Her eyes widened. “No.” Terror poured into that one word as she suddenly scrambled back—or tried to. “No!”
“Poppy—” I caught the fist she swung at me an inch before it connected with my face. Holding her hand to my chest, I shifted onto my knees in case she tried to swing on me again. “What didI say before? There’s no need for hitting,” I said, forcing my tone to be light and teasing. “At least, right now.”
“Let me go!” she screamed.
My heart dropped. “I can’t do that, Poppy. I’m sorry, but…” I trailed off, my body flashing cold. She stared at me as if I terrified her.
And Poppy hadnevertruly been afraid of me. Not even when she should’ve been.
But she had been earlier when she kept backing away from me, when she looked at me like I’d been conjured from her worst nightmares. It was almost as if she wasn’t seeing me but rather someone else.
All at once, I remembered how she had said I’d called her weak. She had sounded so certain I’d spoken those words. But I hadn’t. I would never when she was the very opposite of that.
Was she somehow slipping back and forth between remembering who she was and not?
I managed to hold her still. “Who am I?”
Poppy thrashed wildly, refusing to answer.
“Look at me,” I demanded, feeling the air charge with eather. “Damn it, look at me, Poppy!”
Her eyes snapped open, revealing that dull crimson again. She started to turn her head.
Dropping her hand, I gripped her chin. “You know who I am. You just said so. And you know I love you. That you’re just as much my everything as I am to you.”
Poppy blinked several times, finally calming in my arms. The crimson streaks in her eyes faded away once more. “Cas…”
“That’s my Queen.” My smile was immediate, but I felt little relief. “Can you tell me what just happened?”
“I saw—” Poppy reared back, another scream leaving her before she clenched her jaw shut.
Cursing under my breath, I laid her out once more since that had seemed to help last time. Her jaw clenched as she twisted sideways, bringing her knees against my legs and trying to curl up. The raw anguish coming from her seared my soul like a branding iron.
A frantic sort of desperation fisted in my chest as I folded my hand around hers. “Tell me what’s wrong.Please.”
Sweat beaded on her forehead. “I…Ihurt.”
An ache that was all mine gripped my chest. Taking a bone dagger there was less painful than the sight of Poppy in such pain. “I know, sweetheart.”
“Sweetheart?” she gasped. “You…you’ve never called me that before.”
“I know.” A shaky laugh left me. “It kind of just came out.”
“I…I like it.” She panted, lashes fluttering.
“Then I will make sure I say it again,” I promised, my breath ragged. “Can you tell me what hurts?”
“Everything,” she whispered.
“That kills me to hear. It really does.” I gently brushed my fingers over her shoulder as my mind raced for a way to help her. “We can get you something to take for the pain. Medicine.” I glanced back at Reaver. “Would that work on her?”
He stared at her, a curtain of hair shielding his profile. “I don’t know. The only time I’ve seen a Primal in such pain was due to a physical wound. And with that, it’s usually feeding or going into stasis.”
That wasn’t much, but it was something. “She didn’t get enough blood.” A smidgen of hope blossomed as I brushed several hair strands back from her face. “Poppy, you need to feed—”
“No.”
“It could take the pain away.” I bent over her, tucking some hair behind her ear once more. “It could help.”
