A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  I turned back to him. “I expected rooms with the bare necessities.”

  “We eventually plan to fix up the rooms on the second floor. That will allow for more to stay here while the homes are either being repaired or rebuilt.” His gaze roamed over me. “I want to check your arm.”

  “It doesn’t even hurt,” I told him, placing the small bundle of clothing on a settee that sat in the corner near the bed.

  “Be that as it may, I would still like to see it.”

  Knowing that he wouldn’t let it go, I unhooked my cloak and hung it on a hook near the fireplace and then pulled up the sleeve of my sweater tunic. I started to tug at the knot, wondering if he’d tied it in a manner that required scissors to remove.

  “Let me.” He approached me as silently as always. His fingers were warm as they grazed my skin. He had the knot untied in a heartbeat. The bandage slipped away, revealing a thin slash that had stopped bleeding some time ago. His thumb slid over the skin near the wound. “This doesn’t hurt?”

  “I swear.” I bit the inside of my cheek. It didn’t hurt. His touch, nor the area. The smooth swipe of his thumb felt…pleasant and shivery.

  His chest rose with a deep breath and then he dropped my arm, taking a step back. “I’m going to check in with Quentyn and the others. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I’m sure you must be tired. Just make sure you clean the wound.”

  “I will.”

  His gaze met mine, and all I could think about was those moments outside, after he’d helped me down from Setti. Would he have kissed me? Would I have allowed it? I imagined we would have to kiss in front of people.

  “Get some rest, Poppy.”

  Casteel was gone before I could even formulate a response, and I knew I should be relieved by that. But I…

  I wasn’t sure what I was.

  Turning to the settee, I walked over to the bundle of clothing. There was a thin lilac-hued sleeping robe and a thicker, forest green tunic that would definitely come in handy.

  Unhooking the sheath, I parted the curtain and was greeted by soft furs and a mountain of pillows.

  “Goodness,” I murmured, placing the sheath on the bed.

  Using only one of the warmed pitchers, I carried it into the adjoining chamber. Half afraid Casteel would return while I stood naked, I cleaned up as quickly as possible in the much cooler room, making sure to clean out the wound with fresh water and a mint-scented bar of soap. Once I was finished, I slipped on the soft robe, tying the sash around my waist. Digging my brush out of my bag, I undid my braid and worked through the tangles in my hair as I stared at the doorway to the living area.

  Sometime later, while under the blanket, I wasn’t thinking about the Dead Bones Clan, the marriage, or what had happened at the keep. I wasn’t even thinking about what the sun would reveal about Spessa’s End come morning, or how strange it was that Casteel had left the room so quickly. I lay there thinking of all those stone graves, burnt-out and rundown homes in Pompay and in the fields between the two cities. If Tawny were here, she would be convinced that spirits roamed the night.

  I shivered as my eyes drifted shut, wondering how the Ascended had been allowed to grow to this kind of power where they could destroy entire cities with no recourse.

  And the only answer was a bitter one.

  So very few had questioned what the Ascended claimed, and I’d simply accepted what they said, never truly giving life to any of the suspicions I had. That went beyond submission and straight into willful ignorance.

  Shame slithered through me, another tell-tale sign that in many small ways, I’d been a part of the problem. A spoke in the wheel of the very system that brutalized hundreds of thousands, including myself.

  The fire must’ve been fed at some point during the night because a pleasant heat surrounded my body. I couldn’t even remember being this toasty in my bedchamber back in Masadonia. That was my first thought as I slowly came awake.

  I didn’t want to wake up and leave the warmth of the bed nor the heady scent of dark, lush spice and pine. Snuggling down against the warm, hard bed, a contented sigh escaped me.

  Wait.

  The hard bed?

  That…that didn’t make any sense. The bed had been soft, the kind that you sank into. But now it was warm, hard, and smooth against my cheek and hand. Not only that, the bed was wrapped around my waist, my hip—

  My eyes flew open. Tiny particles of dust floated in the morning sunlight seeping through the terrace doors across from the bed. The curtains had been tied back, and I knew I hadn’t done that before I fell asleep.

