“I was not going to ask that.” She quickly recovered, clearing her throat.
“It’s true, though.”
“That, I couldn’t care less about.”
Little liar. My hand slipped away from her cloak. “What were you wondering?”
She was quiet again for a few moments. “You…you called me Poppy back there, in the Atheneum.”
I had?
“You’d been calling me Penellaphe,” she continued. “Why?”
“Does it bother you?” I asked.
“No.” She peeked at me from under the hood. “You didn’t answer the question.”
I couldn’t answer the question. Hell, I hadn’t even realized that I had called her Poppy. Or that I now thought of her as such. I frowned. It didn’t matter. A name was just a name. “I’m not sure why.” I remembered what Tawny had said. “I suppose that means we’re friends.”
There was another soft inhale, betraying her sharp words. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
I chuckled. “I would.”
Poppy sighed.
Another laugh left me. “We are most definitely friends.”
PRESENT VII
“How badly did you want to stab me when I took that diary from you?” I laughed, the sound echoing in the quiet chamber. “I imagine it was a lot. Would’ve been worth it, though.”
Dipping my chin, I pressed a kiss to the top of Poppy’s head. She was tucked against me, her head resting on my chest and my legs bracing hers. Delano was still at the foot of the bed in his wolven form, a big mound of white fur. Still, I knew he was awake and alert. He hadn’t strayed far from Poppy’s side.
It was near evening, and Kieran was currently making use of the adjoining bathing chamber. Poppy remained as she was, but I didn’t think her skin was as cold as it had been before, and the shadows under her eyes had faded even more. A nearly untouched plate of sliced meat and fruits sat on a nearby table. I managed to eat a few bites and hadn’t fallen back to sleep, but oddly, I wasn’t tired. Neither was Kieran, who hadn’t slept or eaten much more than I had. Sure, there was weariness, but it stemmed from concern. Otherwise, I felt fine, and there was only one thing I could think of to explain that. The bond between the three of us. Poppy’s life force—all that eather in her that Nektas had spoken of—fueled us, keeping us strong. I didn’t think either Kieran or I felt particularly worthy of that strength.
“But when I saw you standing on that ledge? I was furious. I couldn’t even fathom what the hell you were thinking,” I continued. “I couldn’t stay mad long, though. Not after realizing what you had to do just to be able to read a book of your choosing.”
Old anger that was never quite far away rose, and it was hard to push back down. This wasn’t the time or place for that kind of emotion. “I’m glad you took the diary. You know how much I fucking love that book.”
The thing I loved more about Miss Willa’s journal was how pretty Poppy flushed whenever I or anyone else brought it up. Well, that and the throaty sexiness of her voice when she read from it—and how wet she became doing so.
Fuck.
My dick swelled against the curve of her ass. Now really wasn’t the time for that.
I tipped my head back. “I suppose we have Miss Willa to thank for many things,” I murmured, thinking of how the Atheneum was the first time I’d called her Poppy. And how that was who she’d become to me after that night. “I should’ve known then, and maybe I did on some subconscious level because that’s when I started rethinking my plans, wondering how I could give you choice and freedom. I think I knew even then, before we spent time under the willow and left Masadonia, that I couldn’t just send you back to the Ascended. But I didn’t know how to acknowledge it. I don’t think I was capable of doing so then, to be honest.”
You care about her.
“But Kieran knew, or at least he started to suspect as much because of what I wanted to do to the Duke,” I said, and Delano’s ears perked. “Killing him wasn’t in the initial plans. If he had been somewhat decent, he could’ve lived, or at the very least, his death would’ve been quick.” My lips thinned. “It wasn’t.”
I ran my fingers through her hair, brushing the silky strands back from her cheek as I thought back to that day in the Duke’s quarters. “I didn’t even know the full extent of what he had put you through—what he’d allowed—until much later. And, gods, I’ve lost count of how many times I wished I could go back and make it even worse for him.”
A warm breeze flowed through the chamber. “But I made it hurt, just as I told Kieran I would.” A cold, brutal smile spread across my mouth. “I’ve taken lives I’ve regretted. But the Duke’s? That is one death I will never regret.”
THE DUKE
The day of the Rite, I sat in Duke Teerman’s study, at his desk, in his chair, and waited impatiently.
Patience wasn’t typically a skill of mine, nor did I see it as a virtue in general.
However, for this, I’d deal with it.
I looked down at the back of the Royal Guard my boots rested upon. With compulsion, I’d gotten what I needed to know from the fair-haired man before I snapped his neck. Killing him wasn’t necessary. I didn’t plan to be here when the compulsion wore off, but the thing was, he’d known what was going on in here during the Duke’s lessons. I was sure the other Royal Guard who often watched the door also knew, but this one had gotten hard as he recounted how the Duke made her undress from the waist up and then bent her over the very desk I sat at. Then he took a cane to her skin. Sometimes, Lord Mazeen watched. More than once, she’d left this room barely conscious. There was no telling what they’d done to her.
“Fucking bastard.” I kicked the dead guard in the side, sending him skidding across the floor.
My stare fixed on the long, slender cane propped against the corner of the mahogany desk. Was it this one he’d used to punish Poppy? Or one of the others by the credenza? Anger simmered in my gut, hard to keep in check.
I’d done a lot of terrible things. Horrific shit. I’d killed in cold blood. I’d killed in anger. Blood that I’d never be able to wash away stained my hands. I was a monster capable of monstrous acts, but what Duke Teerman had done to Poppy? What he’d likely been doing to her for years? That was below even me.
You care about her.
My fingers curled around the arm of the chair. I truly didn’t believe a person needed to care about someone to be infuriated and disgusted by how others treated them, but I’d lied to Kieran.
This wasn’t about revenge.
It was about her.
I turned my head from side to side, easing the building tension as I stared at the cane. All I saw was the blood draining from the lower half of Poppy’s face when she realized what she’d said the day we left her lessons with Priestess Analia. I could hear that slight tremor in her voice even now. I knew what it was.
Fear.
Actual fear, from the girl who snuck out and roamed the city at night. Who went up onto the Rise during a Craven attack. I felt my anger rising. And it was more than that. It was the role these bastards had played in everything forbidden to Poppy—what they’d taken from her. Friendship. Physical contact. The freedom to explore. To experience. She couldn’t even choose what she read. And because of the lengths she’d had to go to, the risks she’d had to take to have just a taste of those things. But worse yet, it was the shame I heard in her denials.