“No.” I giggled.

  His green eyes twinkled like the stars as his smile widened. He leaned in and kissed the crown of my head. “I love you more than all the stars in the sky.”

  “I love you more than all the fish in the sea,” I whispered back.

  “That’s my girl.”

  I felt his hands shake as he held my face. I didn’t like it. Was he sad? Scared? I never knew how he or Momma felt. They weren’t like the others in the taproom earlier.

  The doors cracked open, letting in a gust of cold wind as a slender, hooded figure entered.

  “Cora,” Papa called.

  She stopped and turned to her right. I heard her sigh. “You should’ve known she would find a way down here.”

  Uh-oh.

  I wiggled myself deeper into Papa’s arms.

  “Who? Where?” Papa said, and I grinned. “No one is here but a little flower.”

  “Both of you are silly,” Momma said. I lifted my head and peeked over Papa’s arm. The cloak Momma wore fluttered around her as she approached us. Reaching down, she ran a hand over the top of my head. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

  “He will be,” Papa assured her, straightening.

  I didn’t know who they spoke of. Only that they were meeting a friend. That was why we’d stopped at the inn.

  She leaned in and spoke in that way where I knew she didn’t want me to hear. “You trust him?”

  “I do,” he said. “He’ll lead you to safety.”

  Safety? You? Not us? My eyes widened as I glanced between them.

  Momma nodded, falling quiet for several moments. She’d been really quiet since we left the castle and the city. “I don’t know—”

  “He will do as he promised.” Papa brushed his fingers across her cheek. “Tell him the truth. He is bound to the gods, even as they sleep, to ensure your safety.”

  “Please, don’t go back. If you do and are captured, she will never trust you again.” Momma’s voice hardened. “She’ll never let you have a second of freedom—”

  “I have to,” Papa interrupted. “You know that.”

  “Is it because of her?” Momma’s voice softened.

  He said nothing.

  “She will never leave,” Momma whispered.

  “I have to try.” He clasped her cheek as I struggled to hear what he said next. “And it’s not just her I must go back for.”

  Her eyes slammed shut. “I know.”

  Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Only they matter. You must get them away from her. I—”

  “Don’t say that you don’t matter.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Papa assured her. My heart started to pound.

  She shook her head and kept her voice quiet. “You know what she wants. And if she succeeds in using you, the very realm itself will be in jeopardy.”

  I couldn’t hear what either said next, but she finally looked at me. She took a deep breath and smiled, but it looked all wrong to me. “I’m going to check again.”

  Papa nodded.

  She spun, disappearing back through the doors. My grip tightened on his arm. “Is Momma mad?”

  “No, my Poppy-flower.”

  I nibbled on my lip, gaze darting back and forth between the shadows. “Are we…not safe?”

  “Don’t be scared, baby girl,” he said, drawing my attention back to him. He lifted me into his arms. As tall as he was, I thought I could touch the exposed beams of the ceiling. “I will never let anything happen to you or your brother.”

  I knew he wouldn’t. He never would.

  Papa carried me over to a wooden bench and sat, placing me on his lap so my feet dangled high above his. “Did I ever tell you how you were named?”

  I shook my head.

  A faint smile crossed his lips. “Penellaphe is a…good friend of my mother’s.”

  I frowned. “Penellaphe is a goddess.”

  “Yes.” He tucked an unruly wave behind my ear. “She is.”

  I stared up at him, confused. The Queen had named me.

  “And your nickname? Poppy? That’s because of your grandmother, too.” He laughed then, the sound rough under his breath. “Well, it’s more so due to my father. I overheard him once comparing my mother’s…temperament to that of a poppy.” A drier laugh left him then. “Unsurprisingly, it became her favorite flower.”

  “I don’t understand, Papa. How could her temperament be that of a flower?”

  “Well, you see, this kind of poppy is not like the ones that grow here,” he shared. “They’re found in the far east.”

  “How far in the east?”

  “Far, far east, Poppy-flower.”

