaving my throat to curl around my hip—

Shock splashed through me as I felt the curve of his chin against my lower stomach. Oh, gods, what was he doing? I snatched up the blade, sitting up as far as I could with one hand still pinned to the bed by his. I pressed the dagger against his neck.

He seemed completely unaware as warm breath danced lower. Tension clamped down on my chest, and coiled even lower—unexpectedly and crazily. Because he was—

Oh, gods.

It didn’t matter what I thought. Neither did the indecent throbbing echoing from within me or the way my entire body seemed to clench tightly as his breath neared the space between my thighs. Another growl came from the back of his throat, this one different, deeper and coarser.

“I don’t know what is wrong with you, Casteel, but you need to let go of me.” I put pressure on his throat with the blade. “Or we will find out what happens to an Atlantian when their throat is cut.”

That seemed to catch his attention because he stilled and lifted his gaze. Those all-black eyes shook me. I willed my hand to stay steady. I knew if he decided to strike, there’d be very little I could do to stop him. I could make him bleed if given the chance, maybe even worse. “Get off me,” I ordered. “Now.”

He was incredibly still as he stared down at me, like a predator who had sighted its prey and was about to pounce. I tensed as my gift came alive, spilling out from me in the way it did when I was in a crowd of heightened emotions. There was no stopping it. The connection was made, and his feelings rushed through me in a wave of…gnawing darkness and insatiable hunger. The kind I had experienced myself on more than one occasion when Duke Teerman was disappointed with something I did or didn’t do and I was denied food until I learned to do better. The longest had been three days, and that hunger had been the kind that twisted up the insides in painful need. That wasn’t the only thing I felt. Under the feeling of utter emptiness was a lush, dark spice coating my mouth and stoking the banked flames inside me.

Casteel was hungry.

Starving.

Was it for blood? He’d said that Atlantians needed the blood of their own. Had he been…feeding? Surely, he had. There were Atlantians here. He’d bitten me a few days ago. He’d drunk from me, but not a lot. I had no idea how potent my blood was, but if it could make vamprys, I imagined it held some allure to him. I also had no idea how often an Atlantian needed to feed, but that sumptuous, heavy feeling coursing through the connection sparked a primal sort of knowledge that this wasn’t just about satisfying a physical hunger.

But under the hunger, I didn’t feel any other emotions. The razor-sharp sadness that always cut through him was absent. I didn’t know if any part of Casteel or even Hawke was inside him now.

My heart pounded as I tugged on my left arm, the one still pinned to the bed beside my waist. His grip loosened, and he then let go, but he didn’t move. I was overly aware of how close his breath, his mouth was to the most sensitive part of me and where I knew a major artery waited. His head turned just the slightest bit, and his chin grazed the crease of my thigh. Several inches lower, closer to the knee, were the gouges in my skin that looked like claw marks but had been made by the teeth of a Craven. I felt none of the horror and fear as I had then, nor the revulsion and certainty of death. All I felt was a delicious ache.

The hand that held the knife to his throat trembled as a forbidden pulse of arousal thundered through me. It was wrong, and I shouldn’t feel the heat, the dampness gathering there. But it also felt right, and so natural, even while none of this seemed natural.

He made that sound again, the rolling rumble, and my entire body shuddered. I could barely breathe, let alone think. My senses were firing all at once, and when he dipped his head, my arm went lax, bending to accommodate. My fingers spasmed open, and the knife fell to the bed beside me.

What are you doing? What is wrong with you? What are you—?

He gripped my hips with both hands, lifting me, and then his mouth was on me, obliterating the panicky questions. The air left my lungs as his tongue sliced over the very center of me. This wasn’t like the last time, the only time. There was no teasing, slow exploration as he guided me into the wicked act. This time, he devoured me, capturing my flesh with his mouth, delving into the warmth and dampness with firm, determined strokes of his tongue. He fed from me as if I were the sweetest nectar, the source of the very life force he needed. I was consumed.

Crying out as my head kicked back, I was lost in the raw sensations. My body moved of its own accord—or tried to. He held me firmly in place, and there was no matching the sinful assault, no escaping it even if I wanted to. Fierce heat built inside me, twisting and tightening as everything in me seemed to concentrate on where he was. My back arched as I grasped the sheets fitted to the bed. His lips moved against me, his tongue inside me, and the sharp graze of his teeth scraped the bundle of nerves. The sensation echoed in the healed bite mark on my neck. It was too much. I screamed as I shattered, breaking apart into a thousand satin-garbed shards of pleasure as intense, stunning release rolled through me in undulating waves.