“Just like old times,” he said, straddling my hips as he winked an eye through the blood. He grabbed my hair, yanked my head up, and then slammed it down.

  Starbursts exploded in my eyes as I swung out, eather pulsing through me.

  He caught my wrist and slammed my head back down again, tumbling my already thoroughly scrambled brain. “Tell me, Sotoria.” He leaned over me as the air charged around us. A presence filled the meadow—a powerful, old presence that felt…vaguely familiar. “Tell me what you think I want.”

  “How about I tell you?” came a deep voice with a melodic lilt, much like the Atlantians but thicker.

  Kolis snapped the Revenant’s head up, and his bloody lips pressed into a thin line. “Of course,” he muttered. “It’s you.”

  A blur of leather-encased legs passed my head a second later, and then a rather large hand gripped the Revenant’s throat. In the next heartbeat, he flew backward and crashed into the same tree I’d thrown and pinned him to earlier.

  “Poor tree,” I murmured.

  A tall and broad form in all black stepped into my line of sight. Dimly, I knew he was a god—a Primal god—as I dragged my dazed gaze up. A sheathed sword was strapped to his back, and a dagger to each hip. Gods, he was tall. Maybe an inch or two taller than Casteel. The breeze lifted strands of light or maybe dark-brown hair from the collar of his tunic as he turned to look at me.

  “Poor tree?” he repeated, his silver eyes beneath a proud brow fixed on me.

  I heard him.

  I really did.

  But I couldn’t respond as I saw his full lips part. His jaw flexed, the chiseled shape unsettlingly familiar. In the back of my mind, I knew I should get up or at least sit up, but I was frozen as my gaze lifted, and I stared at him. At the shallow scar cutting across his left cheek and traveling across the bridge of his nose to end at his hairline.

  I blinked once and then twice as those features finally cleared and pieced themselves together. Or maybe it was my jumbled thoughts finally working together cohesively.

  My heart started beating fast as my eyes locked with luminous, silver ones. His warm, golden-bronze skin paled, and he seemed as…stupefied as me.

  I knew him.

  Recognized him.

  Not because he so clearly resembled Casteel—he looked more like Malik and was nearly the spitting image of their father.

  But because I’d seen him before while in stasis, slipping…falling through countless images of places and people. And he…he had been one of those people.

  “Attes,” I whispered hoarsely.

  The Primal flinched.

  Confused, I wondered if I had yelled his name.

  A low, crackling laugh slithered out from behind Attes. “Shocking, isn’t she?”

  Attes spun back toward the Revenant as I finally snapped out of my stupor. I scrambled to my feet, groaning at the wave of dizziness that joined the pounding in my head.

  “Kolis?” Attes barked out a short laugh that sounded like one of Casteel’s. “You look…unimpressive.” He paused. “As usual.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” he responded as I walked forward. “Just like you kept telling yourself that you’re not in—”

  “Shut up,” Attes cut in, his entire posture stiffening as I skirted him.

  The Revenant was still on his knees and listing to the side in an odd way that suggested something important—like maybe his back—was broken. That explained the crackling sound of his laugh.

  I spared Attes a quick glance. “Thanks for…helping,” I muttered, my cheeks warming because I had needed help in the first place and because I didn’t sound even remotely genuine.

  Attes didn’t reply.

  Kolis did. “Are you really, Sotoria? Thankful?”

  My hands balled. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

  “Did you hear that, Attes?” He swayed forward, the crimson aura in his eyes pulsating. “She doesn’t want to be called—”

  His words ended in a grunt as his body was pulled backward by the dagger piercing his chest.

  I turned to look at Attes. I hadn’t even felt him move or heard him unsheathe the dagger. He was that fast. “That won’t kill a Revenant.”

  “I know.” He stared ahead, one side of his lips curling up to reveal…a dimple in his left cheek, just below the scar. “Still felt good to do it.”

  Dragging my stare from him, I watched as the Revenant coughed up blood…and something thicker. My lip curled as I advanced.

  “You need to stay back from him,” Attes advised.

