“We need to talk.” Kieran planted his hand on the door, stopping me from opening it. “You were with her tonight.”
“Of course, I was.”
His frosted blue eyes met mine. “I’m not talking about that, and you know it.”
I did.
“I thought you said she would leave you as she came to you,” Kieran said, voice quiet. “Clearly, that isn’t the case. What the fuck, Cas?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Turns out I’m that kind of a piece of shit. Okay?” I reached for the door again.
Kieran’s palm flattened against it. “No, it’s not okay.”
My hand fisted as I stared at his, anger sparking. “We really don’t have time for this conversation, Kieran.”
“We’re going to make time because what I saw back there in the stables? You let her get the upper hand on you. Multiple times.”
I huffed out a laugh. “You know she can fight.”
“No shit, but you’re a fucking elemental Atlantian. She is still just a mortal, gifted or not. You could’ve easily gotten her under control. You didn’t. Anyone else, no matter if they were of the fairer sex or not, you would’ve handled that—” Kieran jabbed a finger toward the stables “—in seconds. You didn’t with her. Why?”
Running my tongue over my upper teeth, I shook my head.
“What is going on with you? With her? And don’t give me a bullshit answer, not when you’re ready to go against your father over her.” Anger tightened Kieran’s features. “You don’t keep shit from me, Cas. We’ve been through too much for you to start doing that again, so let’s not have a repeat. What is it?”
What is it?
“I don’t have time to get into this. We don’t have the time. We’ll talk,” I told him, pushing down the irritation. He had every right to question things. “I promise.”
Kieran held my stare for a moment. The line of his jaw was tight as he lifted his hand. He said no more, letting me pass. I was being a shit for keeping things from him, but this…whatever this was with Poppy, was different.
I entered the narrow staircase, already fucking troubled. The underground level of Haven Keep was damp and dank. Foreboding. Comfort hadn’t been in the minds of those who’d built the keep. Fear had.
Poppy didn’t belong down here.
She belonged in the sun.
Steeling myself, I dipped under a low doorframe and entered a dimly lit hall. The dull gleam of the old gods’ twisted bones that adorned the ceiling haunted my steps as I went to where Delano waited.
“Leave,” I told him. The wolven hesitated, glancing back to the cell, but he left.
I stepped forward, my gaze drifting over her. She sat on a thin, dirty mattress, her back pressed against the wall. Her face was pale, but her stare was as defiant as ever. Brave. Bold.
“Poppy.” I sighed, hating that she was here. Loathing that she was here because of me, but knowing the moment I let her out, things would be worse. “What am I to do with you?”
“Don’t call me that.” She shoved to her feet. Chains rattled, drawing my attention.
My jaw clenched. Delano wouldn’t have put her in chains unless he had a reason, meaning she’d likely attacked him.
I lifted my stare to her. “But I thought you liked it when I did.”
“You were mistaken,” she shot back. “What do you want?”
The hardness in her voice? The coldness? It was brutal, but it was all blade-thin. Fragile. “More than you could ever guess,” I said.
“Are you here to kill me?”
Her question surprised me. “Now why would I do that?”
Poppy raised her arms and rattled the restraints. “You have me chained.”
Actually, I didn’t, but there was no reason for her ire to turn on Delano more than it likely already was. “I do.”
Her nostrils flared. “Everyone outside wants me dead.”
“That is true.”
“And you’re an Atlantian,” she said, with as much disgust as she had when she’d spoken about the barrats. “That’s what you do. You kill. You destroy. You curse.”
I huffed out a short laugh. “Ironic coming from someone who has been surrounded by the Ascended her whole life.”
“They don’t murder innocents, and they don’t turn people into monsters—”
“No,” I stopped her. “They just force young women who make them feel inferior to bare their skin to a cane and do the gods only know what else to them,” I reminded her. “Yes, Princess, they are truly upstanding examples of everything that is good and right in this world.”
Her chest rose sharply as her lips parted.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out what the Duke’s lessons were?” I asked of her. “I told you I would.”
She staggered back, the skin of her throat and cheeks flushing.
“He used a cane cut from a tree in the Blood Forest and he made you partially undress.” I reached up, grasping the bars as fury resurfaced. “And he told you that you deserved it. That it was for your own good. But, in reality, all it did was fulfill his sick need to inflict pain.”
“How?” she whispered.
“I can be very compelling.”
Poppy turned her cheek, squeezing her eyes shut. A tremor ran through her, then her gaze snapped back to mine. “You killed him.”
Recalling the way the Duke had died, I smiled. “I did, and I’ve never enjoyed watching the life seep out of someone’s eyes more than I did while watching the Duke die. He had it coming.” I held her stare. “And trust me when I say his very slow and very painful death had nothing to do with him being an Ascended. I would’ve gotten to the Lord eventually, but you took care of that sick bastard yourself.”
Poppy stared at me for several moments, then shook her head, sending that piece of hair across her face. “Just because the Duke and the Lord were horrible and evil, that doesn’t make you any better. That doesn’t make all Ascended guilty.”
“You know absolutely nothing, Poppy.” Moving to the side, I unlocked the cell door. I wasn’t going to talk to her through bars.
Keeping my eyes on her, I entered, but did so cautiously. Knowing her, she’d use those chains to choke my ass. I closed the cell door behind me. “You and I need to talk.”
Her chin lifted. “No, we don’t.”
“Well, you really don’t have a choice, do you?” I glanced at the cuffs on her wrists as I took a step forward. I stopped, inhaling deeply. Her scent reached me, but so did the smell of blood. Her blood. And I knew it was hers and not anyone’s who’d died in the stables. It was too sweet, too fresh. Concern took root. “You’re injured.”
Poppy stepped back. “I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t.” I scanned her, my stare stopping on the damp spot on her shirt. “You’re bleeding.”
“Barely.”
No longer giving a shit about her strangling me with the chains, I crossed the distance between us. It startled her. She gasped, stumbling back into the wall. I took advantage of that, reaching for the hem of the coarse linen shirt.