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)
His eyes darkened, taking on a damp sheen. A shudder swept through him, and then his fingers splayed on my cheek, causing a wave of tingles to dance across my skin again. Leaning in, he brought his face closer to mine and slid his callused palm down my cheek. His fingers slipped under my loose braid and curled around the nape of my neck. “Do you remember who I am to you?”
Still unsure and utterly bewildered by why he was asking these questions, I searched the familiar lines and planes of his face.
I didn’t remember waking up—come to think of it, I didn’t even remember going to sleep, and I wasn’t quite sure where we were. The last thing I remembered was leaving the Bone Temple. After that? Nothing. That should concern me, but I was more caught up in how I could simplify what he was to me.
He wasn’t just one thing.
Casteel Da’Neer had been my first everything—first kiss, first passion, first love, and even my first heartbreak when I only knew him as Hawke Flynn. He’d been a stranger I secretly watched from the shadows of Castle Teerman, then an enigma of a guard who swore his life and sword to me. He’d become a trusted friend and then a lover. His betrayal when he revealed who he truly was—the Prince of a kingdom I had been raised to believe was the source of all the evil in our realm—had felt like it would kill me, but it had taught me that forgiveness was not as powerful as understanding, even though he’d gone above and beyond to earn my forgiveness. He never grew tired of my endless questions or curiosity. Instead, he delighted in my thirst for knowledge and hunger to experience life. He’d always accepted me for who I was and not what I was, whether a Maiden, Queen, or god, and he never held me back. Ever. He’d been willing to turn his back on his kingdom—and his family—if that was what I wanted. He would set his kingdom on fire for me, as I would for him. He had been, and always would be, my equal. He was my husband. My King. My heartmate. He was…
“You’re my everything,” I swore to him. The earthy, fresh sense of relief flowed from him. “I could never not know who you are to me.”
This time, a guttural noise came from deep within Casteel. Before I could take a breath, he wrapped his arms so tightly around me that it left no space between us. In a heartbeat, his mouth was on mine.
Casteel kissed me, but it was never just a kiss.
Like what he meant to me, it was everything. It had always been that way. Even from the very start, when I asked him to kiss me under the willow tree. I’d said please, and he’d told me I didn’t have to ask twice and never had to beg. With only the touch of his lips to mine, I’d been lost in him. In the beginning of us.
That hadn’t changed.
And it never would.
I was swept away as much now as I was then, when it had been the softest, gentlest kiss.
But gods…there was nothing gentle about how his lips claimed mine now. It was fierce, bordering on harsh, full of pent-up worry, and urgent with a bone-deep longing. His tongue swept past my lips, tangling with mine, likely tasting his blood.
Tiny shivers hit every part of me as I clutched his bare shoulders, vaguely aware of the small currents of energy that continued to radiate from his skin to mine. Molten heat gathered low in my stomach as his hand swept down my spine, sending a pulse of blade-sharp need through me, but I pulled back so I could see him. “Are you sure I didn’t take too much?”
“Positive.” He smoothed his hand over my cheek, his fingers softly trailing over one of my scars.
“It feels like I did.”
“You didn’t.”
Guilt still gnawed at me as my gaze swept over his features once more and then lowered. It was hard to look at the angry wound on his throat, knowing I had caused it—
I had caused that. With my fangs.
I stiffened, then jerked back again, catching him off guard. This time, I plopped down on my ass and lifted my fingers to my mouth. Good gods, I actually had fangs. They had come in after I—
After I ended the Blood Queen. Isbeth. My mother. My throat dried. While my head was still a bit of a disjointed mess with memories forming with hazy edges, the terror in her face and her voice was all too clear as I broke her bones and…shattered her spine before she took her last breath. Casteel had wanted me to look away, but I hadn’t. Maybe I should’ve.