  “Oh.” I played with the strap on his shoulder. “I thought the Queen named me.”

  He shifted, and a heavy breath left him as he glanced at the heavy, wooden doors. He grew quiet. A current seemed to run through him, a charge of static like Ian and I got sometimes after rubbing our hands on a carpet to shock each other. It had happened before, often after speaking with the Queen.

  “Papa?”

  He focused on me. “I want you to remember this. She didn’t choose your name.” His lips thinned, and I thought I saw a flicker of the pretty silver light behind his pupils. “You were not named by the Queen. You were named in honor of the Queen.”

  I wanted to ask why she would lie. I didn’t think she would. But I didn’t ask. Papa didn’t seem to like the Queen anymore.

  But he started speaking again, telling me a story about how he and his brother used to play with giant, winged beasts. As he spoke of watching them fly high above, my eyes grew heavy, and I snuggled into Papa.

  “He’s here. And he’s not the only one,” I heard Momma say. The sound of her voice roused me, the tone tight and strained. I pried an eye open to see her bending to whisper in Papa’s ear. All I heard was, “…she must’ve sent him.”

  Papa muttered a bad word and then let out a long breath. He gently lifted me from his chest. “Stay with your momma, baby.” Papa touched my cheeks. “Stay with her and find your brother. I’ll be back for you soon.”

  Momma took my hand and helped me hop down from Papa’s lap. I watched him stand and turn, then followed his gaze. A man stood by the door, staring out from the crack between the two panels.

  Papa cradled the back of my head. “Do…you see him?”

  The man, whose hair reminded me of the beaches of the Stroud Sea, nodded. “He knows you’re here.”

  “He knows she’s here,” Papa said.

  “Either way, he’s leading them here,” the man said. “If they get in here…”

  “We won’t let that happen,” Papa said, reaching for the hilt of his sword. “They can’t have her. We can’t let that happen.”

  “No,” the man agreed softly, looking over his shoulder at me with strange blue eyes. He then tugged the hood of his cloak up. “I won’t.”

  “Come, Poppy.” Momma pulled on my hand—

  Everything fragmented around me as I cried out, falling into darkness filled with cold, aching whispers.

  CASTEEL

  “She needs to wake.”

  Blocking the doorway to the chamber, I forced myself to remain calm and collected before I did something some would consider most unfortunate.

  Like starting a war with the draken.

  Because I was this close to ripping Reaver’s fucking throat out.

  The only thing stopping me was knowing it would upset Poppy, because, again, for some godsforsaken reason, she was fond of the draken. It sure as fuck couldn’t be because of his personality. Because that was about as sparkling as a piece of half-burnt coal smeared in shit.

  Reaver stared at me, the vertical pupils of his eyes contracting and expanding. “And, yeah,” he continued, “I know you don’t like hearing that. Neither does that wolf of yours.”

  That wolf? One side of my lips curved. It wasn’t a smile. More like a low snarl. “And yet, you stand here, saying what you know I don’t want to hear. That either makes you an idiot or a fucking idiot.”

  The ridges of his scales became more prominent across his bare shoulders. Good. I was pissing him off.

  “I’m going to be the mature one in this situation and ignore what you just said.”

  I held his gaze. “I applaud you on your maturity.” I paused. “Reaver-butt.”

  A low rumble radiated from Reaver’s chest. “And here I thought the wolf was the most annoying creature I’ve had to deal with. I was wrong.”

  “Thanks for sharing.” I stepped back, gripping the door as the need to return to Poppy’s side rode me hard. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “No. You’re not excused.” Reaver caught the door with his hand, his gaze flicking over my shoulder. “We need her awake.”

  A wave of prickly anger swept up my spine. “Why don’t you finish that sentence? You need her awake for your own personal reasons.”