  I ignored that. “I’ve got this.”

  “You do?” he scoffed.

  The Revenant let out another burst of crunchy laughter.

  My spine stiffened. “It may not have looked like it when you arrived,” I said, keeping my eyes on the Revenant, “but I do.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. So, no need to keep walking—”

  I rammed my knee into the Revenant’s face, knocking his head back against the tree. “That was for the headbutt.” I grabbed the hilt of the dagger and tore it free. The milky-white blade momentarily surprised me.

  “Careful with that,” Attes warned as the Revenant tilted forward.

  I thrust the bone dagger through the Revenant’s throat, impaling him to the tree once more. Blood sprayed across my hand.

  “Gods,” muttered Attes, his voice closer. “That also won’t kill a Revenant.”

  “I know.” I wiped my hand on the front of his tunic. “Still felt good.”

  What sounded like a barely-there laugh came from behind me.

  “You still in there, Kolis?” I knelt so I was at eye level with the Revenant, searching for the crimson glow and finding it. “Good.”

  The Revenant’s lips spread into a grotesque smile as blood poured from his mouth. Those lips moved.

  “What? I can’t hear you?” I smiled tightly and held his gaze. “Oh, you can’t get the words out around the dagger in your throat? That’s why it’s there.”

  The crimson aura flickered, and I lifted my hand.

  “Maybe don’t touch him,” Attes said as I touched the Revenant’s cheek. “Or…go ahead and do it.”

  “You’re not coming for me, Kolis.” I summoned the eather. Golden light streaked with silver filled the corners of my vision. “I’m coming for you.”

  The essence ramped up, burning through me in an icy-hot rush. “And it will not be to serve at your feet.” The crimson aura pulsed and expanded as I pulled the eather to the surface. “Nor beneath you.”

  Essence erupted from my hand, a pulse of gold streaked with silver and shadows threaded with faint tendrils of crimson.

  Attes’s sharp curse got lost in the crackle of eather as it seeped into the Revenant’s flesh, lighting up the veins under eyes that still glowed with Kolis’s essence.

  I smiled, even as the scent of burning flesh began to rise. I didn’t move. I didn’t look away as the eather rippled through the body, burning through organs and bones. Eather swept up the Revenant’s legs, obliterating them, his torso, and then his chest and shoulders.

  The pupils turned pitch-black just as the essence climbed up his throat. Within a second, only the bone dagger remained, still buried in the tree.

  So, apparently, I could kill a Revenant.

  Pulling the dagger free, I rose and turned to face Attes.

  The Primal stared.

  I did the same. We stood there in silence as I wondered if I’d really seen him while in stasis, and then I mentally smacked myself. Of course, I had. I’d seen him. I likely knew him from…before. Which probably explained the weird wiggling sensation in my chest and stomach whenever someone mentioned him.

  “Why did you flinch when I said your name?” I asked, the question coming out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

  The corner of his eye twitched.

  I dragged in a short breath. “You just did it again.”

  He stood there, silent and looking at me like he was seeing a spirit.

  “You…” My grip tightened on the dagger’s hilt. “You knew Sotoria, didn’t you?”

  That earned another quick grimace, which was answer enough for me. Because if he’d known Sotoria, then he likely knew…stuff I didn’t need to think about. Kolis had already pulled the veil back more than I ever needed.

  Flipping the dagger, I held it by the blade and offered it to him.

  He didn’t move.

  “This is yours, right?” I wiggled it.

  Thick lashes swept down and then up as his eyes widened. He reached for the dagger. “Fucking Fates, woman, you’re burning your…” He frowned, eyeing my steady hand. “It’s not burning you.”

  I guessed Seraphena hadn’t told him. “It tingles but doesn’t burn. It does burn Casteel,” I said as he took the blade by the hilt. “Not sure about Kieran.”

  His eyes lifted to mine, streaks of eather swirling through his silver irises.

  “Don’t know why.” I shrugged, glancing down at my hands. The thick clouds overhead had moved on. Blood smeared my fingers, glistening in the moonlight. “Guess I’m special.”

