The War of Two Queens (Blood And Ash Series Book 4)

Upon returning to Padonia, Malec was placed in the stables, which was, well, it seemed wrong somehow, but where else would we be able to place him? No one would want a casket containing a god in the Great Hall.

I’d placed Isbeth’s ring back in the pouch, along with the wooden horse. I really needed to give that back to Casteel, but as I sat on the edge of the bed after bathing, wearing nothing more than a gauzy, knee-length chemise I’d found in the wardrobe, I wasn’t thinking about Malec, the ring or the horse. I’d decided there was no point in dressing any further since… Well, since I would only have to undress.

My stomach tumbled a bit. The faint ache had returned to my jaw and temple while I spent time with Tawny, but it had mostly disappeared while bathing. I didn’t know if the headache had to do with the Culling and me getting fangs as Reaver had said or what was to come.

The Joining.

I couldn’t let my mind wander too far down that path. Not because I was uncertain or afraid. But because I knew if I did think too much about it, I would only work myself into an anxious mess.

No one needed that.

I’d managed to doze off while Casteel bathed, and it had been strange to wake without Kieran there, curled against my hip.

Casteel came out of the bathing chamber, dressed in his breeches. “You and those silly straps again,” he said, a dimple appearing as he tugged on one of the thin straps. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.”

He arched a brow.

I laughed softly. “I’m feeling okay. Only because I’m trying not to think about the fact that we have an entombed god in our stables.”

“Yeah, I think everyone is trying not to think about that.” He sat beside me.

The breath I took was shallow. “Where is Kieran?”

A slight grin reappeared. “He’s waiting for us.”

My stomach took another tumble. “Okay.”

Thick lashes lifted, and golden eyes met mine. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I do. You?”

“Of course.” He drew the strap up my shoulder.

“And Kieran?” I asked. “He still wants to do this?”

“Yes.” The smile played over his lips. “That’s why he’s waiting for us.”

My stomach spun again. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Casteel chuckled. “For you.”

I started to stand, but he clasped my cheek. “What?”

“Nothing.” His left palm found mine, pressing our imprints together. “Nothing except that I’m in love with you. That I will always be in love with you, from now until our last breaths.”

My heart swelled as I leaned into him, filling with emotion so powerful and deep that words couldn’t even capture what I felt. “I love you.”

Casteel kissed me, taking my mouth softly with his. It was one of his sweet kisses. The gentle kind that left every part of me warm—even the cold, hollow parts. “Ready, my Queen?” he whispered against my lips.

“Ready.”

Wearing cloaks and what little clothing we had on underneath, Casteel led me out from the chamber and down a back hall. We left the manor unseen through a set of doors that led to an overgrown garden that Kirha would have enjoyed.

It made me think of Jasper. “Where is Jasper?”

“With my father and Hisa.”

“Not Vonetta?”

“I think she’s with Emil.” He arched a brow as he led me down the walkway. “Something’s going on between them, isn’t there?”

“You’re just now realizing that?”

He snorted. “Better question is, has Kieran figured that out?”

“I think he was just beginning to when we left Oak Ambler.”

His grin kicked up a notch. “Thoughts and prayers for Emil.”

“More like thoughts and prayers for Kieran if he tries to intervene. Vonetta likes Emil. I don’t think she’ll take all that kindly to Kieran not minding his business.”

“True.”

With Cas’s hand firmly wrapped around mine, we entered the Wisteria Woods and went beyond the inner fortress wall, deeper into the forest. The sound of rushing water grew closer as we wandered through the twining vines, appearing a silvery purple in the moonlight. As we walked, Casteel talked about how Kieran and he had made sure they wouldn’t get lost in the tunnels they had explored when younger. They used to mark the stone walls with their initials, and I wondered if that was what they’d done now. If Kieran had carved his name into the trunks, allowing Casteel to know exactly where to find him in the maze of heavily clustered trees.

Casteel’s words, his voice—all of him—had eased my nerves by the time he parted another heavy curtain of limbs. Beyond him, I saw that we’d reached the bank of the River of Rhain. And then I saw Kieran.

Sitting by the edge of the river, he rose and faced us as we walked out into the narrow clearing. He wore only breeches like Casteel had on under his cloak. I’d seen him shirtless hundreds of times, sometimes without even a stitch of clothing, but it seemed different now. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to sleep the night away.”

“I have a feeling she’d stab me if I allowed that,” Casteel commented as the wisteria limbs fell back into place behind us.

I shot him an arch look. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“It’s okay.” Kieran grinned and looked up at the star-drenched sky as we stopped in front of him. “I didn’t mind waiting. It’s beautiful here. Peaceful.”

It was, with the water of the river so clear it looked like rushing pools of silver, the chirping birds in the trees, and the heavy, sweet scent of the wisteria. When Kieran’s gaze returned to me, I felt my heart skip. There was no room to think about anything but what was happening here. I cracked open my senses. What I felt from Kieran was the salty nuttiness of resolve. There was also something sweet and soft, a little bubbly and smoky. I didn’t sense any uncertainty. I felt the same from Casteel—well, almost the same. There was sugary amusement, and he felt hot with a different, heavier softness—spicy and sweet. I looked around. “Are we alone out here?”

Kieran nodded. “No one will get close to us.”

He said that with such certainty, I had a feeling I knew why. I turned to Casteel. “We’re being guarded?”

“By the wolven,” he confirmed. “They’re not close. They won’t hear or see anything, but they will make sure no one gets too near us.”

I nodded. “Do they…do they know what we’re doing?”

