Poppy let out a disgruntled little growl.
“You sound like a pissed-off kitten.” I chuckled roughly. “You know that, sweetheart?”
Poppy stiffened against me as a riot of sensations, too fast and too many for me to even begin to figure out, erupted from her. A shudder rocked her—
She jerked back with a gasp and fell backward.
Snapping forward, I rose onto my knees and tightened my hold around Poppy’s waist.
She panted for breath, her eyes wide as they swept over my features. I couldn’t tell if she recognized me, but she appeared startled—almost as if someone had abruptly woken her from sleep.
Tension seeped into my muscles as my fingers curled into the thin material of her sleeping gown. I fought to keep my emotions level as I drew in a shallow breath. “Poppy?”
CHAPTER 10
POPPY
Everything was sort of…hazy and fragmented, like a half-forgotten dream, as I stared at the strikingly beautiful male before me. The angles of his cheeks were sharper. Stubble covered the usually smooth curve of his jaw. Tension gathered at the corners of his mouth. My gaze lowered. The skin of his throat was bruised around two puncture wounds that seeped blood. I could taste his blood on my tongue as shame and lust scalded my skin.
“Did I take too much?” I asked, my voice coming out as a hoarse whisper.
He went completely rigid. I didn’t think he even breathed. “Do you…?” He swallowed hard. “Do you remember who you are?”
I wasn’t sure why he asked that. “Yes?”
He still didn’t move. Or blink. “Do you…remember me? Remember us?”
My heart squeezed. “I will always remember you.”
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 curledaround the nape of my neck. “Do you rememberwhoI 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 firsteverything—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 forwhoI was and notwhatI 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 myeverything,” 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 neverjusta kiss.
Like what he meant to me, it waseverything. 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.
