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)
A second later, Casteel stepped out of the tear in the realm. My breath snagged again, but for a totally different reason. Clad in black leather pants that accentuated his height and a tunic cut perfectly to fit the breadth of his shoulders and chest, his nearly otherworldly beauty and the aura of eather in his golden eyes made him look every inch the way I always imagined a god would.
The breeze lifted strands of his wavy, dark hair, tossing it back from the slash of his brows.
I swung my arm in an awkward wave. “Hi.”
A single brow arched. “Hello, Poppy.”
Feeling my cheeks warm, I crossed my arms. What was up with all the waving I was doing lately?
Casteel’s gaze darted behind me and then quickly returned to mine. “What are you doing here?”
“I…don’t know.”
He was quiet for a moment. “As in, you have no recollection of coming here? Or you decided to come here but don’t know why?”
“The second thing you said. I…” I started to tell him that I’d wanted to see if being here made me feel anything, but the words got lodged in my throat. They sounded silly and pointless in my head. Besides, I wasn’t even sure that was why I was here.
“You what?” he asked, watching me closely.
I shook my head and lifted a shoulder. “I’m not even sure what I was about to say.” Ducking my chin, I cleared my throat. “Have we received word from Pensdurth yet?”
“Not as of an hour ago,” he answered, and the knots in my stomach tightened. “When I returned to the Solar and you weren’t there, nor was the bone dagger, I thought you’d gone to Pensdurth.”
I pulled my arms tighter around me. “I agreed not to.”
He took a slow, almost tentative step toward me. “Can you blame me for fearing that anyway?”
“No,” I admitted, exhaling slowly. “How did you know I was here?”
“I wanted to be where you were,” he stated simply, like he’d walked from one chamber to the next. “So, I willed myself there.”
“Damn,” I murmured. “I didn’t even realize we could do that.”
A faint grin appeared. No dimple. “I imagine there are many things we can do that we haven’t realized yet.”
“You’re probably right.” I thought about the fact that he’d shifted. “I still can’t believe you shifted before me.”
“Do you know why?”
I sighed as I tried to communicate the jumbled knowledge. “Primal gods can shift pretty much whenever they want after they Ascend, but with Ancients—which I guess we’re the closest to as Deminyen Primals—it can take months, years, or even centuries. You shouldn’t have been able to shift so soon. It’s not like you have more eather just because you’re an Atlantian.”
“Like I said before, I’m just special.”
I laughed. “Hey, don’t take my line.”
His lips parted on a sharp inhale as he stared at me.
“What?”
“Your laugh,” he said, his gaze sweeping over my features. “Hearing it always does shit to my chest.”
“Good shit?” I whispered, feeling my chest start to do weird stuff.
“You know the answer to that.” His head cocked. “Can I ask you a favor?”
I nodded.
“Can you move away from the edge?”
My brows lifted. “Are you worried I’m going to accidentally run off it ag—” I stopped myself with a wince.
“You don’t have a reason to do that, right? So, I wasn’t thinking that,” he replied smoothly. “I just don’t like seeing you so close to a cliff’s edge.”
“I wouldn’t die if I fell.”
“But it wouldn’t feel good.”
“I don’t know.” I turned back to the edge. “I think I would just…land on my feet.”
“Let’s not test that out,” Casteel said, his scent wrapping around me, telling me he’d moved closer.
I hadn’t considered testing it out. But now that I’d said it, I kind of was. My heart rate kicked up. I could almost see myself doing it—choosing to leap. My stomach flipped, and I forced myself to take a step back.
Birds sang in lilting bursts as silence fell between Casteel and me. I could feel the heat of his body directly behind me now. That was how close he stood. I wanted to turn into it, but I couldn’t move.
Casteel hadn’t really touched me since Ironspire. He hadn’t woken me when he returned last night, and he had already been gone from bed this morning—and Casteel always needed convincing to leave a bed I was in. He wasn’t even touching me now, and it seemed he was always touching some part of me. This wasn’t normal.
The next breath I took was thinner, and the silence that stretched between us didn’t help. I searched for something to say. Luckily, I found it. “How did your talk with Malik go?”
“About as well as it would have if he was telling me not to go to Pensdurth if I thought you were there,” he said. “But he’s staying put.”