“Would it bother you if they did?” Kieran asked.

I thought about that and realized that it didn’t. Well, if Vonetta wasn’t with Emil and was among them, I truly felt sorry for her. Because that would be so awkward for her. “It doesn’t.”

Kieran’s approval was a ripple of buttery cake. “They see it as a great honor to protect such a tradition.”

“Oh,” I whispered, blushing. “I’m glad they approve.”

Casteel’s lips curved into a smile as he pressed them to my forehead. I drew in a shallow breath, the decadent scent of pine and lush spice surrounding me. His breath danced over my lips and then the curve of my cheek as he dipped his head to speak softly in my ear. “I thought you’d like it here, with the river and the wisterias.”

“I do.”

“Good.” He kissed the space below my ear. “Going to ask you again. Going to ask you a lot. You want to do this?”

Throat dry, I nodded.

His lips grazed the shell of my ear, sending a shiver through me. “We need to hear you speak the words, my Queen.”

“Yes,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m sure.”

He pressed a kiss to the sensitive spot below my ear as his fingers brushed the skin at my throat. He unclasped the hooks, and the weight of the cloak fell away. “We can stop this at any time.”

“I know.” The touch of his fingers against my bare shoulders and sliding under the thin straps of the slip sent a jolt through my body.

He curled his fingers around the straps. “Nothing will happen—absolutely nothing—that you don’t want to take part in,” he said, kissing the underside of my jaw. “No matter what you think we may want or what you feel from us.”

“We expect nothing,” Kieran said, his voice close.

“I know.” My heart beat so fast, it was like the fluttering wings of a wild bird taking flight. “I’m safe with both of you.”

“Always,” Kieran confirmed.

Casteel’s lip brushed my chin. “And forever.”

A ridiculous surge of emotion swelled in my throat, and with my senses locked down, I knew the sweet rush was all mine. Tears crowded my eyes. I loved them. Both of them. In different ways and for different reasons that I didn’t understand, but I really did. And that knowledge left me a little unsteady.

Casteel’s hands lowered, and cool air followed the slip, sluicing over my chest and stomach and farther still until only moonlight dressed my skin. I shivered, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the cool air. Casteel’s mouth touched mine, and it was another sweet and soft kiss.

When his mouth left mine, he whispered, “You can open your eyes whenever you’re ready.”

He stepped back, and that wild flutter in my chest moved to my stomach. The urge to cover myself was there, but I resisted. With there being a quality of unknown to how the Joining worked, some magic that wasn’t about blood or words, I didn’t want to do anything that might risk it not working.

I felt their stares almost as if they were a physical caress, soft and warm and…worshipping.

In those moments, I heard nothing but the bubbling of the nearby river and then the nightbirds calling to one another from the trees above in a chorus that felt ancient—primal—a little magical and wholly tempestuous.

My eyes opened.

I saw Casteel first bathed in the silvery moonlight. He truly looked as I had always believed a god to appear. A raging storm of flesh and bone, all exquisite angles and lines. His eyes were pools of honeyed gold as they locked onto mine, and I felt it slip past my shields. A sweet taste gathered in my throat, reminding me of chocolate-covered berries with a hint of cinnamon. His love and his pride filled me, and a wealth of emotions swelled once more.

Then I saw Kieran standing beside Casteel, shoulder to shoulder. Like they had been before I entered their lives. Like they always would be. I took in the proud, untamed planes of his face and the strong curve of his broad jaw. His skin was a mesmerizing silvery brown in the moonlight, and he reminded me of some otherworldly being I’d conjured from my imagination. Captivating and impressive in both forms, his eyes were the blue of winter, and the glow of eather behind his pupils was vibrant. My shields slipped again, and what I felt from him was the same as I’d felt before—sweet and soft. Not as intense as what came from Casteel, but no less meaningful. Nothing about Kieran was less.

Both had discarded their clothing in those silent moments while my eyes had been closed. Their bodies showed years of training and fighting in the lines of muscle and the marks upon their skin. Casteel carried more reminders in the countless scars that always tugged at my heart upon seeing them, but Kieran bore his fair share. I hadn’t noticed them before, the faded claw marks across his chest, the long-ago healed punctures near his waist. Kieran was leaner, the cut of his body more formed even with Casteel only beginning to put his weight back on. I wondered if it had to do with all the running he did in his wolven form. I almost asked but stopped myself before I opened my mouth.

Kieran would probably appreciate my self-restraint.

Then I looked lower. In the back of my mind, I knew that it probably wasn’t a wise choice. Not because they wouldn’t want me to, and obviously not because I didn’t want to, but because I was looking. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen either of them naked, but I tried to be appropriate about it when it came to Kieran.

I was currently being highly inappropriate as my gaze drifted down their hips, to where both were…well, no less scandalous than I.

I knew that Casteel was pleased with every inch of my body—the hips that some might find too full, the thighs that might be too thick, the belly too soft, and the scars that marked me. But it was clear that neither found what they saw displeasing. Or maybe it had nothing to do with what they saw or how I looked. Perhaps it only had to do with what they felt. What we shared. Either way, they were…

Good gods.

“Always so curious,” Casteel murmured.

My gaze flew up, my face heating.

One side of Casteel’s lips curled upward, and I saw the hint of a dimple appearing in his right cheek.

“Shut up,” I rasped.

He chuckled, but when his eyes touched mine again, they asked an unspoken question.

I swallowed, hoping it would calm my heart as a breeze rippled through the glen. It didn’t, but my voice was there. “I’m ready.”

Both seemed to draw in the same breath and then, together, they came to me.