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)
Turning his head, he was silent as he watched the wind sway the branches, shaking their deep bluish-green needles. “I wasn’t thinking of anything when I was first freed. Or it felt that way. Maybe there was too much going on in my head.” He squinted as the warm rays of sunlight sliced over a cheekbone, magnifying the natural hollow beneath it. “But later? Weeks, months, and years later? Yeah, there were times I didn’t want to wake up when I went to sleep.”
Pain lanced my chest, and I forced myself to breathe through it.
“Don’t.” He turned to me, the line of his jaw hard like the iron surrounding us. “Don’t pity me, Poppy.”
“I don’t,” I said, ignoring the sharpness of his tone.
He crossed his arms. “You forget I know what you’re feeling.”
“Well, you must not be that good at deciphering it,” I countered, angling my body toward him. “I feel sad that you wished not to live. I empathize. I’m angry that you experienced what you did. And I feel helpless because I can’t do anything to change it. What I don’t feel is pity.”
He silently held my gaze for a few seconds and then exhaled roughly. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Cas. I get it.”
The aura of eather pulsed behind his eyes as he let out another breath, this one less harsh. “You do. We don’t have the same past, but we both have things we don’t want to be pitied for.”
We did.
I ran my tongue over the backs of my teeth. “How did you cope?”
“I didn’t. Not really.” His throat moved on a swallow. “I drank the memories away. Fucked them out of my head. And when that didn’t work, I was reckless with my life and Kieran’s.” A faint pink stain climbed up his throat as his words struck a chord of familiarity in me. He exhaled slowly. “I used to think I got my shit together before I started planning to find and free Malik. That having that goal cleared my head or was proof I cared about life, but that’s bullshit. My plan was reckless as fuck.”
“It was,” I agreed, resisting the urge to reach out, touch him, and ease the pain I knew he shielded me from. But he wouldn’t want that. Not right now. “You didn’t care about life even then?”
He inhaled through his nose and continued watching the cedars. “I cared about life—Malik’s. I cared about Kieran’s. So, I stopped doing extremely dumb shit. But mine?” He shook his head. “No.”
The ache expanded in my chest as I followed his gaze.
Several long moments passed before he said, “Ask what you want to.”
“It’s annoying how well you know me.”
He responded with a low chuckle. “The answer is yes, by the way. I care about my life now.” He pushed off the window when we felt Seraphena, then dipped his head and kissed me softly. “Ask me why later.”
I met his eyes. “I will.”
Draping his arm over my shoulders, we turned to find Seraphena coming up the hall. She was pale, her eyes glassy.
“Aurelia will return shortly,” she told us. “She knows she is needed here.”
“How was Jadis before she left?” I cringed as soon as the words left me. “I mean, I know she wasn’t…good.”
“I understand.” Seraphena’s faint smile was reassuring. “She calmed. I think it just being the two of us helped.” She glanced at the rotunda and sighed. “Did Reaver return?”
“No,” Casteel answered.
She looked over at him and then did a double take.
“Reaver.” He sighed. “This is the shirt he thought fit me best.”
Seraphena mashed her lips together, but it didn’t stop the smile. It only created a grin with puffed-out cheeks.
“But it was nice of him to even think of getting you one,” I offered. “Especially since he wasn’t…”
The amusement vanished from Seraphena’s face. “It was hard on Reaver—it’s going to be hard on him,” she said. How she said it gave me the impression that she knew that firsthand. “But they’ll be okay. We’ll make sure of it.” Her gaze returned to me. “I need to get back, but I have to talk to you about something first.” She paused. “Alone.”
Casteel stiffened beside me, but I spoke before he could. “Whatever you need to discuss with me can be said in front of him.”
“You’re right. It can be said in front of him.” She held my gaze, and something in her stare caused tiny balls of bloodstone to form in my stomach. “But it doesn’t need to be.”
That comment caused the balls to multiply. There was a heavy meaning there I didn’t understand—or want to. “I want him here,” I said.
Seraphena looked like she wanted to argue.
“She wants me here,” Casteel began, and my head cut toward him sharply. His voice was soft—too soft—when he finished. “So, you’ll have to physically remove me.”