The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

Kieran lifted his hand from the back of my head and
clasped Casteel’s forearm as his pale gaze met my
husband’s amber one. “I did all that I could,” he reiterated.
Seeing them together caused another swell of emotion.
I remembered what had been said in the Chambers of
Nyktos about the bonds breaking. An ache started up in my
chest as I disentangled myself from Kieran and glanced
between them. “Is the bond really broken?” I asked.
“Between you two?”
Casteel stared at Kieran, and a long moment passed. “It
is.”
The ache in my chest grew. “What does that mean?
Really?”
Kieran glanced at me. “That conversation can wait—”
“The conversation can happen now.” I crossed my arms.
“Alastir and Jansen said some stuff while I was in the
crypts,” I told them, inwardly cringing as I felt twin bursts of
anger against my skin. “I don’t know how much of it was
true, but neither really explained how me being a
descendant of a deity….” I sucked in a sharp breath as I
thought of who Alastir had claimed was part of my heritage.
Did Casteel already know that? “I don’t understand how that
supersedes something that has been around for ages. I’m
not a deity.”
“I don’t think we know what you are exactly,” Casteel
stated.
“I’m not a deity,” I protested.
“The fact that you are here and not a vampry means
that nothing is off the table,” Kieran added. I was so taking
that off the table. “But either way, you are a descendant of
the gods. You are the only living one. You have—”
“If I hear I have the blood of a god inside me one more
time, I might scream,” I warned.
“Okay, then.” Kieran scratched his face as he rose and
then sat on the other side of me. There was a faint daysworth
of scruff on his jaw. “Because of the blood you carry,