  And I wasn’t lying on the bed, at least not completely. What was under my cheek wasn’t a pillow. It was a chest that rose and fell steadily. Beneath my hand wasn’t the worn texture of the blanket, but a stomach. The bed wasn’t wrapped around me. It was a heavy arm over my waist and a callused palm against my hip—my bare hip.

  Oh my gods, I was using Casteel as my own personal pillow.

  And based on the fact that I was lying on him, it was me who had sought him out in my sleep. When had he even returned to the room? Did that matter at the moment? It didn’t as I became aware of every place our bodies met.

  This was nothing like curling up together while camping on the road. There was no excuse for being all tangled up in him.

  I lay there frozen, my breath in my throat. My breasts were pressed against the side of his body. One of his thighs was tucked between mine, the soft buckskin of his breeches nestled against a very, very intimate part of me. The robe had parted below the sash in my sleep. There was nothing between his palm and my skin, and that hand spanned my hip, the tips of his fingers resting against the curve of my rear.

  A sweet, hot feeling swept over me, and my eyes drifted shut. I knew I shouldn’t feel this. It was reckless and stupid and felt oh so dangerous. Instead of basking in how his body felt against mine, I should be plotting a way to somehow extract myself from him without waking him up, but my brain went in a totally different direction. It was almost like I could…pretend again. That this was okay. That Hawke was holding me in his sleep, and that this was just one of many mornings we woke up like this. He’d kiss me and touch me, fitting our bodies together, and this would happen because we were lovers about to marry for no reason other than the fact that we wanted and desired and needed each other. My breath caught again, and my pulse quickened. Heated lightning danced over my skin and zipped through my veins. I could almost imagine the hand on my hip slipping more to my behind and then lower still. Those fingers of his were capable of eliciting sensations I hadn’t even known were possible, not even after reading the scandalous diary of Miss Willa Colyns. My entire world concentrated on the memory of his fingers skimming over the sensitive skin of my inner thighs and then slipping inside me. A throbbing ache settled in my core, and a tiny part of me wished I had never experienced such pleasure at his hands. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t want this now, but that was only a small part. The rest couldn’t regret experiencing something so powerful and beautiful when I’d spent most of my life being forbidden to know what pleasure felt like.

  But I shouldn’t be thinking about this—about what it had been like for him and me, and how he made me feel even now. Because in the early morning hours, when it was just me, I could admit that what he elicited from me went beyond the physical.

  It didn’t seem to matter that I really shouldn’t desire any of this, but my body didn’t care about what was right and wrong. I still shivered with need as my toes curled.

  Casteel shifted against me, and my heart seemed to stop in my chest. He was asleep, but could he still…sense my desire? His arm tightened, pulling me more firmly against him. His thigh pressed against the apex of mine. A shocking, aching pulse ricocheted through me in hot, tight waves. Suddenly, even my brain betrayed me. I was bombarded with images and sensations—the wicked memory of his mouth nuzzling my neck, the slide and scrape of sharp teeth, and the burst of pain that had so quickly turned into
intense pleasure. There was a wildfire in my blood, pooling in my core. In the furthest reaches of my mind, I knew this was the slippery slope I feared would come with this…arrangement of ours. Sharing a bed. Pretending to be…in love. Touching and kissing. Pretending…

  Pretending I already wasn’t slipping down that slope.

  His arm loosened, but I was still pressed against him, my heart pounding so fast I would be surprised if he didn’t feel it. Was he still asleep? Each breath I took scorched my lungs as I carefully lifted my cheek.

  His head was turned slightly away from me. A tumble of dark waves falling over his forehead. The line of his brow and the curve of his jaw were relaxed. Thick lashes shielded his eyes, and his lips were parted as his chest continued to rise and fall in deep, steady breaths.

  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.