  “Correct,” he said without even a hint of remorse. “And that personal reason has a name. Jadis.” Those slitted pupils thinned. “I’m not the only one who needs her freed, Casteel. Or have you forgotten that she has a father, who also happens to be the first draken ever created? One who gave his blood to help break Kolis’s hold on Poppy. One who will not hesitate to adjust your attitude.”

  My skin heated as pinpricks of sharp pain erupted across my fingertips. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  His upper lip curled as he glared. “Then…what? You just don’t care?”

  “I have a feeling you’re not going to like my answer, so I’m going to remain silent on that.”

  Wisps of smoke drifted from his flared nostrils. The draken looked like he was about to blow a gasket. Several seconds passed, and my patience waned with each one.

  “She has been held in captivity for two centuries,” he said in a low voice. “You, of all people, should know what that means.”

  I did.

  And I really wasn’t going to take a walk down that memory lane for shits and giggles.

  I was already angry enough.

  “Only the gods know what has been done to her,” he said, briefly closing his eyes. “But for her to be in the state she is in now, it can’t have been good.”

  Knowing the Blood Queen the way I did, he would be one hundred percent right on that assumption. In fact, Reaver likely couldn’t even imagine what had been done to the female draken, and I wasn’t that much of a dick to tell him that. Then again, I probably didn’t need to say anything.

  But I wasn’t sure what Reaver expected right now. Because it was two days later, and Poppy was still unconscious.

  She hadn’t woken once since we left Attes in the cell, and I carried her back to the chamber we’d been in since the new quarters weren’t ready yet. And, as Attes had warned, she had fallen into an even deeper stasis.

  This time was nothing like when she first slept.

  “—need Jadis to wake,” Reaver was saying. “I need to know that she is—”

  “I really do not give a fuck about what you need at the moment,” I cut him off, my grip on the side of the door tightening. Wood splintered, drawing Reaver’s gaze. “All I care about is Poppy.”

  “Yeah. That much is obvious,” the draken sneered. Chips of wood fell to the stone floor as my flesh began doing that humming thing again. “Did you know there were more Ascended found dead this morning? Drained of their blood?”

  I knew.

  Emil had updated me. Eight more. Kolis had gotten in like he had before, unseen.

  “Got nothing to say?” Reaver spat. “This realm is shit out of luck with a King who can’t even bring himself to rule the kingdom he just conquered and instead has the Crown’s Advisor doing so.”

  A cold, cutting laugh scraped its way up my throat as more flakes of wood drifted to the floor. “You’re going to think less of me as a King when I say I don’t—”

  “Give a fuck? No need to say it. That much is evident.” He glanced at the door again, and his eyes were narrowed when they returned to me. “Don’t even think about shifting on me. Whatever the fuck you are now won’t win that fight.”

  I followed his stare, not surprised to see that sharp claws had replaced my fingernails. I slowly returned my gaze to the draken. “Didn’t seem like that when we went at it before, now did it? You want to put it to a test?”

  His pupils contracted once more. “What I want is for you to wake your wife up,” he hissed. “I did my part. I got Attes. He did his part. He broke the connection between her and Kolis. Now, it’s your turn.”

  “Exactly how do you propose I make that happen?” Shimmery ice crawled up my throat. “Because I have tried everything, you fuck. I’ve held her. I’ve talked to her. I’ve begged her. I’ve tried to find her in dreams. I’ve even yelled at her,” I spat, ashamed to even admit that I had yelled at her sleeping form in desperation. “Nothing has worked.”

  “Have you tried not getting yourself nearly killed?”

  I went completely still.

  Reaver smirked.

  I snapped.

  There was no other way to describe it. I moved before I realized I was doing it. In one heartbeat, I had Reaver against the wall, my hand around his throat. “What did you say?”

  “The truth.”

  A growl peeled my lips back as the vibrating in my veins hit my flesh. I lifted him, fangs bared.

  Through strands of blond hair, the draken’s eyes narrowed. “Careful with those claws,” he warned softly as the sound of footsteps drew near. “You saw what can happen if you draw a draken’s blood.”

