A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

It would have to be me.

My stomach dipped as the bite of bacon scratched its way down my throat. Would I be okay with that? I thought of what it had been like when he’d bitten me before, and I picked up the glass of water, nearly downing the entirety of it. It wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. It would be…

Gods, it would be intense.

Nothing like when Lord Chaney had bitten me. Nothing like a Craven’s bite.

“The one thing I’m not looking forward to is traveling back through the mountains,” Quentyn said, drawing me out of my thoughts. I’d discovered when I first saw him in the bright lamplight that he was fair-haired, not blond-white like Delano, but more…golden. He was young, slim as a reed and already taller than me. There was a delicacy to his features, one that drew the eye and held it, and I imagined the beauty in the lines of his face would only increase as he got older. His eyes were a vibrant shade of amber, just like Casteel’s, but curved upward at the outer corners in a way that made his eyes seem like he was always smiling.

“Yeah, I’m not looking forward to that part of the trip either,” Kieran agreed.

“Are you talking about the Skotos Mountains?” I asked, glancing toward the doors for what probably had to be the hundredth time since Kieran and I had sat down.

Quentyn nodded as he looked over at me. When he first saw me, his gaze had snagged on the left side of my face, but that was all. He hadn’t continued to stare. He hadn’t quickly looked away in embarrassment, either. He saw them and seemed to move on from them, and I appreciated that. “The mist, man. The mist. During the day, it thins out a bit, but at night? You can barely see a few feet in front of you.”

I remembered what Kieran had said about the long mountain range. “And that’s…Atlantian magic?”

“Yes. It’s designed to ward off travelers, making them think there are Craven in the mountains, but there are none,” Kieran said, eyeing my plate. “You going to eat the rest of that bacon?”

“No.” I nudged my plate toward him. “How does Atlantian magic work?”

“That’s a complicated question with an even more convoluted answer.” Kieran picked up a slice of bacon from my plate. “And I know you’re gearing up for a hundred more questions.”

I totally was.

“But the easiest answer is that the magic is tied to the gods,” he said.

Well, that only caused me to have more questions and made me think of the Blood Forest tree, the omen, that had appeared out of thin air in New Haven.

“And besides, the mist isn’t just a mist,” Kieran added between mouthfuls of bacon. “Is it, Quentyn?”

“No.” The young man’s eyes widened. “It’s more like an…alarm system.”

“It responds to travelers, even Atlantians, and the way it responds is different for everyone. Larger groups seem to trigger it.” Quentyn’s fingers tapped nonstop on the table. “That’s why we split up into groups no larger than three.”

All of that sounded…concerning. “And traveling through the mountains is the only way?”

“It is, but don’t worry too much.” Quentyn smiled. “We didn’t have too much of a problem when we came through it before.”

Too much of a problem?

“Which reminds me, I can make some extra bacon for when we leave.” He popped up from the chair. “If you like?”

Kieran paused with the second slice halfway to his mouth. “When it comes to bacon, the answer is always yes.”

The young Atlantian laughed as he glanced over his shoulder. The door opened, and my heart launched itself into my throat as my gaze crawled over the faces of the men and women who entered. My shoulders lowered as I recognized none of the faces. There was a half-dozen.

“You guys hungry?” Quentyn called out and was greeted with several enthusiastic replies. Turning around, he shrugged as he said, “I like to cook.”

And then, with a nod at both of us, he raced off to the kitchen area.

I watched the group of newcomers split into two, seating themselves at the round tables near the door. All of them nodded in acknowledgment, but none approached. A woman with dark hair glanced over her shoulder. She had golden eyes. An Atlantian. As did the man who stared from where he sat across from her.

Ignoring the nervous fluttering in my stomach, I offered a smile.

The woman turned back around, and the man faced another beside him.

Sighing, I turned to Kieran. “When do you think we will leave?”

“If Elijah was able to get the first group out a day after we left, they’ll probably be at least two days. Since the group would be larger, they won’t be traveling as fast as we did.” He wiped the sheen of grease from his fingers on a napkin. “But we’re less than a half-day’s ride from the mountains, so we should reach them by tomorrow afternoon, which will allow us to cross halfway before nightfall. And then we’ll be in Atlantia.”