  “Special?” he repeated, his voice lower and thin.

  “I am the Primal of Blood and—”

  “Incredibly Foolish Actions?” he interrupted.

  My head jerked back. “Excuse me?”

  Whatever had held him quiet had vanished. “What are you doing out here?” he demanded, quickly glancing around the space. “Especially here, of all places?”

  My spine went rigid.

  “By yourself, with a Kolis-possessed Revenant?” He sheathed the dagger, not to his hip but to his chest, where another dagger was also secured.

  How many weapons did he have on him?

  “Do you understand what Kolis is? What he is capable of? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.”

  If he was anything like his great-grandson, at least five more weapons were hidden.

  I glanced down, catching how the pant leg above his right ankle was thicker.

  “You have to know because I’m sure Seraphena warned you about exactly what he can do,” Attes continued.

  My gaze shifted to his left leg. Yep. Another dagger was hidden there, in his boot. I don’t know why I found that funny. Maybe because it was so bizarre. A laugh bubbled up my throat, and a tiny bit snuck out before I pressed my lips together.

  Attes went quiet. For a second. “Did you…?”

  I peeked up at him.

  He looked utterly dumbfounded. “Did you just laugh?”

  Figuring it would be wise to stay quiet, I kept my mouth shut.

  “I would love to know what’s funny about…actually.” He held up a hand. “You know what, I don’t think I do want to know.”

  I arched a brow as he stepped back, turned sideways, and thrust a hand through his hair. My chest warmed with something that reminded me of…fondness. Had we been friends?

  “Do you have any idea…?” A muscle throbbed in his temple as he faced me. “What you would have done if I hadn’t shown up?”

  “I would’ve done what I did in front of you.”

  “Didn’t look like you were anywhere near doing that,” he gritted. I had hoped he’d somehow magically forgotten that. “I cannot believe you were out here—”

  “Look, I already have a husband—” I stopped myself before saying and a… I frowned, unsure what to call Kieran. I shook my head. It didn’t matter at the moment. “—who feels entitled to lecture me on my so-called recklessness. I don’t need—”

  His brows lifted in an incredulous arch. “So-called reckless?” He stepped forward. “There’s no question about it. That’s exactly what this was. And where is your husband?”

  “He’s…” My mouth snapped shut when I felt him—his presence—throb in the center of my chest. My shoulders slumped as a streak of crackling eather lit up the space behind Attes. I really wished he couldn’t shadowstep. Or was afraid of it, like Kieran was. “He’s not in bed, sleeping.”

  “No,” Casteel growled, stepping from the tear in the realm. “He is not.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed as I watched Casteel prowl forward. He must’ve pulled on the tight leather breeches in a hurry because they were unclasped and hung dangerously low on his hips. He wore nothing else besides fury-filled eather that settled over his flesh as thick as any cloak. His skin revealed the deep gray-and-crimson shadows beneath it. Tendrils of essence slid through the flesh of his arms and across his chest, swirling along the packed, taut muscles of his stomach and disappearing under his leathers.

  The moment I heard his voice, I knew I was in trouble. And it was confirmed the moment my eyes met his.

  I had no one to blame but myself.

  Swallowing a sigh, I stepped toward him.

  “Cas—”

  Casteel was in front of me in less than a heartbeat, his fingers, cold as a winter morning, curled around my chin. I sucked in a gasp as he tilted my head back and to the side. “You’re bleeding.” The veins beneath his eyes darkened. “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “It was just a nick—”

  “Just a nick?” Crimson-laced shadows lashed through his irises and filled his voice.

  “Yes. I’m sure it’s already healed. I’m…” I trailed off as his hand slid to the nape of my neck. The shadowy eather deepened in his flesh as it flowed up the sides of his neck.

  Casteel pulled his hand away and turned it over slowly, revealing the smear of crimson across his fingers. “Just a nick, too?” he asked, his voice cold.

  “Yeah, it’s just a…bump.”