  “Nah,” I drawled. “I think I’m going to thoroughly enjoy it.”

  “You have no idea how badly I want to see you proved wrong.” Reaver gripped my arm. He tried to move it and failed. “But if you end up with another missing finger,”—he paused—“or a missing hand, meyaah Liessa will be upset.”

  “She’ll get over it,” I said, my grip tightening on his throat until I felt his flesh hardening beneath my hand.

  “She needs to wake up first,” he retorted.

  Muscles tensing, I tasted ash in my throat. There was a good chance I was about to do that unfortunate thing I was trying to prevent.

  “Look, I get it. You’re angry. You’re worried Kolis will find a way to get back inside her. You feel helpless and desperate. You would do anything for Poppy to wake up. I get it,” Reaver choked out. “Because I feel the same as you do. I’d do anything for Jadis to wake. But the difference is, I’ve spent a lot longer with that desperation.”

  My jaw clenched. If that was true, then his repeated visits since he’d found Jadis were born of the same fruitless desperation as my yelling at Poppy was.

  “What in the…?” My brother’s voice exploded from the end of the hall.

  Reaver lifted his other hand, telling Malik to stay back. “Everything’s fine.”

  “No,” I stated. “It is not.”

  The draken’s eyes rolled.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but, Cas, you need to put the draken down,” Malik said, his voice low-pitched and steady as if he were speaking to a feral animal about to attack. “And you need to put him down gently.”

  “I will if he swears not to come near this chamber again,” I said, not taking my eyes off Reaver.

  The draken said nothing.

  Malik drew closer. “Do I need to get Kieran?”

  “No,” both Reaver and I answered at the same time. But the draken continued. “Someone has to handle the business of running a kingdom.”

  I growled, and the sound was distinctively…feline.

  “Besides, I was about to leave,” Reaver tacked on.

  Bull. Shit.

  The draken smirked at me.

  My grip tightened until I saw a flicker of pain in his slitted eyes.

  “Let him go,” Malik urged. “He can’t leave unless you do, and that’s what you want.”

  I didn’t want to let him go. In fact, I wanted to see him bleed.

  Malik cursed under his breath. “Cas,” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You should be with Poppy.”

  My head snapped in his direction, and whatever my brother saw in my face had him dropping his hand and taking a step back. He got an eyeful of my fangs, too.

  Malik’s shoulders tensed. “She needs you.”

  The only other person—besides Poppy—in this realm or beyond, who could’ve gotten through to me would’ve been Kieran. At least at one time.

  But those three words…

  Fuck.

  I released Reaver, forcing myself to take several slow, measured steps away. Both sides of his neck were red. “Leave and do not come back.”

  The draken looked like he wanted to put me through a wall, but he turned and started walking, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “The next time you do something like that, I will not hold myself back.”

  I lifted a hand and extended my middle finger.

  Muttering under his breath, Reaver stalked down the hall, shaking his head.

  Blissful silence followed.

  “Cas,” Malik started.

  Of course, it did not last. I turned back to the chamber, my gaze immediately going to Poppy.

  “I’m not sure if you realize this or not,” Malik went on, ignoring me, “but you were just holding a draken in the air with one arm.”

  From where I stood, I could see her chest moving steadily. Barely. I left the door ajar and turned to my brother. “I’m aware.”

  “No one, not even a god, should be able to do that.” Malik watched me closely. “But things are different now. You’ve changed.” He paused. “So has Kieran.”

  Yes, things had changed. Things continued to change when Poppy reentered stasis.

  Malik’s features hardened. “You haven’t told me what was really going down with Poppy when you had her in that cell.”

  And I didn’t plan to.

  All he needed to know was what we’d told all the necessary parties. Kolis was very much active among us, even if he could not be seen, and the Ascended needed to be protected.

  “And you’re still not going to tell me anything about what’s going on with you,” he finished.

  I sighed. “I’ve told you everything I know. I don’t know what any of these changes mean. And that’s not a lie.”