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t realized that we were now so close to what was basically an unofficial boundary line. “Just like that?”

He smiled slightly as one of the younger men with light brown hair bent his head to the woman, whispering. “Just like that.”

Leaning back in my chair, I peeked over at the people. Their postures seemed awfully stiff. I bit down on the inside of my lip and opened my senses, letting them stretch out. The moment their bitter and sour-tasting emotions came back to me, I immediately wished I hadn’t let my gift free. Distrust and dislike were often hard to separate, but in some cases, they were joined. Like now.

They had to know who I was. It was the only reason they’d feel this way.

“You’ve been quieter than expected,” Kieran commented.

I shut down my senses, offering a shrug. “I’ve been thinking.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d done a whole lot of thinking during breakfast.

“Great.”

I shot him an arch look. “It’s really your fault, by the way.”

“Probably should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“I sort of wished you had.”

“But I didn’t.”

“No,” I sighed, picking at the napkin on the table. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

My head tipped to the side. “Like you don’t know.”

“I know a lot of hes.”

“Hes isn’t a word,” I muttered. “Where is Casteel? Is he…?”

“Is he what?” he quietly asked when I didn’t continue.

“What if he’s not okay?” I glared at him. “If he was closer to the edge than you realized, what if he’s out there, feeding off…random people.”

“I haven’t known you for long.” He gave a shake of his head, and I thought maybe he was searching for patience. “But sometimes, the things your mind conjures worry me.”

“I think it’s a valid concern,” I grumbled.

“I imagine he’s cooled down, gotten himself ready, and is speaking with people.” Kieran looked at me from the side of his eye. “Glad to see that you’re acknowledging that you care for him and are questioning his wellbeing.”

I started to tell him that I wasn’t, but that would have been an obvious lie. Kieran knew it. I knew it. And I hated everyone, but especially Kieran.

Something occurred to me in that moment, and I got up close and personal with abject horror. I had no idea what I was going to say to him about this morning. Not about the whole feeding thing. I knew what I needed to do to make sure he didn’t go all Ascended-eyed on me again. But the other thing? Could I just pretend like it didn’t happen?

That seemed like a successful plan.

Shoulders slumping, I changed the subject. “Can I ask you something?”

“I have a feeling if I said no, it wouldn’t stop you.”

He was right. It wouldn’t. I kept my voice incredibly low. “Casteel said that if I refused the marriage, he’d let me go. That he would take me somewhere safe. Was he telling the truth?”

Kieran looked at me, brows raised. “So, you’re basically asking me to betray him?”

“I’m not asking—okay. I am.”

“He wasn’t lying,” Kieran said after a moment. “If you had refused, he would’ve let you go. But I doubt you would’ve been free of him.”

The corners of my lips turned down. “If I’m not free of him, how would he have let me go?”

Kieran lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

My frown increased, but then I shook my head as I looked to the door. Knowing he wasn’t lying meant something. It meant a lot because Casteel would do anything to get his brother back.

Except he wouldn’t force me to marry him to achieve what he wanted. He wouldn’t use me as ransom, and for the first time since all of this began, I truly realized his plans to use me had changed long before I was even aware—probably even before he was aware they had. It wasn’t just his claim or what Kieran said. It was all of that and Casteel’s own actions. I just didn’t want to accept it—to see or understand. Because while Casteel wasn’t a monster, he was capable of doing monstrous things to get what he wanted. But I was exempt. He wasn’t the good guy—the savior or the saint. He’d killed to free his brother. He’d used countless others—mortals and Atlantians alike—to free his sibling. And he still would. To him, the means justified the end.

But Casteel had drawn a line that he wouldn’t cross.

And that line was me.

Truly acknowledging that was terrifying. Already, my heart was pounding, and that swelling sensation had returned, filling my chest. And that scared me. Ignoring and denying what I felt for him was easier when I could convince myself that I was nothing more than a pawn—another means to justify the end.

Now, there was no ignoring or denying anything.     PrevNextTip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between pages.

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