  “Glad to see she was left in good hands,” Attes’s voice came, low, flat, and hard.

  Casteel’s gaze lifted, and he slowly turned his head toward Attes.

  “Do you have any idea what she was doing?” Attes demanded.

  “I can only imagine.” Casteel’s words sliced through the air with the sharpness of frostbitten bloodstone. “But why don’t you tell me?” His head cocked. “Great-grandfather.”

  My eyes widened.

  Attes’s inhale was swift. “Well, I see that horse has fled the stable.”

  “Indeed.” A muscle flexed under the eather rolling along Casteel’s jaw. “What are you doing here, Attes? With her?”

  “Apparently, making sure she doesn’t get herself injured too badly,” Attes replied. “Since you weren’t cap—”

  “Don’t,” I warned, twisting my neck to shoot the Primal a look of warning, “finish that sentence.”

  “No.” Casteel’s voice dropped with that one word, sending a chill crawling up my spine. “Please, do.”

  “Please, don’t,” I said, placing my other hand against Casteel’s chest. His skin had cooled even more. He stepped to the side.

  Attes fell silent. Thank the gods.

  Casteel, however, did not. “Or did you just realize what a fucking idiotic thing that was to say?”

  I matched his steps, staying in front of him. “Cas,” I tried again.

  “What did I tell you last time, boy?” Attes growled, and I felt more than heard him approach.

  Boy? I grimaced. Hearing Vikter call Casteel boy was amusing. Coming from Attes and being said to Casteel’s face? Not so much.

  Casteel’s lips curved into a tight smile. “You might need to refresh my memory.”

  “He doesn’t need to,” I cut in, pressing more firmly against Casteel’s chest.

  “That is,” Casteel continued as he wrapped his fingers around my wrists, “if you can even remember what you said in your incredibly advanced age.”

  Oh, my gods.

  Attes’s laugh wasn’t nearly as chilling as what had come out of Casteel, but it was threaded with the same promise of violence. “I can kick your ass despite my incredibly advanced age. How about that?”

  Casteel lowered my arms. “I’m about to sound incredibly clichéd, but I would love to see you try.”

  “You won’t be seeing any of that.” I stretched onto my tiptoes, briefly considering reaching out to Kieran. I quickly dismissed that idea because I had a feeling he couldn’t help.

  “If that’s true, then why are you hiding behind your wife?”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  I didn’t even have a chance to react. One second, I was in front of Casteel. The very next, I was behind him, staring at his tense back muscles.

  “Not anymore,” Casteel growled, getting right up in Attes’s smirking face. “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Nothing.” I shot forward and threw my arm out against Casteel’s chest. “Neither of you is doing anything.”

  They weren’t listening as they sized each other up.

  “Do not make me separate the two of you,” I warned. “Because I can and will.”

  The curve of Casteel’s lips matched Attes’s as I felt a throb of awareness. I quickly looked at the sky, then returned my gaze to them.

  “Cas, you need to be angry with me,” I said, attempting to squeeze between them. “Not him. He’s done nothing but say some really idiotic things.”

  “Oh, I’m angry with you.” Casteel’s swirling eyes remained fixed on Attes. “And we’ll handle that later.”

  “I didn’t think I said anything idiotic,” Attes replied.

  “How about we handle it now?” I managed to force myself between them. “You can lecture—” I squeaked—like a field mouse—as I was gently scooted back several feet. “What the fuck?”

  “That wasn’t me,” Attes stated.

  “No shit,” I snapped, glaring at Casteel. “I’m starting to get really angry with—”

  Reaver broke through the clouds, scattering them as he extended his wings. He landed behind Casteel with a heavy thud, sweeping his wings back as his talons dug into the ground, sending bursts of soil and rock into the air. Smoke wafted from his nostrils as he puffed out a breath.

  “Did someone call for backup?” Casteel asked.

  My head snapped back to him. “You need to stop talking.”

  “Why do I have a feeling that only happens when he’s asleep?”

  “You, too,” I snapped, pointing at Attes as I stalked forward. “Both of you need to shut up.”