Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
“No, you do not.” Kieran tipped his head back against the wall. “Did he wake up normally, or was he startled awake?”
Thinking of what I’d been doing and fantasizing about before he’d woken up, I was glad that Kieran wasn’t looking at me. “I think I woke him up. I moved, and that’s when he sort of launched himself at me.”
“That makes sense,” he murmured, eyes closing. “I don’t like talking about him—about this kind of stuff. If he knew I was, he probably would rip my head off. I’d deserve it because there are things only he should be allowed to repeat. But I think you need to know this even though I’m not sure you deserve to be privy to the knowledge.”
“Why wouldn’t I be deserving?” I asked. It wasn’t like I was the one running around and kidnapping people. Casteel was.
“Because this is something only close friends and loved ones should be privy to, and you are neither.”
Well, he had a point there. But I already knew what Kieran didn’t think would be right to share. “He told me before that he had nightmares, and that sometimes when he woke, he didn’t know where he was.”
In any other situation, I would’ve laughed upon seeing Kieran so surprised. But none of this was funny. “He told you?”
I nodded. “I had a nightmare—I have bad ones—and after one of them woke him, he told me about his.”
Kieran’s expression smoothed out. “Yes. He has nightmares. You know what was done to him when he was held by the Ascended. Sometimes, he finds himself back there, caged and used, his blood nor his body his.”
This time, I sat down before even realizing it, though I wasn’t surprised to find myself there. The heaviness of his words had put me there, and the reminder of the agony and horror of what Casteel had faced kept me there.
“When he has those nightmares he told you about, and if he’s startled awake, sometimes his mind gets stuck in that madness,” Kieran went on. And if anyone knew how nightmares could feel so very real, it was me. “And if he hasn’t fed, he can slip a little into the animal they turned him into.”
A monster.
Shuddering, I closed my eyes. What had he said when I’d called him a monster? I wasn’t born that way. I was made this way. But he wasn’t that. My heart ached as fiercely as it had when Casteel had told me about his captivity.
Letting out a shaky breath, I opened my eyes to find Kieran watching me. “He’s not an animal,” I said, and I wasn’t sure why I’d said it, but I needed to. “I don’t know what he is, but he’s not that. He’s not a monster.”
“No, he’s not.” His head tilted to the side. “I think you would’ve liked him if you had met him before all of this.”
Uncomfortable with how much I would’ve preferred that, I folded one arm over my waist.
A sad, wry smile formed on Kieran’s face, almost as if he knew what I was thinking. “I imagine a lot would be different.”
I nodded slowly, pulling myself out of the well of sorrow that was a cavern in my chest. “Why hasn’t he fed? There were Atlantians at the keep, right? There are Atlantians here.”
Kieran nodded. “There are many he could’ve fed from but he hasn’t.”
“Why? Why would he let it get to this point?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s a damn good question, isn’t it?”
My damn good question didn’t have an answer, and it plagued me as I washed up and dressed in the baggy pants and the deep green tunic that had been in the bundle Quentyn had given me. Other unanswered questions bothered me, as well. Why wouldn’t Casteel have fed? Were the nightmares also partly responsible for the cutting sadness that clung to him? If this was him not too close to the edge, then what was he like when he was at the edge? What would’ve happened if he hadn’t…well, fed from me differently?
And why in the world had I allowed him, when he was obviously not in his right mind, to do what he’d done? And why had he done that? Did bloodlust elicit such actions? Or was it because he’d sensed my arousal? My cheeks burned, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that question.
Either way, I had been wrong when I said that I didn’t have a death wish. Because what if he had been teetering on that edge and he’d used that mouth for something else?
My stomach dipped as I ran a brush through my tangled hair. In the soft lamplight, the strands reminded me more of a ruby-hued wine than a blazing fire, like it often did in the sun. I angled my head to the side. The bite marks were no longer visible, but I left my hair down anyway and then stepped back into the bedchamber.